The Southwark Consorts of Winds

Summer Concert

at
St Barnabas Parish Hall
Dulwich Village, London SE22
Saturday July 3rd

Programme

• William Byrd - Mass in Five Voices
• Giovanni Pergolesi - Stabat Mater
• Louis J A Lefebure-Wely - Sortie
• Michael Ball - Concertino
• J S Bach - Little Organ Fugue
• Gordon Jacob - Wind in the Reeds
• Giles Brindley - The Four Temperaments
• Alan Taylor - In Remembrance of a Passing Generation
• Sergey Taneyev - Andante
• Ruth Gipps - Seascape
• Guy Woolfenden - Serenade for Sophia
• Issac Albeniz - Tango
• Johann Strauss Jnr. - Die Fledermaus Overture

Programme Notes

Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei

William Byrd, as a Catholic in Elizabethan and early Jacobean England, had to watch his step. In spite of being established as the most prominent musician of his time, he was repeatedly fined for his religious beliefs. His religious music, consequently, has a private character, and in fact was written for performance in small ceremonies, almost in secret, in the houses of the Catholic nobility - a far cry from the sumptuous catherdral masses written by Italian composers during the same period.

Numbers 1, 2, 4, 11, and 12

Pergolesi was commissioned to write his Stabat Mater for a private ceremony for a group of the Neopolitan nobility. It replaced a work by Scarlatti, considered to be old-fashioned, but the new piece divided opinions, being hailed as a masterpiece and condemned as vulgar. It reflects a more directly personal form of religious devotion, and has a directness and power of emotional expression which may have seemed tasteless to people accustomed to more restrained music.

Lefebure-Wely was a Parisian organist of the nineteenth century, and was the first organist of the cathedral of St. Sulpice. As such he was expected to play the organ and compose music for services. The 'Sortie' was originally composed for organ, and is his most frequently played piece today. Lefebure-Wely has been described as the Lloyd Webber of nineteenth century France, on account of the lighthearted nature of this and other of his compositions.The piece has been arranged for clarinet choir by Chrstopher Hooker.

Michael Ball was born in Manchester, and studied at the Royal College of Music, and also in Italy with Ligeti and Berio. This piece is characterised by extremely rhythmic writing, frequent changes of time signature and cross-rhythms. It was written for Berkshire Young Musician's Trust, and first performed in 1998.

In a fugue, instruments start playing one at a time, all playing the same melody, but at different pitches. This melody is then heard throughout piece, in conjunction with other melodies. Instruments will drop out at various points during the piece, and then rejoin, so that the texture of the music constantly changes. The golden age of the fugue was the Baroque era, and Bach was possibly the greatest master of the genre.

Gordon Jacob is one of the foremost composers of wind music in this country. This suite of pieces is in four movements: March, Humoreske, 'A Childhood Memory', and 'Ballet Russe'. It was commissioned by the British Federation of Music Festivals and first performed in Harrogate in 1993.

"In August 2003 my aunt in California died. She was one of the last of a remarkable generation who had come through the Depression and the Second World War, moving from a stable but relatively poor environment into the modern world of relative riches and great instability, while retaining their fundamental values. They were the children of a family who had lived at different times in parts of Latin America, adventurous and innovatory, but with a fundamental sense of moral purpose and personal closeness. The piece is my tribute to their courage and sense of values."

Taneyev was born in 1856, and was a composition pupil of Tchaikovsky, who was also a life-long friend. He became Professor at the Moscow Conservatoire, and died in 1915. The Andante for double wind quintet provides an unusual late romantic piece for an ensemble greatly used in that period. Its Russian character adds a rare flavour to a programme of music for such ensembles.

Born in Bexhill, and dying in 1999 in Eastbourne, and composer of a wide range of music, Ruth Gipps was for long ignored by the British musical establishment. She studied at the Royal College of Music. She went on to composer a wide range of works. Her second Symphony was performed in Birmingham in 1946. She developed a varied musical career, gaining a doctorate in music, and becoming conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir and various orchestras. She was a professor at Trinity College, London from 1959 to 1966, but felt that her professional life had become dull after the early years. Seascape is one of her later works - Opus 53 of the roughly 70 she completed - and we have found it a fascinating and rewarding work to prepare for performance.

This piece was written to celebrate the birth of the composer's first grandchild, in 2001. It consists of three movements. The Intrada sums up the happy event of Sophia's arrival, and is in a forms A-B-A structure. The Dance which follows taps into the rich culture of Sophia's Jamaican relations. The finale plays on the juxtaposition of two contrasted moods, first reflective and then happier.

Albeniz, a native of Catalonia, lived from 1960 to 1909. A child prodigy as both pianist and composer, he studied in Paris, Madrid, and Brussels, including a time with Liszt. After teaching in Spain, he spent the rest of his adventurous life in Paris and London. Tango is one of his most popular pieces, and is from a set of six pieces entitled Espana, dating from 1890.

This was Johann Strauss's most popular operetta, and the Overture features several of the work's most popular melodies, including two of the best known waltzs.