CHAN 10365 Cover.qxd 11/9/06 11:38 am Page 1 CHANDOS CLASSICS CarwithenDoreen Concerto for Piano and Strings Bishop Rock ODTAA Suffolk Suite Howard Shelley piano London Symphony Orchestra CHAN 10365X Richard Hickox CHAN 10365 BOOK.qxd 11/9/06 10:56 am Page 2 Doreen Carwithen (1922–2003) 1 ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another) 8:18 Overture I Allegro ma non troppo Concerto for Piano and Strings* 28:57 2 I Allegro assai 12:05 3 II Lento 8:23 4 III Moderato e deciso ma con moto 8:22 5 Bishop Rock 8:17 Overture I Allegro con energico Suffolk Suite 11:42 6 I Prelude. Moderato 2:22 7 II Orford Ness. Allegretto grazioso 3:51 8 III Suffolk Morris. Ritmico 3:20 9 IV Framlingham Castle. Alla marcia 2:01 TT 57:35 Howard Shelley piano* London Symphony Orchestra Igor Gruppmann leader Richard Hickox Doreen Carwithen 3 CHAN 10365 BOOK.qxd 11/9/06 10:56 am Page 4 cocooned and rarely heard. The two Carwithen express in music the colour, excitement and Doreen Carwithen: Orchestral Works String Quartets remain unknown even though romantic spirit of adventure that is the they were awarded the principal prizes for essence of the book. Chamber Music of the A.J. Clements Prize The Overture begins (Allegro ma non Doreen Carwithen was born in 1922 at Elizabeth is Queen. Among her feature films (1948) and the Cobbett Award (1952). A third troppo) with a vigorous statement of the main Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, into a musical were two in which music takes the place of Quartet, well advanced in the composer’s theme on the strings, from which most of the family. Her mother – a music teacher – provided dialogue: The Stranger Left No Card (1952) sketches, was sadly never completed. material used throughout is derived and her with her first lessons on the piano and and On the Twelfth Day (1954). The former In 1961 Doreen Carwithen became developed. A climax is reached with a fanfare- violin at the age of four, and continued received The Cannes Festival Award for the amanuensis and literary secretary to William like statement of this subject, followed by a teaching her the piano until she entered the best short, fictional film, and was then shown Alwyn, who had been her professor of short, accented passage for brass and Royal Academy of Music as Buckinghamshire at the Edinburgh Festival. composition at the R.A.M. and whom she later percussion. The music then quietens to a County Scholar in 1941. Carwithen also had 1947 also saw the selection of the married. After his death in 1985 she tranquil middle section which builds to a broad cello lessons with Peers Coetmore, and while overture ODTAA as the first new score to be established the William Alwyn Archive of climax. The initial tempo returns, and after a still at school regularly played the cello with a chosen by the London Philharmonic Orchestra music, poetry and art and formed the William rhythmic recapitulation, the Overture ends, with string quartet and in local orchestras. Apart Music Advisory Committee. ODTAA had its Alwyn Foundation to promote her husband’s the fanfare theme played by the full orchestra. from this involvement the only music she heard first performance at Covent Garden in March music. To this end she instigated and came from the radio – the family did not have a 1947, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult; it was a supervised a number of recordings, editing his Concerto for Piano and Strings gramophone, so she was dependent on the great success and many performances and unpublished works and writing sleeve and The Concerto was completed in 1948 and BBC for exposure to orchestral music. As it was broadcasts followed, particularly in the north programme notes. She continued to oversee contains much vigorous, brilliant writing for wartime, this was limited to concerts on the of England. Bishop Rock was chosen by Rudolf Alwyn research projects and to help students the soloist set against a sensitive use of Home Service, but these motivated her to learn Schwarz to open the City of Birmingham from all over the world in their doctorate strings. The first movement, Allegro assai, has score-reading so as to gain insight into the Orchestra’s season of Promenade Concerts. studies of Alwyn’s life and music, in this way two subjects. The first, announced immediately sounds of the orchestra – a decision which The same year saw the first public continuing her additional career as a teacher, by the piano in octaves, grows into a whole proved invaluable for her future career. performance of the Concerto for Piano and which had begun as Sub Professor of section in which it receives a variety of In 1947 J. Arthur Rank started an Strings at the Henry Wood Promenade Composition at the R.A.M. and Lecturer in treatments. After a morendo, the soloist Apprenticeship Scheme for composers to Concerts in 1952, where Carwithen was the Music at Furzedown Teacher Training College. introduces the second subject, which is specialise in the study of film music. only woman composer to be represented immediately followed by a quasi-cadenza. The Carwithen was the first from the R.A.M. to be during that season. ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another) two themes, developed and recapitulated, selected for this and subsequently wrote In spite of the initial success of these (1945) bring the movement to a close. scores for over thirty films. Her documentaries works, publishers were not interested in a The title ODTAA was suggested by the novel The slow movement, Lento, begins with the ranged from Teeth of the Wind, a study of woman composer, so scores and parts of that name by John Masefield. The music is solo violin announcing a melody which is locusts, to the official film of the coronation, gradually returned home where they remained in no sense programmatic, but attempts to echoed by the piano. Their duet continues 4 5 CHAN 10365 BOOK.qxd 11/9/06 10:56 am Page 6 throughout the movement, accompanied by rhythmic figure on cellos and basses disturbs IV Framlingham Castle. The brass introduce Director and Principal Conductor of Sweden’s muted strings. the calm and the music develops to a strong a stirring march, summoning a picture of the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra. In 1994 HRH The The finale, Moderato e deciso ma con moto, recapitulation of the ‘lighthouse’ theme. moated ruins of this superb Norman castle Prince of Wales conferred on him an Honorary is introduced by a broad, chordal melody which still dominates the town and Fellowship of the Royal College of Music. played by strings against a rising scale Suffolk Suite (1964) surrounding countryside. passage on piano. These two ideas form the This was written at the request of the music In 1904 Hans Richter conducted the inaugural main material for the whole movement. It ends master of Framlingham College, Suffolk, for the © Doreen Carwithen concert given by the London Symphony with an extended cadenza followed by a coda boys to perform when royalty came to open Doreen Carwithen died in 2003 Orchestra, the first independent, self- which states again the broad melody of the their new concert hall. Before the composer governing orchestra in Britain. Many main theme. began, she listened to the school orchestra so As a pianist, conductor and recording artist distinguished Principal Conductors followed, as to hear the capabilities of the young Howard Shelley has enjoyed a distinguished such as Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Thomas Bishop Rock (1952) performers, and kept these in mind as she career since his highly acclaimed London debut Beecham, Claudio Abbado and Sir Colin Davis. The Bishop Rock lighthouse stands at the wrote. There are four movements which in 1971, performing each season with Eminent musical figures who have taken on westernmost point of England. Its lonely tower develop tunes she originally used in a film renowned orchestras at major venues around the role of Honorary President include Sir is the last sight the seafarer has of land; to about East Anglia. the world. Much of his current work is in the William Walton, Sir Arthur Bliss, Karl Böhm the traveller from the New World, it is a I The Prelude begins with a trumpet fanfare combined role of conductor and soloist. He has and Leonard Bernstein. In 1906 it became the symbol of welcome after the bleak waters of which is followed by a stately tune on the been closely associated with the music of first British orchestra to perform abroad when the Atlantic. The Overture is an impression of strings, as befitting a royal occasion. Rachmaninov and has performed and recorded it visited Paris, and today the Orchestra tours the thoughts stimulated by the lighthouse and II Orford Ness. A peaceful, rocking complete cycles of his solo piano works, extensively around the globe. In 1982 it depicts Bishop Rock in storm and calm. movement, reminding listeners of the yachts concertos and songs. His recent recordings of moved into its London home at the Barbican It begins with a strong, repeated motive on at anchor, accompanies the tune, played first piano concertos by Mozart and Hummel have Centre, where it gives around ninety concerts the horns, which suggests the intermittent on solo flute, then on strings, oboe and, also won exceptional praise, and more than a year; it also holds a residency at New York’s flashing of the light over a stormy sea. After a finally, clarinet. eighty other commercial recordings testify to his Avery Fisher Hall and a biennial residency at brief exposition there follows a long phrase on III Suffolk Morris.