July 25th & 26th - the Dulcimer Man

Classical Break - The Dulcimer Man (rpt from 2014)

This week, Classical Break goes on location all the way to Frome to meet one of the country's only makers of Hammered Dulcimers.

Tim Manning produces at least one instrument every week at his tiny workshop in The Hub at Frome's Welshmill, for individuals, teachers, retailers, record producers and even opera companies. 

In the programme, Tim explains what dulcimers are - the different types around the globe, their history and how he makes them. In addition, of course, there's music from some of the world's most renowned hammered dulcimer players, listed below, in order of performance. Tim also demonstrates the instrument and plays some music that he has written for this unique forerunner of the modern-day piano.

Thanks to Tim Manning for giving us his time. Click the link to go to his website.

We hope to run a series of programmes about local instrument makers and local instruments of note. In the works - a man who builds pianoforte instruments, the newly refurbished and repositioned organ at St John's Midsomer Norton, the Klais organ in Bath Abbey and the Rachmaninov piano at the Holburne Museum in Bath.  

Track one:  Theme from "The Ipcress File", John Barry, 1965
The distinctive theme is played on a Hungarian Concert Grand Cimbalom which is the Hungarian version of a Hammer Dulcimer. The instrument is bigger than a Hammered Dulcimer, the size of a small piano. Barry was very fond of the instrument and used it for a number of theme tunes.

Track two: Paul Haslem, The Fordwich Jig. trad
Track three: Ted Yoder, "Praise to the Lord" trad. hymn
Track four: Howie Mitchell, "Matty Groves" American trad.
Track five: Karen Ashbrook,"Prelude, Cello Suite #1" J.S.Bach

Track six: Jim Couza, "Los Ejes De Mi Carretta". 1983 by American born british resident Jim Couza from the album Music for Hammered Dulcimer. Probably the most well known Hammered Dulcimer player the UK has ever known.!

Other tracks by Tim Manning

Tim plays us out of the programme with a composition of his own.

If you know any instrument makers in the area, give us a call on 07913 742401 or email rupertkirkham@gmail.com and we'll try and include them.

18th & 19th July -Organ

Classical Break - Organ #1

Hello and welcome to Classical Break. You're listening to Somer Valley FM and I'm Rupert Kirkham.

John Philip Sousa

John Philip sousa - the liberty bell

I know! If you're old, you'll remember this as the theme tune to the Monty Python's Flying Circus tv show in the 70's - yes it was that long ago...; if not, thanks for listening and stay with us!

That performance of John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell, arranged for organ by Martin Setchell, was given by Christopher Cipkin, a senior librarian from the University of Birmingham, who is also a freelance organist playing the Christchurch organ in Frome. He was one of 3 organ rectalists at this year's Frome festival, the other two playing at St. John the Baptist in the centre of town.

Christopher Cipkin

 I managed to record two of these recitals in full - and we'll be hearing music from them both later on.

We'll also have more twentieth century organ and choral music from Oxford by Herbert Howells and there's news of a free organ recital in Bath Abbey next Wednesday.

First, let's kick off with a rousing performance of a piece by Marcel Dupre played by John Scott on the organ of St.Paul's Cathedral, London.

Interior of Marcel Dupre's house

 Dupre wrote this in 1914 during the first year of the first world war - another reason for playing it today.

It's one of his three Prelude and Fugues, which some say are Dupre's finest contributions to the organ repertory. It's written in B Major - a defiant, soul-stirring work, which would make anybody's neck-hairs stand on end - especially, I suspect, the organist's!

Dupre at the organ of St. Sulphice

Dupre - prelude and fugue in B major
06:54

Prelude and Fugue in B Major, by Marcel Dupre, played on the organ of St Pauls in London by John Scott.

Back to the recitals given at the Frome Festival. We heard one at the start of the programme recorded in Christchurch, well this next one was recorded at St John's church, in the centre of town.

It's a nice little organ, requiring some attention, apparently - sounded alright to me - so the recital was an opportunity to donate to the organ fund.

The organist, Brian Martin, has been involved in the restoration of instrument over the last few years; he lives near Westbury where he moved to from North London a few years ago.

Brian Martin

We're going to hear him play ELEGY, by George Thalben-Ball. Thalben-Ball was at one time assistamnt to Sir Walford Davies at London's Temple Church. Walford Davies reputedly once asked George, who was a bit of a wizz at extemporization, to play 'something nice' before evensong, as he was feeling rather tired.This is what he came up with...

George Thalben-Ball

Elegy - G.T. Thalben-ball
04:39

George Thalben-Ball's Elegy, played during the Frome festival at St John the Baptist church by Brian Martin. We'll hear more from this local organist later in the programme.

Next up, a piece by Herbert Howells. He once said "The most persistent, level, satisfying and effective things in the history of our music have often centred around our organ lofts and church musicians."

Herbert Howells

Howells wasn't a practising church or cathedral organist, but many of his contemporaries were - George Thalben-Ball, whose Elegy we just heard, were. He wrote a great deal of sacred music and his skill was not only in setting the same canticles in original ways, but his added dimension, was to compose music for places. He called it, translating the frozen poetry of architecture into the living sounds of voices in consort".

New College Chapel

A good example of this is his settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis - the Anglican evening service. We're going to hear his setting of the Magnificat, designed for the chapel of New College, Oxford, where, incidentally, I gained my appreciation of traditional music as a chorister - far too long ago to mention.

New College Chapel from the organ loft

I do remember, though, it was one of the pieces we loved to sing and when we put the service sheets out in the chapel at the start of every week, we would scan them to see what we were going to sing every day that week. If it was Palestrina or Tallis, (I hadn't realised at the age of 11 how marvellous these composers were) we were depressed - it was going to be a bad week. If there was some Benjamin Britten, Tippet, Stanford or Howells, it was going to be a good week! Everything's very simple at that age.

New College Chapel organ, Oxford

 So here's Howell's setting of the Magnificat from his 'New College' service.

Howells - new college, magnificat
06:21

The Choir of New College, Oxford, recorded back in 1987 under its director and organist, Dr Edward Higginbottom, singing the Magnificat from his 'New College' service.

From Oxford back down to Frome now, for the second piece of our Frome festival recital by Christopher Cipkin at Christchurch.

Charles Villiers Stanford

It's by Irish composer, Charles Villiers Stanford, a contemporary of Herbert Howells, Marcel Dupre, George Thalben-Ball and Edward Elgar - whose music we'll be hearing in a while.

The Eroica Sonata for organ was dedicated to another famous organist and composer, 'Charles Marie Widor - and the great country to which he belongs'. The piece (and I'm quoting from Christopher's programme notes here)'weaves fantasy and toccatta writing around his sonata-form development of the patriotic Marseillaise theme - the French National anthem and the battle song of the French Revolution.
Stanford-Verdun from eroica sonata
08:55
That was first performed under the baton of Stanford himself in a concert dedicated to his countrymen, the Irish Guards, in 1918. Christopher Cipkin on the organ of Christchurch, Frome during the 2015 Frome Festival.

You're listening to Somervalleyfm on 97.5FM and online at somervalleyfm.co.uk.

Next, Brian Martin plays the Triumphal March from Caractacus,by Edward Elgar, arranged for organ by Bryan Hesford. The theme is the heroic resistance to the Roman invasion of Britain by Caratacus and his subsequent arragnment in Rome.

Edward Elgar

It's all set round here in the cotswolds, the Malvern Hills and the banks of the River Severn - apart from the Rome bit of course - Worcester being Elgar's home town.

The Triumphal March from Caratacus, by Edward Elgar played by Brian Martin on the organ of St. John's Church, Frome.

Elgar - triumphal march of caractacus
09:39

The triumphal march of Caractacus , by Edward Elgar.

Next, from Christchurch again, Christopher Cipkin plays some Purcell - it's the only non-20th century music in this programme, but we mustn't lose sight of the fact that the organ has been around with us - and in particular in our religious and political lives for a very long time.

After the chaos and austerity that  followed the English Civil war, the monarchy was eventually restored and Henry Purcell was part of a new generation of composers who reflected the often flambouyant confidence of the new regime. In 1689, he succeeded John Blow as organist of Westminster Abbey and three years later, was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal as well.

Henry Purcell

The next piece is his 'Trumpet Tune' from a five act opera 'King Arthur' that he wrote with the then poet laureate, John Dryden.

Purcell - trumpet tune from king arthur
03:10

The Trumpet tune from Purcell's opera, King Arthur, played by Christopher Cipkin on the organ of Christchurch, Frome.

Thanks to Brian Martin and Christopher Cipkin for allowing me to record those recitals at the Frome festival and use them on this programme.

Coming up, news of an organ recital happening next week in Bath, but first, here's another piece by Herbert Howells, called Jacob's Brawl. It's a transcript by Edward Higginbottom from an original score for the Clavichord.

Jacob's brawl
02:22

Jacob's Brawl, by Herbert Howells.

Next Wednesday, July 22nd, there's another organ rectal, not in Frome this time but on the Klais organ at Bath Abbey.

Richard Dunster-Sigtermans

It's being given by Richard Dunster-Sigtermans, no stranger to Bath, as he told me when I spoke to him on the phone earlier this week
.
Richard Dunster-Sigtermans interview
05:04

Richard Dunster-Sigtermans who will be performing at Bath Abbey next Wednesday at 1.10 pm till 2 - a lunchtime concert and it's free, so if you're intown that day or you facny a trip over to Bath, it'll be well worth it. So that's Bath Abbey at ten past one, on Wednesday, July 22nd. Apologies if you're listening to a repeat of this programme and you've missed it!

Bah Abbey - Klais organ

We're going to leave you today with another piece by Herbert Howells from a transcription of his Howells Clavichord collection - dedicated pieces he wrote for all his friends and contemporaries he admired. This one, as the name suggests is dedicated to William Walton.
Walton's-toye.

I hope you enjoyed this week's organ special - Classical Break will be back next weekend. I'm Rupert Kirkham. Goobye.

Howells-Walton's toye
02:22   

Andalusia - July 11th & 12th

Classical Break:  Andalusia (repeat from August 2013)

Track One:  Los Pacos Els Pacos, Vincente Perez LLedo

This is Classical Break, on Somer Valley FM, and I’m Rupert Kirkham.  Today’s music is from Spanish composers attracted to the theme of Granada and the region of Andalusia.  You have just heard Los Pacos Els Pacos, a festive ‘Moorish’ March associated with Christian Spain’s age-old driving out of its borders of the Arabian and Moroccan invader.  The composer was Vincente Perez Lledo.  The performers are the Sociedad Musica “La Alianza” de Muchamel (a town near Alicante).  The  timbre of the trumpets possesses the almost explosively effortful vibrato common to much of Spain.

They came to Andalusia, the Southern Kingdom of Spain, in force,  in  811AD:  the Moors of North Africa.  Their influence did not end with the Catholic reconquest of the Kingdom in 1492, when joint rulers of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella passed laws requiring Muslims to convert to Christianity or leave.  Andalusia had been occupied for over 6 centuries, and had been a place of trade with the whole of the Mediterranean for far longer than that.  The influence of North Africa and the Middle East was strong (incidentally, Sephardism was almost as important as Islam, before the Inquisition closed in), and Andalusians have been suspected of divided loyalties as well as a people of great cultural fascination for poets, musicians, artists of all kinds, proud and distinct. 

Spanish music has often been aped by Germans, Russians, Frenchmen,  Englishmen; it was á la mode throughout the 19^th Century, and - via South America to some extent - added to the melting-pot of popular music in the 20^th.  Frequently, just as Hungarian and zigeuner sounds have been confused, so Andalusian music  has coloured our idea of Spanish music plus non ultra standing for music of the other just as distinct regions.  Many of the catchy rhythmical patterns of what we take to be Spanish music originated in Moorish and Gypsified Andalusia.  Zapateados, Sevillanas, Alegrias, Bulerias, Tarantas, Malaguenas, Polos – many, flamenco steps - belong to the Andalusians, to a limestone-rocky, mountainous country of tropical vegetation that is lush near water, dusty and barren elsewhere, a land of cities such as Granada, Malaga, Alicante, Seville, and of villages perched on vertiginous slopes connected by high bridges or steep, dusty tracks, where water must be carried from a spring-head.  A land of religious processions, ferias, corrida, municipal bands, and folk-musicians. 

Here is a typical example of ‘Moorish’ Romantic-Nationalist music, a dance written by Enrique Granados (1867-1916), one of his Danzas Espagnolas.  It contrasts dusky, almost stealthy measures and a simple lilting and extremely touching song-theme developed from them.  The dance was composed for piano-solo.  Here, Edouado Fernandez plays his arrangement of it for guitar.      

Track Two:  Andaluza, No 5, from Danzas Espagnolas, Granados

 Above Granada stands a monastery.  By an irony that suits the occasion, the water of the fountains, waterfalls and pools of the celebrated and most lavish Moorish palace in Spain, the Alhambra, is ducted from its spring.  Let’s hear some characteristic Gregorian chant from the Mass.  Gloria.

Track Three:  Gloria

The Andalusian School of music of the Moors was just one loss to Spain brought about by the reconquest of Andalusia.  Arabian music derives much of its hypnotic quality from short, self-repeating phrases and a firm, regular beat emphasized by percussion.  The vocalist or pipe-soloist is encouraged to perform straight or embellish a simple line above a bare instrumental background of sparse harmony.  The Sufic style that originally inspired Dervishes to entranced worship remained to colour Christian Andalusian hymns, secular songs and dances, and performance practices.  For ourselves, here in the 21^st Century, we may feel ourselves to be in realms of psychedelia – though not those of the contemporary Costa Del Sol.  Here’s the anonymous hymn to Allah, Jalla Man.   

Track Four:  Jalla Man, the traditional Andalusian School

Flamenco-toque is a busy style of guitar-playing associated with Andalusia.  Its origins are said to be in Moorish and gipsy wedding-dances.  The costumes are bright and fussy, the dance-steps complex, the intensity of displays is known throughout the world, but, even in Andalusia, not always as is claimed to be authentic!  Fandango, for instance, a form imposing accelerando and crescendo, may be a South American import.   A famous gipsy family perform flamenco at inhabited caves not far from the famous Moorish Alhambra and Generaliffe palaces of Granada.  Of the Alhambra, more anon!  Flamenco takes many forms, some sung; in the case of the Tangos, which is emphatically not to be associated with the Argentinian dance, it is traditionally built on its own Phrygian modal scale.  Here is a Tangos by the great Spanish guitarist, Juan Martin – entitled simply Malaga.     

Track Five:  Malaga (Tangos),  Martin

Tomas Breton was born in the city of Salamanca in the Western region of Spain, Castile y Leon.  He wrote fluently in many forms, in particular, in opera, zarzuela – a Spanish folk-form of the genre – and chamber and pictorial orchestral music.  His Andalusian Scenes are justly famous, a suite of four numbers, including a Bolero and Zapateado, and Polo.  Polo is an accompanied and sung form of flamenco.  Here’s Breton’s Polo, a beautiful example of scoring in which the sounds of string-pizzicato (ending on the cellos) seem to resonate as solo or tiered woodwind and even brass.  The sinuous phrases found in scalic figures, narrow melodic intervals and arabesques may be heard as Moorish – not far-removed from the Granados Andalucia we heard earlier.

Track Six: Polo, Breton

(FX Collage:  Evening frogs, nightingale, Jalla Man – fades out before:)

The Alhambra was first built as a fortress, the Alcazaba, overlooking Granada.  Sultan Yusuf 1^st chose it for his home in 899.  Over hundreds of years, additions were made until it became an unrivalled example of the superb palatial residences of Sultans and Governors in Moorish Spain.  After the expulsion of the Moors, it was added to largely by Christian royalty in the 16^th Century – a whole new palace built within the gounds.  In reality, it is like a small town unto itself, with a huge pleasure-garden.  In buildings, the dominant colours are red, blue and yellow.   Art consists of non-representational geometrical patterns.  Filled with plainly adorned rooms and courts, fountains, cascades, its features also include tiled walls, colonnades, myrtle-, orange-trees, vines, roses...  In the park, there stands a copse of elms,  dating back to 1812, and gifted by the Duke of Wellington after the Peninsular War.  It is a place for tourists, dancers and musicians, a place of solemn contemplation of time and the greatness that lives on after its sponsors.

Andres Gaos-Berea

Andres Gaos-Berea, born in A Coruna, Galicia in North-West Spain, was a protégé of Pablo Sarasate,  a violinist of high reputation in South America - in especial, Argentina, where he lived for most of his life.  Our last work for today is his orchestral tone-poem of 1916, Granada – An Evening In The Alhambra.  It is scored for double woodwind, plus cor anglais and piccolo, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, full strings, and percussion that includes the dry festivity of castanets and tambourines.  The piece attracted accolades in Buenos Aires, A Corunna, Vigo and even Paris – there, in 1937, the famous Lamoureux Orchestra were conducted to great effect by the composer, himself, at the Salle Gaveau, and his masterwork of Alhambrismo was given once more the following year. 

Gaos’ piece begins in Debussyan whole-tone harmonics and level woodwind depth of twilight, a viola-shaded arabesque that fixes one’s attention, a tritone hinted-at in the relationship between arabesque and accompaniment; the cor anglais, accompanied by imitational alto and bass strings, sings a highly elegant and yet plangent song – piccolo and lower woodwind  suddenly providing brief bird-calls over this appealing sound.  The Alhambra is famed for its nightingales as well as walkers in the mild Summer twilight.  The tone lightens and builds bewitchingly in bassoon, brass and strings – castanets – and with clever play of rapidity over slowness – a Sibelian or Schubertian trick that precludes the audible ‘gear-change’ that disrupts impressions of expressive unity, we have a beautifully scored flamenco of syncopated beat, with tambourines and much exhilarating high woodwind detail, a variation deservedly repeated!  There is something autobiographical in the form of this dance.  It begins as Farruca. 

Farruca is a kind of danced flamenco thought to have come from Galicia – As a rule, it is characterized by minor key tonality rather than by a modal scale; the dancer comes in on a strong first beat, and syncopation - reinforced by clapping -gives rise to quick, unexpected twists and turns amid a complex step-pattern.  Significantly, it is associated with Galician travellers who feel far from home.

Farruca is a ‘male’ dance.  The ‘feminine’ reply that ensues is modal, regular, skippingly light in comparison, responsible for much of the exhilarating woodwind detail!  The birds comment on this dance almost in parenthesis.  A new theme on cellos adds its own commentary, about it, the bird-song plays.  It is the big, romantic tune in the piece, developed from the cor anglais tune of the introduction. The lead is turned over to violins for their higher-pitched fervour, and a quiescent, modal  chant follows its subsidence, wound about by flute and piccolo.  A guitar-like, deep pizzicato leads to a new, Moorish development on clarinet, the strings providing a bolero-like tread, and viola-shading.  It returns, and the modal chant  frames this austere, narrowly lyrical episode.  Abruptly, the flamenco is on us again, as high-spirited as before.  Instead of a two-fold repetition, Gaos plays what is surely his masterstroke in continuity – as the secondary crescendo launches straight into his passionate  big tune, full-throated in its fervour.  This seems the heart of Spain herself singing.  Extended, it is as though lifted higher by its  own afflatus, ending in the modal chant.  This muses lullingly, with great pathos and brings us back to the music of the rapt introduction, minus the opening tritonal passage – the strings draw out this lovely melody with Griegian harmonies which suggest that Gaos is more than loath to leave his dreamworld.  The birdcalls and dusky strings muse on this sublime, humane song of regret until it finds something of its own consolation, after which the birds sing more freely again.  The harmonics return, the ghostlier for what we have heard.  Flute and muted horn sound stealthily, almost mockingly, before the neither loud nor quiet last, repeated and extended chords of cadence on lower strings.

The success of this piece in Paris came as Spain endured the bloodiest Civil War in European history, the invader from North Africa and Canary Islands, this time, being the Spanish Army under the Fascistic, avowedly Christian General Franco.

This was Classical Break on Somer Valley FM, and I’m Rupert Kirkham.  Today’s programme was researched and written by Mike Burrows.  We hope that you enjoyed our musical tour of Southern Spain, and will join us again soon.  Adios!

 Granada, Un Creposculo En La Alhambra, by Andres Gaos-Berea.          

Track Seven:  An Evening In The Alhambra, Gaos-Berea

July 5th 2015

It's Independence Day weekend so here's our contribution, featuring some lesser-known American 'classical' music.
The previous programme on The Somme has been suspended for technical reasons.

Track 1:  Fanfare For The New Atlantis, Hovhaness

This is Classical Break on Somer Valley FM, and I’m Rupert Kirkham.  Today’s programme of music from  the United States was researched and written by Michael Burrows.  We’ve just heard Fanfare For The New Atlantis by Alan Hovhaness.  Atlantis, a city fabled retrospectively for its advanced civilization, science and philosophy, is said to have disappeared beneath stormy waves of the Mediterranean, to be Invoked by ancient scholars and neo-Platonists of the 17^th Century alike, a kind of missing link in the chain of human culture, a void on which any imagination could work wonders of Utopia and hopeful searching for solutions to earthly and heavenly mysteries, its true geographical and historical position or circumstances of loss being not the least of those mysteries.

Hovhaness’ music calls forth this State of story in effortless grandeur of broad paragraphs, fluid but unobscure harmony and rich but clear-lined, trumpet--led orchestration, timeless, sombre, pure, with ancient gravity wrought out of chant and responses of deliberate weight, melody forming the rhythmical patterns, adorned by brass tuckets on one note and, latterly, thrilling scalic rushes in the string-section.  Some long-lost marvel rises up before our eyes.  An extraordinary vision, this, from 1975.

The United States has developed an enviable variety in self-expression in All genres of Art-music:   symphonists of the calibre of Hovhaness, Ives, Copland, Schuman, Sowerby,  Harris... and purveyors of morelight-weight music whose productions, though popular, are also to be discussed as an artistic achievement.   In light music, Jazz, though in itself an inexhaustibly creative tradition, surely doesn’t have things all its own way.  What are we to make, for example, of this spry and sage song written in evident heartfeltness by the  immensely vigorous and prolific March-king, John Philip Sousa?

Track 2:  You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married, Sousa

You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married, by Sousa.

Trained at Reed College and the Eastman School of Music, Jacob Avshalamov was born in China in 1919.  His Siberian father, Aaron, was his first teacher, a composer in his own right and collector of Chinese folk music, which influenced his and, later, certain of his son’s works; Jacob’s other tutors included Ernst Toch and Aaron Copland.   His works include large-scale cantatas and symphonic movements as well as numerous small-scale instrumental pieces and songs.  Let’s hear his song for soprano, accompanied by flute, viola and piano, Taking Leave of A Friend, one of 3 settings of poems by the T’ang poet, Li Po.  Wholetone, euphonious and gentle, there is a Ravellian sensibility in this music, the accompaniment seemingly incised in its sparseness, the line improvisatory-sounding in its imitative entries.  After a long introduction, the voice comes in on its deeply nostalgic atmosphere.  This song was Avshalamov’s first chamber-piece, composed when he was 20, but revised many years later.    

Track 3:  Taking Leave of A Friend, Avshalamov

One name in our list of great symphonists of the United States may not be well-known to even many Americans.  Leo Sowerby, known largely for his church-music and songs, wrote 5 symphonies for orchestra, one for solo-singers, choir and orchestra  and two for organ-solo.  The Second orchestral Symphony was written in 1927-8, when Sowerby was 32 years old, his career as composer and choir--master and teacher well into its stride, with frequent large-scale commissions from  the then conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock to live up to.  In three movements, the Symphony in B Minor is a compact, well-argued piece, elliptical and introspective, in which power is derived from limitation of means.  The first movement, Sonatina, is formed from two subjects with a bridge-passage between them.  The first subject is chant-like, with some jazzy irregularity of rhythm and teasing turns of harmony.  The bridge passage brings one to a less busy but somehow restless, questioning lyricism.  Development follows, with percussively underlined fragments of the chant in canon and imitation, combined with the second  subject, which is as summarily dealt-with.  The First Subject and bridge-passage only are recapitulated, the bridge-passage elaborated and, after further squalls, the close gives almost the last word to the bridge-passage, as fresh in high woodwind as at first, but the dying fall belongs to the first subject, smoothed, but defiantly in the minor.  This is fascinating, teasing music, recognizably of its time and nation, every bit as effective as the symphonies of Copland, and of similar sources in Americana – perhaps of urban jazz and New England, with a soupcon of the Mid-West.

Track 4:  2^nd Symphony in B Minor, Movt 1:  Sonatina, Sowerby

The film-music of Elmer Bernstein increased the stature of movies of all kinds.  Westerns, war-films, thrillers, fantasy-pictures for children.  The BridgeAt Remagen was no masterpiece as either history  or convincing drama unless Bernstein shaped one’s reaction to what one saw or heard.  In the brazen fanfare and loping, syncopated titles-theme – note the violins in unison here   - one crosses the Rhine, whatever the cost.  If you ignore the syncopation you may think that the tune resembles either liturgical chant or a Lutheran hymn; it is certainly an impressively broad and valiant melody.  Syncopation cuts across its accents, and  the harmonies refuse it easy passage.  War’s toll on young lives is hinted-at by a contrasting, slow-swinging, waltz--like theme heard after the repeat:  a tune of pathos and near-musical-box sonority, sweet violins singing in a nursery of the vanity of human wishes and of just war, given tension by regular phrasing, passing-notes and appoggiaturas.  This apparition ripples over one’s ears before one is returned to the theme of duty and endeavour and fanfare to close.  One may wonder if in this piece, one has the opening of a monumental symphonic movement.  How often this is true of music written for films.

Track 5:  The Bridge At Remagen, Bernstein

 

Carl Ruggles, born a year after Charles Ives, died in 1971, having outlived all the great early experimenters of the early 20^th Century United States.  A comrade-in-arms of the immensely prolific Ives and Henry Cowell, he also enjoyed a long retirement, leaving a small corpus of work.  An individualist of dogmatic, arrogant manner, he wasted few words on detractors or supporters.  Such works as Suntreader,an orchestral piece based on Apache ritual, are proof that he had no time for conventional tastes or consonance; to him, discord pursued to the conclusion one wished was the be all and end all of real, individualistic music – of real American music.  On the other hand, one can adduce the day Ives caught him sounding the same simple chord over and over on the piano – Ruggles said that he was giving the chord ‘the test of time’!   Here, in contrast to his friend Cowell’s Grinnell Fanfare, is his piece for muted brass ensemble – four trumpets and two trombones -  Angels.

It should be noted that to score a piece for brass wholly con sordino is a fine way to create almost the dullest sound imaginable; only a real or exceptionally self--important composer would set himself such a challenge.  Then again, mutes ensure that the clashes in the parts are set up without unintentional resonance.   Angels is, as perhaps it should be, a remote, hieratic experience for the listener, immediate and becomingly terse. Angels are not necessarily beings of heat.

 Track 6:  Angels, Ruggles

Aaron Copland was not only one of America’s great modernist composers and teachers, but also a committee-man who represented the interests of composers in a nation of individualists that was and is curiously addicted to  committee-work.  Driving him thoughout his long career was a determination to create a democratic form of art--music that would break the hold of internationalist elitism on the world of American music, and represent more truly and inspire the best aspects of the peculiar nature of the American people.  Personally left-wing and liberal -as such allegiances are understood in the United States – he was inspired by American national symbolism in which a folk-hero – be he Billy The Kid or Abraham Lincoln – expressed something Of hope in the national character.  One of his most famous populist Works is, of course, Lincoln Portrait, an orchestra-accompanied  monologue  based on extracts from Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress of December 1862, a political debate held before Lincoln became President,  a letter and the famous Gettysburg Address, possibly the greatest, most powerful – and unifying - speech heard during the Civil War.  Interleaved are framing interjections including a physical description of him during his presidency.  The work, written with obvious moral effect in mind, was premiered within a year of the United States’ entry into the Second World War.  It is formed in three parts beginning with an introduction to evoke what Copland called ‘the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln’s character.  Also,...something of his  gentleness and simplicity of spirit.’  A hymn, is quoted, Springfield Mountain, the tune given to clarinet over simple chords for strings.

A livelier, percussive, section treats Lincoln’s wilder days of youth – Copland utilizing his own gift for ‘American’ Tunes and sonorities - and adding Campdown  Races for good measure.  At the close of this scherzando section, the music broadens as destiny – or mysterious fatality – takes over.

The third section brings the piece to its climax – the spoken word and – at last, the Gettysburg Address capped with Springfield Mountain, most poignantly given to a Taps - or Last Post-like trumpet.  The piece ends in an abiding expression of wonder, love and inspiration.  Is this President Lincoln or another New Atlantis that we hear rise before us?  The symbol is perhaps greater than any man, but a hint of the ideals that we should serve as citizens as well as individuals.  Certainly, no modern politician in his or her right mind should set him- or herself up as speaker in this piece; to do so insults the historic symbol and is bound to let down listeners in their actual hopes; no real politician can be a Lincoln, and no-one should ever clothe him- or herself in words that will certainly dwarf him or her – as kingly robes dwarf Macbeth.  Those politicians who try  (and some have unaccountably done so), sound absurd or flatly disingenuous.

This is Classical Break on Somer Valley FM, and  I’m Rupert Kirkham.  Today’s programme of American music was written and researched by Mike Burrows.  We hope that you enjoyed it and will tune in again soon.

Goodbye!

Track 7:  Lincoln Portrait, Copland