WOODBRIDGE ORCHESTRAL SOCIETY

“AT-HOME” CONCERT

MONDAY, MARCH 30^th, 2009

At Kyson Primary School, Woodbridge

PROGRAMME

	Overture - Iolanthe	Arthur Sullivan
	Serenade for Orchestra - 2008 1. Allegretto 2. Adagio 3. Allegro	David Lloyd
	Soirees musicales 1. March 2. Canzonetta 3. Tirolese 4. Bolero 5. Tarantella	Benjamin Britten
INTERVAL Refreshments will be served during the interval
	Bavarian Dances 1. The Dance 2. Lullaby	Edward Elgar
	Enigma Variations (selection) Theme I. (C. A. E.) – Andante Caroline Alice Elgar (his wife) III (R. B. T.) – Allegretto Richard Baxter-Townshend, author IV (W. M. B.) – Allegro di molto William Meath Baker, (country squire, gentleman and scholar V (R. P. A.) – Moderato Richard P. Arnold, amateur pianist VI (Ysobel) – Andantino Isobel Fitton, amateur Violist VIII (W. N.) – Allegretto Winifred Norbury, amateur musician IX (Nimrod) – Adagio A. J. Jaeger, Elgar’s close friend and supporter	Edward Elgar

Programme Notes

Sullivan - Iolanthe

The world premiere of Iolanthe took place November 25, 1882 at the Savoy Theatre in London and, a few hours later, allowing for the time zone difference, at the Standard Theatre in New York City. The one major difference between the two productions would have been the overture. Sullivan had not got around to writing it before the U.S. company sailed for New York, so he told Alfred Cellier, the music director for the American show, to make one up himself!

David Lloyd – Serenade for orchestra 2008

The Serenade was originally written as a piece for oboe and piano, and tried out in private by Amanda McDowell and the composer. It was then orchestrated into its present form. There are three movements; Allegretto, Adagio and Allegro.

The first movement starts with a single bar’s introduction by the strings, leading to a solo by the cor anglais. The music develops, and most of the instruments take part in this at different times. ‘Tutti’ passages (i.e. all playing simultaneously) sometimes occur between instrumental solos. The movement starts in G major, then there is a section of 14 bars in G minor, and it reverts to G major for the last 18 bars.

The middle movement, adagio, is quite slow. Two bars of introduction by the strings lead to a duet between oboe and cor anglais; the difference in character of these two instruments is emphasized in the music, with long high notes for the oboe and lower notes in the cor. The movement develops with various combinations of instruments taking fragments from the opening melodies. The music often changes key, which offers interest to the listener as well as to the player!

The third movement is marked Allegro, and having the character of a country dance jig, is lively in nature. This gives a contrast with the middle movement. Again, small groups of wind instruments play alternately with tutti strings. There is a repeated coda section near the end of the piece, featuring (again) oboe, cor anglais and bassoon.

Two bars played softly with full orchestra finish the Serenade.

Britten - Soirees musicales

The Soirees is a suite of five arrangements of Rossini tunes, each as light and direct as the originals. After the familiar March, the Canzonetta is a simple, aria-like instrumental melody, the Tirolese is an Austrian waltz, the Bolero a triple-time Spanish dance traditionally accompanied by castanets for which Britten makes room in his arrangement, and the rapid Tarantella is an Italian dance supposed from the 17th century onwards to be the cure for tarantula spider bites. (The high success rate of this cure owed much to the fact that the tarantula bite is in fact more or less harmless.) In these arrangements Britten may be heard in the mastery of colourful orchestration and a transparent gift for stylistic parody. The rest is Rossini.

Edward Elgar – Bavarian Dances

During the 1890s the Elgars enjoyed several holidays in Bavaria: Edward loved the countryside, the relaxed atmosphere, and the fact that Catholicism was the predominant religion. They were particularly fond of the local Schuhplattler dancing, and in 1895 Elgar wrote a suite of six ‘choral songs’ to his wife’s words, which tried to imitate the spirit of these dances. The work was entitled Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands. It was later orchestrated, and Elgar also arranged three of the songs as the orchestral suite Three Bavarian Dances, of which we are going to play the first two tonight, The Dance and Lullaby.

Elgar Enigma Variations (selection)

His wife's contribution

One account of the piece's genesis is that after a tiring day of teaching in 1898, Elgar was daydreaming at the piano. A melody he played caught the attention of his wife, who liked it and asked him to repeat it for her. So, to entertain his wife, he began to improvise variations on this melody, each one either a musical portrait of one of their friends, or in the musical style they might have used. Elgar eventually expanded and orchestrated these improvisations into the Enigma Variations.

Structure

The full work consists of the theme, followed by 14 variations, of which we are playing a selection tonight.

Theme (Andante)

The theme consists of two contrasting melodic fragments, with the first one being the main theme:

The main theme is played by the first violins at the beginning. It is played for a second time, with a slightly different accompaniment, after the second melody has been introduced by the woodwinds. Both fragments are further developed in the following variations.

The theme leads into Variation 1 without a pause.

Variation 1 (L'istesso tempo) "C.A.E."

Caroline Alice Elgar, Edward's wife. The variation contains repetitions of a four-note melodic fragment which Elgar reportedly whistled whenever arriving home to his wife; with a little imagination, something like "Dar-ling, I'm home"...

Variation 3 (Allegretto) "R.B.T."

Richard Baxter Townsend, an amateur actor and mimic, capable of extreme changes in the pitch of his voice, a characteristic which the music imitates.

Variation 4 (Allegro di molto) "W.M.B."

William Meath Baker, squire of Hasfield, Gloucestershire and builder of Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, who 'expressed himself somewhat energetically'. This is the shortest of the variations.

Variation 5 (Moderato) "R.P.A."

Richard Penrose Arnold, the son of the poet Matthew Arnold, and himself an amateur pianist. This variation leads into the next without pause.

Variation 6 (Andantino) "Ysobel"

Isabel Fitton, a viola pupil of Elgar. The melody of this variation is played by the viola.

Variation 8 (Allegretto) "W.N."

Winifred Norbury, a friend Elgar regarded as particularly easygoing, hence the relatively relaxed atmosphere. The theme also refers to the Norbury house, which Elgar was fond of. At the end of this variation, a single violin note is held over into the next variation, the most celebrated of the set.

Variation 9 (Adagio) "Nimrod"

Augustus J. Jaeger, Elgar's best friend. An attempt to capture what Elgar saw as Jaeger's noble character, it is also said that this variation depicts a night-time walk the two of them had, during which they discussed the slow movements of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. The first eight bars resemble, and have been said to represent, the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's Eighth Piano Sonata (Pathetique). The name of the variation punningly refers to an Old Testament patriarch described as a mighty hunter, the name Jaeger being German for hunter.