Britten & Bliss Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) 1 Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2 (1932) (13:16) Arthur Bliss (1891–1975) Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet (1927) (22:35) 2 I. Assai sostenuto (8:09) 3 II. Andante con moto (8:40) 4 III. Vivace (5:38) Cedille Records is a trademark of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation devoted to promot- ing the finest musicians and ensembles in the Chicago area. The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation’s activities are sup- Britten: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 94 (1975) (25:58) ported in part by contributions and grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies including 5 the Alphawood Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, Kirkland & Ellis Foundation, NIB Foundation, Negaunee Foundation, I. Duets: With moderate movement (5:28) Sage Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (CityArts III Grant), and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. 6 II. Ostinato: Very fast (3:19) Contributions to The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation may be made at www.cedillerecords.org or by calling 773-989-2515. 7 III. Solo: Very calm (4:40) Producer James Ginsburg 8 IV. Burlesque: Fast–con fuoco (2:14) Engineer Bill Maylone 9 V. Recitative and Passacaglia (La Serenissima) (10:02) Graphic Design Melanie Germond 24 Cover Photo Venice, Italy ca. 1950 by Ferruccio Leiss, © Alinari Archives/CORBIS Vermeer Quartet Recorded October 3 (Bliss) & 4 (Britten Phantasy Quartet), 2005 and April 25–26, 2006 (Britten Quartet No. 3) at WFMT-Chicago Publishers Alex Klein oboe Britten: ©1934 for the Phantasy Quartet and ©1977 for the 3rd String Quartet. Faber Music c/o Boosey and Hawkes Bliss: ©1927 Oxford University Press (NY) TT: (62:08) CDR 90000 093 P&C 2006 Cedille Records, trademark of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation. All Rights Reserved. colleagues want a piece you can all perform tions. This endeavor is paralleled in his later Britten & Bliss together, you’ll gladly oblige with a Piano years by his numerous film scores (including Notes by Andrea Lamoreaux Quintet. And when a commission comes Things to Come) and his music for the ballet, from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, one of Checkmate: he was stimulated by the extra- If it’s true that the basic grouping in added an instrument that plays a single the most influential figures in the history of musical factors involved in stage and film chamber music is the string quartet — two line instead of powerful chords, and they American chamber music, you’ll be happy music. Another famous piece is his Colour violins, viola, and cello — it’s equally true have the added resource of tone colors that to accommodate what she has in mind. That Symphony. He was also noted as a writer that composers have often sought to vary strongly contrast with, and stand apart from, happened to Arthur Bliss (not yet Sir) in 1926, of music for choirs; his choral symphony, and enrich the four-string sonority by add- the sonority of the strings. The light evanes- and it must have made him even happier to Morning Heroes, from 1930, was character- ing other instruments. Piano-and-strings cence of a flute, the penetrating notes of learn that Coolidge intended his new work ized by Bliss biographer Hugo Cole as “one chamber pieces, which are abundant, repre- an oboe, or the mellow sound of a clarinet for oboe and string quartet for his fellow- of the most deeply personal of [his] works sent the overcoming of a special challenge: bring an extra dimension to a work’s overall countryman, the distinguished English obo- . after more than ten years, [he] at last each creator of a piano trio, quartet, or timbre when surrounded and contrasted ist Leon Goossens (who introduced both of exorcised his memories of the war.” quintet has had to deal with the reality that with shimmering violins and the rich tones the works for oboe and strings on this CD). the piano can produce more notes, louder, of the viola and cello. Individual melodic Bliss spent most of the World War II years at any given moment than a stringed instru- lines can intertwine freely, and five voices Sometimes singled out as the successor as an official at the BBC, received a knight- ment can. The solution is often to group the can combine in harmony or emphatic unison to Elgar, whose music strongly influenced hood in 1950, and was named Master of the strings as a choir in opposition to and rivalry as easily as four. him, Bliss was educated at traditional British Queen’s Music in 1953, a post that required with the keyboard. This sets up a kind of schools (Rugby, followed by Cambridge him to write music for ceremonial and official musical dialogue that can be very involving Circumstances, of course, play a big part University) rather than London’s music con- occasions. Earlier in his life, in the 1920s and and satisfying both to perform and to hear. in the choice of instrumentation for any servatories — although he did spend a year 30s, he spent extended periods in the United When poorly executed, however, either on chamber work. If your wife is one of the at the Royal College of Music before serving States, where he met his wife, Trudy, and the original music paper or in concert, the most famous pianists in Europe, as Robert in the Army during World War I. After the was also introduced to Elizabeth Sprague result can be a small-scale piano concerto Schumann’s was, you’ll probably write cham- war, he disdained further education in favor Coolidge. A wealthy patron of chamber- with the strings overshadowed. ber music that involves her instrument of practical experience as a composer, and music performances, at the Library of (especially if it’s an instrument close to your a strong pointer to his future came in the Congress and elsewhere, Coolidge believed Composers who have chosen to add a wind own heart, too). If you’re a pianist yourself, as 1920s when he began writing and arrang- in encouraging the composers and perform- player to their string complement have Shostakovich was, and your string-playing ing music for London theatrical produc- ers of her own time. Bliss’s autobiography 4 5 notes that she was unique “in actually know- er and better-known English contemporary, This CD contains one of Britten’s first major ment of “war, and the pity of war,” to quote ing a great deal about music, in being able Benjamin Britten (1913–1976). Britten’s successes, the Phantasy Quartet of 1932, and Wilfred Owen, the poet whose World War I to play it, and in recognizing what an artist impact on the musical life of his country his last major composition of any type, the verses are the basis of half of the Requiem’s stands for, and so treating him as a friendly and his century was profound. Like most String Quartet No. 3 of 1975. Between these libretto (the rest coming from the traditional colleague.” The Quintet for Oboe and Strings great composers, he started young — there’s landmarks, the composer made his mark in Latin Requiem Mass). was premiered at a Coolidge-sponsored fes- an astounding list of Britten juvenilia. He virtually every area of concert and theater tival in Venice in 1927, by Goossens and the was 14 when he began studies with noted music. The sensationally successful 1945 pre- In addition to pacifism, another theme Venetian Quartet. It’s a lively and tuneful composer Frank Bridge, who befriended him miere of Peter Grimes signaled the resurrec- strongly addressed by Britten’s music is that work that exploits the various tone-colors of in addition to teaching, and let him experi- tion of English opera in the years immediate- of the outsider, the misfit individual pitted the oboe to the fullest: lyrical singing to stac- ment while insisting that he learn the basics. ly following World War II. It would be the first against a conventional society, as in Peter cato jumping. There are numerous tempo From Bridge and from his own inclination, in a string of successful stage works, includ- Grimes, or the sensitive child misunderstood shifts in the first two movements. The first, Britten acquired a reverence for predeces- ing a number designed for small ensembles, by his adult keepers in The Turn of the Screw, marked “Assai sostenuto” (Rather Sustained) sors including Haydn, Mahler, and especially amateur groups, and children. His success the evocative and haunting opera based on to begin, is a kind of pastorale punctuated by Purcell, whose voice is apparent in one of with opera, and with the song-cycles created the Henry James novella. Though successful an “Allegro assai agitato” (Lively and Rather his most famous pieces, The Young Person’s for his partner, tenor Peter Pears, would lead as a composer, conductor, and founder and Agitated) section that gives the strings a Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue to a perception that he was basically a vocal impresario of the Aldeburgh Festival, Britten clamorous voice in the proceedings. The on a Theme by Purcell, and in his Second composer, a judgment that unjustly omits perceived himself as an outsider, not mainly relaxed Andante pace that opens the second String Quartet of 1945. Early on, with Bridge’s his orchestral scores and the solo-instru- because of his unpopular stance (especially movement is once again contrasted with a encouragement, Britten developed a confi- mental works he wrote for cellist Mstislav during World War II) as a pacifist and consci- livelier midsection. The jolly finale has one dence in his own compositional voice, and Rostropovich, guitarist Julian Bream, harpist entious objector, but because of his homo- pace throughout: Vivace, one of the fastest resisted trends in 20th-century composition Osian Ellis, and others.