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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
October 22, 2011
The description of England as "Die Land ohne Musik" (the country without music) is well-known, but its origins less so.
It was in 1904 that German scholar Oskar Adolf Hermann Schmitz published his book of that title - its last edition appeared in 1915 by which time its polemical purpose was in no doubt. But the roots of the phrase itself go back further in time, to at least 1866 in fact, when one Carl Engel, a self-described "music scholar" living in England, published "An Introduction to the Study of National Music", which included such gems as "the rural population of England appear to sing less than those of most other European countries". (It should also be added that numerous travellers to England before 1866 had come to similar conclusions.)
Schmitz extrapolated from Engel's prejudices and announced that "The English are the only cultured nation without its own music (except street music)".
Even when the first edition of Schmitz's tome was published his prejudices were out of date; over a century later they seem almost laughable.
As Saturday's fascinating UVic Faculty Recital, English Tethers demonstrated, even though not all of the music actually originated in England.
Music for a Found Harmonium/Julia Delaney, with which flugelhornist Patrick Boyle opened the evening, was described in the programme as "traditional", which probably caused a few raised eyebrows in the audience.
Certainly the traditional Irish reel Julia Delaney made its (eventual) appearance, although it had been hinted at earlier on. But there was also a distinct (albeit subtle) reference to Simon Jeffes' Music for a Found Harmonium (written in 1982 for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra).
Which takes care of the title. But when you add the droning background (shades of LaMonte Young's Composition #7) courtesy of a small box of electronics, echoing low notes redolent of Gavin Bryar's The Sinking of the Titanic and some distinctly jazz-flavoured variants on the theme, all (apparently) played by a curly-haired Elvis Costello lookalike (it must have been the glasses), well, then you have a uniquely interesting opening for any event.
Hans Gál fled from Austria in 1938, when the Germans occupied the country. He spent the remainder of his long life in Edinburgh - which, I should point out, is in Scotland, not England.
His macaronically-titled Drei Intermezzi, beautifully played by Suzanne Snizek and Charlotte Hale, revealed a slightly angular pastoralism that was quite charming.
However, even when as delightfully played as they were, I couldn't help feel that there was insufficient contrast between the pieces and that - if I may mangle the languages even further - Drei Intermezzi was ein, or possibly even zwei intermezzi de trop.
The music of Rebecca Clarke would appear to be undergoing something of a reevaluation in recent years. The facts that she spent much of her life in the USA; that of her output of almost 100 works only twenty were published in her lifetime and that, when she died aged 93, even those were long out of print, have no doubt contributed to the previous neglect.
Joanna Hood and Ajtony Csaba played a varied group of four pieces by Clarke, ranging from the solemn - Passacaglia on an old English Tune (allegedly by Thomas Tallis) - via the lyrical - Untitled - the rhapsodic - Morpheus - to the charming pentatonic pizzicato of Chinese Puzzle.
All four were exceptionally well played and have certainly only served to whet my personal interest in Clarke's music.
There was not even a pretence of Englishness in the last work of the opening half: David Jaffe's Cluck Old Hen Variations for Solo Violin.
With the music spread across four music stands, Ann Elliott-Goldschmid worked her way from one side of the stage to the other amid a dazzling display of violinistic Americana which summoned up hoedowns, Charles Ives and Aaron Copland (of course - you can't do Americana without invoking their shades), but also Johann Sebastien Bach and even, in a couple of more sinister passages, Béla Bartók. Yeeha!
The second half of the evening brought us firmly back to English soil, with vocal music by Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Britten's first Canticle, My Beloved in Mine, dates from 1947 and is a setting of a poem - derived from verses from The Song of Solomon - by the 17th century metaphysical poet Frances Quarles.
The poem itself celebrates its author's mystic communion with his God, although it is clear that Britten's setting is more secular in intent: the celebration is of Britten's personal and professional partnership with Peter Pears. It is probably one of the world's first openly gay love songs. It is also the only song I can currently think of to employ the word 'conjoined'.
Unfortunately, Britten's musical idiom is one which has never appealed to me (a mere handful of works excepted). I can say that Benjamin Butterfield sang superbly - and I cannot offhand think of another singer with better diction - and Arthur Rowe accompanied most sensitively.
I have no such reservations about the last work of the evening: Vaughan Williams' setting of poems from A.E. Houseman's A Shropshire Lad. This cycle, composed after RVW's return from three months studying in Paris with Ravel, was first performed in 1909 and was the first signal that, in Vaughan Williams, the country had its second great living composer.
Butterfield, Rowe and the Lafayette String Quartet gave a marvellous performance of Vaughan Williams' first masterwork
Although Vaughan Williams is not generally thought of as a vocal or chamber music composer, his command of both is clear and the performers made the most of the atmospheric, at times almost operatic music. If there was a single song which stood out for me it was the penultimate, Bredon Hill, with its wonderful passages reminiscent of church bells.
A fine close to a most enjoyable evening.
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