Cobbett’s Legacy The New Cobbett Prize for Chamber Music Berkeley Ensemble Cobbett’s Legacy The New Cobbett Prize for Chamber Music William Hurlstone (1876–1906) 1. Phantasie [7:59] Berkeley Ensemble for string quartet 1 & 3–6 Sophie Mather violin Barnaby Marn (b. 1991) 1–2 & 6 Francesca Barritt violin 2. Lazarus [11:47] 1–3 & 6 Dan Shilladay viola 1–7 A Purcell Garland Gemma Wareham cello Oliver Knussen (1952–2018) 2 & 6–7 Lachlan Radford double bass 3. ...upon one note [3:24] 2 Andrew Watson bassoon George Benjamin (b. 1960) 2–5 John Slack clarinet 4. Fantasia 7 [4:06] 2–5 Libby Burgess piano & celesta Colin Mahews (b. 1946) 5. Fantazia 13 [3:16] Samuel Wesley Lewis (b. 1991) 6. Sequenza [7:34] for string quintet Laurence Osborn (b. 1989) 7. Living Floors [12:32] for violoncello and contrabass Total playing me [50:44] About the Berkeley Ensemble: ‘[...] the high quality of the performances by the Berkeley Ensemble, a malleable group which [...] can adapt itself to different formats and plays as if it were truly inside the music’ The Daily Telegraph Cobbe’s Legacy Renaissance. In the years that followed, he our predecessor, we’d do all we could to succumbed to asthma just weeks aer he harnessed the mass media of the me to promote our winners on the concert was awarded first prize. Charles Villiers When we founded the Berkeley Ensemble his cause, commercially prinng the winning plaorm, but our primary vehicle would Stanford (1852–1924), Hurlstone’s teacher in 2008, one of our aims was to explore pieces, wring numerous newspaper arcles be a commercial album. Despite the at the Royal College of Music, would later the lesser-known works of Brish and founding a periodical, the Chamber rapid changes that technology has pronounce the composer to be the most chamber music. We envisaged our core Music Supplement, to spread the word as recently wrought on the music industry, gied of his students; high praise indeed repertoire as that of the first half of far as possible. Composers today are adept it seems that for classical listeners at from the teacher of Ralph Vaughan Williams the tweneth century and personified at using social media to spread awareness least, recordings and their associated (1872–1958), Gustav Holst (1874–1934) by Lennox Berkeley, the composer who of their own acvies, and yet, why have media are sll extremely powerful. and Frank Bridge (1879–1941). would eventually lend his name to the so few concertgoers heard of even the Perhaps unfamiliar new styles and group. However, we soon began to feel most successful and Twier-savvy of languages benefit from the repeated Hurlstone’s Phantasie dely juggles compeng that ‘lesser-known’ was a label that young composers? listening that recordings facilitate. and seemingly irreconcilable influences in could equally apply to contemporary Perhaps ‘slow’ art forms such as a compact and virtuosic display of music. In pondering how best to publicise Several years ago the Berkeley Ensemble classical music do not lend themselves composional ingenuity. If the half-lit the work of emerging talents – perhaps ran a composers’ workshop and, chang in to sound bites. Perhaps the primary opening recalls Purcell at his most solemn, the least-known and most under- the bar aer the event, the parcipants audience for such music is simply not late Beethoven is similarly near at hand. The represented composers of all – we told us that reaching audiences beyond engaging with the latest media. development of three principal mofs from realised that a figure from our original, their friends and colleagues was difficult, Whatever the reason, we wish our this opening secon sustains the remainder earlier repertoire might provide us with despite the new means offered by social finalists the widest possible success, of the score through the alternang faster an inspiring example. media. Whilst the numerous established and hope our album will enable the and slower secons requested by Cobbe’s composion compeons were useful, repeated listening that each of the entry criteria. Hurlstone’s final major work Walter Willson Cobbe (1847–1937) was their tradional cash prizes and one-off finalists’ pieces so richly reward. stands as a tantalising glimpse of a rare an Edwardian businessman, philanthropist, performances had only limited reach, talent cut short; in a chilling pre-echo of the writer on music and amateur violinist. leaving composers with an impressive William Hurlstone: havoc wrought on Europe’s young musicians ‘It has been humorously remarked that CV but few, if any, new listeners. What they Phantasie for String Quartet in A minor during the Great War, his tombstone was he has given to commerce what me he also needed was sustained exposure for inscribed with a line from Schubert’s could spare from music,’ Grove’s Diconary their work, parcularly that offered by The winner of Cobbe’s inaugural grave in Vienna: ‘Music hath here entombed of Music and Musicians wryly noted in commercial recording. compeon was William Hurlstone rich treasure but sll fairer hopes’. 1927, reflecng his huge contribuon (1876–1906), unfortunately not now the to the sphere of chamber music. In We formulated a plan to engage both the well-known name Cobbe would have Barnaby Marn: Lazarus 1905 he founded the Cobbe Prize, a ensemble and the wider listening public undoubtedly wished of him. On the cusp compeon for young Brish composers, with the work of today’s young composers: of a gliering career and poised to reap Lazarus follows the biblical narrave as inspired by the music of the English we would found a new Cobbe Prize. Like the rewards of Cobbe’s prize, Hurlstone described in the Gospel according to John, James Francis Brown Photography: Liz Isles chapter 11. The resurrecon of Lazarus of secons, were intended for domesc fantasia. As he later admied, his compleon eerie, stac landscape. The sequences of the Bethany from the dead was Jesus’s most music making as described by one of does not aempt a historically accurate piece’s tle – ricocheng single notes or powerful and documented miracle. It their most famous devotees, Samuel Pepys. pasche to extend the piece to a gestures that pass in sequence from led directly to the gathering of crowds to Cobbe later cited his encounter with this comparable length. Rather, the music spins instrument to instrument, like the hazard greet Christ on Palm Sunday (‘then many repertoire as the spur to the founding of his fantascally off from Purcell’s breaking-off lights that adorn motorway roadworks at of the Jews which had seen the things compeon. He saw in these pieces a before returning, contrite, to a recollecon night – gradually return the music to the which Jesus did, believed in him’) and fresher, more direct approach that could of Purcell's idiom and key at its close. febrile world of its opening. was the catalyst for his condemnaon serve to complement the cerebral, oen Knussen’s own transcripon is of Purcell’s by Caiaphas and the chief priests. Each long mul-movement sonatas of most celebrated work for viols, the Laurence Osborn: Living Floors of the instruments represents a character contemporary concert programmes. Fantasia Upon One Note. The eponymous in the narrave. Most notably, the clarinet note is a middle C that sounds throughout Living Floors takes its name from the term is Christ, the cello Lazarus and Martha Cobbe was not the only musician inspired every bar of the original fantasia, an that Brish paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, are by the viol repertory of Renaissance England. ironically simple part to perform that (1913–1996) used to describe the dense represented by the violin and viola To mark the tercentenary of Purcell’s death demands great composional virtuosity carpets of bone fragments and crude stone respecvely. The piece is in one form or in 1995, Oliver Knussen (1952–2018) as the of its composer. In Knussen’s hands, this tools found in archaeological sites populated another concerned with death; the then director of the Aldeburgh Fesval tonal centre is imperilled even more by the first human beings two million years Dies Irae plainchant is used throughout commissioned fellow composers George than in Purcell’s, as the original harmony ago. Leakey’s ‘living floors’ were found at to construct ideas and mofs but is found Benjamin (b. 1960) and Colin Mahews is progressively blurred, as if recalled in the entrances of caves, and are thought to as a whole at the beginning of the piece (b. 1946) to each arrange a Purcell fantasia a dream, before the original text re-asserts indicate the presence of communal eang in the cello line and in an inverted form for the modern ensemble of violin, cello, itself in the closing bars. sites due to the fact that many of the bone in the final clarinet melody. Christ has clarinet and keyboard, a grouping first fragments found carried scars and cut-marks triumphed over death. (BM) popularised by Messiaen’s Quartet for the Samuel Wesley Lewis: Sequenza le by stone hand-axes. Despite being End of Time. millions of years old, these fragments Purcell arr. various: A Purcell Garland Sequenza is wrien for the extremely rare possess traces of the glorious dynamism Benjamin’s reworking is a relavely straight instrumental ensemble of string quartet and violence of the first cultures. Cobbe first encountered the viol fantasias transcripon of Purcell’s original text, albeit with added bass. The extra instrument is of Henry Lawes (1595–1662), Mahew one dominated by the ghostly and rarefied withheld from the extended opening The inial ideas for Living Floors arose from Locke (1621–1677), Henry Purcell sonories of celeste and string harmonics.