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The Arnold Festival Celebration Programme The Royal & Derngate Theatres , Northampton October 21st & 22nd 2006 Presidents: Patrons: We would like to thank the following for their generous support, helping to make the Arnold Festival possible: Saturday October 21st 10.00 Chamber music for Wind Malcolm Arnold’s writing for wind is always instinctive, highly effective and colourful. This recital includes all five Fantasies he wrote for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s International Wind Competition in 1966 where the winners included James Galway and Maurice Bourge. The Wind Quintet Op 2 was written in 1942, just a few months before the ever popular Shanties but then disappeared for over sixty years. It was re-discovered after the death of clarinettist Steve Waters, who played in the first performance and then took the score and parts home for safe keeping. There they remained until unearthed, at the bottom of a box of his music, just a couple of years ago. Houkou gave the first London performance of the Arnold Wind Quintet at the launch of Malcolm Arnold: Rogue Genius at the Royal Festival Hall in 2004. Houkou Wind Quintet Op 2 12mins Katherine Carter plays with the University of Leeds Sinfonia and Symphony Orchestra. She was a member of the Royal College of Music Junior Department and was principal in the Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra as well as principal in London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra, and English Schools' Orchestra. As a chamber musician Katherine has performed in venues such as The English High Commission in Canberra, Australia, the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall. David Curington studied at the Guildhall School of Music Junior Department. He was a member of the National Youth Orchestra for three years, eventually as subprincipal oboist. He is currently principal oboe in the Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra. David also enjoys composition and hopes to develop this interest as a career. Rosemary Burton read Music at St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and is currently in her first year of postgraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In Cambridge she was principal bassoon of the University Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. She attended the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music. Rosie was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for two years, the second as principal bassoon, and was co-principal of Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra for five years. As a soloist she has performed concertos by Weber and Hummel and in May 2004 she performed Robin Holloway's Concerto with Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra. 11.00 Music for Piano Malcolm Arnold’s piano music spans fifty years, from Air, written in Northampton in 1937, to Three Fantasies, composed in 1987 in Wymondham, Norfolk. Many of the early works reflect Arnold’s lifelong interest in jazz and his devotion, since his early days at the RCM, to Constant Lambert. The Sonata and the Ukrainian Variations show an impressive maturity from the young composer. Cliodna Shanahan and Christopher Lee Guild Air February 1937 1min Clíodna Shanahan is presently undertaking a B.Mus. performance degree at the Royal College of Music. She began playing at five and attended the Yehudi Menuhin School from 1997 to 2002. She has already won many prizes and awards including the prestigious Amadeus Prize at the Royal College of Music. Clíodna has performed extensively, both here and abroad, appearing as a concerto soloist, solo recitalist and playing chamber music. Christopher Lee Guild also studies at the Royal College of Music in London. He was a pupil at St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh and has won such outstanding awards as the Moray Piano Competition, the Audrey Innes Trophy and the Chopin Society of Edinburgh gold medal. In January 2005 he gave his first public recital for the Edinburgh Society of Musicians which was received with great acclaim.
12.00 Song of Freedom In 1972 Arnold was commissioned to write a work for the National Schools Brass Band Association’s twenty-first anniversary. A nationwide competition was organised to encourage children to write poems on freedom, from which Arnold selected texts for this twenty-minute Song of Freedom. It is a highly effective work and is as topical today as it was over thirty years ago. Choir of The Royal Latin School, Buckingham (Director Robert Tucker) and The Rushden Brass Band (Director Richard Graves) Robert Tucker studied at the University of Wales, where he held organ scholarships at St. David’s Metropolitan and Llandaff Cathedrals, and later at Trinity College of Music, London, and Cambridge University. He is currently director of the arts and music at The Royal Latin School, Buckingham. Robert composes for Faber Music, ABRSM and Queen’s Temple Publications; his latest project is a large-scale collaborative opera involving pupils with local history, to be produced in 2008. 2.00 Music for Voice This recital of songs by Malcolm Arnold is almost certainly the first of its kind. Many don’t know that Arnold’s output includes a whole host of songs – from the poignant Beauty Haunts the Woods, a setting of some moving words by his elder sister Ruth, written when he was barely seventeen, to the witty Song of the Accounting Periods by way of a vivacious group of songs for Sean O’Casey’s play Purple Dust, and the serious and beautiful William Blake settings. It promises to be very special.
Jessica Gillingwater, Soprano with Shuang Wang, piano 5 Songs from ‘Kensington Gardens’ 1938 5mins Jessica Gillingwater studied at the Junior Department of Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Recent performances have included Mozart’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the choir and orchestra of Imperial College, Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas in which Jessica took the title role and directed the chorus, and Bachianas Brasileiras, for soprano and eight cellos by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. She is also a member of the Rodolfus Choir. Shuang Wang joined the Junior Department of Royal Northern College of Music in 1994. During the ten years in which she attended Junior RNCM, she was invited to play in many concerts, both internally and externally, one of the most notable being the prestigious European Piano Teachers’ Association Invitation Concert in 1996. In 2004 she reached the Regional Finals of the BBC Young Musicians’ Competition. Jonathan Howse is a third year student at the Royal Academy of Music. He has already performed extensively in this country and abroad. Notable performances include a recital for Malcolm Arnold’s 80th birthday in Norwich and the Finzi Concerto in the presence of Christopher Finzi, the composer’s son. He is presently principal clarinet and leader of the National Youth Wind Orchestra.
3.00 The Northampton Fellowship Award Finalists perform music by Malcolm Arnold This competition is open to all members of the Northampton Music and Performing Arts Service. There will be a prize of £100 for the winner and £50 for the runner-up. All performers will be playing solo or chamber music by Sir Malcolm. 5.00 Piers Burton-Page talks about Sir Malcolm and introduces his television film ‘An Act of Friendship’ (1989) Piers Burton-Page is a familiar voice from countless music broadcasts on Radio 3. He was on the staff of the BBC from 1971 to 2002. He now divides his time between writing, lecturing and broadcasting. He is also a regular reviewer for International Record Review. He has a particular interest in opera and in British music of all periods, and in 1994 his Philharmonic Concerto was the first biography of Malcolm Arnold. He is now trying to finish a book with the working title of Unfinished Symphonies…
7.30 THE ARNOLD CONCERTO PRIZE The Arnold Ensemble conducted by Matthew Taylor Malcolm Arnold wrote more concertos than any other twentieth-century British composer, each inspired by, and written for a distinguished friend. They are all wonderful vehicles for musical and technical display, and much more too. As with all Arnold’s work, there is always a subtext, which might be in the form of a warm-hearted picture of the dedicatee, a reflection of his own personal condition or a comment on some contemporary issue. Six of these short but fine concertos have been selected for the first Arnold Concerto Prize, competed for by some outstanding young musicians from six of the country’s leading music conservatoires. Both Flute Concertos were written for his friend and fellow LPO player, Richard Adeney. Separated by nearly twenty years, they are very contrasted in their musical and technical demands. The Oboe Concerto was for Leon Goossens, for whom he had also written his Sonatina. The 1st Clarinet concerto was for Jack Thurston, a friend for many years who tragically died while still at the height of his powers. The 2nd was for Benny Goodman and for all the jazzy razzmatazz on the surface, there is a darkness beneath. Malcolm wrote it during one of his most emotionally difficult periods. The 2nd Horn Concerto was for Dennis Brain, who also died young, killed in a car accident weeks after giving his only performance of the work.
Concerto No 1 for Flute & Strings Op 45 13mins Concerto for Oboe and Strings Op 39 15mins Concerto No 1 for Clarinet and Strings Op 20 17mins ------Interval ------ Concerto for Flute No 2 Op 111 14mins Concerto No 2 for Horn and Strings Op 58 14mins Concerto for Clarinet No 2 Op 115 18mins ------Short interval while the judges deliberate----- Announcement of the winner and runner-up of the first Malcolm Arnold Concerto prize Clare Jefferis was awarded a Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. She is now a Post-Graduate Scholar and has won many prizes. Xiaodi Liu began her oboe studies in her native China at the School of Music in Beijing and at the age of fifteen became principal oboe in the renowned China National Youth Symphony Orchestra. In 2002 she came to England to study at the Royal Northern College of Music where she has performed as a soloist and frequently as a chamber musician. She was invited back to China in 2005 to play in the China International Oboe Festival and to present a recital at the ShangHai Conservatory. Prema Kesselman is an active soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, performing throughout the USA, Canada and Europe. She presented a highly successful New York solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005. She graduated from Temple University-Boyer College of Music in Philadelphia, PA, with a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance, and where she won many prestigious prizes and awards. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Flute Performance Studies at Trinity College of Music, London. Christine Smith studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama Junior department and continued her studies at the RSAMD gaining a B.Mus. and a PG.Dip. She plays regularly with orchestras such as the Royal Scottish National, Scottish Chamber, BBC Scottish Symphony, Scottish Opera and the Birmingham Royal Ballet and is currently on trial for principal horn at the Northern Ballet. She is also a keen chamber and solo musician giving performances nationwide as a concerto soloist. Timothy Orpen was educated at Wells Cathedral School and Chetham’s School of Music, before accepting a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music where he has won numerous prizes and awards. Timothy was a woodwind finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2002. Last year he was the overall winner of the Royal Over-Seas League music competition. He has played with the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and has given many recitals across the UK and in Europe. Matthew Taylor won a Music Scholarship to Queen’s College, Cambridge, where he studied Composition with Robin Holloway. A Conducting Scholarship to Guildhall School of Music followed and study as a Postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music. He was selected by Leonard Bernstein to conduct at the Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival in 1987. Matthew Taylor's recording of Simpson's 11th Symphony and Nielsen Variations for Hyperion Records was highlighted as one of the Gramophone Records of the Year Awards for 2004. The Arnold Ensemble, Artistic Director Matthew Taylor, was formed in 2004 in London with the specific intention of bringing Sir Malcolm's music to a wider audience by programming his chamber orchestral music alongside composers for whom he has always felt a strong affinity. Emma Johnson MBE is one of the few clarinetists to have established a busy international career as a soloist. Emma performs across Europe, the USA and the Far East, as well as in Africa and Australia. In Britain she has achieved great popularity, regularly playing to sold-out concert halls. Emma Johnson has appeared with many leading orchestras in repertoire which includes over forty concertos, as well as being much in demand as a recitalist and chamber musician. A recent development has seen Emma conducting orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. Julian Lloyd Webber is widely regarded as one of the most creative musicians of his generation. He has collaborated with an extraordinary array of musicians from Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner and Georg Solti to Stephane Grappelli, Elton John and Cleo Laine. Julian has made many outstanding recordings including his Brit-Award-winning Elgar Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine), the Dvorák Concerto with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Symphony under Maxim Shostakovich and a coupling of Britten's Cello Symphony and Walton's Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which was described by Gramophone magazine as "beyond any rival". Julian has also recorded several highly successful CD's of short pieces for Universal Classics including Made In England, Cello Moods, and Cradle Song: "It would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday" - Gramophone. David Mellor The Arnold Concerto Day is made possible by the generous support of: Sunday October 22nd 10.00 Music for string quartet Though Malcolm Arnold was himself a professional trumpet player, he had much first hand experience of string instruments. At a very early age he received violin lessons from his eccentric but delightful Aunt Belle and his first wife, Sheila, was a violinist. The Phantasy Vita Abundans was hastily composed for the RCM’s Cobbett Prize in 1941. It won second place, though his intermittently lifelong friend Ruth Gipps, who gained the top award, announced afterwards that Malcolm’s work was the better! The work demonstrates a confidence and flair, as well as an emerging sense of the distinctive Arnold style. He went on to compose two further string quartets: No 1 written in 1949 and No 2 in 1975. This Second Quartet was written for Hugh Maguire and the Allegri Quartet and given its first British performance at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 1976. Of its many notable features, the second movement, which takes the form of an impassioned cadenza leading to a wild Celtic dance, is particularly original in design and substance. There is a certain Shostakovich quality about this work. Together with the momentous Seventh Symphony they represent Arnold’s two greatest works from his Irish period. Phantasy for String Quartet ‘Vita Abundans’ 12mins The Harpham String Quartet Drawing its players from two of London’s leading conservatoires, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, the Harpham Quartet is an exciting and versatile chamber ensemble with a busy schedule of recitals and concerts. They are the current recipients of the Helen Just and Susan Connell Prize as winners of the RCM String Chamber Music Competition. 11.00 The Turtle Drum Malcolm and his new wife Isobel, moved to Cornwall in 1965. The early days there were of the happiest and most settled in his life and he grew to love the Cornish people. Within two years he had given them a set of highly evocative Cornish Dances and the ever-popular Padstow Lifeboat. His intimate Cornish Symphony (the Sixth) was just around the corner. So he was delighted to receive a commission from the BBC to supply the music for a children’s television play The Turtle Drum. Based on a story by Ian Serraillier it is a delightful combination of words and music. Royal & Derngate Youth Theatre, directed by Ed Simpson 12.00 Music for orchestra and concert band At its first performance at a Prom in 1955 Tam O’Shanter was greeted with an ovation that lasted nearly five minutes. The audience went wild with enthusiasm. Robert Burns’s poem about the late night adventures of a hard drinking Scot provided Arnold with an ideal scenario for a colourful musical romp. It was so successful a work, said The Times, it should always have a place in the first or last night of the Proms. Alas for prophecy! The Scottish Dances were commissioned by the BBC for their Light Music Festival of 1957. Arnold delighted his public with marvellous tunes and gaity, an idealised expression of highland life. The slow movement contains one of Arnold’s most lyrical melodies. The Cornish Dances by contrast, strike a deeper and more personal note. Written during Arnold’s happy years living with his new wife in St Merryn, they represent more a miniature tone poem than a set of dances. The Pre-Goodman Rag is the third movement from his Second Clarinet Concerto. It is seemingly full of high spirits, but there is clearly a darker subtext, written as it was, during his more unsettled years in Dublin. Tam O’Shanter Op 51 8mins Northamptonshire County Youth Orchestra (conducted by Peter Dunkley and Richard Roper) and the County Youth Concert Band (conductor Peter Smalley) 2.00 Music for Brass Band Malcolm Arnold was one of the great trumpet players of his day. He knew how to get the very best from brass instruments and during his composing life wrote much for the Brass Band. This concert features some of his most enduring contributions to the repertoire. The two Little Suites date from 1965 and 1967 and combine Arnold’s love of brass with his continued support of young players. The first was for the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland and the second for Cornwall Youth Band. Both contain music that ranges from the lyrical to the robust. The Fantasy was for the National Brass Band Championships of 1974, where it received nineteen first performances! Sweeney Todd is one of Arnold’s colourful ballet scores – the story of the murderous barber appealed to his broad sense of humour. We hear it today for the first time in a new version by Phillip Littlemore. Perhaps Arnold’s most famous brass band work is the Padstow Lifeboat. Telling the story of a real rescue at sea, it remains as fresh today as it was at its first performance in 1968, celebrating a new lifeboat and station. The Rushden Brass Band conducted by Richard Graves Flourish Op 44 3mins 3.00 Annetta Hoffnung talks about Gerard and Malcolm Gerard Hoffnung was a genius - humorist, cartoonist, raconteur and tuba player and great friend of Malcolm Arnold. Annetta Hoffnung talks about her husband and his friendship with Arnold. 4.30 A short recital by Intriplicate followed by Katherine Arnold Some reminiscences on her father by Katherine Arnold will follow a short recital that will include the Suite Bourgeoise for flute, oboe and piano, the Two Sketches for oboe and piano and a new arrangement of the Trevelyan Suite that was originally written for Katherine. 6.30 Pre-concert talk by Barry Wordsworth 7.30 Gala Concert by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Not only does 2006 represent Malcolm Arnold’s 85th birthday, but it is also the 50th anniversary of the first Gerard Hoffnung Music Festival, a zany and irreverent concert based on Hoffnung’s hugely successful musical cartoons. One cartoon, showing a group of serious-looking musicians playing vacuum cleaners, gave Arnold the idea for the Festival’s opening work. And that very work, A Grand Grand Overture, opens the Gala concert this evening. It is a comic masterpiece, that, in addition to its parts for vacuum clears and a floor-polisher, includes a whole series of musical jokes culminating with an ending which threatens never to end! Arnold’s contribution to film music is represented by his Rhapsody based on the music for The Sound Barrier (1952). It is the only example of the composer arranging his own film score. His first collaboration with David Lean (he later called himself ‘Master of the Lean’s Music’) it is a wonderfully colourful score – with particular prominence being given to the piccolo breaking its own sound barrier. Homage to the Queen was written to celebrate the Coronation in 1953. Choreographed by Frederick Ashton, it boasted a star-studded cast headed by Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes. It was a great triumph and was revived by the Royal Ballet for the Queen’s 80th birthday earlier this year, in a new production conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The Fair Field Overture (1972) was written for 10th anniversary of the opening of the Fairfield Halls in Croydon and dedicated to Arnold’s great friend William Walton. Arnold declared that he had ‘attempted to create the atmosphere of a pastoral fair field, with overtones of a fun fair.’ Written at a period of severe personal problems, this description conceals a more sombre undertone. The Burlesque was composed in 1944, preceding the 1st Horn Concerto by about twelve months and was probably written for Charles Gregory (the LPO’s principal horn at the time and a close friend of the composer). Written much in the spirit of his overture Beckus the Dandipratt, it may well have been intended as part of a larger-scale work. Lost for over sixty years, it receives its world premiere this evening. Astoundingly the magnificent 8th Symphony has received very few performances since its completion in 1978. Written during the most traumatic period of Arnold’s life it is a work of deep emotion, highly distinctive in its language and beautifully proportioned. It is his retrospective view of his turbulent time in Dublin. The first movement is dominated by a simple Irish marching tune fighting for centre stage against strongly violent outbursts. All anger is spent in the beautiful and intensely lyrical slow movement. The final movement is a rondo of tremendous inner energy. The 8th Symphony is an ambiguous work – full of surprises and enigmas, perhaps the most intriguing being the final cadence. What exactly is Arnold saying?
Malcolm Arnold’s connection with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra virtually spans his entire working life. As early as 1949 they were recording the soundtrack for his film Britannia Mews and in 1952 they recorded The Sound Barrier. They gave eight premieres of his works including Peterloo, The Fair Field Overture and The John Field Fantasy as well as the first London performance of the 6th Symphony at the famous Deep Purple concert of 1969. The RPO’s complete recordings of the nine symphonies are being reissued by Decca this October. A Grand Grand Overture Op 57 8mins
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