b67598.qxd 07/12/2007 08:01 Page 12 WHLive0021 Made & Printed in England Toby Spence tenor Toby Spence tenor Scottish Ensemble Scottish Ensemble artistic director chamber Jonathan Morton Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 13 October 2007 GERALD FINZI Finzi Dies Natalis Romance for strings 01 Romance for string orchestra Op. 11 08.09 Walton Sonata for strings Dies Natalis Op. 8 27.03 02 Intrada 05.04 03 Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato) 07.20 04 The Rapture (Danza) 03.52 05 Wonder (Arioso) 04.56 06 The Salutation (Aria) 05.29 WILLIAM WALTON Sonata for string orchestra (1972) 28.38 07 Allegro 08.29 08 Presto 04.17 09 Lento 10.16 10 Allegro molto 05.15 Total time: 64.07 b67598.qxd 07/12/2007 08:01 Page 2 GERALD FINZI (1901–1956) JONATHAN MORTON Romance for string orchestra Op. 11 (1928) Jonathan Morton became artistic director of the Scottish Ensemble in September Andante espressivo – Più mosso – Tempo I 2005. His versatility finds him equally at home in the core classical repertoire, the complexities of new music, or the evocative tangos of Astor Piazzolla. When Gerald Finzi, the essential countryman, completed his Romance for strings – Born in Belgium, Jonathan took up the violin at the age of four. At thirteen he in November if the date noted at the end of the score is to be taken literally – 1928 was invited by Lord Menuhin to study at his acclaimed school in Surrey and less he was living in London. Although he was born there, into a well-to-do Jewish family than two years later performed as soloist under Menuhin’s baton. As a sixteen-year- in St John’s Wood, and although he stayed there for the first thirteen years of life, old he appeared in Europe’s leading recital halls and his debut CD with the pianist London was far from his spiritual home. Yorkshire, to where the Finzis moved in Carole Presland was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. , was further still, even though he did receive useful musical tuition from 1914 On completing his studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Ernest Farrar in Harrogate and Edward Bairstow in York. Where he belonged, as he University of Manchester, Jonathan started a freelance career and in 1998 he joined knew from his passionate attachment to the music and poetry associated with it, the Scottish Ensemble. In 2003 he gave the premiere of David Horne’s Double Violin was the West Country of Parry, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst and Gurney. Concerto (with Clio Gould) at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney, and also performed As soon as it was up to him rather than his family where he lived, he moved with the work at Cheltenham Festival. Jonathan has also performed extensively with his mother to Gloucestershire, settling at King’s Mill House near Painswick in . 1922 Chamber Domaine, an innovative and flexible chamber music group which has That is where he wrote his first orchestral piece, Severn Rhapsody, in the English given world premieres of new works by some of Europe’s leading composers. pastoral style of the day, and his first setting of words by Thomas Traherne, whose Jonathan recently performed Gavin Bryars’ Violin Concerto and has appeared as writings were to inspire one of his greatest works, Dies Natalis. In 1926, however, leader with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Goldberg Ensemble, and Excellent he had to move back to London, initially to study counterpoint with R.O. Morris, a Device, Charles Hazelwood’s orchestra which features in BBC Radio 3’s Discovering professor at the Royal College of Music, and by he was himself teaching at the 1930 Music. Jonathan is a member of the London Chamber Orchestra, and also plays with Royal Academy of Music. Although he stayed in London until , when he made 1935 the London Sinfonietta and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He was recently his definitive escape to the countryside, he did not neglect the landscape he loved invited to become a teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music. best, either as a visitor or as a composer. Tinged with nostalgia but also with a verdant freshness characteristic of the composer, the Romance is a clear and affectionate tribute to the West Country. Produced by Jeremy Hayes Technically, it is one of the most accomplished and attractively coloured scores Engineered by Tony Faulkner in a distinguished tradition – beginning perhaps with Elgar’s Serenade – of English Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, 13 October 2007 works for string orchestra. Morris’s instruction in counterpoint has been so Director: John Gilhooly Wigmore Hall Live — General Manager: Helen Peate; Head of Sales and Marketing: Claire Hargrove thoroughly absorbed that, far from being crowded, even when the orchestra is Cover Photograph of Toby Spence by Mitch Jenkins divided into as many as nine parts, Finzi’s textures are vibrant with melodic and Photograph of Toby Spence on page 9 by Mitch Jenkins rhythmic life. After a short but poetic introduction for upper strings, including a solo Photograph of the Scottish Ensemble on page 10 by Renzo Mazzolini violin, Finzi declares his geographical and stylistic allegiance with a lovely, frankly Finzi’s Romance and Dies Natalis are published by Boosey & Hawkes Ltd Elgarian melody on first violins. The second main theme is introduced by the solo Walton’s Sonata for string orchestra is published by OUP violin on its re-entry at the beginning of a quicker, still Elgarian and still lyrically Manufactured by Repeat Performance Multimedia, London 2 11 b67598.qxd 07/12/2007 08:01 Page 10 SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE expressive middle section. It rises to a fortissimo climax based on a fragment of the The Scottish Ensemble is an internationally acclaimed group, formed from some of violin theme and falls away again for a recall of the first section with a brief echo of the most highly respected string players in Europe. Playing standing in a semi-circle the introduction at the very end. without a conductor, it is led from the violin by artistic director Jonathan Morton. The Ensemble regularly commissions new work and has an enviable reputation Dies Natalis, for high voice and string orchestra Op. 8 (1925–39) for innovative programming, performing rare and unusual pieces, alongside more Intrada: Andante con moto well-known music. As one of Scotland’s flagship performing groups, the Ensemble Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato): Andante con moto receives invitations to perform throughout the UK and internationally. It is an impor- The Rapture (Danza): Allegro vivace e giocoso tant musical ambassador, and in recent seasons has toured to China, Germany and Wonder (Arioso): Andante France. In the UK it performs regularly at Wigmore Hall in London, and at a wide The Salutation (Aria): Tempo commodo range of festivals including the BBC Proms, City of London Festival, Aldeburgh Dies Natalis and the Romance, both of them luminously scored for string orchestra, Festival, Edinburgh International Festival and the St Magnus Festival in Orkney. are intimately connected. Although Finzi was ready to release one of them eleven Concerts are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Scotland. years before the other – Dies Natalis was the first to be performed, at Wigmore Hall The dynamic and passionate nature of the Ensemble’s performances is in 1940 – the Intrada of Dies Natalis and the translated into captivating learning experiences for those who take part in the Romance were probably conceived at much programme of education and outreach work. There are many strands to the the same time and possibly, as the first Ensemble’s education activity, including large-scale creative projects for children, two movements of a projected serenade for instrumental coaching, professional development seminars for workplaces and strings, for much the same purpose. If there interactive concert opportunities. is a kinship of that kind between the two pieces, it would seem to be confirmed not only by the pastoral sound they have in common but also by the tonal relationship between the middle section of the Romance and the outer sections of the Intrada. At the same time, however, while the Intrada could be interpreted as another loving tribute to the West Country, the rest of Dies Natalis transcends the contem- plation of a favourite landscape to reflect avision ofnature seen in enchanted innocence by the eyes of a child unaware of sin and untainted by cynicism. Based on the writings of the seventeenth-century GERALD FINZI 10 3 b67598.qxd 07/12/2007 08:01 Page 4 metaphysical poet Thomas Traherne – whose major works, the Poems and the prose TOBY SPENCE Centuries of Meditation, were discovered only at the end of the nineteenth century – An honours graduate and choral scholar from the four vocal movements were assembled over a period of more than a dozen New College, Oxford, Toby Spence studied at years. the Opera School of the Guildhall School of The lilting main theme of the Intrada is taken up by the voice to the words Music and Drama. On the concert platform he ‘Will you see the6 infancy’ in the opening bars of Rhapsody. The composer’s subtitle has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra under for this movement8 defines it as an accompanied recitative, which is a modest Dohnányi, the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle, description of word-setting – one note per syllable in Finzi’s characteristic manner – the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under Eliot that makes such radiant poetry from the prose of Traherne’s third Century. Among Gardiner, the San Francisco Symphony under the apparently spontaneous musical reactions to the poet’s observations, the Tilson Thomas, the Rotterdam Philharmonic allusion back to the second main theme of the Intrada for the challenge represented under Gergiev, Les Musiciens du Louvre under by ‘Heaven and Earth … could not make more melody to Adam than to me’ is one of Minkowski, the London Symphony Orchestra the most effective.