SCUNA history » Concerts » 1976 - 2
ANU CHORAL SOCIETY
(SCUNA)
A CONCERT OF MUSIC
by
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
University House, Canberra 12 August 1976
PROGRAMME
Gaudeamus Igitur - Traditional
I N T E R V A L
SOLOISTS - - Frances Dixon, Soprano
Susan Flannery, Alto
Raymond Gorringe, Tenor
Geoffrey Brennan, Bass
Directed by Brian Hingerty
(Patrons are reminded that Wine and Cheese will be served at the entrance to the hall during the interval)
NOTES ON THE PROGRAMME
Three Elizabethan Part Songs
Sweet Day; The Willow Song; 0 Mistress Mine
These three part songs are amongst Vaughan-Williams's earliest published works, having been written in 1895 and revised in 1912. Sweet Day is a setting of a poem by George Herbert; the other two are two songs from Shakespeare's plays. The music immediately illustrates the two perennial influences on Vaughan-Williams's style - English music of the Tudor period, and English folk-song. The subtle use of polyphony, the juxtaposing of modes to provide an ambiguous tonal backdrop (particularly noticeable in The Willow Song), the occasional use of parallel fourths, all combine to lend these slight works a lyrical charm that points the way to the composer's future choral writing.
Five Mystical Songs
Easter; I got me flowers; Love bade me welcome; The call; Antiphon.
This song cycle, published in 1911, comprises five poems of George Herbert, and it is the poet's restrained mysticism which governs the structure of the songs. The original setting is for baritone, chorus and orchestra, but Vaughan-Williams also arranged the work for baritone, chorus, and piano. The latter forces will be used for tonight's performance.
Vaughan-Williams served his musical apprenticeship chiefly writing vocal and choral music, and it is therefore no surprise that he had by 1911 achieved the technical mastery displayed in these songs. (This is not to say that he lacked in understanding of orchestral composition; the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis was written at about this time.) The composer's grasp of musical structure is to be seen as much in
their relations to each other as within each of them. Thus the joyful greeting of the first song is thrown into relief by the lyricism of the second, with its strongly affirmative ending. In the third movement, the symbolic significance of the words is pointed by the wordless appearance of the plainchant O Sacrum Convivium in the choir. The fourth song is for baritone and piano alone, and this is balanced by the final movement in which the baritone is silent while the chorus declaims an extrovert hymn of praise.
Five Songs from "Songs of Travel"
The Vagabond; Let Beauty Awake; The Roadside Fire; Youth and Love; Bright is the Ring of Words.
In the first decade of this century Vaughan Williams set several of Stevenson's Songs of Travel, a collection of forty-six poems, for voice and piano. Seven poems were set to music at this time, one having been set very much earlier. The seven songs of the 1903-05 period were not so much a song cycle in the German tradition as a collection of songs with a common theme. After the composer's death his wife discovered amongst his papers a further song apparently intended to be added to the other songs when they were performed as a cycle. All this would indicate that the possibility of performing the cycle as an entirety should in no way inhibit the performance of a selection of the songs, as in tonight's performance.
The songs themselves represent a transitional stage in Vaughan Williams's song writing career, in which he had left behind the unsophisticated directness of his earliest songs, but had yet to develop the maturity displayed in the Five Mystical Songs and later works. The songs are in the best tradition of English song - straightforward and simple, and of immediate appeal to the listener.
Mass in G. Minor
Kyrie; Gloria; Credo; Sanctus; Osanna I; Benedictus; Osanna II; Agnus Dei.
In view of the immediate appeal of this work for both listeners and performers, it is hardly surprising that it occupies a place among the standard works of the unaccompanied choral repertoire. The Mass, published in 1922, and given its first liturgical performance in Westminster Cathedral in 1923, is uncharacteristic of Vaughan Williams, yet, paradoxically, no-one else could have written it. The modal tonalities on which the Mass is largely based, and the use of plainsong reflect the ever-present influences of folk-song and Tudor music, but the almost total avoidance of dissonance, even in the agitato sections of the Agnus Dei, and the solemn processions of parallel fifths and octaves in which the work abounds are hardly what one expects of Vaughan Williams.
Maintaining the internal coherence of a mass is always something of a problem for a modern composer. Vaughan Williams solves this problem by casting the central movements (Gloria and Credo) in similar style, and surrounding them with outer movement in which the same thematic material is used. Thus the Gloria and the Credo are characterised by forthright antiphonal declamations from the two choirs, culminating in the arching phrases of the respective Amen choruses. The Sanctus -- Osanna I -- Benedictus -- Osanna II alternates lyrical, restrained material in the first and third sections with sturdier onward-pressing double-choir work in the Osannas, reminiscent of the Gloria and Credo. Framing the work, the Kyrie and Agnus Dei contain much common thematic material, the soloists and chorus each singing music in the last movement given to the other in the opening movement. The mass closes in a glow of splendour which dies gradually away as the opening phrase of the whole work is echoed softly in the choir.
-- MARK HYMAN
THE ANU CHORAL SOCIETY | |
SOPRANOS -- Robin Bennett Trudy Bennett Valerie Brown Alison Currie Gillian Currie Gillian Dooley Margot Haenke Neidra Jennaway Christine Kallir Mary Kelly Meg MacDonald Sue Pain Elaine Ramsay Fiona Smith Kathy Warth Leslie Wheeler Alison Whish Christine Wilson |
BASSES -- Tony Cutten Erik Davids Tony Dooley Reg Hamilton Mark Hyman Stefan Karpiniec Philip Linford Colin Loughhead Mark Penman Michael Ryan Peter Stolz George Szuty Philip Zachariah |
TENORS -- Ian Bollen Richard Dixon Chris McDermott Robert Taylor Philip Thomas |
ALTOS -- Sue Baldwin John Collis Elizabeth Dooley Barbara Hurst Martine Letts Margaret Nettle Camilla Webster Annabel Wheeler |
THE 1976 COMMITTEE | |
President | Alison Whish |
Secretary | Robert K.L. Taylor |
Treasurer | Fiona R. Smith |
Immediate Past President | Kathy Warth |
Librarian | Colin Loughhead |
Publicity Officer | Gillian Dooley |
First Year Rep | Richard Barrett |
General Rep | Annabel Wheeler |
Concert Manager | Richard Dixon |