Music Chamber

 

Malcolm Arnold            Three Shanties

(1921-2006)                   Allegro con brio ~ Allegretto Semplice ~ Allegro Vivace

 

Isaac Albéniz                Suite Espagnole

(1860-1909)                   Preludio, in D minor/A Phrygian

                                       Tango, in D major

                                       Malaguena, in E minor/B Phrygian

                                       Serenata, in G minor

                                       Capricho Catalan, in E flat major

 

Ferenc Farkas              Regi Magyar Tancok (Early Hungarian Dances)

(1905-2000)                   Intrada - Allegro Moderato

                                       Lento - Moderato, maestoso

                                       Danza Delle Scapole - Allegro (quasi scherzo)

                                       Chorea - Moderato

                                       Saltarello - Allegro

 

Bill Holcombe              A Salute to M.G.M.

(1925-2010)                   I feel a song coming on

                                       You stepped out of a dream

                                       Singing in the rain

                                       Over the rainbow

                                       The trolley song

 

After their public debut in 2009 the Waldegrave Ensemble has continued to give recitals in around London, exploring repertoire for various wind chamber groups from quintet to dectet and playing original works from classical through to 21st century. Primarily consisting of wind players, the ensemble looks forwards to incorporating piano and strings to broaden their performing possibilities in the later half of 2010. The Waldegrave Ensemble players are enthusiastic about exploring new works and welcomes interest from composers who wish to write for any combination of winds, strings and piano. Please feel free to get in touch should you be interested by emailing waldegraveensemble@gmail.com

 

 

Ferenc Farkas, Regi magyar tancok 

Although unlikely given their non-folk origins, had Bartok taken an interest in these 17th century melodies, he would have undoubtedly altered them to accommodate his unique modernist harmonic approach. All the more credit then ought to be given to Ferenc Farkas for not only taking an interest, but also in daring to present them with their more-or-less historically correct harmony. This is no mean feat: a Hungarian composer studying in Budapest as part of the generation immediately after Bartok and Kodaly could have simply followed in their path. Farkas, however, had broader view: he studied with Respighi in Rome, absorbing the Italian composer’s bolder sound world and orchestration style, and was also directly influenced by Stravinsky. Certainly there is a hard-edged touch of Pulcinella, but in general the wider horizon comes out in the fact that it would be very hard to tell that these tunes are Hungarian without the title. It is perhaps not surprising then that Ligeti and Kurtag, pupils of Farkas, have also gone on to use a broad spectrum of influence in their work.

 

Isaac Albeniz, Suite Españole, Op. 165

Considered to be one of the more important exponents of a Spanish national style, today Albeniz’s music mainly appears in guitar recitals. However, he wrote nothing for the guitar; all of these works are arrangements of piano music. Despite a piano prodigy childhood remarkably similar to Mozart’s, the only piano work to make a regular appearance is his late masterpiece Iberia. What happened to the rest? Suite Españole was written in London in 1890 and shows that, like Mozart, Albeniz was able to produce popular music extremely quickly; unlike Mozart, Albeniz’s work has been labelled as ‘salon music’. This term was once loaded with ideas of insignificance, and was often used to consign a composer to oblivion The reality is that this music, although undeniably Spanish, has a certain timeless quality to it; although there is plenty of personality, there is no forceful ego of the kind that the respectable Romantic composers valued. This in fact makes his music rather like that of Mozart; Albeniz was just unfortunate in being born a century too late. 

 

Malcolm Arnold, Three Sea Shanties

The nine symphonies in Arnold’s output form a towering achievement; it seems a shame, however, that Arnold’s own request to be judged solely on these works is often taken up in full. Piers Burton-Page’s article for Grove covers virtually nothing else, as does the biography on the official website. The truth is that Arnold was a composer of enormous flexibility and variety, and the focus on the symphonies seems to disguise a fear that without a distinguished genre to support his reputation, he might not be worthy of being taken seriously. Arnold’s own music seems to confirm this worry: his string quartets (again, a highly respectable form) are written in a dense and heavy-handed atonal style, completely unlike much of the rest of his output, perhaps to prove to himself and others that he was just as capable when it came to ‘serious’ music. Though frothy and fun, the mood of the Sea Shanties is so carefully (if comically) structured and so assured in the instrumental capabilities and characters that one can be left in no doubt that this is the work of a master craftsman. Even if one were to ignore the lyrical central movement, the chattering first movement and the rowdy third could not achieve their affects without careful restraint and, almost more importantly, and expert’s ear for moments when that restraint can be ignored. 

 

A Salute to MGM, arr. Bill Holcombe

Medleys may be a common feature in concerts given by wind ensembles of all sizes, but there was probably no musician more qualified to arrange this Salute to MGM than the late Bill Holcombe (he passed away in April this year). A flautist and a sax player, he had already been playing in jazz bands all over America, as well as arranging for the Tommy Dorsey band, when he was hired by MGM to play in the orchestra for their New York radio station in the late 1940’s. Writing for films followed soon after, on top of the regular composing and arranging work for the recording orchestra Strings 101 and nights spent playing in Broadway shows. So immersed was Holcombe in this world that he probably knew the songs collected together here inside out long before he came to arrange them: “I Feel a Song Coming On”, “You Stepped Out of a Dream”, “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Trolley Song”, all taken from the scores for various MGM films. Who could have done it better?

 

Notes by Bruno Bower, oboist for the Waldegrave Ensemble.