Kalon Kalon I transcribed the simple ostinato patterm, KALON for String Quartet and String Orchestra changed the metre slightly and incorporated a RICHARD BLACKFORD (b. 1954) fast, dance-like drone motif with its exuberant I Lyra mordant decorations. II Beklemmt III Stile Concitato At the beginning of Kalon the string quartet thus becomes a four-part “super-lyra,” featuring Kalon is the Greek word for perfect physical and open strings and fifths like its Cretan model. moral beauty, as conceived by the philosophers The overall structure is ternary, with two fast of Classical Greece. The three movements explore sections based on the lyra motif flanking a different aspects of kalon, also the context in slower, more lyrical section. The entire movement 1 I. Lyra [7.42] which beauty can exist in ugliness and darkness. is based around the lyra motif, but it undergoes 2 II. Beklemmt [9.30] melodic extensions, augmentation, intervallic The two string groups (quartet and orchestra) and rhythmic changes in every section of 3 III. Stile Concitato [6.18] frequently play in different tempi simultaneously, the movement. thereby producing complex and rich sonorities Total timings: [23.32] and textures. Each movement approaches the II Beklemmt combined tempi differently, and each movement explores new antiphonal possibilities, new The title Beklemmt refers to the eight-bar approaches to counterpoint, new definitions of passage in the Cavatina movement of rhythmic consonance and dissonance. Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 Op. 130. In that section the first violin becomes I Lyra disassociated from the rest of the quartet, its line is disjointed, syncopated, almost as In 1994 I recorded an old man playing a if the “oppressed, stifled, anguished” melody ALBION QUARTET three-stringed Cretan lyra in Athens during the of its title has become lost, almost in another CZECH PHILHARMONIC filming of Tony Harrison’s Channel 4 film-poem world, another tempo. At eleven minutes JIRÍ ROŽEÑ CONDUCTOR A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan, for which I duration, this movement is by far the longest composed the score. In the first movement of and most dramatic of the three. I had heard www.signumrecords.com - 3 - from a Holocaust survivor that Jewish string III Stile Concitato after Jirí Rožeñ made it clear to the players polytempo (for example, works like Stockhausen’s quartets in Nazi concentration camps were in which sections they were to work as an Gruppen or Carré) do not fully address. forced to play some of the most sublime music Claudio Monteverdi coined the term stile ensemble in tempo unison and in which ever conceived (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven), concitato in the preface to his Eighth Book of sections, those in multiple tempi, they must Aside from the sheer ingenuity and virtuosity of whilst a few yards away the most barbaric Madrigals, published in 1638. He describes it as on no account listen to the other. In practise the technical construction, Kalon has considerable atrocities were being perpetrated. In this “repeated sixteenth notes in the strings, basso this unusual challenge for the performers impact at the emotional level. This exploration context Kalon, the embodiment of beauty, continuo and voice”, a practise also deployed gave their playing a thrilling edge that I hope of the concept of physical and moral beauty becomes a fragile, flickering flame surrounded by him in 1624 with the opera Il Combatimento is evident in the recording. I first heard Kalon also embraces its opposite, as it must if it is by unfathomable darkness. The attempts of di Tancredi e Clorinda. The mood of concitato played in its entirety at its premiere at the to be a complete artistic statement that extends the quartet to survive in a hostile environment is of agitation, even warlike sentiment, and Cheltenham Music Festival on July 7th 2018 beyond the merely superficial. In its unflinching lie at the heart of the music of this movement. is contrasted with what Monteverdi termed with string quartet and string orchestra from central reference to the perversion of great art The string quartet is consistently at variance molle, or music that is soft, gentle and soothing. the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted in the extermination camps of the Holocaust, with the string orchestra, the tempi are At the climax of the movement the two groups by Martyn Brabbins. Blackford is also confronting his own family never synchronised and the two ensembles appear to be united in tempo, the repeated history, one side of his family having been almost consistently either interrupt or obliterate each sixteenth notes now dominating the whole Richard Blackford 2019 completely wiped out during that abomination. other. The progression of the string quartet texture with syncopations of increasing complexity. It speaks to Blackford’s great musical integrity is one of ever-decreasing tempi until it reaches In the final bars the tempi are once again The Challenges of Kalon that he chose not to speak of his personal the first of two quotations from the Beethoven split and the string orchestra punctuates the John Pickard aspect to the work at the time of the premiere, Cavatina. The string orchestra material, by concitato quartet with unrelated accented chords. preferring instead for the music to speak on contrast, is constructed in symmetrical sections Both groups come together in tempo and Kalon is one of the major outcomes of a recent its own terms. based on tempo relationships of duple to affirmative rhythmic unison for the final two bars. period of intensive study by Richard Blackford triple time. In contrast to the first movement, for his doctorate at the University of Bristol Kalon is a work that deserves a regular place the two ensembles here present sustained When we recorded Kalon with the Czech that investigates aspects of polytempo and in the repertoire, for it combines intellectual sections individually, rather than in combination. Philharmonic and Albion String Quartet in seeks to apply his findings in a range of musical rigour and innovation with direct emotional Unlike the first movement, the opposing tempi 2018, both groups were rehearsed separately, contexts. What makes Kalon unusual is that communication. In appealing to the mind, it are deployed to create conflict and dissonance. so that when they came together each group polytempo is explored in the context of extended speaks directly to the heart. would be confident with its own material. My tonality and modality. This brings special challenges fears that one group would be distracted by of harmonic and linear perception which, it John Pickard is Professor of Composition and the alien tempo of the other were quickly allayed may be argued, serially based works using Applied Musicology at the University of Bristol. - 4 - - 5 - RICHARD BLACKFORD Autumn at the Royal Opera House. His music, acclaimed choral works Mirror Of Perfection, ALBION QUARTET which includes three operas, two ballets and Voices of Exile and Not In Our Time were all Richard Blackford studied at the Royal College many works for orchestra, chorus and chamber subjects of television documentaries and Tamsin Waley-Cohen violin of Music London, where he was awarded the ensembles, has been performed and broadcast have been frequently broadcast and performed Emma Parker violin Tagore Gold Medal and the Mendelssohn all over the world and has been recorded on around the world. In 2014 The Great Animal Rosalind Ventris viola Scholarship, then in Italy with Hans Werner Sony Classical, Warner Classics, Decca, Signum Orchestra was premiered to great acclaim at Nathanial Boyd cello Henze on a Leverhulme Award. He was Classics and Nimbus labels. In 2000 his the Cheltenham Festival and broadcast live subsequently first Composer-in-Residencefour-hour choral and orchestral score for the on BBC Radio 3 before being successfully Formed in 2016, the Albion Quartet unites four at Balliol College Oxford, and later with the CNN/BBC series Millennium won an Emmy released on Nimbus Records. In July 2015 outstanding young string players, brought Brno Philharmonic. He has been Director of Award for Best Title Sequence and for which Richard was awarded Die Goldene Deutschland together by a shared belief in the visceral power Music of the Royal Ballet School, and during Richard was nominated for Outstanding for services to music in Germany alongside of the string quartet. Their current season this period he conducted his ballet Plea To Achievement in Music. His three critically Placido Domingo and Diana Damrau. His sees the quartet returning to the Wigmore second violin concerto Niobe, commissioned Hall and Aldeburgh Festival, as well as by the Czech Philharmonic, was premiered in continuing residencies at Sainte-Mere Festival the Rudolfinum, Prague in 2017 with soloist in France and RWCMD in Cardiff. They will Tamsin Waley-Cohen and released on Signum be making a number of broadcasts for BBC Classics (SIGCD539). 2019 saw the award of Radio 3, whilst continuing their recording his doctorate at the University of Bristol, and projects for Signum Records, for whom they are the premiere of his new major choral work exclusive artists. Pietà, with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra. Richard is a Trustee of The Engagements from the 2017-18 season Bach Choir, Music For Youth and Aberystwyth included performances at the Louvre in Paris, MusicFest and is President of the Bournemouth Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Robert Schumann Symphony Chorus, and Chairman of The English Gesselschaft in Frankfurt, Båstad Festival Music Festival. He is published by Novello in Sweden, Festival of Music in Franconia and Nimbus Publishing. and Rhine Valley Music Festival in Germany, as well as the Hay Festival in the UK. They www.blackford.co.uk were artists in residence at the Ryedale Festival, exploring the chamber works of - 6 - - 7 - Dvořák, and are currently recording a Dvořák Passionate about musical education, the cycle for their label, Signum Records.