AS SEEN ON ITV 1 HOWARD GOODALL b.1958 The Seasons Suite for strings and cello Autumn Spring 1 I. Russet fall 3.52 10 I. Ripening seed 1.54 2 II. Charcoal burning 4.40 11 II. Emerald dawn 2.12 3 III. Cider harvest 3.21 12 III. Migrants’ return 3.24 4 IV. Poppies 3.40 13 IV. Rebirth 4.57 Winter Summer 5 I. Sepia landscape 2.26 14 I. Cornflower sky 8.40 6 II. Frozen light 6.38 15 II. Racing green 1.41 7 III. Storm warnings 4.58 16 III. End of the pier 1.59 8 IV. Solstice night 1.37 17 IV. Dippers 2.37 9 V. Snow carpet 1.08 60.00 Bozidar Vukotic cello The Tippett Quartet John Mills, Jeremy Isaac violin Maxine Moore viola · Bozidar Vukotic cello with Patrick Savage violin Marianna Szymanowska harp The Seasons Several composers over the centuries have responded to the idea of the changing seasons, notably Vivaldi,Haydn, Spohr,Verdi, Glazunov and Tchaikovsky, but I believe I am the first composer to create my Seasons suite over the period of a year in the respective seasons themselves. I would like to take credit for this approach, but in all honesty the season-by-season time scale was dictated by the filming schedule of the ITV series The Seasons, for which the suite provides a soundtrack. Composing ‘Autumn’ in the autumn or ‘Spring’ in the spring turned out to be more stimulating than I had anticipated, especially as the 12 months from September 2008 to August 2009 were unusually rich in seasonal difference in the British Isles, with a ‘proper’ snowy winter even in the temperate south of England where my family and I live, something that only comes around once a decade or so. Tchaikovsky and Glazunov, both from St Petersburg, a city that nestles beneath the Arctic Circle, would have laughed at the mere week of heavy snowfall we had in London that winter, but the drama of nature’s response to the icy blanket thrown over the countryside provided me with plenty enough inspiration for the composing of that movement, as did the unusually balmy weather that delighted us that May. Unlike my illustrious predecessors, I had high-definition screen images to guide me, of course, but my TV colleagues allowed me much greater licence to mould the shape of my musical seasons than is customary and were able to work with great flexibility around the material I produced as the year progressed.As it has turned out, the resulting suite is all but a cello concerto too, since I decided right at the start that a keening and curling, dipping and diving solo cello set against the string ensemble would give me great expressive scope, painting the woody, musty hues of November and the chilly breezes of January with as much ease as it does the languorous warmth and colour of June or July. Because a summer in Great Britain is so fleeting and so unpredictable, I have always felt there is a poignancy, almost a sadness, to the beauty of a glorious summer’s day, as if one has to savour every minute of its loveliness in the rueful expectation that there won’t be another for ages. I doubt it is an anxiety felt by many inhabitants of Sydney or Cape Town.This strain of wistfulness is something I was particularly keen to capture in my ‘Summer’ movement, since like so many others whose year is mentally sculpted by the shape of the academic not the calendar year, the magical days of July and August are for me the closing of the cycle.The reddening and falling of the leaves in the fresh clarity of September feels like the final chapter of an extraordinary story, the coming of sleep, perhaps, at the end of a long day. Ꭿ HOWARD GOODALL, 2010 Bozidar Vukotic studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Stefan Popov and William Pleeth and in Moscow with Alexander Kniazev.Winner in the Jeunesse Musicale International Cello competition and the National Federation of Music Societies Competition, he has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the UK, Europe and in the USA, has given broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM and teaches at the Royal Academy of Music. The Tippett Quartet is one of Britain’s most exciting and musically diverse young string quartets.They perform regularly at the Wigmore Hall, the South Bank Centre and the UK’s finest venues and festivals.They made their debut at the BBC Proms in 2008 and have received international acclaim for their recording of the complete quartets of Sir Michael Tippett. Patrick Savage, former member of the Tippett Quartet, is currently principal first violin in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. He has appeared as soloist with many orchestras in the UK including the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestra, the RCM Symphony, the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, the English Soloists Ensemble and the London Baroque Ensemble. Marianna Szymanowska was born in Warsaw and studied at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, where she developed a keen interest in the music of her distant ancestor, the 19th- century composer and pianist Maria Agata Szymanowska (Wolowska). In recent years she has divided her time between performing, teaching and the restoration of antique harps. Howard Goodall is an EMMY, BRIT, Gramophone and BAFTA Award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals and film and TV scores. He is well known as a TV and radio broadcaster and is the leading spokesperson for music education in the UK. His best-known themes and scores include Into the Storm (HBO/BBC), The Gathering Storm (HBO/BBC), The Borrowers, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf, The Catherine Tate Show, Q.I., Mr Bean’s Holiday, Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley. In the theatre his many musicals, from The Hired Man (1984) to Love Story (2010), have been performed throughout the world, including London’s West End and Off-Broadway, and won many international awards, including Ivor Novello and TMA Awards for Best British Musical. He has composed anthems, songs and Masses to mark numerous national ceremonies and memorials, most recently A Song of Hope for the National Holocaust Memorial Event in London’s Guildhall in January 2010.Autumn 2008 saw the debut UK tour of his Eternal Light:A Requiem by the Rambert Dance Company, a choral-orchestral ballet and concert work commissioned by London Musici, simultaneously released on an EMI Classics CD which earned Howard a Classical BRIT Award for Composer of the Year. His settings of Psalm 23 and Love divine are among the most performed of all sacred music in the UK and have featured on numerous platinum-selling CDs. In the 2009 Top 100 Specialist Classical CDs of the year, Goodall occupied the 1st, 4th and 9th positions. Howard hosts his own weekly show on Classic FM, for whom he is also Composer in Residence. He is a familiar face on television music programmes and writes and presents his own highly successful TV documentary series on the theory and history of music. For this series he has been honoured by a BAFTA, an RTS Judges’ Prize and over a dozen other major international broadcast awards. In January 2007 he was appointed as the UK’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, leading a four-year government-funded programme (Sing Up) to improve the provision of group singing for all primary school-age children. He has received the inaugural Naomi Sargant Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting and the Sir Charles Grove/Making Music Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. www.howardgoodall.co.uk If you have enjoyed this recording you may like to hear Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light on Warner Classics Autumn & Winter recorded at The Way Studios, London Fields www.thewaystudio.com Spring & Summer recorded at Kore Studios, Acton Park www.kore-studios.com Recorded: 14 & 16 February, 2, 23 & 25 March, 15 & 22 June, 7–8 July 2009 Producer: Howard Goodall Balance engineers: Luke Buttery, George Apsion and Tariq Al-Nasrawi Editors: George Apsion and Howard Goodall · Mastering: Ben Turner Design: Georgina Curtis for WLP Ltd. Thanks to: Natalie Clein, Steve Abu Nab, David Jeffcock, Barnaby Spurrier, Catherine Hill, Pru Bouverie, Tim Brooke, Kathryn Knight, Val Fancourt, Richard Paine A.I.R. Structure and UVI Workstation virtual instruments played by Howard Goodall As seen on ITV 1 Music published by Faber Music Ltd. Score/parts available for hire, contact: [email protected] www.fabermusic.com The Seasons television series produced by Television series soundtrack Tiger Aspect Productions 2009 2010 Howard Goodall under exclusive licence to Warner Classics, Warner Music UK Ltd. A Warner Music Group Company. C2010 Warner Classics, Warner Music UK Ltd. A Warner Music Group Company. DDD www.warnerclassics.com www.howardgoodall.co.uk .