Tim Souster: Triple Music II (BBC Commission)
Arthur Sullivan: Excerpts from The Grand Duke
Michael Tippett: The Shires Suite
Malcolm Arnold: Fantasy for Audience and Orchestra,
Op 106 (World Premiere)
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Magnificat
Tim Souster’s Triple Music II
was premiered at a remarkable ‘crossover’ late-night concert on Thursday 13
August 1970. It featured performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the
rock band The Soft Machine. Works included Terry Riley’s Keyboard Studies
as well pieces by Mike Ratledge and Hugh Hopper, both members of the band. For the
Souster work, three conductors were required: David Atherton, Elgar Howarth,
and Justin Connolly.
Triple Music II, by
definition ‘exploits many things triple. I have not heard this work. To my knowledge
there is no recording. Souster has given a good (if verbose) overview: ‘Sir
William Glock’s commission which resulted in Triple Music II was specifically
for a work for three orchestras. This started me thinking in terms of things
triple, from the general (the layout of the orchestras, their constitution, the
overall form) down to the particular (the types of material, the organisation
of pitch and rhythm). But the starting point for this process of
particularisation was the concept of a verbal matrix which would germinate many
works for different instruments, different environments, realised by many
different performers, even composed by many different performers. The matrix is
simply ‘Make triple music’. (Souster Webpage).
The succeeding ‘programme note’ (which I will not copy) would require English,
Music and Philosophy degrees to absorb.
I guess that this work will
probably not be revived in our day. To be sure, there will be a recording of
this work in the BBC archives. Perhaps one day someone will ‘stream it.’
Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic
opera The Grand Duke (1896) is hardly the most popular of the series. I
am a G&S enthusiast, and must confess that I have never seen it, although I
have listened to it and followed the score. It was to be the duo’s fourteenth
and final collaboration.
Writer Marc Shepherd has
concluded that the work ‘c.’ Despite some recent revivals, I guess it is never
going to achieve popularity.
At the G&S Night on Saturday
22 August 1970, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus plus a
galaxy of soloists presented a selection of well-loved numbers from The
Pirates of Penzance, The Yeoman of the Guard, Princess Ida
and The Mikado. In amongst all this music they manages to squeeze in the
Overture to The Grand Duke. Two years later, a selection of five numbers
from this opera were given at that years G&S Night. That’s it.
I am always surprised that
Michael Tippett’s The Shires Suite has not gained traction with the
composer’s fanbase. To my knowledge there is currently no complete recording of
the piece in the CD catalogues.
The premiere of the complete Shires
Suite written for the Leicestershire Schools Orchestra, took place at Cheltenham
Town Hall on 8 July 1970. It was well received by the audience. Despite the
considerable difficulties, the work was beautifully performed by choir and
orchestra with the music reflecting ‘a further consolidation of Tippett’s
post-Priam clarity of texture with a rediscovered lyricism which, allied to his
special feeling for the setting of words, transforms what might have been an
occasional piece into a significant new work.’ A recording of the 1970
Cheltenham premiere has been uploaded to YouTube.
The Shires Suite was performed
the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday 12 September 1970. Along with the
traditional pieces, the concert also featured music by Hector Berlioz, Alan
Rawsthorne’s Piano Concerto No.2, Aaron Copland’s El Salon Mexico and the World
Premiere of Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for Audience and Orchestra, Op 106.
This last work is purely ephemeral and
is unlikely to be performed again. That said, it is fun: Prommers must have
enjoyed assisting Sir Malcolm (in the stalls) realise this delightful piece of
whimsy. That night’s performance can be heard on YouTube. The BBC
Symphony Orchestra and Chorus was conducted by Colin Davis. The piano soloist in
the Rawsthorne was Malcolm Binns.
A studio album of Michael
Tippett’s The Shires Suite was released on Unicorn Records (UNS 267) in
1981. The Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra and the Leicestershire
Chorale were conducted by Peter Fletcher. Included on this LP was Douglas
Young’s Virages-Region 1 with the cello solo played by Rohan de Saram
and conducted by the composer. This album has not been released on CD. However,
both the Tippett and the Young have been uploaded to YouTube.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s unusual
setting of Magnificat was composed in 1932. It was premiered at that year’s
Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. It is an expansive setting of this New
Testament Canticle, associated with Evensong. It
is important to note that RVWs Magnificat is not designed for liturgical use:
it is quite definitely a concert work. The setting is scored for solo
contralto, women’s chorus, and orchestra. There is a considerable contribution
made by the vast array of percussion instruments which includes timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum,
tambourine, Indian drum, glockenspiel, and celesta. The listener will be struck
by the disparity between the ‘rhapsodic’ singing of the soloist and the
introspection of the chorus. There is much splendid orchestration in these pages,
with an important part for solo flute that is used by RVW to portray the Holy
Spirit but has strong echoes of Debussy’s ‘pagan’ Prélude à l'après-midi
d'un faune. It was heard on Wednesday 26 August 1970 during a remarkable
‘all British’ concert. Other music heard that evening included Frederick
Delius’s Brigg Fair, Edward Elgar’s ubiquitous Cello Concerto in E minor
with soloist Joan Dickson, William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and
Humphrey Searle’s rarely heard Oxus, op..47.
Listeners are blessed with three excellent recordings of the
Magnificat, including ones on the EMI and Hyperion labels.
Listening to this work it is hard to understand the ‘relative
neglect’ of this remarkable setting. One reason put forward is the Magnificat’s
relative brevity and the large scale orchestral and choral resources make it an
unattractive commercial proposition.
Concluded.
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