The 8th Annual Chancellor's Festival of Music University of Missouri-Columbia

AN EVENING AT ALDEBURGH

with

ERIC CROZIER and NANCY EVANS

Sponsored jointly by UMC Department of Music

and

Mid-America State Universities Visiting Distinguished Foreign Scholar Program Greetings: It is once again my pleasure to welcome members of our community to the Chancellor's Festival of Music. This year's series of concerts and related events, the eighth annual celebration of this type at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is indeed a worthy successor to past festivals and will surely prove to be an extraordinary experience for us all. This year we take note of the musical achievements of an entire era-an era whose music, more than any other, continues to delight us and whose institutions and traditions form the basis for much of our own musical life. Moreover, with the theme "The Grand Spectacle: Music of the Nineteenth Century," we pay tribute not only to the genius of now-legendary composers and performers, but to the new audience of that age. Modern concert-goers must trace their lineage, if not in fact then certainly in spirit, to the ticket-buying public of the nineteenth century. It was public support that allowed the kind of concert life we enjoy today, unprecedented before that time, to flourish. The mark of that audience is to be found in the music. No matter the setting-the concert hall, the opera house, the recital stage, even the parlor--our nineteenth-century ancestors expected their musical experiences to be extravagant ones . Through music they sought to take an emotional ride. Musicians were more than willing to provide the vehicle . The sweet melodies, the lush harmonies, the dramatic contrasts, the technical brilliance, and the large performing forces all resulted from and contributed to these expectations. In short, through a confluence of aesthetical, musical, and sociological factors, the musical products of that time have every right to be considered "grand spectacles": artworks for the ears, the eyes, the mind, and the soul. Fortunately the opportunity to indulge ourselves is at hand. Many of the special loves of the nineteenth century-grand opera, operetta, large works for chorus and orchestra, the virtuoso, musical nationalism, among them-will be featured as the Festival unfolds. In accordance with the Festival's purpose, this music will be brought to life by students, local musicians, faculty artists, and distinguished visiting musicians. This year's emphasis on the "grand spectacle" of an earlier time is but another reason for us to acknowledge the Chancellor's Festival of Music as a grand tradition at UMC.

Cordially, ~/'f7' Barbara 5. Uehling Chancellor PROGRAM

Facade: An Entertainment Wi 11 i am Walton with Poems by Edith Sitwell

1. Hornpipe 12. Country Dance 2. En famille 13. Polka 3. Mariner Man 14. Four in the Morning 4. Long Steel Grass 16. Valse 5. Through Gilded Trellises 18. Scotch Rhapsody 7. Lul 1 aby for Jumbo 19. Popular Song 8. Black Mrs. Behemoth 20. Fox-Trot "Old Sir Faulk" 11. By the Lake 21. Sir Beelzebub Nancy Evans & Eric Crozier, Reciters Faculty Chamber Players Harry Dunscombe, Conductor

Intermission

Agnus Dei Thomas Morley Three Motets, Op. 38 Charles Villiers Stanford 1. Justorum animae 2. Coelos ascendit hodie 3. Beati quorum via Nunc dimittis Gustav Holst, ed. Imogen Holst University Singers Duncan Couch, Conductor

Multi-Media Presentation: The Aldeburgh Story with Narration by Peter Pears & Commentary by Eric Crozier

String Quartet No. 3, Op. 94 Benjamin Britten III. Solo: Very calm IV. Burlesque: Fast - con fuoco V. Recitative and Passacaglia (La Serenissima) Esterhazy String Quartet

Fine Arts Recital Hall Friday, March 9, 1984 FACULTY CHAMBER PLAYERS Harry Dunscombe, Conductor Roger Martin, Flute & Piccolo Richard Hills, Clarinet & Bass Clarinet Victoria Studt, Alto Saxophone Betty Scott, Trumpet Carleton Spotts, Violoncello Frank Krager, Percussion

ESTERHAZY STRING QUARTET Eva Szekely, Violin John McLeod, Violin Carolyn Kenneson, Viola Carleton Spotts, Violoncello

UMC UNIVERSITY SINGERS Duncan Couch, Conductor

Soprano I Soprano II Alto I Alto I I Terri Cooper C. Michelle Adams Heidi Jo Crist Cathy Alder Carrie Delapp Julie Atteberry Rachel E. Ernst Celeste Brown Sarah Griffiths Brenda Chapman Myrna Kay Goessman Melania Bruner Brenda Lang Jacqueline Dumas Susan Hasselriis Pamela Depperman Anne Marie Paradise Vicky Foley Pamela Howard Dawn DeSelms Susan Riddle Kara Gower Gina Kurre Leslie Dunagan Sally Ries Jennifer Holcomb Wendelin Lockett Myra Gray Susan Seward Kelly Knight Sharon Perkins Valorie Green Donna Thomas Christi Rippeto Elizabeth Tyndall Verna Haun Christine Wallace Ann Trousdale Wendy S. Hutson Kathleen Zollner Susan Peters Katy Wilson

Tenor I Tenor II Bass I Bass II Timothy Bentch Don Bennett T. Mark Adams David Barlet Brian Garner Kurt Bannick Ford Ross Bernhardt W. Mitchell Camp David Greenlee Gregory A. Fuller Kevin Day Eric Foley Louis Heyneman Kent Jones Robert Driver Jeffrey L. Groves Randal Wilson Randall Leonard Mark Holcomb Vincent Mast Steven A. Wisecup Michael Triplett Mark Jess Larry Mudd Curtis Shaw Gregg Peters Ray Smith John Wehrle Jess Wade Jeff Zumsteg

Dana DePugh, Rehearsal Accompanist ERIC CROZIER AND NANCY EVANS Eric Crozier's career can be traced in tenns of friendships. Before World War II he was the youngest director in the BBC Television Ser­ vice; then as stage director he became closely associated with Tyrone Guthrie at the Old Vic and at Sadler's Wells Opera. This led in turn to a friendship of many years with the composer Benjamin Britten and to their collaboration in the writing and staging of his operas Peter Grimes (Crozier staged the English premiere in 1945 and the American premiere in 1946), The Rape of Lucrezia, Albert Herring, and others. Britten and Crozier also collaborated in founding in 1947 The English Opera Group and in 1948 The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, which is still flourishing. In the latter endeavor they were aided by a group of enthusiastic friends including Peter Pears, Nancy Evans, John Piper, and Frederick Ashton. In 1950 Crozier was invited to join novelist E. M. Forster in preparing the libretto for Britten's opera Billy Budd. This in its turn led to a long friendship with Forster. Crozier is married to the noted English mezzo soprano Nancy Evans, who is highly regarded for her work in Britten operas. Having joined The English Opera Group in 1947, she alternated with Kathleen Ferrier in the title role of The Rape of Lucrezia. She created the role of Nancy in Albert Herring and sang Lucinda Woodcock in Love in a Village and Polly in Britten's version of The Beggar's Opera. Presently Miss Evans serves as Co-Director of Singing with Peter Pears at the Britten­ Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies. The residency of Eric Crozier and Nancy Evans at UMC is sponsored in part by the Mid-America State Universities Visiting Distinguished Foreign Scholar Program.

THE MALTINGS COMPLEX AT SNAPE When Benjamin Britten was writing his opera Peter Grimes, he looked frequently from his window in the Old Mill at Snape to a group of nineteenth-century buildings known as "the Maltings." He often com­ mented that they would make a marvelous setting for a music center. The Snape Maltings Complex, which evolved from The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, now stands as a living memorial to the genius and vision of this distinguished musician. Set among the marshes and reeds so typical of the Suffolk landscape, the complex is today a major center for the performing arts and for study. It is the home of the prestigious Aldeburgh Festival. The exceptionally fine acoustical properties of its concert hall have made it an important studio for recording and for radio and television broadcasting. It is also the home of the Britten-Pears School, an institution created to provide young musicians of outstanding ability the opportunity to study for short intensive periods with eminent teachers. Its first master classes for singers were held in 1972. In 1979 the school's permanent quarters, located in a renovated bar­ ley store nearby, were opened by Her Majesty the Queen Mother. The Maltings Complex at Snape is pictured on tonight's program cover. Tonight's "Evening at Aldeburgh" pays tribute to British music. Two aspects of the musical heritage of Great Britain have been chosen for sampling: the English cathedral tradition of choral music and the imposing contributions of two twentieth-century masters, William Wal­ ton (1902-1983) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). The choral music by Thomas Morley (1557-1602), Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), and Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is representative of the Elizabethan Renaissance and the "English Renaissance" perceived to have occurred around the turn of the last century. Like the musical evolution of many countries, British music history is thought to have suffered because of the hospitality and generosity of spirit extended to foreign composers. The compositions on this program, while in no way denying the role of imported music in Britain's musical life, demonstrate the durable achievements of native composers--gifts to their countrymen as well as to music lovers throughout the world. * * * * * Years after the fact, when asked how Facade had come about, Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) responded, "It was a kind of dare. Willie gave me different rhythms and said, 'Here you are, Edith; see what you can do with that.'" Actually there was more to it. The unusual suite for chamber ensemble contrived around the recitation of poetry was the brainchild of the decidedly eccentric Sitwells--Edith and her brothers Osbert (1892-1969) and Sacheverell (born 1897)--and their fledgling musical protege William Walton. In the 1920s, after he had abandoned his formal studies at Oxford, Walton lived periodically in England and abroad with the Sitwells as "adopted, or elected, brother." Such an arrangement could do little but enrich the experience of the choirmaster's son. Aristocrats with a venerable pedigree, the Sit­ wells were passionately involved in contemporary artistic developments of all kinds and enjoyed close associations with many of the creative spirits of their time. Today, according to many authorities, they are viewed as the most celebrated literary family of the twentieth century. In his autobiography Laughter in the Next Room (1949), Osbert Sitwell describes the creation of "the entertainment" ori gi na lly intended for his family's drawing room: The idea of Facade first entered our minds as the re­ sult of certain technical experiments at which my sister had recently been working: experiments in obtaining through the medium of words the rhythm of dance measures such as waltzes, polkas, foxtrots. These exercises were often ex­ perimental enquiries into the effect of rhythm, on speed, and on colour of the use of rhymes, assonances, dissonances, placed outwardly, at different places in the line, in most elaborate patterns .... Otherwise, apart from this general origin in the words, it is difficult to say which of us thought of the various parts of the production, for we were all four continually in one another's company, and as soon as the initial idea had somehow ... entered the air, it filled us with enthusiasm. Other goals identified for the project included elevating the speaking voice to the level of the supporting instruments and eliminating the personalities of the reciter and musicians--both in an effort to de­ vise an abstract method of rendering poetry to an audience. This search for "cool objectivity," for divesting the arts of the emotion­ laden manner of the Romantic Era, was a high priority among artists at this time. Thus, in private and public perfonnances in London in 1922 and 1923, Miss Sitwell, who declaimed her own poetry, and the musicians were hidden by a curtain specially prepared by Frank Dobson. Featured in its center was an enormous thespian mask whose open mouth was filled with the bell of a megaphone-like instrument. The disembodied voice of the poet reached its auditors through the mouth of the mask. The initial public perfonnances of Facade were surrounded with the kind of intense reaction so typical of artistic experiments early in this century. Much of the criticism was directed at the controversial Sitwells. The piece's title had, in fact, been borrowed from a harsh characterization of Edith Sitwell by an unappreciative fellow artist. While the composer was not left untouched by the critics, the score helped establish the twentyish Walton as a promising figure in English musical circles. His appropriation of popular dance elements, like the poet's, is very much of the period. Although his conception of the work may owe something to the Schoenberg of Pierrot Lunaire (1912), his debt to French influences seems more direct: Ravel, the Stravin­ sky of Ragtime for 11 Instruments and L'Histoire du Soldat (both 1918), and Parisian cabaret music. The poet, likewise, had been influenced by the French Symbolists. The stylishness, the sense of parody and wit, the kaleidoscopic moods presented in the fast-paced series of miniatures, the clever fit with Miss Sitwell's poetry have made Facade Walton's most popular work, although it is not representative of his subsequent composition. It is likely to endure as a channing souvenir of the 1920s and, as it was intended to be, a sophisticated "entertainment." * * * * * Dominating British music since World War II, the prolific Benjamin Britten created a corpus of masterworks that commanded the attention of the i nternational music community. He is arguably the first Brit­ ish composer of the highest stature since Henry Purcell (1658-1695). His String Quartet No. 3, Op. 94 (1975) was his last creation. Three of its five elements are presented here: a lyrical study for violin, a dance movement suggesting a fractured waltz, and a dirge-like finale in the form of a passacaglia. The latter is entitled "La Serenissima" after "The Most Serene Republic" of Venice, where the work was com­ pleted. Appropriately the composer, who had accomplished so much in reviving English art song and opera, interrupts the passacaglia's be­ ginning with instrumental recitatives for each quartet member recall­ ing principal themes from his last opera Death in Venice (1973). Britten did not live to hear the quartet given its premiere. The extroverted nature that marks so many of his works seems to co­ exist with a quality of resignation and gentle introspection in this piece. Francis Routh's observations about Britten's style, dating from 1972, remain cogent: His music is highly and unusually personal: that is to say, its creative impulse is his individual artistic response to an image; technical considerations, however striking, are secondary. His idiom, based on tonality, is ingenious, not new; he is not interested in novelty, abstraction or serial­ ism, still less in the impersonal experiments of the avant­ garde. So his music relies for its effect on a direc~ personal rapport with the listener .... This substantial quartet for strings with its Venetian death motif, so meaningful in the realm of music history, is a fitting swansong for this twentieth-century master. Notes by Michael Budds _,·. ...- . :" .i ...... :" i ~ .... , :: ~.;. ·-· ~.,,: - •'. "' ~.,. -· :-- .·

THE 8TH ANNUAL CHANCELLOR ' S FESTIVAL OF MUSIC

THE GRAND SPECTACLE: MUSIC OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

LA BOHEME THE MIKAOO New York City Opera LMC Opera Workshop Friday, February 3 Friday-Saturday February 24-25

AN EVENING AT ALOEBURGH Eric Crozier & Nancy Evans Saint Lou is Symphony LMC Facu 1ty Performers Leonard Slatkin, Conductor University Singers Wednesday, March 14 Friday. March 9

BEETHOVEN ' S NINTH ALL OVORAK PROGRAM LMC Choral Union Czech Philharmonic Atlanta Symphony Nathaniel Rosen, Cellist Robert Shaw, Conductor Tuesday, April 3 Tuesday, March 27

VOICE RECITAL Patricia Miller, Mezzo Soprano Sunday, April 15