Orchestral Performance - Malvern School 2001

Programme for NSSO Concert, 15 July 2001

Overture: Cockaigne (In London Town)
Op 40 Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934)
It is very fitting that the concert should open with the music of Elgar. The NSSO Course has been held at Malvern Girls' College, where Elgar taught the violin and where one of the present violin teachers refers to him as "my illustrious predecessor." Despite its subtitle, this overture was written in Malvern and the autograph score has a quotation from Piers Plowman: 'Metelees & monelees on Malverne hulles'.

The work was written in 1900 and comes from that incredibly productive period which saw Elgar catapulted to fame through Enigma Variations, and Dream of Gerontius. It was dedicated to 'my friends the members of British orchestras' and certainly gives each section of the orchestra plenty of opportunity. Tovey says that in the work "Elgar expressed his love of London in an overture neither more nor less vulgar than Dickens" and this portrait of London contains a 'cheeky Cockney' opening phrase; unmistakable sounds of marching brass bands; quiet spaces reminiscent of some of the capital's more tranquil squares; a touch of whistling barrow boys and more than a suggestion of the bells of London.

Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune - Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
In December 1894 came the crowning achievement of Debussy's early, Bohemian years - the first performance of the Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune. He had spent several years at the Paris Conservatoire, had won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1884, travelled to Russia with Madame von Meck (Tchaikovsky's patron), heard Wagner at Bayreuth and been captivated by exotic eastern music at the Paris Exhibition in I889.

Paul Griffiths says: 'If modern music may be said to have had a definite beginning, then it started with the flute melody which opens L'apres-midi'. It is a languorous work, thoroughly French in its sensuous use of sound, texture and line, and very innovative in its day for the use of chords and scales which blur traditional concepts of harmony and mode and produce sound pictures analogous to the Impressionist paintings of the same period. There were originally to have been three movements, of which this is the Prelude, giving a picture in sound of the poem of Mallarme where the faun dreams away the afternoon in a lazy heat.

Barcarolle from The Ta1es of Hoffman - Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)
The original Barcarolles came from the songs of the Gondoliers in Venice, which were generally sentimental and lilting. Undoubtedly the best known of the operatic Barcarolles is this one by Offenbach. The Tales of Hoffmann is one of Offenbach's more serious operas - his operettas were outstandingly successful and established a genre of light opera which could be said to have evolved into the twentieth century musical. The Hoffmann of the title was a German Romantic author whose stories form the basis of the work. The Barcarolle (based on a melody composed in 1848) comes from Act II. Offenbach died before the opera was completed and the orchestration is by Guiraud.

INTERVAL

Symphony No. 2 in D Op. 73 - Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Brahms saw himself very much as a traditional composer of symphonies in the mould of Beethoven. "A symphony is no joke" he said, and it took him an astonishing 21 years, from 1855 to 1876, to complete his first symphony. Once the step of composition had been taken, Brahms' other three symphonies followed quite soon. The second was begun during the following summer in Portschach on Lake Worth and finished in time for its first performance in Vienna on 30 December 1877.

It is the largest of his four symphonies, though its orchestration is still classical with the addition of the tuba. The 1st movement Allegro non troppo begins gracefully with themes which permeate the whole work and a second theme of great beauty on the violas and cellos. The opening material is developed and repeated (a sonata form movement). The slower 2nd movement, Adagio non troppo, begins with two themes at the same time - a downward cello phrase and upward bassoon phrase - and continues, as one music critic puts it "with moments of rare beauty to which no mere verbal description can do justice". The 3rd section, marked Allegretto grazioso, is graceful and delicately scored, almost like a gentle minuet. In the last movement (Allegro con spirito), we have one of Brahms' busy, energetic, bustling finales.