Chandos Records

CHAN 10265 Front.qxd 7/2/07 12:15 pm Page 1 CHANDOS CHAN 10265 CHAN 10265 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 12:17 pm Page 2 Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903–1989) Piano Concerto, Op. 29* 25:05 in B flat major • in B-Dur • en si bémol majeur 1 I Allegro moderato – Cadenza – Allegretto – Tempo I 11:01 2 II Andante 8:16 © Camilla Panufnik 3 III Vivace (alla breve) 5:47 Michael Berkeley (b. 1948) premiere recording 4 Gethsemane Fragment 10:39 Sir Lennox Berkeley Four Poems of St Teresa of Ávila, Op. 27† 13:18 for Contralto and String Orchestra To John Greenidge 5 1 If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong. Moderato – Più vivo – Tempo I – Più vivo – Tempo I 4:23 6 2 Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling! Allegro 2:14 7 3 Let mine eyes see Thee. Andante 3:58 8 4 Today a shepherd and our kin. Allegro moderato 2:41 Sir Lennox Berkeley 3 CHAN 10265 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 12:17 pm Page 4 The Berkeley Edition, Volume 5 Michael Berkeley ‘Lennox adored the piano and was quite an The first of the three movements has a accomplished pianist’, Michael Berkeley wrote traditional sonata form outline, blurred by premiere recording in the preface to a collected edition of his Berkeley’s propensity for continuous organic 9 Tristessa‡ 22:00 father’s music for solo piano. Although development and dislike of literal for Cor Anglais, Viola and Orchestra Sir Lennox Berkeley could never be classed recapitulation. The first theme, a syncopated In memoriam Angela Carter with his friend Benjamin Britten as a rising and falling melody, is presented by the TT 71:14 composer-pianist, he certainly devised a woodwind at the start, repeated by the solo distinctive style of writing for the instrument, piano just after its dramatic first entry, and Catherine Wyn-Rogers contralto† and he was a competent enough performer to later briefly restated by the full orchestra. After take one of the solo parts in his own a march-like episode, the piano introduces a ‡ Celia Craig cor anglais Introduction and Allegro for two pianos and lyrical second subject, and as an apparent Steven Burnard viola‡ orchestra at its premiere in 1940. But he afterthought it rounds off the exposition with Howard Shelley piano* conceived his Piano Concerto in B flat major, another gentle melody in octaves over a held written in 1947– 48, for his loyal interpreter chord. This melody plays a significant part in BBC National Orchestra of Wales Colin Horsley, who gave the first performance the development section, which begins with a Lesley Hatfield leader in August 1948 at a Promenade Concert in fugato on the first theme, reaches a big Richard Hickox the Royal Albert Hall in London. The solo part central climax, and then builds up again combines a good deal of bravura writing, towards a fortissimo restatement by the including several passages of double octaves, orchestra of that first theme. The with simple, lyrical melodies, sometimes over a recapitulation progresses without much of the Chopin-like arpeggio accompaniment and earlier subsidiary material, and with the sometimes played by the two hands in second subject completely recomposed. A octaves. The modest orchestra – identical to Cadenza leads to a coda in which the first that of Berkeley’s well-known 1943 theme is transformed into a flowing 12 / 8 Divertimento, in the same key – consists of Allegretto, and the gentle melodic double woodwind, pairs of horns and ‘afterthought’ into a concluding heroic flourish. trumpets, a single trombone, timpani and The central movement, an Andante in 6 / 8 strings. time, is based on another simple, lyrical 4 5 CHAN 10265 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 12:17 pm Page 6 melody introduced by the piano in limpid his Four Poems of St Teresa of Ávila, written emotions – the sacred went straight to his heart writing, with the sections playing together but octaves over muted strings; this is later taken in 1947 shortly before the Piano Concerto, and the music came straight back out again. only loosely co-ordinated with one another, up by the first violins, decorated by delicate and first performed in a BBC broadcast in Michael Berkeley himself – born in May similarly crystallise into held chords, from piano tracery. After a middle section which April 1948 with the much loved contralto 1948, between the premieres of his father’s which a violin solo emerges. A pivotal single reaches a brief but dramatic fortissimo, only the Kathleen Ferrier as soloist. The voice is Four Poems and Piano Concerto – sang as a note and the application of mutes herald an second strain of the opening melody is accompanied by the favourite English medium chorister at Westminster Cathedral, and has extended slow lament, punctuated at first by recapitulated. The movement ends by regaining of string orchestra, with some solo writing for based many works on religious themes and brief outbursts of protest, but eventually its home key of A flat major, the timpani hinting violin and cello, and with the sections ideas. His Gethsemane Fragment, first thinning out to a rising double violin line over at the first phrase of the melody beneath two frequently divided to produce rich harmonies performed in Birmingham in November 1990, gently tolling repeated notes and an insistent low flutes. The finale is in a more conventional and full textures. was the result of a commission from the New discord in the bass. sonata form than the first movement, with two The texts are English translations by the English Orchestra for a work suggested by a Tristessa is one of the fruits of Michael contrasting main themes: the piano leads off poet and critic Arthur Symons of poems by passage from the Bible. Berkeley selected the Berkeley’s position as Composer in with the first, in a distinctive rhythm over a the sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite nun description in St Matthew’s Gospel of Jesus in Association with the BBC National Orchestra cakewalk accompaniment; the strings introduce St Teresa of Ávila. These are noteworthy both the garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, of Wales, which began in September 2001. the second, apparently at a much slower speed for their fervour, bordering on the erotic, and trial and Crucifixion, praying: ‘My Father, if it is A BBC commission, it was first performed by because of its larger note-values (a familiar for their visionary incorporation of the Holy possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet the Orchestra and Richard Hickox in device in the music of Mendelssohn). Both Family into everyday Spanish life. The second not as I will, but as you will.’ He chose this St David’s Cathedral in west Wales in May themes are discussed in the development and fourth songs are both set among passage, he says, 2003; a second performance by the same section, and both are recapitulated in shepherds: the second begins over a bagpipe- because it seemed to me that at Gethsemane we forces took place in Gloucester Cathedral in recognisable form, albeit with new piano like drone of open fifths; the fourth has see Christ at his most human, revealing a frailty July 2004, as part of Berkeley’s farewell descants, before the witty coda. something of the texture of a Bachian chorale that is all the more moving for being a flash of Cheltenham Festival after ten years as artistic In his study of The Music of Lennox prelude, with a melody in long notes over weakness with which we can all identify. But director. The piece was conceived specifically Berkeley, Peter Dickinson quotes a description joyfully busy counterpoint. The first song is a combined with the human foreboding is the for the players of the BBC NOW, and in of Berkeley by a fellow-composer, the late dialogue with God, to music based on an additional and awful visionary knowledge of what particular for its principal cor anglais and Malcolm Williamson, as someone ‘who could anguished turning motive which underpins the is in store. viola, Celia Craig and Steven Burnard: their conceive of life in no other terms than final stanza in the cellos and basses. The third The piece is scored for string orchestra, instruments play leading roles throughout, religious terms’. A convert to Roman song, with the voice mostly in its lower frequently polarised between the upper and standing out from a large and richly coloured Catholicism in his mid-twenties, Berkeley register, is the intense heart of the cycle. In lower instruments in changing configurations. orchestra. However, Berkeley stresses that the composed a good deal of music for both his book, Peter Dickinson quotes Michael It begins with short, separate jagged phrases, work is not a double concerto as such, but Catholic and Anglican worship, as well as Berkeley’s description of this song as gradually coalescing into more sustained rather a tone poem with two obbligato several concert works on sacred or devotional just a perfect little piece of music. It perhaps textures, through which a cello melody soloists, frequently joined by other soloists texts. Among the best known of the latter is brought from [my father] some of the strongest struggles to the surface. Passages of free-time from within the orchestra – mostly woodwind 6 7 CHAN 10265 BOOK.qxd 7/2/07 12:17 pm Page 8 and trumpets, but also glockenspiel, divisions of the orchestra – play most of the performances with period instrument as principal oboe with the City of Birmingham vibraphone and harp. time, and always as a pair: occasionally orchestras, she has appeared with The Sixteen Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic The title of the work, clearly related to the imitating each other, more often spinning out under Harry Christophers, The English Concert Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, the Britten French, Italian and Spanish words for independent, intertwining lines, and also from under Trevor Pinnock, and The Academy of Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic Concert ‘sadness’, is taken from Angela Carter’s 1977 time to time joining in the same melody an Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood, Orchestra and the London Chamber Players.

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