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CHAN 10167 Front.qxd 24/7/08 11:57 am Page 1 CHANDOS CHAN 10167 CHAN 10167 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 11:58 am Page 2 Michael Berkeley (b. 1948) premiere recording 1 Concerto for Organ and Orchestra* 20:11 Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903–1989) premiere recording 2 Voices of the Night, Op. 86 8:56 for Orchestra P. Abbey Camera Press, London/Berkeley Abbey Camera Press, family P. Andante Michael Berkeley premiere recording 3 Viola Concerto† 16:10 Revised version, 1996 Lennox Berkeley 3 CHAN 10167 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 11:58 am Page 4 The Berkeley Edition, Volume 4 Sir Lennox Berkeley Sir Lennox Berkeley began his composing his ‘very strong voice’. It was written in 1958, career in the vanguard of British music, as a in response to one of the Feeney Trust’s Symphony No. 2 25:53 pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Paris between regular commissions for the City of Revised version, 1976 1927 and 1932, and a friend of Poulenc and Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. That 4 I Lento – Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Lento 8:38 the brilliant young Britten. But in the 1950s orchestra gave the first performance in 5 II Allegro vivace – Meno vivo – Tornando al tempo I 3:39 and ’60s, as Britain gradually caught up with February 1959, with its music director Andrzej avant-garde developments in mainland Europe, 6 III Lento – Più vivo – Largamente – Tempo I 8:12 Panufnik (who was shortly afterwards to resign Berkeley’s music came to seem conservative, the post in order to concentrate on 7 IV Allegro 5:14 even ‘old hat’. As a result he explored some of composing). Seventeen years later, in 1976, TT 71:26 the possibilities of serial technique and of Berkeley thoroughly revised the work for its more dissonant harmony, before coming to the first recording. In his sleeve note (quoted in † Paul Silverthorne viola conclusion ‘that he had a very strong voice of Peter Dickinson’s invaluable The Music of Thomas Trotter organ* his own and he should continue to cultivate Lennox Berkeley) he explained that most of his BBC National Orchestra of Wales that’. Those are the words of his son, the revisions had concerned the scoring: he felt composer Michael Berkeley, who himself that at the time of writing the piece he had Lucy Gould leader achieved substantial success early in his career been too ‘preoccupied… with keeping the Richard Hickox writing in a conservative idiom, but from the various orchestral colours distinct’, and had mid-1980s onwards – against rather than with decided ‘that the work would gain from a freer the grain of the times – considerably and more robust treatment’. toughened his musical language with elements However, the use of the orchestra in blocks of modernism. At the same time, though, he of string, woodwind and brass sonority is still retained the gift for clear, direct one of the distinctive features of the communication with an audience which has symphony: not least at the start, when a marked all his work. subdued slow introduction for wind, timpani Symphony No. 2 – the second of four – and harp precedes the initially hesitant first was one of the earliest works to which Lennox theme of the main D minor Allegro on the Berkeley admitted elements of modernist strings alone, answered by the woodwind. dissonance, though without ever compromising A more assertive developmental transition, in 4 5 CHAN 10167 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 11:58 am Page 6 bright mixed colours, leads to a lyrical second The finale is in a clear D major, and was that it was associated in his mind with a Berkeley’s own, describing Peter’s three theme begun by the oboe with woodwind described by the composer as a rondo with passage from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself denials of Christ. They appear, the composer support, and continued by the brass. The ‘features that are so easily recognisable that beginning, ‘I am he that walks with the tender says, as ‘diatonic lies’ in the prevailing context central development section includes some no detailed analysis is necessary’. However, and growing night’. The music has an of atonality. jagged syncopations momentarily reminiscent this may be a better guide to Berkeley’s exploratory character, with no clear key centre; As this suggests, the Organ Concerto marks of the style of Berkeley’s slightly older organic, developmental mode of symphonic the textures are generally spare, but warmed the moment at which Michael Berkeley’s shift contemporary Walton, and reaches a climax at thought than to the music itself! The breezy by pervasive thirds in the harmony. The towards modernism burst out with full force. which the brass reintroduce a salient main theme is transformed into flowing opening, with curling woodwind phrases This is evident not only in the generally high three-note motive from the introduction. A woodwind lines when it returns to launch the answered by murmuring triplets in the lower level of dissonance, but also in the use of telescoped and very free recapitulation is predominantly contrapuntal central episode; strings, soon gives way to more expansive free-time textures of the kind devised by the followed by a coda which is a varied version of and it does not remain unvaried for long on its melodic writing, and a quickening of tempo Polish composer Witold Lutosl⁄awski, in which the introduction, in sombre blended colours. third and last appearance. This theme is and note values leads to a broad and individual lines are played without reference to The scherzo is placed second. Its vivacious complemented by a distinctive subsidiary idea, sonorous climax. After a brief return of the each other or to a regular pulse. Texture is opening section is permeated by the alternately smooth and chirpy, which is opening ideas, a bell sounds the chimes of indeed an especially important element syncopated rhythm of the initial oboe melody; introduced in the first episode, and midnight – albeit, as the composer admitted, throughout the work, which unlike most organ after a slightly slower middle section with a recapitulated shortly before this finale – unlike ‘rather erratically’ – to punctuate the concertos employs a large orchestra. The solo main theme growing out of a single repeated the previous movements – reaches a loud and atmospheric coda. instrument is sometimes relegated to the note, the syncopated rhythm returns well brilliant conclusion. Michael Berkeley’s Organ Concerto was background, sometimes used together with before the oboe tune itself – which, when it Lennox Berkeley composed Voices of the also written to be performed in a cathedral wind instruments to create tangles of comes, triggers a fade-out ending. The slow Night in 1973, in response to a commission setting. A commission of the International melodies, and sometimes combined with the movement begins with austere counterpoint from the venerable Three Choirs Festival; he Congress of Organists, in association with full orchestra to powerful effect. for muted strings and then trombones, to conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Eastern Arts, it was premiered by Gillian Weir At the outset, against a tolling bell, a which contrast is provided by a woodwind Orchestra in the first performance in August in Ely Cathedral in July 1987; and, unlike his trumpet announces a chant-like melody in melody constructed from falling fourths. The that year, in Hereford Cathedral. Despite these father in Voices of the Night, Berkeley imbued narrow intervals, which is then repeated by all tempo increases slightly for a more sacred surroundings, and his own life-long the work with specific religious associations. three trumpets, entering in turn without declamatory central episode beginning with Christian beliefs, the composer conceived the He describes it as less a conventional concerto precise co-ordination, each a semitone higher urgent rising sevenths, which eventually lead work in entirely secular terms: he described it than a work of ‘ritual’, inspired by his years as than the last. A complex free-time texture is the way to a singing climax. There is another as an impressionistic nocturne, in which he a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, and in gradually built up, then overtaken by of Berkeley’s modified and telescoped had tried ‘to give expression to the mysterious particular by the liturgy of Easter: ‘the strict-time music, with the Easter motet reprises, this time of the first two ideas, atmosphere of night, and to reproduce the bringing of light after darkness and the making its first fleeting appearance in the opening out into a developmental coda with a heightened romantic feelings that it can purifying power of fire’. This is reinforced by lower strings, and the full orchestra and organ quiet, uneasy conclusion. arouse more powerfully than day’. He also said quotations from an early Easter motet of building up to a battering climax. In the 6 7 CHAN 10167 BOOK.qxd 24/7/08 11:58 am Page 8 aftermath of this, a wide-spanning phrase on viola is heard chiefly in its penetratingly One of the world’s foremost viola soloists, Chailly and Sir Charles Mackerras, and he has unison strings launches a more diverse but expressive upper register, sometimes indeed Paul Silverthorne has performed with major also appeared at the festivals of Salzburg, still urgent central section, mostly led by the extremely high, with the gruff lower register orchestras in the USA and throughout Europe Berlin, Vienna and Edinburgh, and at the BBC brilliant solo instrument. When this section used for contrast and the paler middle register under conductors such as John Adams, Proms. He was consultant for the new organs loses momentum, in an extended version of least of all.