Programme Notes:

A Programme of Sacred Works by
Benjamin Britten

Saturday, 5th December 2009

The University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford

Programme

Te Deum in C
A Hymn of St Columba
Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria (organ)
Antiphon
Festival Te Deum
A Hymn to the Virgin
A Boy was Born (chorale)
Corpus Christi Carol
A Ceremony of Carols :
Procession
Wolcum Yole!
There is no Rose
That yongë child
Balulalow
As dew in Aprille
This little Babe
Interlude (harp)
In Freezing Winter Night
Spring Carol
Deo Gracias
Recession

James Brown conductor
Robyn Parton soprano
Steven Grahl organ
Vicky Lester harp

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is generally considered to have brought greatness back to British music after more than a century in which it had been lacking, picking up in some respects where Purcell had left off. His musical talent emerged in early childhood, and he is one of the few composers to have works from their teenage years regularly performed.

Childhood was very important to Britten, and he spoke of liking to think of a part of himself always remaining 13 years old. He was a compulsive and competitive sportsman, perhaps driven by the determination to keep his boyhood alive, and at times some of this energy overflows into his music. He wrote much music for or including children’s voices – there are parts for children in most of his operas, for instance – and he preferred the raw sound of their voices to the purified form often found in cathedrals or chapels.

Britten’s upbringing was religious, but he was not a church-goer after he came to question the church’s authority in the 1930s under the influence of W H Auden. He did, however, retain a belief in the moral teachings of Christ, even when he no longer accepted his divinity. This goes some way towards explaining why although he wrote a considerable number of works based on religious texts, few of them are suitable for regular church use, and those were mainly written for special occasions.

Tonight’s concert starts with music that was written for use in church services, or is suitable for such use. The Te Deum in C (1933) was written just at the end of his time at the Royal College of Music for St Mark’s, North Audley St, London, and uses the bell-like figure heard in the organ pedals at the beginning as a unifying device throughout the work. The piece does not move off the chord of C major until the third page, while still building up dramatic tension. A Hymn of St Columba (1962) sets words attributed to a sixth-century saint. The horrors of judgement and the angst of waiting fearfully for deliverance at the Second Coming are conveyed by a rumbling bass line in the organ pedals (the Second Coming is an Advent theme, and so particularly appropriate for this time of year). The Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria (1946) was written for the name-day of St Matthew’s, Northampton, and is the only piece of solo organ music that Britten wrote. In spite of this, it is idiomatically written for the instrument, and was purposely written to be within the capabilities of the average parish church organist. The theme – a fragment of nine notes – forms the basis of a pedal cadenza in the prelude. It is also the theme of the fugue, which has more the form of an ostinato than that of a formal fugue such as those of Bach. Antiphon (1956) is a setting of words by George Herbert which depict a conversation between men and angels, in which each comment on lines that they sing together; the angels are depicted by a treble solo (or three trebles), and the men by the lower parts of the chorus. The Festival Te Deum (1945) was written for the centenary festival of St Mark’s, Swindon. It shares with its predecessor a simplicity in the setting of the words, and avoidance, for the most part, of counterpoint; but it has gained a new flexibility of rhythm, and a striking degree of independence between the voices and the organ.

In the second part of the concert we move towards Christmas. A Hymn to the Virgin (1930) is the earliest work in the concert, and was one of the pieces which gained Britten admission to the Royal College of Music when he was just 16 years old. The fourteenth-century macaronic (i.e. alternating English and Latin) text is set by dividing the choir into two, with a semi-chorus singing the Latin lines. Not long after, Britten wrote A Boy was Born (1933), a large set of variations for chorus showing some influence from Berg, whose opera Wozzeck Britten had just heard with the result that he wanted to study with him (he was, however, prevented from doing so). The first movement, which is being performed tonight, is a chorale setting in a modal vein. The fifth variation combines In the Bleak Midwinter with the Corpus Christi Carol, and many years later, Britten extracted from it the Corpus Christi Carol (1962) as a setting for solo treble and piano or organ. The tune is based on a medi æ val theme, adapted by Britten to suit the fifteenth-century words.

The Ceremony of Carols was mainly written in 1942 while Britten was returning from America to England, and five of the poems come from a book, The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, that he bought in Nova Scotia on the way. It is written for three treble parts, though the first performance (before it reached its final form) was in fact given by a choir of women’s voices. The use of a harp was probably suggested by a request he had received for a harp concerto – and indeed, the sonority of the harp rather than an organ is a particularly striking touch. In its use of plainsong to frame a work made up of early poetry, this work also foreshadows Britten’s later church parables ( Curlew River, etc.). The settings are largely homophonic and dance-like, although counterpoint is used for effect in some movements. This is most notable in This Little Babe, in which the war between good and evil is illustrated using an irregular melody, in canon, over a rhythmically relentless accompaniment.

Robyn Parton soprano

Robyn graduated in 2008 from Worcester College, Oxford where she was a choral scholar and began postgraduate study this September at the Royal College of Music with Sally Burgess. She has performed with British Youth Opera, New Chamber Opera and Bampton Classical Opera and is a current member of the Monteverdi Choir Apprenticeship scheme. She has completed a year's training on the ENO/Baylis Opera works programme.

Steven Grahl organ

Steven combines the post of Assistant Organist at New College, Oxford with that of Organist & Director of Music at St Marylebone Parish Church, London and the Principal Conductorship of the Guildford Chamber Choir. A prize-winning graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford (where he was Organ Scholar) and the Royal Academy of Music, Steven gained the Limpus (highest mark) and Dixon (improvisation) prizes in his FRCO examination, and is also a holder of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medallion.

Vicky Lester harp

Vicky is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music where she studied as a scholar to attain a Master’s degree in performance with distinction. Accumulating numerous prizes and awards throughout her education, Vicky is currently living and working in London, enjoying a rich and varied career as a free-lance musician. She is in demand as a soloist, giving numerous solo recitals nationwide as well as making appearances as a concerto soloist with orchestras across the country. As an orchestral harpist, she has played with some of the country’s finest professional orchestras, and she has recorded for a number of film scores. Vicky has also made several television appearances, including a BBC Promenade Concert in 2005 and the Princess Diana Memorial Concert in 2007, and she has also performed in Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Stoppard/Previn) at the Royal National Theatre.

James Brown conductor

James was Organ Scholar of Girton College, Cambridge and upon graduating studied organ at the Conservatoire de Musique, Geneva with Lionel Rogg. After two years working as an organist in Texas James returned to England where he is currently Organist of the University Church, Oxford and a lay clerk in New College Choir. James has conducted the Cherwell Singers since 2007.

The Cherwell Singers