Emerson Music of Britten and Purcell

Chaconnes and Fantasias onsidering the close affinities between these two composers, it’s hard to believe that the music on this album spans almost three centuries, ranging from Purcell’s surprisingly pungent harmonies to Britten’s distinctive voice, pitched outside the mainstream of European modernism, experimental yet deeply rooted in his extensive knowledge of Colder music, drawing inspiration from and breathing new life into old forms. Eugene Drucker

he music of Henry Purcell reflects not only the fashionable is enhanced by the dynamic markings and expressive directions of influences of French and Italian music, but also an awareness of ’s performing edition, made in the winter of 1947/48 his own national traditions. This is apparent in his sequence of and revised in 1963. TFantazias (his spelling) for viol consort, the last works to be written in ritten paid homage to his great predecessor Purcell many times an English form stretching back to the mid-sixteenth century. They were over as performer, arranger and composer – not least in his probably written as composition exercises – albeit masterly ones – in Second String Quartet, with its extended finale modelled, even his youth, and revised and fair-copied in 1680 and 1683. The fantasia was Bin the idiosyncratic spelling of its title, on Purcell’s Chacony. Written in essentially the instrumental equivalent of the motet, in predominantly September and October 1945, the Quartet was first performed by the contrapuntal textures, and cast in a series of contrasting episodes, each Zorian Quartet in London on 21 November that year – the exact 250th with its own thematic material. This selection from the four-part Fantasias anniversary of Purcell’s death. demonstrates Purcell’s ingenuity in handling a single theme or a pair of related themes, and the expressiveness of his slow interludes. he first movement is in one of Britten’s most imaginative rethinkings of Classical sonata form. It begins with a long melody urcell’s Chacony for four-part strings, which appears in the in octaves, magically coloured by rising major tenths which are same manuscript as the Fantasias, shows continental European Tthen sustained in double-stops; each rising tenth introduces one of the influence in its imitation of the French chaconne, with its three main ideas of the movement. A busy linking passage leads to a Pcharacteristic triple-time dance rhythm, and also of its associated second, increasingly animated presentation of the three themes. The form, a set of variations over a repeated theme, or “ground”, in the development section falls, like one of Purcell’s viol Fantasias, into a series bass. Here, the eight-bar ground is sometimes repeated in different of contrasting episodes. The much telescoped recapitulation brings back parts or at different pitches, which according to modern definitions the three main ideas simultaneously, over forceful cello arpeggios, before makes the work not a chaconne but a passacaglia. Purcell treats the sustained tenths return in the radiant coda. The second movement this potentially restrictive form with a flow of melodic invention forms a short interlude between this opening movement and the and an assured ingenuity in overlapping and dovetailing sections, to substantial finale. It is a hectic scherzo and trio in C minor, played with produce a small masterpiece of great dramatic power. That power mutes throughout. he finale begins with a unison statement of its ground bass theme. he still centre of the work is a high, sweetly sung Solo for the first This has the traditional dotted rhythmic pattern of the Baroque violin over a sparse accompaniment; in the central interlude, the chaconne, but, less traditionally, it consists of nine rather than solo line turns into birdsong-like chirping, accompanied by freely Teight bars – and even when Britten later varies the theme, sometimes Trepeated figuration in the other parts. In contrast, the Burlesque is a almost beyond recognition, he sticks to this length. The regularity of the rough and bizarre movement, with a central Quasi Trio in which the cello chaconne is broken up by free-time cadenzas for, in turn, cello, plays pizzicato, the first violin with the mute but loudly, the second violin and first violin. These divide the variations into four sequences: the first using the wood of the bow, and the viola on the wrong side of the bridge. restrained in dynamics and preserving the theme’s rhythmic character; the he closing movement was written in Venice, a city which Britten second more animated and more varied in texture; the third constituting loved, and draws on the composer’s last and most personal opera, an expressive slow episode; the last an increasingly emphatic coda. Death in Venice. Its subtitle is a traditional appellation of Venice, he last of Britten’s three string quartets dates from the final, T“the most serene Republic”, with which the city is hailed in the opera; illness-ridden years of his life. It was written in October and and its opening Recitative quotes some significant phrases from the November 1975, in the composer’s native Suffolk and on a visit opera, in alternation with evocations of the city’s bells. The Passacaglia – Tto Venice. It was intended for the Amadeus Quartet, who played it to the another example of Britten’s favourite chaconne form – is underpinned composer at his home in Aldeburgh in September 1976, and gave the by many repetitions, sometimes varied, of a short and simple theme also first public performance at nearby Snape Maltings that December – just based on Venetian bells: specifically those of Santa Maria della Salute, over two weeks after Britten’s death. which ring every 21 November (not only the anniversary of Purcell’s death but also the eve of Britten’s birthday) to commemorate the he Quartet is in five movements, with three moderately paced deliverance of the city from the plague in 1631. Above this, a melody or slow movements alternating with two scherzos, and with the from Death in Venice unfolds in each of the upper parts in turn; and longest movement last. The predominantly gentle first movement after the climax of the movement it returns, with the marking tranquillo. Tis called Duets because most of the musical argument is sustained by Finally, the passacaglia theme is fragmented, and the cello dies away on a pairs of instruments, sometimes with two pairs simultaneously discussing low D which contradicts the movement’s E major tonality. So Britten’s different material – though the four instruments make common cause last major work ends, not with a gesture of closure, but with a question in the forceful central section. The second movement uses its initial left enigmatically open. wide-striding figure as the Ostinato of the title, running irregularly – sometimes upside-down – through the whole movement. Played Anthony Burton © 2017 pizzicato, this figure accompanies the relaxed syncopations of the central trio section; and, after a quasi-fugal build-up and a recapitulation which quickly disintegrates, the syncopations have the last off-hand word. HENRY PURCELL (1659-1695) BENJAMIN BRITTEN 1 Chacony in G Minor Z 730 [5:56] String Quartet No. 3 in G Major, Op. 94 9 I. Duets. With Moderate Movement [5:32] 2 Fantazia No. 6 in F Major Z 737 [3:49] 10 II. Ostinato. Very Fast [3:17] 3 Fantazia No. 8 in D Minor Z 739 [4:13] 11 III. Solo. Very Calm [4:13] BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976) String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 36 12 IV. Burlesque. Fast – con fuoco [2:20] 4 I. Allegro calmo, senza rigore [8:07] 13 V. Recitative and Passacaglia (La Serenissima). Slow [8:49] 5 II. Vivace [3:51] 6 III. Chacony: Sostenuto [16:41] Eugene Drucker violin I (Z 730, 737, 739, 741 & 742; Op. 36) & II HENRY PURCELL Philip Setzer violin I (Op. 94) & II viola 7 Fantazia No. 10 in E Minor Z 741 [3:45] Lawrence Dutton Paul Watkins cello 8 Fantazia No. 11 in G Major Z 742 [3:09]

Produced, Engineered and Recorded by Da-Hong Seetoo / Executive Producer: Graham Parker Recorded at: LeFrak Hall, Queens College, NY and Drew University, Madison, NJ (June 2014 – January 2015) Mastered by: Da-Hong Seetoo / A&R Coordination: Allison Joyce / A&R Administration: Evelyn Morgan Production Manager: Tom Arndt / Marketing: Bailey Oppel and Joseph Oerke / Design: Ichimoto inc. Creative Director: Josh Cheuse / Photos: Tristan Cook

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