Georg Frederic Handel: Messiah
Elisabeth Lutyens: Essence of our Happiness (BBC
Commission)
Anthony Milner: Roman Spring
Henry Purcell: Ode on St Cecilia’s Day (1692)
It seems almost unbelievable that
Prommers had to wait some 75 years before they heard a performance of the complete
Handel’s Messiah. On Sunday 2 August 1970, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and
the BBC Singers were conducted by Colin Davis. Soloists included Sheila
Armstrong (soprano), Robert Tear (tenor) and John Shirley-Quirk (baritone). It
would subsequently be performed five more times at the Proms. The most recent
(I understand) being on 6 September 2009. Over the years there have been countless
extracts of this iconic work heard at this Festival. There are many
performances of Handel’s Messiah given each year in the United Kingdom. Currently,
some 95 recordings of the entire work available. My personal favourite is
King’s College, Cambridge and the St Martin-in-the-Field’s Orchestra conducted
by David Willcocks and released in 1972. Many listeners still swear by the
remarkable, but dated, Huddersfield Choral Society version conducted Sir
Malcolm Sargent made in the 1950s.
Equally remarkable was the Proms
Premiere of Henry Purcell’s great Ode on St Cecilia’s Day, Z328, ‘Hail
Bright Cecilia.’ This was featured in the second half of the Wednesday 5 August
1970 concert. Before the interval Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks
and Michael Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli was
heard. The English Chamber Orchestra was conducted by Raymond Leppard (for
Purcell and Handel). This was the final,
and possibly the best of Purcell’s four Odes to St Cecilia. The work was
written during 1692 for the Saint’s Feast Day setting a text by the Irish Anglican
Divine and poet, Nicholas Brady. The entire work, lasting for nearly an hour,
is replete with stately choruses, engaging solos, duets, and trios, as well as
well-wrought instrumental interludes. The Archiv CD catalogue lists 14
recordings of this work now available.
Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence of
our Happiness op.69 has hardly fared well. This work was a BBC Commission.
Written for tenor, mixed chorus, and orchestra, it is a setting of texts by Abū
Yazīd, John Donne and Arthur Rimbaud. It was composed in 1968, two years before
its premiere on Tuesday 8 September 1970. Richard Lewis was the tenor soloist,
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were conducted by Norman del Mar.
The work’s title is derived from
Donne’s ‘Devotion XIV’ which, in abridged form, is set in the cantata’s long
central movement.
It is interesting that Colin
Mason (Daily Telegraph, 9 September 1970) has declared that this ‘large
scale work [is composed] in what is probably the simplest and most accessible
style [Lutyens] has yet attempted.’
Max Harrison (Musical Times,
November 1970) writes: ‘…The ejaculatory expressiveness of Elisabeth Lutyens's Essence
of our Happiness at first hearing appears fragmented by the strong
cumulative inner tensions which shape the music. But sometimes a curiously acid
gaiety, severe yet obliquely suggesting optimism, is achieved. The work is a
cycle for tenor, chorus, and orchestra of three mystical texts dealing with
time, each complemented by a dance-like orchestral movement. Originality of content is matched by
consistently inventive writing for voices and instruments, so that one's ear is
delighted by fresh sounds and shapes as well as by new meaning. The
performance, by Richard Lewis with the BBC SO and Chorus under Norman Del Mar,
was poised and readily communicative; this work seems likely to prove the most
durable of this year's Prom commissions.’
This was the one and only
Promenade Concert performance of this work. Unfortunately, there is no
recording currently available, either on record or download. Max Harrison’s
prediction about durability has proved wrong.
Anthony Milner’s Cantata Roman
Spring, op.29 is a remarkable ‘sing’ by any account. The work was composed
in 1969 and is written for soprano and tenor solo, chorus, and orchestra. It
was a setting of words by the great Latin poets Catullus and Horace. Roman Spring is a celebration of Spring
and a call to lovers to make the most of it. The work was premiered at the Queen
Elizbeth Hall during October 1969.
The composer has described this
work as ‘pantonal’, in other words ‘shifting freely among many or all keys.’
This is not atonal music as such: Milner has not totally abandoned the sense of
‘key’ and ‘there are many focal points’ such as ‘chords, single notes, motifs,
which act as centres or gravity’ but only in one or two places is ‘there
anything that momentarily establishes a sense of key.’ All that said, Roman
Spring is approachable and straightforward to enjoy.
Fellow composer Lennox Berkeley
writing the BBC’s house magazine, The Listener (23 October 1969) reported
that this ‘was music of real distinction’ and the reviewer was ‘particularly
struck by the subtle and evocative use of the orchestra.’ Berkeley concluded by
suggesting that the ‘vocal writing was restrained but telling in the earlier
movements, more forthright in the third, matching thereby the uninhibited mood
of the poem.’
The Proms Premiere was given on Monday
17 August 1970. Other works included Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations,
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.15 in B flat major, K 450, and Beethoven’s Symphony
No.5 in C minor. The soloists for the Milner were Rhonda Bruce, contralto and
Philip Langridge, tenor. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were conducted
by Peter Gellhorn (Roman Spring). Colin
Davis conducted the other works. Anthony Milner’s Roman Spring was
released on LP on Decca SXL 6699 in 1975. The singers were Felicity Palmer,
soprano and Robert Tear, tenor. The London Sinfonietta was conducted by David
Atherton. It has subsequently been re-released on Lyrita SRCD 267.
To be continued…
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