The Great Exhibition

Mendelssohn Symphony no.10

The Berlin State Library has in its possession about two hundred works in manuscript by Mendelssohn, many of them unpublished. Among them are eleven symphonies for strings dating from the years before the composer was fourteen years old. Far from sounding immature, these works show a complete mastery of the classical form and the problems of instrumentation. But there is more to them than technical perfection. The musical structures Mendelssohn chose for his symphonies are frequently used with originality, and the interest is sustained throughout. There is, in this respect, a certain similarity between Mendelssohn and Mozart. Both produced an astonishing number of quite ingenious compositions before they were fourteen, though in later years they developed in different directions. It could be argued that Mendelssohn rarely recaptured in his maturity the freedom of expression and formal balance of such early works as the string symphonies and the somewhat later (but still early) Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet for Strings.

The String Symphony No. 10 dates from 1823. It is in one movement, and Mendelssohn’s own original title Sinfonia which is synonymous with overture is therefore more appropriate. The work begins with a slow introduction. The main section is an Allegro in sonata form with a tense and restless opening in B minor. In contrast, the second subject in D major (played by the first violins mostly on their lowest string) is lyrical. When, after an extended development, the second subject reappears in the recapitulation, it is in B major and therefore even lower down on the G string. This and the following passage (in which the violas have the melody and the violins are silent) are examples of a most imaginative instrumentation. The symphony ends in B minor with a short ‘più presto’ section.

by Stefan de Haan

Anderson The Waltzing Cat

Composed in 1950, Leroy Anderson’s light orchestral piece The Waltzing Cat is among a collection of his most charming works.

As with many of Anderson’s short light orchestral works, there is a fully-realised character throughout the piece. Anderson’s extensive use of percussion is also a highlight of the piece, especially in the central section that sees whistle slides, wood blocks and triangles used. Set in a waltz style, The Waltzing Cat opens with a string introduction before the main melody begins.

The percussion helps keep time here, with the strings and woodwind interlocking themes. The tempo picks up somewhat as the music heads into the central section. There are also more percussion and brass parts here to signify the shift in the theme. A sweet woodwind and percussion interlude ensues, with the comedic whistle slide and woodblock leading the way.

A short reprise of the opening material leads the orchestra back into the main theme of the piece. Again led by the strings, the woodwinds decorate the melody more for this last time. There is a sense of warmth in the way Anderson writes the concluding section as the ensemble comes together for the final comedic flourish.

by Alex Burns

Coleridge-Taylor Noveletten Movement no.2

They say that good things come in small packages. A handwritten note, a sampler of Belgian chocolates, or a carefully selected piece of fine jewelry, each makes a lasting impression. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Novelletten for strings, a brilliantly crafted set of short movements for strings, tambourine, and triangle, fits into this category as well. Written in 1901 and 1902, the work’s title may have been inspired by Robert Schumann’s Novelletten, op. 21, a set of piano miniatures composed in 1838. Coleridge-Taylor, a gifted violinist, wrote his four Novelletten for strings, infusing romantic sentimentality with a coloristic exploration of the modern string orchestra. Novelletten no. 2 contrasts two dance-like sections, one duple and one triple in an overall ABA form.

The work was first dedicated to Miss Ethel Barns, a composer and virtuoso violinist who performed and premiered many of Coleridge-Taylor’s works, including the subsequent violin-piano arrangement of Novelletten. The orchestral version must have been a favorite of the composer, for even though his publisher Novello lost money printing the piece, Coleridge-Taylor programmed the set repeatedly on concerts he conducted throughout his career.

by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes

Holst St Paul’s Suite

The British composer Gustav Holst is known today mainly for his massive suite The Planets – one of the most performed of all orchestral works. He also wrote smaller pieces, not least among them being the cheerful St Paul’s Suite, which was completed shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.

As well as having a busy career as a performer (on the trombone), composer and conductor, Holst was a great believer in teaching, and he had a long-standing relationship with St Paul’s Girls School in Hammersmith. This Suite and a companion piece, the Brook Green Suite were both written for the pupils at St Paul’s, and he had previously also composed for the girls of James Allen’s School in Dulwich. Holst took pains not to write down for his intended young performers, and these works are full of delightful intricacies. The St Paul’s Suite is in four movements, whose titles are self-explanatory; Holst used a number of familiar folk tunes, combined with his own original material, and the work as the whole comes to a grand climax at the end of the lively Dargason.

by Ian Lush

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending 

One of the best loved of all Vaughan Williams’ works, this glorious piece was first started in 1914. It took its inspiration from a poem of George Meredith, an extract from which is inscribed on the score.  

He rises and begins to round 

He drops the silver chain of sound, 

Of many links without a break, 

In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake…. 

For singing till his heaven fills, 

‘Tis love of earth that he instills 

And ever swinging up and up, 

Our valley is his golden cup 

And he the wine which overflows 

To lift us with him as he goes… 

Till lost on his aerial rings 

In light, and then the fancy sings. 

Vaughan Williams put the work to one side at the outbreak of war (in which he served with a military ambulance unit in France) but resumed work on it in 1920. The first performances were given by its dedicatee, Marie Hall, that for violin and piano at a concert of the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society on 15 December 1920, and that for violin and orchestra at the Queen’s Hall with the British Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult on 14 June 1921.  

It is a meltingly beautiful piece, with instant appeal. (It achieved the ultimate accolade in 2008 when it was voted the nation’s favourite piece of music in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame…… ). The violin, depicting the lark, rises and soars aloft, wending its way through the sky in “rapt contemplation” and accompanied by quiet, hazy harmonies from the orchestra.  There is a short, folk-song like middle section, though like many of VW’s “folk song” moments the music is the composer’s own. The soloist then again takes wing and eventually soars away, beyond our sight and hearing. The piece ends in an infinity of space, with the violin climbing ever higher until all sound ceases. 

To many, this music typifies a vision of a beautiful English scene, a picture of a Cotswold landscape, with the idea of a lark somehow relating to the fields below and sharing “a love of earth” with the listener. Some, though, have heard sadness as well as joy in the music. It was originally composed, we remember, in 1914, the fateful year, and completed in 1920. It could be that the composer’s finished thoughts are reflecting on a way of life that could never quite return. Churches in villages  all over England were erecting memorials to their young men, the loss of whom could be seen as hastening the end of the sort of rural life with its folksongs and other traditions that had held sway in the land for centuries.  A celebration of the English countryside, indeed, but perhaps also an elegy for a lost England.  

by Richard Butler 

Britten Simple Symphony

In 1933, at the age of 20, Benjamin Britten put together a work which contained extracts from eight pieces he had written between the ages of 9 – 12 years old. Britten shaped and combined the different extracts to become one whole piece, and the result was the Simple Symphony, a work that has the spirit of youthful compositions, but is not at all childlike in its music and is one of Britten’s best known works from his early years.

The first movement is based on Britten’s Suite No 1 for piano, written in 1926, and a song for voice and piano ’A Country Dance (Now the King is home again)’ of 1923. The material for the Playful Pizzicato is taken from the Scherzo for piano of 1924, and a song, ‘The Road Song of the Bandar-Log’ for voice and piano. The Sentimental Saraband is derived from the Third Piano Suite (1925) and the Waltz for Piano (1923), while the Frolicsome Finale is based on the Piano Sonata No 9 of 1926 and a song composed in 1925. The piece is for string orchestra only and received its first performance in 1934 in Norwich, with Britten conducting an amateur orchestra.

by Deborah Guest

Barber Adagio for Strings

Samuel Barber grew up in a house filled with music. Practicing piano was as important as playing ball, song recitals were a favourite evening entertainment, and the names of composers and performers were dropped during dinner table conversation. Barber’s parents were not surprised when their son began playing the piano when he was six years old and composing music at seven, and they did not argue when, at the age of nine, he told them he intended to be a composer. Barber’s aunt Louise was internationally known as Louise Homer, the great American contralto, and her husband Sydney was a highly regarded composer of songs.

Winning prizes such as the Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship and an American Prix de Rome enabled young Samuel Barber to spend extended periods in Europe studying, performing and composing. It was in Rome, in 1936, that he wrote his String Quartet, Op. 11. He subsequently made a five-part arrangement of the slow movement for string orchestra, the Adagio for Strings. He submitted this work, along with his first Essay for Orchestra, to Arturo Toscanini in response to the conductor’s search for the work of an American composer. Toscanini had fled Europe’s growing fascism and had taken a new post as conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra; he was therefore seeking American music to include in the 1938 concert season. From its first hearing on a radio broadcast, 5 November 1938, the piece was an instant success and continues to be Barber’s most performed and enduring work. In 1967 the composer explored the vocal qualities of the piece by making a choral setting employing the Agnus Dei text.

Like Mahler’s famous Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony, Barber’s Adagio has taken on a life of its own – one far removed from the composer’s original intent. Marked Molto adagio espressivo cantando (“very slowly, with songlike expressiveness”), it comprises a single, long melody that moves slowly, unfolding and building, as it weaves its way through the string orchestra. It reaches a peak and then dissolves. It was inspired by Barber’s reading of a passionate poem by Virgil from the Georgics, which begins:

“As when far off in the middle of the ocean

A breast-shaped curve of wave begins to whiten

And rise above the surface, then rolling on

Gathers and gathers until it reaches land

Huge as a mountain and crashes among the rocks

With a prodigious roar, and what was deep

Comes churning up from the bottom in mighty swirls

Of sunken sand and living things and water . . .”

In response to a BBC interviewer’s asking notable musicians to speak to the issue as to why Barber’s Adagio for Strings is such a “perfect piece of music”, Aaron Copland responded:

“It’s really well felt, it’s believable… not phoney… It comes straight from the heart, to use old-fashioned terms. The sense of continuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch that it creates from beginning to end. They’re all very gratifying, satisfying, and it makes you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it.”

by Elizabeth Boulton