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Bulletin No 8, September 2006

At the last FALO we made a valiant effort to convey all the challenging dramatic episodes of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet overture under John’s direction, and then Steve led us through three movements of Dvorak’s precious Symphony from the New World, wonderful experiences for us,  but the palm must go to Nadia with her playing of Mozart’s Flute concerto in D, holding the floor with her cool composure in the cadenza.

The Summer Garden Party at Sue and Antony’s was well attended  but sadly we said goodbye to Lesley Wood from the violins, who has moved to the Isle of Wight to look after her elderly mother.  However we welcomed Martin Harding back on trumpet after his course in the USA.  

Ufton Court is being run now as an independent educational trust and for anyone interested in coming to support the venture in any way,  there is a party to launch it on Friday, October 6 from 6 to 8 pm.   In the past other adult education groups used to stay, like French speakers, but recently only the Beenham Band have followed our example.  We are booked in for October 13-15^th,  when our main work will be C¾sar Franck’s Symphony in D minor.  A number of old members are joining us again, but we would welcome any extra string players you may know, especially because so often some of our regular ones cannot manage the whole weekend.  Incidentally Helen Housden writes to say she is getting back to her bassoon and would love to join us again and how much she misses our orchestral community,  but she is not free this year.

Dates for Your Diary

Winter Term – Sep 16,  23,  30,  Oct 7,  (14 Ufton),  21,  (28 half-term),  Nov 4,  11,  18 AGM,  25,  Dec 2,  9 FALO.  (Note – extra session on Oct 21,  not shown earlier).

Spring Term – Jan 13,  20,  27,  Feb 3,  10,  (17 half-term),  24,   Mar 3,  10,  17,  24 FALO

Summer Term – Apr 14,  21,  28,  May 5,  12,  19,  (28 half-term),  Jun 2,  9,  16 FALO  (RSO concert  23)

Recent Committee Meeting

The Treasurer reports a healthy balance, so we can continue to hire exciting new music  while subscriptions remain at £55 per annum.   He will welcome cheque books on Sept. 30^th  , when he returns from battling with fallen trees.

The Social Secretary is arranging a lunch again at the Fox & Hounds in Theale on Dec 2, and another Skittles evening at the Garderners’ Arms in Caversham on Feb 17, 2007.   The council who run Beansheaf has asked for our help next summer with their first annual Holybrook Festival on June 2^nd.  Starting at 2 p.m., could we make up an orchestra of volunteers to show off some of our music in the usual Linear Hall?  Any thoughts would be welcome.

PROGRAMME NOTES

John Tims writes :

BRAHMS Symphony No. 2  

Fearing comparison with Beethoven,  Brahms put off publishing his first symphony until 1876, by which time he was 43 years old.  It was, however, received with acclaim and thus encouraged, Brahms started the second symphony in 1877.

It is Brahms in relaxed mode with hardly an anxiety in sight and overflowing with good tunes.  Brahms was once considered an abstruse and intellectual composer, but this is belied by the 2^nd symphony, which has immediate appeal.  It is also a concentrated piece,  with related themes in all four movements.

There is something rewarding for every instrument in this symphony.

As a contrast, we shall also have a look at Elgar’s “Chanson de Nuit” and “Chanson de Matin”.  These are delightful salon pieces, orchestrated by Elgar himself from the original violin and piano format.  They appeal to the sentimental in all of us.

Steve Wellman writes:

Sibelius – Finlandia

While Sibelius was a young man, Finland lay under oppressive Russian rule. In 1899, he was invited to write music for a pageant  which had been organised as a protest against press censorship and to promote Finland's right to a free society. He composed a prelude and six pieces, one to accompany each scene. The grand finale was a stirring tone poem embodying both the Finns' spirit of resistance and their faith in their eventual return to democracy. Finland Awakes, as Sibelius first called it, created extraordinary enthusiasm. The following year he re-christened it Finlandia. The stirring sentiments in the music soon touched a patriotic nerve. The work was suppressed by the authorities but raised Sibelius to the status of a patriotic hero. Ever since Finlandia has won enduring popularity, not only for its high musical values, but as an internationally recognized anthem of freedom.

Rossini – Barber of Seville overture

The Barber of Seville overture is arguably Rossini’s most famous and is based on the first of Beaumarchais’ plays. The overture does not contain any themes from the ensuing opera.  In fact Rossini was short of time when he composed his opera and so he simply grabbed an overture he had written earlier and used it for this comic opera instead. Rossini confessed that he never gave much consideration to his overtures. “Wait until the evening before opening night,” he admitted. “ Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity.”

Rossini’s opera was not an immediate success at its first performance in Rome in 1816, partly because a cat ran on to stage and grabbed the audience’s attention causing them to laugh!   However, the work soon took the musical world by storm and has been appreciated ever since.

César Franck – Symphony in D Minor  (Main work at Ufton)

1.                              Lento – Allegro non troppo

2.                              Allegretto

3.                              Allegro non troppo

César Franck’s one and only symphony was written quite late in his career. He dispensed with the standard four-movement plan, structuring his symphony instead in three movements. This, coupled with his decision to deploy the cor anglais, an instrument much favoured by Berlioz, brought severe criticism, so firm was the French notion of what constituted a proper symphony.  In rehearsal the musicians of the Conservatory orchestra were sullen and barely cooperative, and the resulting sub-standard performance no doubt helped to inspire critical dismissal of the symphony as "a chimerical monster."

Later assessments have, of course, been far more sympathetic.  The deviations that triggered so much early animosity have come to be recognized as part of the symphony's charm, among them the placid first-movement theme that reappears in the finale. This sort of cyclical return is characteristic of Franck. The cor anglais adds a distinctive colour, particularly when it announces the gracefully melancholy theme of the second movement.  Franck's decision to omit anything like a middle-movement scherzo enhances the verve and dash of the finale, providing the room to accommodate its sweeping gestures and ever-intensifying crescendo.

 

A final reflection

Recently I happened to pick up in the public library Big Bangs by Howard Goodall, a book following up a Channel Four series like his Organ Works, which I did see and much enjoyed, and he has compered choral competitions I have been in with a nice light but well informed touch..  He is better known to many of us than we realise too, if we have sung the theme tunes of  Blackadder, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf or The Vicar of Dibley, and in the book he gives us a wonderful insight into what it means to be a composer.

The Big Bangs he discusses are five critical events in the history of music when suddenly, overnight, the whole game changed: -  first, the invention of musical notation, the opera, equal temperament, the pianoforte, and sound recording.  Television like films can get us interested and give us a point of view, but we cannot stop it, take it at our own pace, or ask questions, nor, as Clement Attlee used to say, can we answer back.  So too Goodall felt frustrated on TV when trying to get the idea of equal temperament over, but in a book he carries you along in a most interesting and amusing way.

Recording has become central to most people’s appreciation of music, but I remember Constant Lambert in his book of 1934 heading a chapter “The appalling popularity of music”.   How awful that he should have thought so then, but perhaps he had a point for music has become so all-pervasive and commonplace, little more than wallpaper in the background, that we don’t hear it often as a really special event as once a performance of classical music was.   Howard Goodall has some good thoughts on this in his epilogue: we need artists of star quality to capture that first fine careless rapture again.  Opera certainly grips its devotees, and great chamber musicians can still work their magic live, can’t they?        

However we are only too happy to perform music ourselves, however imperfectly, exploring its infinite variety and complexity, and sharing something of our efforts with friends and loved ones.  For myself, I don’t often go to concerts being all-too-aware how some performers suffer.  Thea King’s clarinet playing over the air has an exquisite subtlety of coloration, but it was agony to watch her in action.  And did you ever see the divine lutenist Julian Bream’s tormented face?           

 Antony

P.S.   A violinist friend has been stimulated by a DVD called ‘The Art of the Violin”. by Bruno Monsaingeon (NVC Arts and Warner Music Vision)  It shows some of the most outstanding performers of the last century.   One can learn a lot from watching the great at work in close-up – the late Jack Brymer told of his eternal debt as an amateur to those clarinettists he had watched on the concert platform.  Why bother teachers when you can learn just by watching experts at your leisure?         

                                                                                                                          ACB