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New Titles from the Hire Library
Joseph Phibbs: Tenebrae (2006)
Cantata for SATB choir, offstage chamber choir with soloist (high soprano), and small orchestra:
2 fl(II+picc), 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 4 hns, 2 tpts, timp, 1 perc, hp, str (at least 6.5.4.3.2)
15 minutes
Tenebrae was commissioned by the St. Albans Bach Choir in memory of Mary Draper and first performed in St. Albans Cathedral on 1st April 2006 by St. Albans Bach Choir, conducted by Andrew Lucas.
This work is intended for performance in cathedrals and churches. Specific instructions are given regarding the positioning of the performers within the performing space, and parts taken from the Latin Mass are interspersed with settings of one modern and three seventeenth-century metaphysical texts:
Kyrie eleison
Sonnet: The Uncertain Battle David Gasgoyne (1916-2001)
Credo
The World Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)
Sanctus
Sic Vita Henry King (1592-1660)
Agnus Dei
A Litany Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650)
Dona nobis pacem
Reviews from the première:
"In more than fifty years of concert-going I cannot remember an event that more electrified an audience than the world première of Joseph Phibbs' Tenebrae in St Albans on Saturday."
John Manning, The Herts Advertiser
"The Bach Choir had been touched by a legacy from a former member, Mary Draper, and devoted most of it to a commission for a choral piece, Tenebrae, from Joseph Phibbs. So many good things arose from this imaginative action, not least an unusual request to combine both Bach Choir and off-stage choirs, together with solo high soprano and small orchestra.
The intention is that the works' title should convey contrast and opposites, such as movement between turbulence and calm, and darkness to light; the two choirs join forces only for the last pages.
"Merely a look at the total text attracts interest, and Phibbs has added a thrilling [musical] dimension. The work deserves more performances, and quickly, after this significant world première ... in turn thrilling, surprising, and one to reflect on."
John Westcombe, St Albans Observer
"The angelic sounds issued from behind the altar for the opening 'Kyrie' and then from beyond, distantly intoning further texts from the Latin Mass, deftly alternating with the poetic texts sung by the main choir.
"Seated near the back of the Nave, I caught the full impact of the mystical balance between the nearly 200-strong Bach Choir, in full view on stage in front of the altar, and the 'misterioso' sound of off-stage choristers and solo soprano wafting from heavenly realms above and beyond. In his pre-concert talk, Phibbs had mentioned sometimes using the device 'to add weight you add up top, not bass', and this was certainly a feature of both his 2003 Proms piece (Lumina) as well as here in Tenebrae.
Another feature is that he likes to choose texts that suggest 'movement', so his stormy battle sequence (using David Gascoyne's 20th-century sonnet) was followed by the awesome sequence The World, leading onto the intrepid Sic Vita, featuring bursts of 'low bassoon' and 'biting trumpet sounds' as Phibbs himself describes them. Stunning top notes from soloist Lesley-Jane Rogers ('senza vibrato' throughout) intercept from afar to punctuate this vivid fast-moving setting of Henry King's seventeenth-century poem, amidst rapid percussion and searing strings.
"By contrast in one of the closing sequences, the 'Agnus Dei', two muted trumpets and mournful drums from the Herts-base orchestra, Sinfonia Verdi, added darker tones to enhance the dulcet sound of the offstage choristers, soon joined too by the main Bach Choir, all under the steady baton of St Albans Abbey's Master of Music, Andrew Lucas, to realize true 'Tenebrae' indeed."
Jill Barlow, Tempo magazine
Joseph Phibbs is represented by Margaret Murphy Management. More information about the composer can be found on their website.
Michael Berkeley: Concerto for Orchestra (2005)
3 fl(II+picc, III+picc+alto), 3 ob(III+ca), 3 cl(III+bcl), 3 bn(III+cbn), 4 hns, 3 tpts, 3 tbns, 1 tba, timp, 4 perc, hp, pno/cel-org(opt), str
20 minutes
- Energico
- Threnody for a Sad Trumpet
- Con fuoco
Michael Berkeley's Concerto for Orchestra is the second piece he has written as Associate Composer for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and it received its première at the BBC Proms in July 2005. It is in three movements with the outer two having a fast-slow-fast design, which mirrors the overall structure of the piece.
The composer writes:
I deliberately began with a very simple motif: falling tones (think 'Three Blind Mice'!) and soon decided that the first two movements would be based on a downward progression while the third should invert the whole process and move constantly upwards.
Each of the outer movements begins with a gaudy, scherzo-like atmosphere but becomes increasingly serious, even desperate as the music progresses. The somewhat driven conclusion to the opening movement sets up the still, beating heart of the concerto, 'Threnody for a Sad Trumpet'.
As I was working on the music, on Boxing Day 2004, so word of the Asian tsunami disaster filtered through. We all deal with these world tragedies at a certain layer of consciousness, but they hit deeper when we can put a face and a personality to the victims. When I heard that Jane Attenborough (whom I had met through her work at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation) had perished, along with her daughter and mother-in-law, I was profoundly shocked. It seemed natural that this music, which is both grief-stricken and yet strangely tranquil, should be an 'In memoriam' to someone who had worked so passionately to bring the arts to a wider cross-section of society.
Rudely breaking the mood, the final movement Con fuoco ('with fire'), begins with splashy and metallic Chinese cymbals that trigger waves of upward-rushing sound in the orchestra. The music builds to a climax that pivots on the harmonic axis at the heart of the music - at its apex there is a moment of silence, an intake of breath, before a brief reflection on the 'Threnody' is brutally curtailed by a final re-ordering of the opening; but now the thirds on the brass have inexorably and enharmonically moved from a bright and vaguely A major to the far more disquieting world of C sharp minor.
Adapted from the programme note, © Michael Berkeley, 2005
Gabriel Erkoreka: Océano (2004)
picc, 2 fl, 2 ob, ca, 2 cl, bcl, 2 bn, cbn,
4 hn, 3 tpt, 3 tbn, tba, timp, 4 perc, hp, str
14 minutes
Océano was commissioned the Orquesta Sinfonica de Euskadi and first performed by them under Gilbert Varga in Bilbao, Spain, on 4 October 2004.
The composer writes:
Inspired by different oceanic states, the piece evokes the calm of the ocean both as a physical phenomenon and as a metaphor for timelessness, combined with the ever unpredictable forces of nature and translated into turbulence and drama. Aiming to reconcile the timeless with the unpredictable, the ocean, always different yet always the same, also appears in some sections to be represented in the notion of imperceptible change.
Moving towards a 'sub-aquatic' sound, the music constantly reiterates descending fragments in which the natural order of harmonics is inverted: fast moving low registers, high sounds in slow motion, as if seen through a mirror that, like the ocean, reflects the world, whilst distorting it.
'Océano is above all a study in dynamics; a sea of unequal dynamics, and a pattern of sporadic breathing, simulating the oscillating movement of the waves.'
© Gabriel Erkoreka 2004
reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
John Rutter: Distant Land (2004)
2 fl, ob, ca, 2 cl, 2 bn, 4 hn, 2 tpt, 3 tbn (2 tenor, 1 bass) 3 timps, hp, strings
6 minutes
Distant Land was originally written in 1991 as a choral piece (subtitled A Song of Freedom), inspired by the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. Now in a version for full orchestra, the lush string scoring and powerful brass writing allow the musician or listener to set their imagination free with no words to constrain them.
John Rutter: Mass of the Children (2003)
Orchestral - 2 fl, 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 2 hn, 2 tpt, 3 timps, perc, hp, strings
Ensemble - fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, 3 timps, perc, hp, db, org
37 minutes
John Rutter's Mass of the Children was first performed in February 2003 at Carnegie Hall, New York. The text is that of a standard Latin Missa brevis to which several relevant English poetic texts have been added. The first and last of these are taken from Bishop Thomas Ken's renowned morning and evening hymns for the scholars of Winchester College. The give the whole work the framework of a complete day, from waking to sleeping, in which other texts and moods appear like events in that day or events in a life.
Anthony Powers: Air and Angels (2003)
3(II & III +picc).3(III +ca).2.bcl.3(III +cbn)-4.4.2.btn.tba-timp-3perc-hp-pno-elecgtr.bgtr-str (min 12.10.8.8.6)
30 minutes
Composed for the 2003 Three Choirs Festival, Air and Angels received its première in Hereford Cathedral on 21st August 2003. The piece is a setting of the love poetry of John Donne. The title Air and Angels is taken from Donne's poem which appears close to the beginning and end of this work. Angels were a favourite image for Donne and they are present too at the start of Powers' piece ' At the round earth's imagined corners, blow your trumpets, Angels, and arise...
Gerald Barry: L'Agitation des Observateurs, Le Tremblement des Voyeurs (2003)
solo trumpet and ensemble
afl.ca.cl.bcl.bn-tpt.hn.tbn-pno-2vn.va.vc.db
7 minutes 30 seconds
In Gerald Barry's latest chamber work, the members of the ensemble seem to be the observers, the trumpeter the voyeur. The piece is punctuated by periods of silence as important as the notes themselves. Unusually, the trumpet is not heard alone until close to the end of the piece when it finally steps out from the crowd, breaking the pattern....
Michael Berkeley: Tristessa (2002)
for cor anglais, viola, and orchestra
2(II+afl, picc).2.2(II+bcl).2(II+cbn)-4.3.3(III=btn).tba-2perc-hp-str
21 minutes
Berkeley's first piece for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales since his appointment as Composer-in-Association, Tristessa was premièred under the direction of Richard Hickox at St David's Cathedral, Wales, in May 2003. A solo viola and cor anglais are the central protagonists, at times leading the orchestra, at others responding to it. The title comes from Angela Carter's novel 'The Passion of new Eve', which provided the starting-point for the piece.
Bob Chilcott: Tandem (2002)
2 orchestras (or one augmented orchestra divided into 2), piano (or electric piano)
orchestra I: 2.2.2.tsax.2-2.3.2.btn.1-timp-str
orchestra II: 2.2.2.2-2.2.2.btn-str
21 minutes
Tandem was commissioned by the BBC and Making Music, and premièred by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Kensington Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Maida Vale Studios earlier this year. It will be of interest to all youth and adult orchestral societies. Chilcott has based this six-movement work on a Handel concerto, creating a vibrant and engaging piece full of contrasts and easily identifiable as Chilcott's work through its bright musical language.
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