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 Mar n (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 Ma hews (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 a er 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 prin ng the winning pla orm, but our primary vehicle would Stanford (1852–1924), Hurlstone’s teacher in 2008, one of our aims was to explore pieces, wri ng numerous newspaper ar cles be a commercial album. Despite the at the Royal College of Music, would later the lesser-known works of Bri sh 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, gi ed 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 twen eth 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 ac vi es, and yet, why have media are s ll 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 Twi er-savvy of languages benefit from the repeated Hurlstone’s Phantasie de ly juggles compe ng 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 composi onal ingenuity. If the half-lit the work of emerging talents – perhaps ran a composers’ workshop and, cha ng in to sound bites. Perhaps the primary opening recalls Purcell at his most solemn, the least-known and most under- the bar a er the event, the par cipants 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 mo fs from realised that a figure from our original, their friends and colleagues was difficult, Whatever the reason, we wish our this opening sec on 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 alterna ng faster an inspiring example. media. Whilst the numerous established and hope our album will enable the and slower sec ons requested by Cobbe ’s composi on compe ons were useful, repeated listening that each of the entry criteria. Hurlstone’s final major work Walter Willson Cobbe (1847–1937) was their tradi onal 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 Dic onary their work, par cularly 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. compe on was William Hurlstone rich treasure but s ll fairer hopes’. 1927, reflec ng his huge contribu on (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 Mar n: Lazarus 1905 he founded the Cobbe Prize, a ensemble and the wider listening public undoubtedly wished of him. On the cusp compe on for young Bri sh composers, with the work of today’s young composers: of a gli ering career and poised to reap Lazarus follows the biblical narra ve 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 resurrec on of Lazarus of sec ons, were intended for domes c fantasia. As he later admi ed, his comple on eerie, sta c landscape. The sequences of the Bethany from the dead was Jesus’s most music making as described by one of does not a empt a historically accurate piece’s tle – ricoche ng single notes or powerful and documented miracle. It their most famous devotees, Samuel Pepys. pas che 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 fantas cally off from Purcell’s breaking-off lights that adorn motorway roadworks at of the Jews which had seen the things compe on. He saw in these pieces a before returning, contrite, to a recollec on 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 condemna on serve to complement the cerebral, o en Knussen’s own transcrip on 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 narra ve. 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 Bri sh 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 composi onal virtuosity carpets of bone fragments and crude stone respec vely. 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 Fes val 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 mo fs but is found Benjamin (b. 1960) and Colin Ma hews 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 ea ng 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 wri en for the extremely rare possess traces of the glorious dynamism Benjamin’s reworking is a rela vely straight instrumental ensemble of string quartet and violence of the first cultures. Cobbe first encountered the viol fantasias transcrip on of Purcell’s original text, albeit with added bass. The extra instrument is of Henry Lawes (1595–1662), Ma hew one dominated by the ghostly and rarefied withheld from the extended opening The ini al ideas for Living Floors arose from Locke (1621–1677), Henry Purcell sonori es of celeste and string harmonics. paragraph, a terse, fugue-like accumula on my imagining the gleam of bone against (1659–1695) and others at Perhaps his choice of instruments suggests of the higher instruments, thus heightening the dull texture of stone. The piece is also the popular Gresham College lectures the impossibility of resurrec ng the past? its eventual appearance at the first climax influenced by my imaginings of the hacking given by Frederic Bridge from 1890. Ma hews, too, acknowledges the central of the piece. The bass con nues to dominate and scraping of the la er against the These pieces, short and through-composed, impossibility of the task he sets himself of the music in the sparse central sec on former. This I wished to illustrate o en alterna ng faster and slower comple ng Purcell’s final, unfinished that follows, an unlikely soloist in an mechanically, through the bowing ac ons of the players, as well as sonically. (LO) Ensemble. He was the winner of the New The Berkeley Ensemble official recogni on with a Help Musicians UK Cobbe Prize for composi on in 2014 with Emerging Excellence award and support from Notes by Dan Shilladay, except where his work Sequenza. More recently, Sam has Patrons: Michael Berkeley CBE & the PRS for Music Founda on. It is an indicated worked closely with the bass-baritone Petroc Trelawny enthusias c champion of new music and has Edwin Kaye and has wri en a song cycle, commissioned composers including Michael Barnaby Mar n is an award-winning Songs of Experience (texts by William Blake), Hailed as ‘an ins nc ve collec ve’ Berkeley, John Woolrich and Misha Mullov- composer of contemporary classical music which Edwin performed in associa on with (The Strad) the Berkeley Ensemble was Abbado. A frequent fixture of the fes val based in England. His composi ons have the Royal Northern College of Music. Sam formed with the aim of exploring li le- circuit, the ensemble has performed at been performed widely in the UK and is currently working on a chamber opera known twen eth- and twenty first-century the Spitalfields and Cheltenham fes vals, interna onally by groups including the based on Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, Bri sh chamber music alongside more and curates the Li le Venice Music Fes val Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the which is due to be performed in 2020. established repertoire. It now enjoys a in London. Orchestra of Opera North, the Lige busy concert schedule performing Quartet and The Choir of St Paul’s Laurence Osborn (b. 1989) is a Bri sh throughout the UK and abroad, and is Engaging new audiences, most importantly Cathedral. In 2018, Barnaby’s work composer. His music has been commissioned also much in demand for its inspiring through educa on, is central to the for large orchestra, Quanta, was and/or programmed by the London Symphony work in educa on. ensemble’s ac vi es. Most recently, it has selected as the winner of the Toru Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, collaborated with PRS for Music and Takemitsu Composi on award; Barnaby Bri en Sinfonia, Mahogany Opera Group, The ensemble’s flexible configura on Tŷ Cerdd on support schemes for is the only composer from the UK to CHROMA, Berkeley Ensemble, Ensemble 360, and collabora ve spirit have led to emerging composers. The group is also have received first prize in the history of and The Riot Ensemble among others. His performances with leading musicians ensemble-in-residence at the University of this compe on. In 2017, he received his music has been programmed throughout the including Sir Thomas Allen, Gabriel Hull and Ibstock Place School, and runs an first nomina on for a BASCA Bri sh UK, by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Prokofiev and Nicholas Daniel. Its annual chamber music course in Somerset. Composer Award in 2017 for his Fes val , St Magnus Interna onal Fes val, recordings have a racted cri cal cantata, The Tempta ons of Christ. Music in the Round Fes val, and at Ulverston acclaim, with Lennox Berkeley: Chamber www.berkeleyensemble.co.uk Interna onal Music Fes val. Laurence won Works selected by BBC Music Magazine Samuel Lewis is a composer and pianist the Royal Philharmonic Society Composi on as ‘Chamber Choice’ (September 2015) currently based in the Midlands. He Prize in 2017. He was also runner up in the and Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater studied with Richard Whalley at the New Cobbe Prize for Composi on (2014) nominated for a Gramophone Award University of Manchester, gradua ng with and the Interna onal Antonín Dvořák in 2017 and praised in the magazine’s a master’s degree in 2014. Sam has Composi on Compe on (2013) and ini al review for ‘a performance of enjoyed workshops and performances shortlisted for the ICSM World Music Days shimmering intensity’. of his music by numerous contemporary (2018). As of 2018, Laurence is studying for music ensembles, including Quatuor a PhD in Composi on at King's College The group’s innova ve and thought- Danel, Psappha and the Berkeley London, supervised by Sir George Benjamin. provoking programming has received More titles from Resonus Classics Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works Berkeley Ensemble RES10149
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© 2019 Resonus Limited è 2019 Resonus Limited Recorded at Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford-on-Avon, UK on 19–21 August 2015 Producer, engineer & editor: Adam Binks Essay proofreading: Anne Farquhar Recorded at 24-bit/96kHz resolution Cover image: Violins by musik-tonger (pixabay.com)
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Photography: Nigel Luckhurst RES10243