Sea Symphony Prog Final

Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral Society presents a concert dedicated to the memory of Roy Douglas RTWCS with the Salomon Orchestra, Julie Cooper – Soprano, and Andrew Mayor – Baritone Conducted by Rebecca Miller Assembly Hall Theatre on Saturday 23rd April 2016 at 7.30pm Generously Supported by Programme £2 Burfields House Wealth Management Ltd www.burfieldshouse.co.uk Supported also, for this concert only, by The William Alwyn Foundation @RTWChoralSoc This concert is dedicated to the memory of our late president, Roy Douglas, who died in 2015 at the age of 107. Roy became President of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral Society in the late 1980s and continued in that office until his death on March 23rd 2015. He took a great interest in all our activities and always attended our concerts as long as he was able. Roy was a most distinguished musician, both on his own account and in support of other great British composers, including William Walton and, notably, Ralph Vaughan Williams whose music we will perform today. In addition to being President of RTWCS, Roy was also President of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Symphony Orchestra. Many local musicians, as well as the wider musical world, owe Roy a huge debt of gratitude. — Programme — The National Anthem (to be sung by the choir) Elizabethan Dances by William Alwyn No. 1. Moderato e ritmico No. 2. Waltz tempo - languidamente No. 3. Allegro scherzando (ma non troppo allegro) No. 4. Moderato No. 5. Poco allegretto e semplice No. 6. Allegro giocoso — INTERVAL — A Sea Symphony (Symphony no. 1) by Ralph Vaughan Williams Part 1. A Song for All Seas, All Ships Part 2. On the Beach at Night Alone Part 3. The Waves (Scherzo) Part 4. The Explorers Cover picture: JWM Turner: Sheerness as seen from the Nore - Wikimedia Commons RTWCS are indebted to their sponsors, Burfields House Wealth Management Ltd for their continuing financial support. For this particular concert, we also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of The William Alwyn Foundation. The William Alwyn Foundation was established by a Trust Deed in April 1990 at the instigation of the composer’s widow Mary Alwyn (née Doreen Carwithen), with the intention of perpetuating the performance, recording and broadcast of Alwyn’s work, thus furthering knowledge of the composer’s achievements. 2 Wealth Management Ltd Royal Tunbridge WellsBurfields Choral HouseSociety is proud to support the Hit the right note with award-winning advice… W e focus solely on providing face-to-face advice and offer a dedicated, personal wealth management service to build long-term, trusted relationships with our clients. 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Burfields House, Goudhurst TN17 1AE PARTNERS IN MANAGING YOUR WEALTH Email: [email protected] Web: www.burfieldshouse.co.uk The Partner Practice represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products. The title ‘Partner Practice’ is the marketing term used to describe St. James’s Place representatives. 3 Programme Notes Elizabethan Dances by William Alwyn (1905-1985) orthampton-born William Alwyn was a fine Nall-round musician: a flautist in the London Symphony Orchestra, and an excellent pianist. He had been appointed a Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of twenty-one and remained there for thirty years. He was also Chairman and a founder member of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain. His catalogue of compositions is wide-ranging, including five symphonies, concertos and over sixty superbly crafted film scores. Many people may have heard William Alwyn's ©Wolfgang Suschitzky 1960 music without necessarily realising the fact an orchestral cycle. Alywn's First Symphony since he wrote nearly two hundred scores for was completed in 1950 and premièred and the cinema during the golden age of British championed by Sir John Barbirolli, and the Cinema in the 1940s and 1950s including Fourth Symphony was finished in 1959. Alwyn Desert Victory, Odd Man Out, The History of then concentrated on opera for at least the next Mr Polly, The Rocking Horse Winner, The decade, writing Juan or The Libertine based on Crimson Pirate, The Winslow Boy and A Night the Don Juan legend and Miss Julie, based on to Remember. He was one of the first the Strindberg play. composers to have his name included in the opening credits and the only composer, until In addition to his talents as a musician, Alwyn more recently, to be made a Fellow of the was also a poet and painter. British Film Academy. The Elizabethan Dances were composed in Alwyn began writing concert music early in his 1956/7 for a BBC light music festival, and they career; he disowned much of his early work, consist of six short dance movements. The but the unpublished works are kept in the Alwyn styles arguably allude to both that of music of Archive at Cambridge University Library. Elizabeth I and the young Queen Elizabeth II. After 1945 he began a project to compose a quartet of symphonies with the intention of building on the Beethovenian model to make 4 A SEA SYMPHONY (Symphony no 1) by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) he early works of Vaughan Williams show little Tevidence of that unmistakable personal idiom which is so recognisable to music-lovers. He began to develop his individual style in his thirties, with “Songs of Travel”, “A Norfolk Rhapsody” and “Toward the Unknown Region” ; then came the work which established him as an important composer of remarkable originality. the universe, man’s place in the scheme of time, A Sea Symphony was first performed at the Leeds and the journey of the soul toward an unknown Festival in 1910, conducted by the composer; he region. The music has a solemn spaciousness was then thirty-eight, and had spent seven years and a kind of ecstatic yearning. After a long working on it. Walt Whitman’s words deal with the section for chorus and orchestra only, the sea in varying moods and aspects, the ships, and soloists have an extended duet, in which the the men who sail in them. But there is also a more baritone seems to represent man, and the philosophical meaning: man sailing on the sea of soprano his soul; this beautiful passage has a life, and the voyage of his soul to its ultimate rapt, religious fervour. destination. Suddenly the music becomes more vigorous, The opening is electrifying when heard for the with the chorus singing “Away, O Soul! Hoist first time. After a very brief fanfare the chorus instantly the anchor . Sail forth, steer for the proclaims: “Behold the sea itself, and on its deep waters only”; the soloists join in, and a very limitless, heaving breast, the ships”; on the word dramatic climax is reached. After a brief silence, “sea” the orchestra comes surging in, conveying the mood changes to quiet resignation; soloists an impression of great waves. Later, the words and chorus sing the words “O my brave soul! O are concerned with ships, wind and spray, farther, farther sail” ; and the music sails farther sailors, and flags of all nations; towards the end and farther away until it is completely out of our a quieter section is a lament for “all that went hearing. down, doing their duty”; the movement ends peacefully. Programme Note by Roy Douglas (written for RTWCS performance in 1982) The second movement is headed “On the beach at night, alone”, and the orchestra begins by depicting a deserted seashore, with the waves lapping gently in the darkness. The poem tells of the “one-ness” of the universe, “all distances, all souls, all nations, all identities, this vast similitude spans them” In the third movement, ‘‘The Waves”, which is very lively indeed, chorus and orchestra combine to give a vivid picture of sweeping waves, flying spray and billowing sails. “The Explorers”, the final movement, is the longest and most profound. Here the poet and composer grapple with the subjects of the world, Roy Douglas working with Vaughan Williams on his Symphonia Antartica 5 The Words of A Sea Symphony 1. A Song for All Seas, All Ships Behold, the sea itself, And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships; See where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue, See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port, See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke. Behold, the sea itself, And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships. Today a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships - of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations. Fitful like a surge. Of sea-captains young and old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay, Picked sparingly, without noise by thee, old ocean, chosen by thee, Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest the nations, Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, Indomitable, untamed as thee.

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