Bryan Kelly: Nativity Scenes (1966/2011)

Whilst writing a recent post about Kelly’s attractive Left Bank Suite, I also heard his Nativity Scenes included on the same CD. The liner notes explain that this work began life as an organ piece in 1966, dedicated to one of the composer’s former pupils, Simon Williams. In 2011, it was scored for a full orchestra. There are three ‘scenes’ in the suite, each being inspired by an ancient poem.

The first, an Adagio, considers Joly Joly Wat, a shepherd sitting on a hillside: “He had on him his tabard and his hat, His tar-box, his pipe, and his flagat [bundle]…” Of interest, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the tar-box as “being formerly used by shepherds to hold tar as a salve for sheep.” And the context of the poem suggests that his pipe was the musical and not the smoking kind.

The music begins quietly in the “low strings”: it is clearly a dark night, and the break of day is far off. The shepherd boy plays a lullaby on his flute, whether to comfort himself or his flock. The nocturnal theme reappears. There is no hint of the angelic host.

The second poem exhorts: “Runne (Sheepheards) run where Bethleme blest appears/Wee bring the best of newes, bee not dismay’d.”  Kelly provides vibrant music here, played Allegro. Imperatively, it encourages the shepherds to journey to Bethlehem to “find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” This scurrying music also portrays the biblical verse, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…”

The final movement or scene, Lento, returns to a reflective mood. This is a lullaby for the Baby Jesus. The poem, originally in Latin, was paraphrased by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, balmily!

Kelly provides a beautifully orchestrated berceuse, with especially luminous passages for solo horn and flute. There is a final nod to the shepherd boy’s pipe playing bringing the suite to a satisfyingly cyclic conclusion.

The work issued on the Heritage Label in 2015 (HTGCD 285). The Royal Ballet Sinfonia is conducted by Barry Wordsworth. Other works on this disc include the Epitaph for Peace, Concertante Dances, Globe Theatre Suite, A Christmas Celebration, and the Left Bank Suite.

The Gramophone (March 2015, p.15), Andrew Achenbach describes the Nativity Scenes as being “evocative and touching.”

The Nativity Scenes can be heard on the Bryan Kelly playlist on YouTube, here.