Lewisham Choral Society Orff: Carmina Burana John Joubert O Lorde, the maker of al thing Eric Whitacre Five Hebrew Love Songs Mozart Sonata for piano and violin in A Louise Kemény – Soprano Tim Travers-Brown – Countertenor Alex Ashworth – Baritone Sydenham High School Voices Director: Caroline Lenton-Ward Matthew Turner – Percussion leader Paula Muldoon – Violin Nico de Villiers and Jakob Fichert – Pianos Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas Cadogan Hall Saturday, 4 July 2015 A LITTLE QUIZ TO START.... Here's a little puzzle to start (no prizes I'm afraid!): what's the connection between the composers Pachelbel, Leoncavallo, Jeremiah Clarke, David Fanshawe, Dukas, Dohnányi and Orff? The answer: they're each really only known for a single composition. Carmina Burana by Carl Orff has established his name around the world and most people are likely to have heard at least extracts from it even without knowing what it was: apart from being one of the most performed and recorded works ever composed, extracts from it have provided the soundtrack to several films and TV programmes and been used to advertise everything from aftershave to beer, instant coffee and chocolate spread. It is said that every day at least one performance of Carmina Burana is being put on somewhere in the world. Earlier today two open air performances of the work were due to be given in Germany: in a quarry in Dossenheim, near Heidelberg and in Altenburg market place near Leipzig! Back in 1974 another performance hit the headlines. On an August night in the Royal Albert Hall the 80th season of the Henry Wood Proms was in full swing with a performance of the Orff. The heat outside was more than matched inside by the BBC TV camera lights. The baritone soloist, Thomas Allen, was coming to the end of his second solo in Estuans interius when he fainted into his chair. He tried to recover but collapsed again and had to be carried off the stage by members of the orchestra. As it happened, one of the Prommers, Patrick McCarthy, who had recently become a professional singer, knew the baritone part. So he borrowed a dinner jacket and hastily stepped on the stage to save the night! My personal memory of singing Carmina Burana (as a choir member, not a soloist!) was in the same hall, with the late lamented John Ogdon playing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in the first half. But that's another story... I never met Carl Orff but was fortunate enough to meet both John Joubert (at the first performance of his Variations for strings Temps perdu in 1984) and Eric Whitacre (in 2009 when he conducted his music in Southwark Cathedral). The autographs on the following pages testify to those meetings! Fifteen years after the first performance of Carmina Burana in 1937, a young South African, John Joubert, produced what was to become a classic of the Anglican choral repertoire, the anthem O Lorde, the maker of al thing. Whether or not King Henry VIII wrote the words to this work is as open to dispute as his purported authorship of the tune Greensleeves. The music however is as indisputably by Joubert as the equally popular Christmas carol Torches, written around the same time. Joubert went on to teach at Hull University, moving to live in what later became the poet Philip Larkin's flat. The composer apparently was disappointed that, unlike Larkin's, his residence there was not marked by a blue plaque. Until that is, it was pointed out that these were reserved for the deceased! And luckily for us, Joubert is still very much alive, having celebrated his 88th birthday in March this year. Our third composer is also a visitor from abroad, the American Eric Whitacre, whose works are among the most popular and performed in the classical choral repertoire today. Before they were married, Whitacre asked his wife-to-be, the Israeli singer and poet, Hila Plitmann, to write some words which he could set to music. The result was Five Hebrew Love Songs. At the time of writing his A major piano & violin sonata, Mozart also was in love, although he went on to marry not his then beloved Aloysia, but rather her sister Constanze! Introduction and programme notes © Martin Bull John Joubert O Lorde, the maker of al thing Eric Whitacre Five Hebrew Love Songs I. Temuná – A picture II. Kalá kallá – Light bride III. Lárov – Mostly IV. Éyze shéleg! – What snow! V. Rakút – Tenderness Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata for piano and violin in A major, K305 1. Allegro molto 2. Tema. Andante grazioso – Variations I-V – Variation VI. Allegro Interval Carl Orff Carmina Burana Cantiones profanae Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi Primo vere Uf dem anger Cour d'amours Blanziflor et Helena Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi JOHN JOUBERT (1927-) John Joubert photographed by his grandson, John E. Morris John Joubert has now lived in the Birmingham suburb of Moseley for more than fifty of his 88 years but he began life far away from British shores. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, to parents with French Protestant and Dutch ancestry. Nevertheless he was raised in the English Anglican tradition so it was perhaps no surprise that, after early studies in his country of birth, he moved to England and found success as a composer of church music. At the age of 19 he won a four-year scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Music, then became a lecturer at Hull University, where he stayed for twelve years before moving in 1962 to teach at Birmingham University until retiring from academe in 1986. Although it is his choral music which has won him most popularity (Classical Music magazine described him as “an unsung hero of English choral music”). You will more than likely know his Christmas carol Torches, of which Joubert describes his amusement when singers call at his home to sing the piece, without knowing they are singing it to its composer! Nevertheless, he has said “I never really wanted to be pigeonholed as a composer” and indeed he has written a large quantity and range of other works, including symphonies, concertos and operas. His 80th birthday was celebrated with a nationwide series of concerts wittily entitled “Joubertiade 2007”. And in 2010 he was Composer in Residence at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester. O Lorde, the maker of al thing In 1952 this piece won first prize in the Novello Anthem Competition. The text is taken from The King's Prymer (a Book of Hours written in English for use by the laity) and was first set to music by the Elizabethan composer William Mundy. The primer was published in 1545 during the reign of Henry VIII and in common with many texts and musical compositions of the time, the words were later attributed to the king himself. Nowadays however this attribution is called into question by some. O Lord, the maker of al thing, We pray Thee nowe in this evening Us to defende, through Thy mercy, From al deceit of our en'my. Let neither us deluded be, Good Lorde, with dreame or phantasy; Oure hearte wakyng in Thee thou kepe That we in sinne fal not on slepe. O Father, throughe Thy blessed Sonne, Grant us this oure peticion, To whom, with the Holy Ghost alwaies, In heav'n and yearth be laude and praise. Photo: Marc Royce ERIC WHITACRE (1970-) Eric Whitacre started learning to play the piano as a child but his real dream was to become a rock star. He was in a marching band at junior high school and later joined a techno-pop band on the path to fulfilling his dream. He studied musical education in his native Nevada, despite not being able to read music. But Whitacre's life-changing moment came from a more unexpected source. Having been drawn into joining the university choir by the presence of “a lot of cute girls in the soprano section”, he was instantly blown away by the sounds of the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem which they were rehearsing. “My life was profoundly changed on that day” he says, “and I became a choir geek of the highest order”. He was soon to take on serious compositional study, his first work was published at the age of 21 and four years later he was at New York's prestigious Julliard School of Music studying for a Master's degree. Five Hebrew Love Songs The composer tells the full story of his Five Hebrew Love Songs in the notes preceding the score, so I can do no better than quote him here: “In the spring of 1996, my great friend and brilliant violinist Friedemann Eichorn invited me and my girlfriend-at-the-time Hila Plitmann (a soprano) to give a concert with him in his home city of Speyer, Germany. We had all met that year as students at the Juilliard School, and were inseparable. Because we were appearing as a band of travelling musicians, 'Friedy' asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for piano, violin and soprano. I asked Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few 'postcards' in her native tongue, and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps, and we performed them for the first time a week later in Speyer.... Each of the songs captures a moment that Hila and I shared together. “Kalá Kallá”...was a pun I came up with while she was first teaching me Hebrew.