William Boyce: Symphony No.5 in D major
Sebastian Forbes: Essay for clarinet and orchestra
(BBC Commission)
Roberto Gerhard: Epithalamion, Leo
William Boyce’s Symphony No.5 in
D major is an enchanting work. It may well have been played on Classic FM;
such is its approachability. It was composed in 1739 and was originally
entitled Overture to St Cecilia and destined to be the overture to ‘Part
1’ of the St. Cecilia Ode ‘See fam’d Apollo and the Nine’ setting a text
by John Lockman (1698-1771). Lockman was a renowned writer and Secretary of the
British Herring Fishery. The ‘Symphony’ was first heard at the Apollo Academy
in London during 1739.
The opening movement is a ‘French
overture’ with a majestic formal opening complete with trumpets and drums,
leading into the then obligatory fugal passage. It is a successful movement.
This is complemented by a delightful Gavotte and a vivacious Minuet. There have
been several excellent recordings of this work, made over the years including
releases by L'Oiseau Lyre, Naxos, Nimbus and Archiv labels.
It was performed at the Promenade
Concert on Saturday 8 August 1970.
I was unable to find any recording
of Sebastian Forbes’s (b.1941) Essay for clarinet and orchestra. This is
one of those works that appears to have sunk without trace. A BBC Commission, it
was premiered at a special concert given by the BBC Training Orchestra,
conducted by Meredith Davies and Michael Rose. It was an otherwise straight
forward programme including Beethoven’s Egmont Overture No.1, Sergei
Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.1 in D flat major (soloist, John Lill) and
concluding with Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D major. A major review by Dominic Gill of Forbes’s Essay
was published in the Musical Times (September 1970). Gill writes that
this is a ‘short (14-minute), well-bred, mildly academic and thoroughly
sure-footed Essay in atonal instrumental design for clarinet and
orchestra by the young British composer Sebastian Forbes. It falls very roughly
into three sections: simple melodic
decoration over long-held chords on muted strings and woodwind; a
violent brass introduction to a central developmental section of growing
rhythmic interest and increasing restlessness (as well as some nice imitative writing for soloist and wind);
a final part, in which the impetus spends itself - and communicates a sense of
distance, muted colours, sunset outlines, set off by a brief, liquid spark of a
tailpiece. A pleasant but fairly stereotyped studentish essay - and something
of a disappointment in the context of some earlier, more vigorous and less
predictable chamber and choral works by Forbes.’
I looked at Sebastian Forbes’s ‘personal’
website which seems to be in abeyance but could find no further details.
At the same concert (31 August
1970) as the audience was introduced to Harrison Birtwistle’s Verses for
ensemble, they heard Roberto Gerhard’s equally complex Leo. This was the second of his ‘cosmological’
pieces. In 1968, he had composed Libra based on his own star sign. Leo
was that of his wife, Leopoldina 'Poldi' Feichtegger Gerhard. It was to be the
composer’s last completed work: he died on 5 January 1970, so did not live to
hear the work’s Proms Premiere. Leo
was commissioned by the Hopkins Center to commemorate the bicentennial
anniversary of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. It was premiered
there on 23 August 1969. The first London performance was at the Queen
Elizabeth Hall on 24 November 1969, with David Atherton conducting the London
Sinfonietta.
Peter Stadlen, writing in The
Daily Telegraph (1 September 1970) summed up this performance well. He
wrote, ‘what a marvellously happy end to his life Roberto Gerhard has created
with Leo…the last bars of this work, which was to be his last, must be
the most delightful he has achieved. Here the Catalan charm and the Viennese argumentativeness
that used to vie one with the other in his personality and in his art are found
beatifically reconciled’. This gorgeous final tribute to his wife, and a
consummate backward glance at his career was preceded by more than 15 minutes
of abstract and virtuosic scoring. As
for the ‘programme’ it can be ignored. There is little reference to the
zodiacal characteristics of the lion nor to the disposition of the composer’s
wife.
The composer wrote, ‘I have always
wanted to pay homage to the unshakeable, natural, completely unpretentious
self-reliance of the lion and to its terrific fighting power... Leo
shows the way I tried to do it.’ (© The Estate of Roberto Gerhard).
At least three recordings of Leo
have been issues including David Atherton and the London Sinfonietta on the
Headline label, HEAD 11 (1977). This LP included the other two astrological
works, Libra and Gemini.
Epithalamion was another
important work by Roberto Gerhard which was given its Proms Premiere on Thursday
23 July 1970. Other music heard that night included Beethoven’s Violin Concerto
in D major and Charles Ives’s Symphony No.4. The BBC Symphony Orchestra was
conducted by Edward Downes.
The work was written during the
winter of 1965/66. It takes its title from the well-known wedding ‘Ode’ written
by Edmund Spenser. Yet the tenor of the piece is thoughtfulness and not
celebration. The entire work is a ‘showpiece for large orchestra with a prominent
role for a large percussion section.’ The
progress of the work is predicated on dialogue between instrumental groups
rather than massive orchestral ‘tuttis’.
Epithalamion had been
premiered at Valdagno, Italy in September 1966. It was revised for the Promenade
Concert. The score is prefaced by a quotation from Psalm 19: ‘In them hath he
set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber.’
Formally, the work has been
described as ‘an expansive rondo’ and a ‘cycle of variations in which material
and gesture are completely integrated.’
To be continued…
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