ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS CHORAL SOCIETY PRESENTS Mendelssohn’s Elijah Illustration: Stacy Lee The Assembly Hall Theatre Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral Society Tunbridge Wells TN1 2LU and girls from the choir of Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar School Saturday Nov 12th 2011, 7.00pm Jonathan Gunthorpe – baritone (Elijah) Michael Bracegirdle – tenor Programme £2.00 Juliette Pochin – mezzo soprano Sally Harrison – soprano RTWCS Orchestra (leader Jane Gomm) Conducted by Malcolm Riley Official sponsors www.rtwcs.org.uk @RTWChoralSoc RTW Brewing Co ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS CHORAL SOCIETY President Roy Douglas Vice President Derek Watmough MBE Conductor Malcolm Riley Accompanist Anthony Zerpa-Falcon Honorary Life Members Len Lee Joyce Stredder Patrons Sir Derek & Lady Day Mr G Huntrods CBE Mr W Rutherford Mr M Hudson Mrs W Roszak Mr & Mrs G Weller Friends Mr I Hughes Mr & Mrs D Seaman Mrs J Finch Mrs P Maxwell Mr R Thatcher Mr M Webb Mrs P Felix Like the majority of arts-based charities, our ticket sales rarely cover the cost of concerts. We are therefore most grateful to our Patrons and Friends for their valuable support. A subscription of £55 or more will ensure you will have a seat of your choice reserved for you for each of our major concerts throughout the year. If you would like to become a Patron or Friend please contact Gerald Chew on 01892 527958. The Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral For further information about the Society is a member of NFMS (“Making Society visit our website Music”) and is a Registered Charity No 273310. www.rtwcs.org.uk Publicity by Looker Marketing Communications www.looker.co.uk 2 Programme Elijah, Op. 70 Part 1 INTERVAL – 20 MINUTES Part 2 Programme notes In the first half of the 19th century there was a great upsurge of choral activity in Western Europe. Concert halls were built, choral societies were established and composers were quick to exploit the market thus provided. It was an age when big was beautiful – choirs numbering 200 or more voices became common – so one of the most popular forms of music for public performance was the oratorio. Felix Mendelssohn, who had already composed a great deal of choral music, wrote his first oratorio, St. Paul, in 1836. This was a great success, and he was thus encouraged to seek a subject for an even greater and more dramatic choral work. By a happy chance he was sent a libretto based Felix Mendelssohn on the story of the prophet Elijah by a clergyman from Devon, the Rev. (1809 – 1847) James Barry, Vicar of Bratton Clovelly. Mendelssohn recognized the story’s potential, but it was not until 1845 that he was stimulated into setting to work in earnest on the new oratorio by being invited to write a new work for the 1846 Birmingham Musical Festival. Consequently the first performance of Elijah took place in Birmingham Town Hall on 26 August 1846, with Mendelssohn conducting. Elijah was an immediate and tremendous success. Its great dramatic qualities, allied to its magnificent musical craftsmanship, appealed strongly to audiences and performers, and it has remained one of the most popular oratorios to the present time. PART ONE: The oratorio commences in an unusual but highly dramatic manner as the principal soloist, Elijah (baritone), announces in an introductory recitative his warning to the Israelites that, because of their infidelity to God, they will not have any rain. This powerful beginning has within it a musical reference to the very end of the work, for Mendelssohn uses a series of diminished fifth intervals at the words, “there shall not be dew or rain” that we will hear again in the choral basses’ final “Amen”s at the end of the last movement. That, however, is all in the future as Mendelssohn now proceeds with the expected overture, a dark, relentless fugato in D minor. At its climactic end, the chorus of Israelites enters dramatically with the heartfelt plea: “Help, Lord! Wilt thou quite destroy us?'” There follows a series of highly charged movements in which the Israelites call upon the Lord for help, and bewail the drought which is causing such great distress. Obadiah (tenor) entreats them to be faithful to God in the aria “If with all 3 your hearts”. But in the ensuing chorus they express their fear of God the avenger, even though they know that “His mercies on thousands fall”. Elijah flees into the desert at the bidding of an angel (alto), where he drinks from Cherith’s brooks and ravens bring him food. A beautiful eight-part chorus describes the ministering and protective angels. Next Elijah intercedes with God on behalf of the dying son of a widow (soprano). The boy recovers, and Elijah and the widow join in duet to praise God. Their cry is taken up by the chorus, who sings of God’s goodness in “Blessed are the men that fear him”. Elijah then returns to Israel and confronts the ungodly King Ahab, but Ahab (tenor) leads the people against him. Elijah challenges the priests of Baal to prepare a sacrifice and to call down fire from heaven to consume it. This they endeavour to do, and the people cry to Baal in choruses of increasing desperation but to no avail. Elijah then calls the people to him and in the tender aria “Lord God of Abraham” prays to God to show them some great deed that they might once again believe in him. His plea is reinforced by a hymn-like chorus urging the believer and righteous person to trust in God. The people cry out in fearful amazement as they see fire descending to consume the sacrifice. They declare their belief that the Lord is God, and they then cry out for retribution against the false priests of Baal. This scene ends with Elijah’s triumphant and spectacular aria “Is not his word like a fire?”, a powerful declaration of God’s eternal wrath with the wicked. Obadiah now pleads with Elijah to intercede with God to send rain and end the drought. Elijah and the people pray for relief, and Elijah sends a boy to go to a high place and look towards the sea. Eventually the boy returns to say that he can see clouds approaching. The rain arrives and Part One ends with a great outburst of rejoicing in the chorus “Thanks be to God”, as the parched land is bathed in the longed-for rain. PART TWO: In an aria for soprano, the Israelites are called upon to remember God’s promises and to have no fear, whatever happens to other people. The chorus takes up the sentiment in “Be not afraid”, a spectacular section that is one of the oratorio’s greatest glories. But Ahab’s foreign queen Jezebel (alto) stirs up the Israelites by false accusations against Elijah, and they, in their fickleness, call for his death. Obadiah warns him to escape, and he retires to the wilderness where in the powerfully moving aria “It is enough” he longs for death. While he sleeps angels comfort him; here Mendelssohn provides two more jewels of his craft, the matchless three-part female chorus “Lift thine eyes” and the following tutti chorus “He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps”, both based on lines from Psalm 121. When Elijah awakes, he is bidden to go to Mount Horeb. He is tired and despondent at the faithlessness of the Israelites, God’s chosen people, but in the aria “O Rest in the Lord” the Angel consoles and strengthens him. The following hymn-like chorus reinforces the point. So Elijah goes to Horeb (Mount Sinai, the holy mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments) and stands before the Lord. In the ensuing chorus, after a mighty storm, an earthquake and a fire, the Lord at last appears to Elijah in a “still, small voice”, commanding him to return to the Israelites, for there are still among them people of faith, “knees that have not bowed to Baal”. So Elijah returns, and the wonderful works he performs and his ascent into heaven in a fiery chariot are vividly depicted in the glowing chorus “Then did Elijah the prophet break forth like a fire”. Finally, in a series of pieces 4 drawing their texts from the messianic prophecies of Isaiah, soloists and chorus meditate upon the blessings which come to the righteous and the coming of a redeemer, and the oratorio draws to a joyful conclusion with the great chorus of praise, “Lord, our Creator, how excellent thy name is in all the nations”. Performers Malcolm Riley – Conductor Malcolm Riley, a native of Northallerton, was educated at Harrogate High School. He was Head Chorister and later Assistant Organist of St Peter’s Church, Harrogate before gaining, in 1977, an organ scholarship to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he studied with Dr Arthur Wills and Charles Spinks. Following a post-graduate year at Homerton College, Cambridge (where he met his wife, Melanie) he taught for three years at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Bristol. In January 2012 he takes up the post of Director of Music at Invicta Grammar School, Maidstone, having held a similar position at Cranbrook School since September 1985. Next April Malcolm steps down as conductor of Cranbrook and District Choral Society, after twenty-five years. In addition to his teaching career Malcolm finds time to compose. His Overture Fairmeadow was commissioned by Maidstone Symphony Orchestra as the opening piece for its Centenary Season in October 2010. Ten years earlier, the MSO under Brian Wright gave the premiere performance of Malcolm’s orchestration of Brahms’ E minor cello sonata, with Tim Hugh as soloist.