557648bk Alwyn US 13/10/05 7:47 pm Page 4 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra gives over sixty concerts from September to June in Liverpool’s Philharmonic ALWYN Hall and presents concerts throughout the United Kingdom, in addition to tours abroad. Members of the orchestra are involved in a number of innovative community education projects. One of the oldest concert-giving organizations in the world, the RLPO Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 dates back to 1840. In 1957 it acquired the title ‘Royal’, and in 1991 it was the first organization to be granted the freedom of the City of Liverpool. The first professional conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Liverpool Philharmonic, in 1844, was Jakob Zeugheer, followed by Alfred Mellon, Max Bruch, Charles Hallé, Frederic Hymen David Lloyd-Jones Cowen, and Thomas Beecham. In 1942 Malcolm Sargent became resident conductor, followed in 1948 by Hugo Rignold as music director. Subsequent incumbents have included Efrem Kurtz and John Pritchard, Walter Weller, David Atherton, Marek Janowski and Libor Pe‰ek, the last appointment bringing a continuing connection with the Czech Republic. He was followed by Petr Altrichter, and Gerard Schwarz was appointed music director in 2001. David Lloyd-Jones David Lloyd–Jones began his professional career in 1959 on the music staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and soon became much in demand as a freelance conductor for orchestral and choral concerts, opera, BBC broadcasts and TV studio opera productions. He has appeared at the Royal Opera House (Boris Godunov with both Christoff and Ghaiurov), Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and the Wexford, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Leeds Festivals, and with the major British orchestras. In 1972 he was appointed Assistant Music Director at English National Opera, and during his time there conducted an extensive repertory which included, in addition to all the standard operas, Die Meistersinger, Katya Kabanova, and the British stage première of Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In 1978, at the invitation of the Arts Council of Great Britain, he founded a new full-time opera company, Opera North, with its own orchestra, the English Northern Philharmonia, of which he became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. During his twelve seasons with the company he conducted fifty different new productions, including The Trojans, Prince Igor, The Midsummer Marriage (Tippett), and the British stage première of Strauss’s Daphne. He also conducted numerous orchestral concerts, including festival appearances in France and Germany. He has made many successful recordings of British and Russian music, and has an extensive career in the concert-hall and opera-house that takes him to leading musical centres throughout Central Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Israel, Australia, Japan, Canada and the Americas. His highly acclaimed cycle of Bax’s symphonies and tone poems for Naxos (Gramophone Award) was completed in the autumn of 2003. 8.557648 4 557648bk Alwyn US 13/10/05 7:47 pm Page 2 William Alwyn (1905–1985) tune fortissimo on unison horns followed by a more the first performances of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 lilting and graceful theme on the high strings. This is should have conducted the première but, owing to soon abandoned for a tumultuous section where the illness, was unable to do so. The composer says of the William Alwyn was born in Northampton on the 7th Promenade Concerts that year by the BBC Symphony brass blare out their version of motif A and which work: November 1905. He studied at the Royal Academy of Orchestra conducted by the composer, the Sinfonietta gradually subsides into a Trio section (again a variant of “In my Third Symphony I use a new kind of twelve- Music in London, where, at the age of 21, he was for String Orchestra in 1970 and the Symphony No. 5 A). A new sequential idea (D) follows, then, after a note system, the twelve notes used in a different way – appointed Professor of Composition, a position which ‘Hydriotaphia’ during 1972-73. When not writing music momentary hesitation (muted horns and celesta) the in a tonal manner. I retain the concord and discord and he held for nearly thirty years. Amongst his works are he spent his time painting and writing poetry and an Scherzo abruptly returns, to finish with a brilliant Coda relate them to key and tonality – the work has a strong five symphonies, concertos for flute, oboe, violin, and autobiography entitled Winged Chariot. He died on the based on motif D and inverted fragments of A. tonality of E flat major, with C major as a secondary harp and two piano concertos, various descriptive 11th September 1985 after various illnesses just two The third movement (Adagio ma con moto), which key, and I also use the twelve notes in a more vocal way. orchestral pieces, four operas and much chamber, months before his eightieth birthday. starts with quiet horn chords and a phrase of the main I have divided the twelve notes into two groups - eight instrumental and vocal music. In addition to this Alwyn theme on cor anglais, needs no analysis. It is in simple semi-tones only are used in the first movement - the contributed nearly two hundred scores for the cinema. “My Symphony No. 1 is dedicated to Sir John Barbirolli, ABA form and is essentially song-like in character, but remaining four in the second movement. In the third He began his career in this medium in 1936, writing who conducted its first performance at the 1950 notice the unusual repeat of the initial theme in the movement the two groups are used in opposition, but are music for documentaries. In 1941 he wrote his first Cheltenham Festival. Although the work adheres to the minor mode after its statement in the major key. combined in the final pages of the symphony as a feature length score for Penn of Pennsylvania. Other traditional four-movement symphony its use of germinal Finally the Allegro Jubilante (giubiliante to the comprehensive whole. Harmonically I rely entirely on notable film scores include the following: Desert seeds already hints at the new symphonic paths I was to purist). What can I say about it except that it is probably the semitones contained in the separate groups: thus the Victory, The Way Ahead, The True Glory, Odd Man Out, tread in the three symphonies which followed within the the most extrovert piece I have ever written? As is my slow movement, through almost its entire length uses The History Of Mr Polly, The Fallen Idol, The Rocking same decade. practice I spend little time on development; each idea only four notes (D, E natural, F and A flat) for both Horse Winner, The Crimson Pirate, The Million Pound The first movement begins pianissimo with a spontaneously generates a new idea, rhythmic or melody and harmony, though there is a brief reference to Note, The Winslow Boy, The Card, and A Night To solemn phrase (motif A) on cellos and basses. Two melodic (e.g. the long undulating chromatic tune which the eight-note group in the middle of the movement as a Remember. In recognition of his services to the film mysterious notes (motif B) ascend on the woodwind and takes possession of the middle section). Great play is reminder of the symphony’s tonal centre of E flat. This medium he was made a Fellow of the British Film resolve into a more extended version on the strings. made of a fanfare-like theme on the brass (one 3/4 bar all sounds very complicated, but I don’t think you will Academy, the only composer ever to have received this Almost immediately this groping fragment is interrupted followed by three 3/8 bars). This theme dominates the find it a difficult work to listen to. honour. His other appointments include serving as by a sustained drum-roll and, over a steadily mounting movement and reaches its climax Allegro molto in the The thematic ideas on which the whole symphony is chairman for the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain, chord on muted brass the strings repeat a four-note tear-away coda, only to be stopped in its traces by a re- based are stated clearly and I hope concisely in the first which he had been instrumental in forming, in 1949, figure with an upward lift of a ninth (motif C). These are statement (Molto Adagio) of motif C which brings the few pages. It is a stormy and passionate work, strongly 1950 and 1954. He was a Director of the Mechanical the seeds from which the movement evolves. The symphony to a dramatic close. rhythmic in the outer movements but finding tranquillity Copyright Protection Society, a Vice-President of the Adagio tempo gradually accelerates to Allegro ritmico. So ends, or rather begins, a new chapter in my and repose in the middle movement and in the closing Society for the Promotion of New Music (S.P.N.M.) and The repeated notes, which inaugurate it, are obsessional musical life.” pages of the symphony.” Director of the Performing Rights Society. For many and a recognizable ‘thumb-print’ in a number of my years he was one of the panel reading new scores for the works. The Allegro dies away and, after a pause, is Symphony No. 3 was commissioned by the BBC in BBC. The conductor, Sir John Barbirolli, championed followed by motif C (Andante espressivo) now extended 1954 and completed in 1956. The work is dedicated to Note compiled by Andrew Knowles his first four symphonies and the First Symphony is to a long rising tune on the strings, and further extended the then controller of the BBC Richard Howgill.