Illiam Shakespeare Died Four Hundred Years Ago This Year at the Age of Fifty- Two
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CANTORUM CHOIR Patron Sponsor Ralph Allwood MBE Aspen Worldwide antorum Choir is a dedicated and talented choir of approximately forty voices, based in Cookham, Berkshire. Under the directorship of Elisabeth Croft, the ensembleC continues to earn itself a reputation as one of the leading chamber choirs in the area. Cantorum boasts a wide-ranging repertoire and performs professional- quality concerts throughout the year. Two years ago, in the Choir of the Year 2014 competition, Cantorum was placed 5th nationally in the adult choir category. Two weeks ago, we entered the regional auditions in St Albans for Choir of the Year 2016. We are very proud to share the judge’s response: ‘That was absolutely sensational!’ The choir now goes through to the next level. We will keep you posted! Soprano Alto Julia Bentley-Dawkes, Kate Cromar Celia Armstrong, Bridget Bentley Louise Evans, Kirsty Janusz Jill Burton, Jami Castell Jenny Knight, Julia Millard Sarah Evans, Anne Glover Hilary Monaghan, Joy Strzelecki Anna Jacobs, Sandy Johnstone Deborah Templing, Philippa Wallace Elspeth Scott, Chiu Sung Lorna Sykes Tenor Bass Anthony Dowlatshahi, Philip Martineau, Derek Beaven, John Buck Peter Roe, Malcolm Stork Arthur Creswell, Gordon Donkin John Timewell David Hazeldine, Ed Millard Paul Seddon 2 Elisabeth Croft (née Toye)—Music Director Elisabeth is a graduate of Birmingham University and also of the Royal Academy of Music, where she won the 2004 Michael Head Prize for English Song and the 2005 Arthur Bliss Prize for Twentieth Century Music. In 2008, she won the A.E.S.S. Patricia Routledge National Prize for English Song and has subsequently built a busy and successful career as a professional soprano, vocal coach, and choral trainer. She has for some years been working with Berkshire Maestros (The Young Musicians Trust) and is currently director of Berkshire Young Voices, the county training choir. She is also a regular tutor for the National Youth Choirs of Wales. Adrienne Black—Piano Adrienne studied at the Royal College of Music, where she won the inter-collegiate Raymond Russell and Geoffrey Tankard harpsichord prizes. She has performed as a piano/harpsichord soloist, accompanist/continuo player and chamber musician throughout the UK and in Europe, in venues ranging from palaces and prisons (with Sir Yehudi Menuhin’s ‘Live Music Now) to the South Bank. She teaches piano and accompanies for Bradfield College, is the Artistic Director for ‘Concerts in Caversham’—a successful and fully professional Chamber Concert series—and is also much in demand playing for dance in the South of England. Samples from the original texts for Three Shakespeare Songs by Vaughan Williams Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing Full fathom five thy father lies; Enter from opposite sides, A FAIRY and PUCK Of his bones are coral made; PUCK Those are pearls that were his eyes: How now, spirit! Whither wander you? Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change FAIRY Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Burthen: Ding-dong Over park, over pale, Hark! now I hear them: Ding-dong, bell. Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, PROSPERO Swifter than the moone's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, You do look, my son, in a mov’d sort, To dew her orbs upon the green: As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; Our revels now are ended. These our actors, In their gold coats spots you see; As I foretold you, were all spirits and Those be rubies, fairy favours, Are melted into air, into thin air: In those freckles live their savours; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, I must go seek some dewdrops here The solemn temples, the great globe itself, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Our queen and all our elves come here anon. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. 3 If Music be the Food of Love... Birthday Madrigals John Rutter It was a Lover and his Lass (from As You Like It) Draw on Sweet Night (John Wilbye 1574—1638) Come live with me (Christopher Marlowe/?Ralegh/?Shakespeare) My True Love hath my Heart (Sir Philip Sidney 1554—1586 Astrophel & Stella) When Daisies pied (from Love’s Labour’s Lost) Three Shakespeare Songs Ralph Vaughan Williams Full Fathom Five (from The Tempest) The Cloud-capped Towers (from The Tempest) Over Hill, over Dale (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream) From ‘Let us Garlands Bring’ Gerald Finzi Come away, come away, Death (from Twelfth Night) Baritone Derek Beaven Who is Silvia? (from Two Gentlemen of Verona) & O Mistress Mine (from Twelfth Night) Baritone Ed Millard Songs of Springtime E J Moeran Under the Greenwood Tree (Shakespeare) The River-God’s Song (John Fletcher 1579—1625) Spring, the Sweet Spring (Thomas Nashe 1567—1601) Love is a Sickness (Samuel Daniel 1562—1619) Sigh no more, Ladies (Shakespeare) Good Wine (William Browne 1591—1643) To Daffodils (Robert Herrick 1591—1674) Interval 4 Her Sacred Spirit Soars Eric Whitacre The choir is split into two units. The text is an acrostic sonnet specially written by Charles Anthony Silvestri Song for Athene John Tavener The text is adapted by Mother Thekla of Whitby from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Orthodox Church Funeral Service Songs and Sonnets George Shearing Live with me and be my Love (Christopher Marlowe/?Ralegh/?Shakespeare) When Daffodils begin to peer (from The Winter’s Tale) Who is Silvia? (from Two Gentlemen of Verona) Fie on sinful Fantasy (from The Merry Wives of Windsor) Hey, ho, the Wind and the Rain (from Twelfth Night) West Side Story Medley Bernstein/Sondheim Arr. Len Thomas Tonight I feel pretty Maria Baritone Paul Seddon, Alto Sarah Evans, Soprano Kirsty Janusz America One Hand, one Heart Tenor Malcolm Stork, Soprano Kirsty Janusz Somewhere 5 illiam Shakespeare died four hundred years ago this year at the age of fifty- two. Musicians ever since have felt moved to respond to the extraordinary imaginativeW power of his poetry. The composers featured in tonight’s programme were all born in the twentieth century. It would be true to say, however, that in order to achieve these settings, each has lent a very attentive ear to the music of Shakespeare’s own era. Sir John Tavener (1944—2013) was even directly descended from the early Tudor composer John Taverner, and in his Song for Athene (now widely known following its use at the funeral of Princess Diana) we clearly hear the influence of Early English sacred music alongside the sound-world of the Russian Orthodox Church. Elizabethan echoes are equally prominent in Her Sacred Spirit Soars by the much admired American choral composer Eric Whitacre. Here, in a commission for the Heartland Shakespeare Festival at the University of Wisconsin, Whitacre conjures up the glorious cathedral sound of Tallis and Byrd, while the text (a sonnet by his friend Tony Silvestri) both encapsulates and celebrates Thomas Morley’s famous tribute book of madrigals for Elizabeth I (published in 1601 as The Triumphs of Oriana). Madrigals are, of course, the secular and more intimate wing of the Elizabethan style, and it is with John Rutter’s jazz madrigals that we open our concert tonight. The collection was written for the seventy-fifth birthday of the great jazz pianist George Shearing—whose own madrigals we perform in the programme’s second half. Both sets are firm favourites with choirs and audiences all over the world. Less well-known are E J Moeran’s Songs of Springtime. These appear deceptively simple at first glance, but their surface hides a fascinating chromaticism and rhythmic complexity, which creates real freshness in performance. We are very pleased to add Moeran’s work to our repertoire; we believe he should be more widely performed. The Fool in Twelfth Night sings two of the Finzi songs. ‘Come away, come away, Death’ attempts to ‘comfort’ poor lovelorn Count Orsino, while ’O Mistress Mine’ is offered to amuse the drunken knights Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek. ‘Who is Silvia?’, from Two Gentlemen of Verona, is a delightfully lively take on the little lyric that Schubert first set for piano and voice. Finzi brings out all the joy in the poem, and uses its final line ‘To her, let us garlands bring’ as the overall title of his cycle. (We should note here, that yet another celebration of the beautiful Silvia occurs after the interval!) Of all the evening’s composers, though, it is perhaps Vaughan Williams who most poignantly captures Shakespeare’s spirit landscape: that ‘other world’ he seems to perceive beyond ordinary beauty and everyday life. In this sense, it could be said that the poet already had one foot in music’s territory, requiring composers simply to remain open to the verse. In the Three Shakespeare Songs, Vaughan Williams achieves this quite breathtakingly. The first re-imagines the sprite Ariel’s watery bell song of transformation ‘Full Fathom Five thy Father lies…’ from The Tempest. Then follows the great speech on theatrical illusion and life’s insubstantiality by Prospero, his master: ’The cloud-capped Towers…’. The third song takes lines spoken by a fairy to the mischievous spirit, Puck (who stands in the same servant/master relation to Oberon), from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.