Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online

Transcription

1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Liverpool John Moores University Series Gloria! Saturday 10 June pm Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral IAN STEPHENS (b.1974) The World In One City Early in the morning of 4 June 2003, I heard the news that Liverpool had been selected as European Capital of Culture I was so struck by this that I contacted the Phil and asked Gerard Schwarz then Musical Director if I could write a celebratory fanfare to be played at that evening s concert. He agreed, stipulating that it should be 30 seconds long and for brass alone. It was performed that evening. At the suggestion of my wife, I based it on a rhythm and melodic shape suggested by the motto of Liverpool s Capital of Culture bid, The World In One City. For the Orchestra concert at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2004, I was asked to extend and rescore it for full orchestra, and it s this full version that will be heard tonight. The message of Liverpool-wide community cooperation espoused so strongly by Archbishop Derek Worlock of this Cathedral and his Anglican counterpart Bishop David Sheppard from 1976 to 1996 is reflected in the idea of a world in one city, so I am particularly pleased that this piece has been chosen to open this concert celebrating the Cathedral s 50th anniversary. Ian Stephens 2017

2 GIOVANNI GABRIELI (c ) Sacrae Symphoniae (1597): Sonata pian e forte a 8, alla quarta bassa The path-breaking and hugely influential Giovanni Gabrieli was an organist at St Mark s, Venice from 1585 until his death. His duties at the great Byzantine basilica included writing music (vocal and instrumental) for use during the liturgy, and this he did with astonishing originality his influence can be heard throughout the entire Western musical tradition. Of his relatively few publications is his Sacrae Symphoniae of 1597, a volume containing 42 vocal motets, a Mass, 5 organ toccatas, 14 instrumental canzoni and 2 sonatas (the first pieces ever to be so titled). While there is no hard-and-fast musical distinction between the canzoni and the sonatas, liturgically the latter were likely played during the very heart of the Mass, the Elevation of the Host. Tonight, in this highly appropriate and resonant surrounding, we hear the most celebrated work from Gabrieli s 1597 collection, his Sonata pian e forte a 8, alla quarta bassa ( A sonata both soft and loud for eight parts in the low register ). The sonata features two instrumental choirs : the first of which, situated on the left side of the nave, consists of two trumpets and two trombones; the second, on the right, of four trombones. The two choirs work against and ultimately with each other across space. Given its intended place in the liturgy, the piece is suitably solemn and dignified. An essentially elegiac, richly harmonised melody passes from group to group until the ensembles unite in the more rhythmically animated closing section. Anthony Bateman 2017 about the composer James MacMillan (b.1959) When James MacMillan began to make the musical headlines at the beginning of the 1990s it was clear this was a composer who

3 had cast his net wide in terms of influences: from Celtic folk music to the hard-edged modernism of Harrison Birtwistle; from the radically experimental mysticism of Olivier Messiaen to the darkly humanist symphonic narratives of Dmitri Shostakovich. Of course there were some who grumbled about eclecticism ; but to many others who were stirred by such early masterpieces as the orchestral The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990) and the percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992), it was clear that this was a composer whose inclusiveness was natural, unforced as much a reflection of a coherent vision as any narrow ideology. The key word here is catholic, in its original sense of universal, all-inclusive. MacMillan is Roman Catholic by birth, and today his faith remains central to his life. His early involvement with Marxism was strongly coloured by Latin American Liberation Theology, and its impact can still be sensed in his work today, right up to his opera The Sacrifice ( ). At the same time MacMillan is keenly aware of the divisions partisan religious thinking can cause. While his works often draw on Catholic liturgy and chant for their basic formal and melodic material, he can also include elements from the Jewish Passover rite in his second string quartet, Why is this night different? (1998), or instrumental colours associated with the Japanese Shinto religion in Symphony No.3: Silence (2003). The result is music that embraces a startling variety of musical styles. Dense, thorny atonal textures can suddenly yield to soaring tonal melodies, reminiscent of Wagner (another crucial early influence). Jagged, complex, muscular rhythms may similarly melt into free-floating improvisatory lyricism, or fine-spun polyphony recalling Bach and the renaissance church composers. Thrillingly garish or abrasive colours sit alongside delicate, fragile patterns or velvety warmth. Hymn tunes, folk laments and brash marches float as conflicting layers in vibrant musical tapestries. One may be reminded of the teeming

4 orchestral kaleidoscopes of the pioneering American composer Charles Ives, or the Russian polystylist Alfred Schnittke. What draws all this together is MacMillan s deeply ingrained feeling for musical storytelling. Today grand narratives are often derided as outdated, irrelevant. MacMillan however has proved through works like Isobel Gowdie, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and the massive orchestral trilogy Triduum ( ) that this kind of spiritual journey in music, as exemplified by Beethoven in his symphonies and Bach in his great Passions, can be recreated in terms which speak both to sophisticated musical intelligences and ordinary music lovers MacMillan s more recent large-scale works include his own very personal response to the classic St John Passion narrative. His choral-orchestral Quickening (1998) brought a potent reminder that compelling contemporary music can be inspired by the most common human experiences: in this case the conception and birth of a child. In an age when populism and modernism seem like irreconcilable poles, James MacMillan s music continues to hold out the hope of integration, the healing of painful divisions, of transcendence. Stephen Johnson JAMES MACMILLAN Gloria Gloria was commissioned by Coventry Cathedral to celebrate the 50th Anniversary in 2012 of its consecration. It is scored for solo tenor, large chorus, children's choir, brass, timpani and organ. It is in one continuous movement but has clearly discernible sections throughout. It begins in a declamatory manner with the soloist, reflecting liturgical practice. The first main section, Et in terra pax, is boisterous and joyful, with instrumental interjections. The second section, Laudamus Te, is fast and energetic. This is followed by a slow, reflective solo for the tenor, Domine Deus. The children's voices are then highlighted in Domine Fili in

5 music that is simple and dance-like. However, a more mysterious accompaniment is later added by the organ, muted trumpets and sliding timpani. A climactic instrumental outburst then leads to the final section Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris where the large choir sings quietly and unaccompanied. The opening bold music returns before the final Amen which features the solo voice and the children again. James MacMillan OLIVIER MESSIAEN ( ) Les Offrandes oubliées The Cross Sin The Eucharist The symphonic meditation Les Offrandes oubliées (The Forgotten Sacrifices), was written as long ago as 1930 when Messiaen had only just left the Paris Conservatoire and the composition class of Paul Dukas. Even so, and although several characteristics of his mature style were still to develop not least his obsessive interest in birdsong the composer of such monumental works as Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum and La Transfiguration de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ is instantly recognisable in this, his first orchestral work. As he once said, I have the good fortune to be a Catholic; I was born a believer That is the most important aspect of my music perhaps the only one I shall not be ashamed of in the hour of death. Apart from the religious inspiration, there are several technical aspects of Les Offrandes oubliées which make it unmistakable Messiaen. One of these, as he had already demonstrated in his organ piece Le Banquet céleste, is his ability to extend a constantly developing melodic line at a tempo slower than most other composers would dare sustain for more than a few bars at a time. The slow progress of the melody quietly winding its way through the string textures in the outer sections of Les Offrandes

6 oubliées is most effectively contrasted with the suddenly noisy stampede in the middle section. Messiaen s characteristic use of modal harmonies is put to particularly expressive use in the final section where they are allied to a kind of halo effect secured by drawing the melodic line on first violins through an ethereal background of four solo violins and five solo violas. The theological background of each of the three sections identified respectively as The Cross, Sin, and The Eucharist is elaborated in the composer s own words in the score: With arms extended on the tree of the Cross, sad unto death, you pour forth your blood. You love us, gentle Jesus; we had forgot. Driven by folly and the sting of the serpent, we were in a breathless, frenzied, ceaseless descent into sin, as into a tomb. Here is the pure altar, the source of charity, the banquet of the poor; here adorable Pity offers the bread of Life and of Love. You love us, gentle Jesus; we had forgot. While there has probably never been a performance at which more than a small proportion of the orchestra and the audience shared those precise sentiments, it is the sound rather than the thought behind it that counts. As Messiaen said after the first performance of Les Offrandes oubliées by the Straram Orchestra in Paris in 1931, It is so much more beautiful than I thought. These musicians play it like champions. Gerald Larner 2017 FRANCIS POULENC ( ) Gloria Gloria Laudamus te Domine Deus

7 Domine Fili unigenite Domine Deus, Agnus Dei Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris Although Poulenc was brought up a Catholic by a devout father and a rather less devout mother and although he was drawn to writing for the voice from an early age, he composed no church music until he was in his mid-thirties. Before then he had completed only one choral work of any kind, the Chanson à boire of But the death of a close friend in a particularly horrific road accident in 1935 and a subsequent pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Rocamadour in the Dordogne inspired the Litanies à la Vierge Noire, which turned out to be the first in a whole series of religious works including the Mass in G, the Stabat Mater and the Gloria. Commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky, written in 1959 and first performed by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in January 1961, the Gloria was an immediate success in the United States. If it took a little longer to establish itself in France it was partly because of some initial discomfort with the popular rather than churchy tone of the piece. The composer, who considered the Gloria the best thing he had ever done, was unrepentant and explained to his critics that he had been thinking of those frescoes of Gozzoli where angels stick their tongues out and those grave Benedictine monks I have seen playing football. Certainly, it is a tuneful work in which, paradoxically true to himself, Poulenc draws on a variety of stylistic sources not all of which, however, are foreign to the Church. There is just a hint of something Gregorian about the fanfares which open the work and, although there is also a tendency to play football with the natural stresses of the Latin text, the setting of the first movement is conventional enough to include some (for Poulenc) rare examples of choral counterpoint. Similarly in the Laudamus te, while there might be a brief echo of the music hall in the trombone introduction and more than a little of Rake s Progress

8 Stravinsky in the orchestral accompaniment, the short but very slow and very quiet middle section (Gratias agimus tibi) might almost have been written by Messiaen in celestial mode. From the Domine Deus onwards and particularly where the soprano soloist is involved religious sentiment tends to prevail over cheerfulness. It is true that the cheeky composer of Les Biches is unmistakably present in Domine fili unigenite but, in spite of comprehensive allusions to Prokofiev, the Qui sedes is a prayer as personal as it is radiant. The last movement, which recalls the fanfares from the beginning of the work, seems to be proceeding briskly to a cyclic conclusion when the tempo slows down for another very slow and very quiet episode featuring the solo soprano. One last and very loud fanfare on Amen precedes a hushed ending on a prolonged, theoretically dissonant but actually conclusive orchestral chord. Gerald Larner 2017