Mahler Booklet
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WENDY DIXON SOPRANO 472 225-2 JOHN PRINGLE BARITONE MARINA MARSDEN VIOLIN DAVID MILLER PIANO THE SONGS OF HORACE KEATS 3 Horace Keats (1895-1945) ᖇ Yellow Bracken 1’30 ᖑᖞ Columbine 2’05 ᖈ In What Other Places ᖑᖟ The Point Of Noon 3’19 Do You Live? 2’57 ᖑᖠ Moonlit Apples 3’20 ᖉ We Sat Entwined 5’08 ᖑᖡ Spring Breezes 2’16 ᖊ The Orange Tree 5’05 ᖑᖢ Fear 1’44 ᖋ Sea-Wraith 2’48 ᖑᖣ Heaven Haven 2’35 ᖒᖤ ᖌ Galleons 1’44 Versicle 1’10 ᖒᖛ ᖍ Love’s Secret 2’20 Over The Quiet Waters 2’51 ᖒᖜ ᖎ Sun After Rain 3’43 Goldfish 2’50 ᖒᖝ ᖏ I Am Shut Out Of Mine Plucking The Rushes 2’13 ᖒᖞ Own Heart 5’29 The Fishing Pools 2’24 ᖒᖟ Once I Could Sit By ᖑᖤ White Heather 2’14 The Fire Hour Long 3’12 ᖑᖛ Of Old, On Her Terrace ᖒᖠ The Roads Beside The Sea 2’27 At Evening 3’45 ᖒᖡ Drake’s Call 2’50 ᖑᖜ The Trespass 2’21 ᖑᖝ Echo 4’07 Total Playing Time 78’27 Wendy Dixon, soprano ᖇ-ᖊ, ᖍ-ᖑᖤ, ᖑᖝ-ᖑᖡ, ᖑᖣ, ᖒᖛ, ᖒᖝ, ᖒᖟ John Pringle, baritone ᖋ, ᖌ, ᖑᖛ, ᖑᖜ, ᖑᖢ, ᖒᖤ, ᖒᖜ, ᖒᖞ, ᖒᖠ, ᖒᖡ Marina Marsden, violin ᖑᖝ David Miller, pianist 2 3 Horace Keats from Perth to New Zealand, sometimes singing and broadcasting career, she adopted the ABC’s Sydney Orchestra …” recruiting, training and conducting small her professional name, Barbara Russell (the Some years later, whilst in Perth with want to say in music what the poet orchestras, at other times, playing the names of their first two children). the ABC, Keats turned to composition. His has said in words …” responded the theatre piano. This experience developed After some years of freelancing, he was wife was broadcasting from 6WF at the IAustralian composer, Horace Keats, to a his unique skill to play the piano using an engaged as the pianist for the Farmer & Co. time and was in need of a greater variety of question in the Australian Composers Speak orchestral score. Trio. This was to become the ensemble songs to sing. She was entranced by series recorded by the ABC in 1945. In 1918, Horace Keats, met the young engaged by 2FC when they commenced Chinese poetry and had found a number of Born in London, England in 1895, singer whom he was to marry, Janet le Brun. broadcasting in 1923. Prior to this, both he lyrics but was unable to have them set. Horace Keats left home at the age of 16 to In later years in the course of her successful and his wife had participated in the testing However during 1933, Frank Hutchens earn his a living as a pianist. He toured the for musical broadcasts in studios situated was also in Perth, so she approached him to countryside with concert parties (as they on the Roof Garden of Farmers in Pitt set these lyrics. His response was, “No, we’ll were known then) and later as the ship’s Street, Sydney. It was from this trio that make Horace do them.” Hutchens left a pianist on various liners that sailed from the emerged, in the words of the ABC Weekly, day or so after and as the train was pulling U.K. As a young man of 20 years he arrived “From 3 [members] to 45 and 80 for public out of the station he lent out the window in Australia in 1915 as accompanist to the concerts, is the record [of the beginning] of and called, “Hey Mrs. K. make Horace set American diseuse, Nella Webb. Here he met, amongst others, two prominent singers of the day, Ella Caspers and Peter Dawson. Both these artists prevailed on the young pianist to remain in Australia, which he did after seeking permission to break his contract with Webb. He later came to consider himself as first and foremost, an Australian. In the years prior to commencing a lifetime association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), he toured throughout Australia as a pianist and conductor. This included involvement with the ‘moving pictures’ The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, which saw him tour Peter Dawson c. 1915 The original 2FC Orchestra founded during 1942. Horace Keats, conductor; Lionel Lawson, leader. 4 5 those songs for you.” Shortly after Keats set not suffice. These became some of the Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1936, the poetry she selected, one of them, Plucking composer’s proudest possessions and copies by Kathleen Donavan, then Honorary the Rushes, may be heard on this disc. may be seen in his biography, A Poets Secretary of the Chris Brennan Committee Problems were frequently experienced Composer by Brennan Keats or the originals who wrote: “All lovers of Brennan’s work in obtaining permission to set Chinese viewed at the State Library, Sydney. have noted the irresistible songfulness of lyrics, so Kenneth Mackenzie, a young In the course of 1936 the composer some of his lyrics. No one has noticed it writer who had been befriended by the and his wife, whilst at a dinner party, found better than Horace Keats.” Later in the Keats, agreed to write poetry in the Chinese displayed on a coffee table a book of same letter she said: “… that hearing them, idiom for the composer. This was gladly Christopher Brennan poems. Barbara Russell, [the initial Brennan settings] we heard the accepted and a number of Mackenzie lyrics constantly looking for new words to sing, fusion of two artists – the poet and the were set. It is interesting that in these was struck by Brennan’s work and wanted musician.” In 1941, the Australian poet, settings, Keats consistently used more her husband to set them. Despite his Hugh McCrae, wrote in a letter to the whole tones than in his other songs and in protestations, the composer eventually went composer referring to the Brennan settings so doing, was writing ahead of his about making enquiries for permission to saying; “The settings … restored Brennan contemporary Australians. Was it this that use the poetry and later won the exclusive to me ... the music more revelational than prompted Roger Covell to write many years rights to set Brennan’s poetry during the the words – or nature, the music opened later in Australia’s Music 1967 “In contrast composer’s lifetime. The poet and the meaning of the words … opened our to the coy warbling that degrades so much composer were unknown to each other, mind to receive it. Positively you have of Australian song-writing of the last fifty although Keats recalls seeing Brennan in become responsible for the apotheosis of a years Horace Keats … had a touch in song- Sydney’s Darlinghurst area with his great poet.” writing of a distinctly finer order …”? distinctive pipe and his cloak billowing Horace Keats set the works of many Eventually the Keats family returned to behind him as he strode down the street. other Australian and overseas poets and Sydney and some time later Mackenzie also As did many others, Keats considered the these songs are well represented in this Janet and Horace Keats moved across. It was through him that the Brennan settings to be his finest. A visiting recording and other records made over the composer was introduced to the poet, British critic, Neville Cardus, had been years such as that made with the contralto he died at 50 years of age. Shortly after, the Hugh McCrae. Once more, another lifetime known to say that he could think of nothing Lauris Elms and Gordon Watson at the distinct change in music away from a friendship was created. Both McCrae and worse than the train trip between Melbourne piano, recorded in 1972. He wrote for melodious to an atonal sound became Keats admired each other’s work and and Sydney, but that he would gladly endure films, musicals, radio plays, as well as apparent. It was Neville Cardus who was regular correspondence flowed between it to hear a recital of the Brennan Songs. arranging a number of his songs for string reputed to have said that had this composer them with many of the McCrae letters Success in his aim to put poetry into quartets and small orchestras. It was sad lived he would have adapted to this change. containing drawings when words would his music is demonstrated by a letter to the that, at the height of his composing career, It appeared that the Keats’ songs were no 6 7 longer relevant in this period but it seems song ever performed by the composer and ᖇ Yellow Bracken replied, saying that he was proud to be the they have always been used by teachers and his wife. Worked into the background and author of the line, but having sold the performed in the Horace Keats Section in looking directly up at the composer is the The poem Yellow Bracken by John Cowper rights of the book to a publishing house, the City of Sydney Eisteddfod. Now there ghostly form of Barbara Russell’s piano teacher, Powys (who lived in Corwen, North Wales) was not sure of his authority to give the has been a return to melody and the Keats’ Ida Gurney, who accurately predicted that was set by Horace Keats on 20 July 1937. necessary permission, but told me to go songs have been welcomed back by audiences, Horace Keats would become a composer. Sir Charles Mackerras used the song in his ahead as he liked the idea, and in any case and performers as well as continuing to be The portrait was submitted for the Archibald youth as an oboe solo, doubtless using the it was easier that way!” used teachers and students alike.