Ballet Music

Sir Malcolm Arnold BALLET MUSIC Electra premiere recording Rinaldo and Armida Suites from ‘Homage to the Queen’ and ‘Sweeney Todd’ BBC Philharmonic CHAN 10550 RUMON GAMBA Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921 –2006) Ballet Music Suite from ‘Homage to the Queen’, Op. 42 (1953) 19:43 Prepared by the composer 1 I Prelude and Opening Scene. Allegro moderato – Marziale – Andante con moto – Allegro molto – 4:31 2 II Dance of the Insects. Allegro scherzando (Pas de six) – 1:06 3 III Water. Poco lento – Vivace – [L’istesso tempo] (Pas de trois) – Waltz – [L’istesso tempo] (First Girl’s Solo) – Poco più mosso (Second Girl’s Solo) – Photograph by Nigel Luckhurst © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Waltz Tempo I (Pas de trois) – Allegretto – 5:13 4 IV Fire Dance. Allegro con brio (Man’s Solo) – 0:59 5 V Pas de deux. Adagio non troppo – Poco agitato – Tempo I – Poco più mosso – Tempo I – 5:09 6 VI Finale. Maestoso – Marziale – Moderato e maestoso (Vision) – Allegro – Lento e maestoso 2:26 Sir Malcolm Arnold, 1990 3 Rinaldo and Armida, Op. 49 (1954) 20:57 Dance-drama in One Act 18 Andante – Allegro – Pas de quatre – Vivace – Moderato – 7 Lento – 3:20 Vivace – Frenetico – Molto meno mosso – 5:39 8 Moderato – Andantino – Moderato – 19 Allegro con brio – Allegretto (Pas de deux) – Più mosso – Allegro agitato – Molto meno mosso – Andantino – 4:22 Allegretto – Allegro con brio 3:57 9 Vivace – Lento – Vivace – Moderato – Lento – 2:04 premiere recording 10 Poco lento (Pas de deux) – Moderato – Allegretto – 3:54 11 Andante con moto – Poco più mosso – Electra, Op. 79 (1963) 14:49 Andante con moto – Moderato – 4:12 Ballet in One Act 20 12 Lento – Vivace molto – Lento 3:02 Lento – Vivace – Vivace – 4:09 21 Lento – Allegro ma non troppo – Moderato – 6:30 22 Concert Suite from ‘Sweeney Todd’, Op. 68a (1959) 20:16 Vivace – Lento 4:08 Prepared 1984 by David Ellis in association with the composer TT 76:14 13 Moderato e misterioso – Vivace – Meno mosso – 3:17 14 Allegretto – Vivace – 1:33 BBC Philharmonic 15 Vivace – Allegro moderato – 1:58 Fionnuala Hunt leader 16 Allegro vivace – Allegro frenetico – 2:11 Rumon Gamba 17 Allegretto – 1:38 4 5 The ballet suite which Arnold extracted Irving, who had conducted the premiere Arnold: from the score begins with a Marziale Prelude of Homage to the Queen). Both works were Ballet Music strongly reminiscent of the ceremonial idiom choreographed by Ashton, who dedicated of William Walton’s Coronation marches, this them to the memory of his close collaborator Homage to the Queen you know that only over my dead body, music returning in the Finale as Elizabeth I Sophie Fedorovitch, the painter who had The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in & dead opera too, will there be a ballet symbolically hands her orb and sceptre to designed eleven of his ballets (including, June 1953 was celebrated by a number before Gloriana that night. Let them prance Elizabeth II in a traditional moment of climactic in 1926, his very first), and who had died of high-profile artistic events in London, on their points as much as anyone wants apotheosis. In between come four dances: suddenly in a domestic gas accident in 1953. several of them mounted at the Royal Opera after – but not before. Anyhow, if it matters, a breezy ‘Dance of the Insects’, then ‘Water’ Rinaldo and Armida was based on an House, Covent Garden. Malcolm Arnold’s that’s the traditional way round. (featuring a suavely elegant waltz for the pas episode from Torquato Tasso’s poem first ballet score, Homage to the Queen, The plan was dropped, but the ballet company de trois), an effervescent ‘Fire Dance’ and Ierusalemme liberata (1581), in which the was commissioned specifically to mark the got the better of the situation by securing a languidly sensual ‘Pas de deux’ originally deadly enchantress Armida, whose lovers occasion, and if the composer felt honoured their own performance slot on the day of the danced by Fonteyn with Michael Somes. After meet their doom in her garden, meets her at the prestigious invitation he may well Coronation itself (2 June). They asked Humphrey the first performance, the music was heard own end when she falls in love with one of have been blissfully unaware of the in-house Searle to compose a new score for them; he at the Edinburgh Festival in the same year, them: the mortal warrior Rinaldo. The ballet rivalries that had resulted in what was in fact declined, recommending Arnold in his stead, but thereafter the ballet sank into neglect was conceived as a vehicle for the ballerina a last-minute initiative. and thus Homage to the Queen came to receive until it was resurrected in 2006 to celebrate Svetlana Beriosova, with Somes appearing Pride of place in the celebrations was to its first performance six days ahead of Britten’s the Queen’s eightieth birthday, on which alongside her in the subordinate male role, have gone to Benjamin Britten’s Coronation opera. The choreography was by Frederick occasion the bulk of the dancing featured and took the form of an extended pas de deux opera Gloriana, much maligned after its first Ashton and the production was designed by new choreography. set against monochrome stage designs by performance on 8 June. Britten had been the baroque-inspired Oliver Messel, at whose Peter Rice. After an eerie introduction based under pressure to include danced segments behest the original plan to present four tableaux Rinaldo and Armida on a pregnant four-note motif (one of many in the score so that both the Covent Garden devoted to famous Queens of England was The initial success of Homage to the Queen passages in the ballets of Arnold that seem Opera and Sadler’s Wells Ballet might be dropped in favour of a less challenging scheme quickly led to another ballet commission for to reflect his experience as a composer of represented, and this he duly did; but he involving the Four Elements, each of which was Arnold. In 1954 he composed Rinaldo and film music), Rinaldo enters as the tempo refused to expand them when requested to to have its own Queen and entourage. Bright Armida, a one-act ‘dance-drama’, and guest- quickens, and he moves through the trees do so, and was furious when he learnt that star of the dancing was the company’s prima conducted the first performance himself at to the accompaniment of a lyrical melody for plans were afoot to precede his opera with a ballerina assoluta, Margot Fonteyn, appearing the Royal Opera House on 6 January 1955, lower strings and bassoons. Armida comes separate danced entertainment on the same as the Queen of the Air, and Arnold’s ballet was as part of a double bill completed by a new with an impassioned outburst from the full evening. He wrote tetchily to the opera house preceded by her legendary performance in Act II ballet based on Britten’s Young Person’s orchestra and dances a sarabande. The on 20 November 1952: of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Guide to the Orchestra (conducted by Robert music becomes more agitated as Rinaldo 6 7 is warned of his likely fate, but he proceeds a sombre introduction, the ballet music (later, featured a score by Arnold conducted by the includes an astonishingly impressionistic to dance a melancholic ‘Pas de deux’ with in 1984, arranged as a concert suite by David Royal Ballet’s music director, John Lanchbery, passage when Electra twists her head and Armida, which climaxes in a dramatic kiss Ellis in consultation with the composer) first who had become well known as the arranger works herself into a frenzy, during which (timpani roll) as the enchantress dies. At the depicts ‘Police whistles, screams and figures of the ever-popular La Fille mal gardée brass and harp glissandos sweep up and culmination of another violent orchestral hurrying about in darkness with torches’ (based on music attributed to Hérold) – an down across several octaves while the outburst Rinaldo exits dramatically through before the policemen convene to dance a Ashton project which Arnold had declined strings swirl giddily in a gradual crescendo. the garden’s wall, whereafter a plaintive violin satirically lolloping Allegretto. Darker music to accept in 1960. Listeners accustomed to As with Arnold’s other ballet music, this solo returns us to the eerie atmosphere of for the entrance of the title character leads the colourful and witty orchestral music for uncompromising score was unaccountably the opening. to a broad diatonic theme as a rich man is which Arnold remains best known may have neglected after its first run of performances enticed into the barber’s shop, and a jolly been surprised at the nature of the Electra and did not receive an airing in the concert Sweeney Todd galop (strongly reminiscent of Arnold’s music commission, which seemed to cry out for a hall until 2004. The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at for film comedies) precedes the cutting of gritty expressionism more akin to Strauss’s © 2009 Mervyn Cooke Stratford-upon-Avon was the venue for the man’s throat. The hapless police return operatic treatment of the same story; but his the first performance of Arnold’s music for to look for clues relating to the murder before score – which is atonal in places, and replete Sweeney Todd on 10 December 1959. This the scene shifts to the house of Johanna, with many harsh rhetorical gestures – allowed Universally recognised as one of Britain’s finest hybrid theatrical entertainment, with set where Sweeney is thwarted in his attempt Arnold to tap the darker side of his musical orchestras, the BBC Philharmonic is based designs by Alix Stone inspired by colourful to propose to her.

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