June 2011 Issue 37 Hemiola St George’s Singers NEXT SEASON ’ S PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED INSIDE THIS ISSUE: The programme for our 2011- is the first time we will have copy or to download from the Concert Preview— 2 12 season has just been final- done this iconic work at our website. See you in Septem- Eastern Voices ized and promises to offer Singing Day, and we’re sure it ber! something for everyone. will be extremely popular. The Kodály method 3 For the first time for some years Onto spring, and something St John Passion—pics 4-5 we’ll be performing the whole completely different. In Spanish and reviews of Handel’s Messiah, with the Gold , we will be travelling south added bonus of singing it in the to Spain and across the Atlantic Malverns Tour report 6-7 fabulous surroundings of Gor- to the Americas, with an intri- George’s Tour Diary 8-9 ton Monastery. Soloists in- guing programme of music St George’s Singers news 10 clude our very own Marcus ranging from the Spanish re- Solar powered singers 11 Farnsworth, with Richard naissance masters to modern- Wonderwoman 12 Dowling and two newcomers to day American composers. St George’s—Ruth Jenkins and The play wot Eric wrote 13 Finally, we close the season Laura Kelly. Mary’s garden shines 14 with a bang—a concert to cele- Corrie returns to Africa 15 Christmas would not be the brate the Queens’ Diamond same without our traditional Jubilee, featuring royal music carol concert with VBS through the ages, helped by one ST GEORGE’S SINGERS Poynton Band, and this is then of the country’s greatest brass PRESIDENT: followed by another great cho- ensembles, Fine Arts Brass. Brigit Forsyth ral favourite at our Singing The new season brochure is Day—Mozart’s Requiem. This now available, either in hard VICE PRESIDENTS: Sue Roper Mark Rowlinson Stephen Threlfall Stephen Williams NIGHT OF PASSION AT MUSICAL DIRECTOR: THE BRIDGE- Neil Taylor WATER ASSISTANT MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Calum Fraser Neil Taylor, the soloists and Nicho- ACCOMPANIST: las Kraemer take Jeffrey Makinson the applause after our performance of Registered Charity no 508686 Bach’s St John Pas- Member of Making Music, the National sion in March. Federation of Music Societies Read the reviews www.st-georges-singers.org.uk and see more pic- tures on pages 3-4. Page 2 Hemiola EASTERN VOICES —CONCERT PREVIEW For our final concert of the Janá ček completed Otce Nas , a House, where the work re- season we travel eastwards to setting of the Lord’s Prayer in ceived its premiere in a cloak- the Carpathian mountains and Czech, in 1901 and scored it for room February 1945, with the great plains of Eastern Eu- an unusual combination of harmonium and distant gun- rope, lands fought over for cen- harp, organ, tenor soloist and fire accompaniment. turies by invading armies, but mixed choir. It was inspired by which in the early 20th century a set of paintings by the artist To complete the programme, saw an uprising in the musical Krzesz-Mecina, which were the Choir will be performing culture of its native peoples. staged as a series of ‘tableaux Kodály’s beautiful Pange Lin- The concert features works by vivants’ by the Brno Home for gua, and G όrecki’s haunting some of the composers that led Women. Although the text is Totus Tuus. And as no concert this revival. pious, Janá ček’s interpretation of Eastern European music Janáček as a young man is less concerned with religion would be complete without Most of Leo Janá ek’s life š č than with social consciousness, Dvo řák, tenor Richard (1854-1928) was spent in de- and shows deep empathy for Dowling joins in with the pression, obscurity and a love- rural people and less marriage, and he received their lives. This scant recognition for his gifts as wonderful work, a composer until he was into which could be seen Eastern Voices his fifties. The son and grand- as the choral equiva- Saturday 25 June, 7.30 pm son of Moravian schoolmasters lent of Mussorgsky’s Gorton Monastery and organists, he studied, and Pictures at an Exhibi- then joined the staff, at the Pra- tion, deserves to be Kodály: Pange Lingua, Missa Brevis gue Organ School, spending the Janáček: Mass in E flat, Otče Náš much more widely next 30-odd years in relative Dvořák: Zigeunermelodien known. Gόrecki: Tutus Tuus obscurity in Brno. Gradually his music began to be influ- Zoltan Kodály Tickets: £12, £10 concs, enced by Moravian folk-songs, (1882-1967) was £2 students/children which he had started to collect born in Kecskemét, in 1885. The fruits of his re- Hungary, now home Tel: 01663 764012 search were reaped in his first to the Kodály Insti- Email: tickets@st-georges- real success, the opera Jenufa tute of Music. In singers.org.uk written in 1904 but premiered 1900 he went to Online with Paypal: www.st-georges-singers.org.uk only in 1916, belatedly estab- Budapest to study lishing his national and interna- modern languages tional reputation. He is now and composition, recognised as a Czech compos- and in 1906 ob- er worthy to be ranked with tained his doctorate The Moravian Teachers' Choir (poster by Alphonse Smetana and Dvo řák, and as with a thesis on Mucha) was founded in 1910 and was an inspiration to one of the most original and Hungarian folk Janáček. Some of his choral works were written before the choir was formed and then rewritten for them; others immediately appealing opera music. He collabo- took their nature from the group's extraordinary tech- composers of the 20th century. rated with his niques, rooted in Moravian traditional singing. friend Bartók in As an atheist, Janá ek wrote č collecting folk-song and creat- romantic song cycle Zigeuner- very little church music. The ing a style on the basis of the melodien, whilst Louise Thom- Mass in E flat from 1907-8 was rich Hungarian folk tradition. son will be setting the rafters left unfinished by Janá ček, dic- His love of the human voice of the Monastery ringing with tated to his pupils at the Brno was inextinguishable, however, a beautiful harp sonata. Organ School as a model for and all his life Kodály regarded setting Latin sacred texts. song as the basis of all music. If some of this music is un- Twenty years later he incorpo- The Missa Brevis was written known to you, then come rated most of it into the first during World War II, originally along to the Monastery, and draft of the Glagolitic Mass, as an organ mass, later rear- be prepared to be astonished! though this was later drastically ranged by the composer for Coach transport is available revised, leaving little of the mixed choir and organ. During from Poynton/Hazel Grove original. Fortunately, the in- the siege of Budapest Kodály as usual. £5, or free to complete original was preserved and his wife took refuge in the Friends of St George’s Sing- and completed by one of his cellars of the Budapest Opera ers. former pupils. Issue 37 Page 3 KOD ÁLY —TEACHER EXTRAORDINAIRE The son of a stationmaster ing, learning and understanding Kodály method, in which ear- and enthusiastic amateur music through the experience of training was central. Kodály musician, Kodály was singing, giving direct access to also used a system of hand- brought up with a love of the world of music without the signs, which takes us back to both music and the country- technical problems involved John Curwen, the Congrega- with the use of an instrument. tional minister who established side. He was born in Hun- The musical material which has Tonic Sol Fah firmly at the gary at a time when its lan- proved to be the most potent centre of the Choralist move- guage and culture was sub- and effective is a country's own ment in the mid-19th century. servient to German and Aus- folksong material and the finest These signs have crept back trian tradition. His passion art music. Music is heard first into education, although usual- for the rediscovery of the of all and then learned using ly as a sort of infantile ap- Hungarian spirit resulted in ‘relative solfa’, derived from proached, to be superseded by extensive folk-song research. John Curwen's Tonic Solfa written notation as soon as Kodály was an untiring writ- which in turn was based on possible. However, hand signs er, a powerful critic, and a Sarah Glover’s Norwich meth- are a great help in aiding con- Zoltan Kodaly lifelong folksong activist of od, and inspired by and simpli- centration and perception, in- unrivalled energy. His own fied from the French rhythm cluding the teacher’s own per- musical compositions were solfa system of Galin, Paris and ception of when pupils have inspired by Hungarian melo- Chevé. ‘lost it’.” dy and folk-lore and works Relative solfa reduces all major Other elements of the Kodály like Háry Janos , and Psalmus and minor scales to one com- approach include ‘rhythm The Kodaly philosophy: Hungaricus have found a mon pattern, meaning that sing- names’ to convey the length of home in concert halls all over ing in solfa is just as simple in musical sounds. They are not “Everyone who learns an the world. any key and in any clef. Each meant to replace ‘actual’ names instrument should sing first. But although he became a solfa name has a function: do but to make a more logical ap- Singing, independent of an is the home note in a major proach.