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Program notes - "England Expects..." |
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A Note from the Artistic Director At the age of eleven I became acquainted with the “Hornblower” novels of C. S. Forrester, tracing the career of a fictional British naval officer, modeled on the life of Lord Nelson (one might say Hornblower was my Harry Potter!). Although this literary fascination took on a life of its own, leading to the works of Alexander Kent and, eclipsing them all in my estimation, those of Patrick O’Brian (of “Master and Commander”-fame), the novels also engendered a life-long obsession with the history of the Royal Navy, especially of the 18th century. Indeed, I have even tried my hand at writing a couple of novels myself, in this same setting. Being a better musician than a writer, however, I think a more fitting place for my desire to pay the ships and men of that era tribute is within the auspices of a choral concert. And, given my proclivities, I could not let the 200th anniversary of that greatest of all naval battles (Trafalgar) go by without some sort of notice. I will pass over, for the moment, the incongruity of my own personal credo of non-violence with the overtly bellicose and martial nature of most of the works in this concert, and merely recommend them to you as a group of sea-themed works that are deserving of performance, and that afford of a rollicking good evening to boot!
•Four English Folk Songs (1913) - Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) At about the turn of the last century, Vaughan Williams was asked to be the editor for a massive undertaking, the 1906 English Hymnal. In the course of his work, Vaughan Williams formed, or at least deepened, his love for and fascination with the folk song of the British Isles, which, having survived as a part of oral tradition, was fast dying out with the advent of the modern era. Vaughan Williams set about recording as many of these songs as he could, and it remains one of his principal legacies, his talents as composer notwithstanding. In 1913 he took four of these tunes, all sailor songs, and arranged them rather freely for a cappella chorus. They deal with similar and familiar themes among sailors, namely the lovers they leave behind when they go to sea, and issues of fidelity in the face of long separation and not improbable death.
•Five Maritime Portraits by Various Composers
Sir Patrick Spens - Robert Lucas Pearsall (1795-1856) Pearsall is one of those fascinating amateurs of history. Born into an English family of some wealth, and something of an eccentric, he bought a castle in Germany and surrounded himself with Medieval memorabilia, including a proclivity to compose pieces with antique names like “madrigal” and “glee.” This particular piece he calls a “ballad-dialogue,” telling the unfortunate story of a group of Scottish mariners sent on a mission by their king, who encounter a storm in the North Sea and are lost. It is a “dialogue” in that the choir is split into two equal halves who alternately narrate the story.
Brisk Young Sailor (1929) - R. O. Morris (1886-1948) A music scholar and teacher (at the Royal College of Music in London, as well as the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia), his best known work is actually a book, Contrapuntal Technique in the 16th Century, which was widely used in music theory departments across Europe and America for half a century. His musical compositions are not numerous and rarely performed, but all demonstrate an amazing facility for his specialty, polyphonic voice-leading.
Cargoes (1912) - Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877-1950) The First World War cut down the flower of England’s finest young talent early in the 20th century, and the tragic stories of George Butterworth and Winfred Owen are well known. Another casualty of this horrific war was Gardiner, who, although he did not perish in the conflict, nevertheless stopped composing soon after the war, sensing that his muse belonged to an earlier age. He continued supporting the performance of new works, and, as a man of means, was instrumental in the premier and popularization of compositions by his contemporaries, most notably Holst’s The Planets, for instance; but a hyper-critical view of his own work, coupled with this sense that his music was not a good fit for the radically changed post-war world silenced him for the final thirty years of his life. One can almost sense this part of Gardiner’s character in this partsong – the dreamy, lilting music given to the ships of antique times, with their exotic cargoes; compared to the harsh, abrupt, jagged, disjunct, almost disgusting view of the modern British trading vessel and its pedestrian cargo. I interpret it as a subconscious comment by Gardiner on the modern world, and his nostalgia at the loss of an earlier age.
The Haven (1911) - Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) One of Stanford’s most well-known partsongs is the justly famous Blue Bird (recorded by St. Martin’s on it’s 1997 CD “Dreams All Too Brief,”), to words by the great Edwardian poet Mary Coleridge. A lesser-known companion work is this partsong, also to words by Coleridge. Both pieces present Stanford at his best – crafting exquisite miniatures in a way that actually depicts color in the realm of sound. In Blue Bird the color is obviously blue; in The Haven that color is gray – cold, drab, and hard: the color of the sea on a foggy day. Yet, right at the end of the song, when the poem speaks of the brave little blue harebell, a brief moment of sonic color peeps though the clouds, so to speak, before the gray mist sweeps in again to extinguish it.
Full Fathom Five (1891) - Charles Wood (1866-1926) One of Stanford’s best students, Wood actually succeeded Stanford as professor of composition at Cambridge following the latter’s death. His compositions remain largely neglected, sadly; yet he remains one of my favorite composers, having the honor of being only one of two composers that St. Martin’s has ever dedicated an entire concert to. This winsome partsong was recorded by St. Martin’s on it’s 1997 CD “Dreams All Too Brief” (this being my second plug for this particular recording!).
•Four Arrangements of Sea Songs Made for this Occasion
Hearts of Oak (1759) - tune: William Boyce (1711-1788), arr. by Brock Erickson (2005) The poem “Hearts of Oak” was written by David Garrick, the celebrated 18th century English Shakespearean actor, to commemorate Britain’s “Year of Victories,” 1759, when the Royal Navy won several signal victories across the globe (boosting British morale after several defeats in the early part of the Seven Years War). Largest of these battles was Quiberon Bay, where a British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeated in a heavy storm the French fleet under Admiral de Conflans, off the coast of France, near Lorient. The poem was set to music by William Boyce, successor to G. F. Handel as “Master of the King’s Musick,” and has since been adopted as the unofficial anthem of the Royal Navy. My compliments and thanks to Brock for this rousing a cappella arrangement!
A Tribute to Nelson: Three Sailor Songs - arr. by
Timothy J. Krueger (2005) In preparation for this concert last year, I made a search of various compilations of sea songs, and encountered three texts of songs related to Lord Nelson that I thought would be perfect. However, these songs consisted of, in two cases, the words and melody only; and in another case, just the words. So a melody had to be found for the latter, and all three required harmonization and arranging. I set about this process through the spring and summer. I finished No. 2 (“The Second of August”) first, in March of this year, in a single sitting. The next one was No. 3 (“Nelson’s Death and Victory”), which similarly flew from my pen in the space of a few days in May, and which I still think is the best of the set. The last one to be finished (No. 1, “Brave Nelson”) dragged on through the summer, and required much work and revision and painstaking editing. As rehearsals started in the fall, and it was not yet finished, I began to worry either that I would not finish it in time, or that, due to haste, it would be substantially beneath the other two in quality. The moment of epiphany came, however, at the home of my parents-in-law, where I sat at the piano, and the French national anthem the Marseillaise popped into my head as I read the words of the second verse. This proved the key to unlock my compositional problems, and the piece came quickly after that. All three sailor songs narrate an event late in Nelson’s career – the outer movements tell of his two greatest victories, and the middle one of a rare defeat (hence providing a sort of traditional fast-slow-fast sequence of movements). No. 1 tells of the Battle of the Nile, where Nelson pursued the French fleet that had transported Napoleon to Egypt in 1798 and caught up with them while at anchor in Abukir Bay. No. 2 tells of a failed nighttime raid on the French port of Boulogne in 1801, where 900 British sailors were killed or wounded. No. 3 tells of Nelson’s final victory, and death, at the Battle of Trafalgar, and mixes joy with sorrow.
• Songs of the Sea (1904) - Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) “Songs of the Sea” is one of Stanford’s abidingly popular works. To words by then poet-laureate of Britain, Henry Newbolt, they capture something of the patriotic spirit of Edwardian Britain, and the very nostalgic quality of this sentiment. Two of the movements (1 and 3) reference the life of Sir Francis Drake, who was instrumental in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, but who is equally remembered in Britain for his valiant but hopeless fight (“off Nombre”), outnumbered four-to-one by Spanish ships, where he was killed. The final movement references Nelson’s chase of the French fleet across the Atlantic (in both directions) in the lead-up to Trafalgar. The slow movements (2 and 4) are more figurative and melancholy.
• The Battle of the Baltic (1891) - Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) The least of Nelson’s three great victories, the Battle of Copenhagen is clouded slightly by politics, in that the British had not declared war on the Danes when the battle took place. In fact, in modern parlance, it was a “pre-emptive strike” against the Danish navy, which the British were afraid would fall into Napoleon’s hands in 1803 (hence the somewhat dubious line in the poem below, “And we conquer but to save.”). Still, there are many anecdotes connected with the battle, including a glaring example of disobedience on the part of Nelson. He was second-in-command of the Baltic fleet at this time, and, having been given permission to take whatever measures might be necessary to destroy or capture the Danish fleet, Nelson was sent with his squadron to reconnoiter the harbor by his superior (Admiral Hyde Parker). Perceiving the Danish fleet to be extremely vulnerable, Nelson immediately hoisted the signal for his squadron to engage. Hyde Parker, in the offing, was so alarmed by this (believing the Danes to be protected by heavy shore batteries), that he signaled Nelson to break off the engagement and return to the fleet. Nelson, being informed of this signal, raised his telescope to his blind eye (he had lost the sight of it at the Battle of the Nile) and proclaimed that he saw no signal. Several of the Danish ships were destroyed in the battle, and the remainder surrendered to Nelson after a fierce engagement. Hyde Parker, though furious at Nelson’s insubordination, realized that the cheers of the entire British nation rendered any disciplinary action impossible. Had the battle gone otherwise, however, it is almost certain Nelson would have been court-martialed and his career ended.
Timothy J. Krueger © 2005 Timothy J. Krueger |