Vaughan-Williams - The Lark Ascending
Vaughan-Williams - Serenade to Music
Vaughan-Williams - Folk Song Suite
Dvorak - Gypsy Songs
Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No 2
Kodaly - Psalmus Hungaricus

All the signs are that Watford Philharmonic Society will be able to return to the Watford Colosseum next season, but, in the meantime, following on from their successful performance of Handel’s Messiah last March, Watford Phil is delighted to have reached agreement to stage a second concert at St Michael and All Angels Church, Durban Road/Mildred Avenue, Watford WD18 7DS. The concert take place on Wednesday 15th June, from 7.30 pm, and the programme, sub-titled “A Summer Celebration”, provides a perfect opportunity to relax on a summer’s evening.

The centrepiece of the concert will be a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Wing Yun Wu, who is a concert pianist well known in the Watford Area, replacing Samantha Ward, who is unfortunately indisposed.  Music by Vaughan Williams also features strongly in the concert, with performances of the Serenade to Music, Folk Song Suite and The Lark Ascending, with soloist Rebecca Boyle, who is also Leader of the Orchestra. The programme is completed with performances of Kodaly’s Psalmus Hungaricus, with tenor soloist Philip Slane, and Dvorak’s Gypsy Songs.

The Society has again arranged a free Park and Ride service, which will operate both before and after the concert, to and from the car park of Watford Grammar School for Boys, which is just 500 yards away. This service will operate from 6.45 pm to 7.30 pm, to take people to the church, and again, from 10.15 pm to 10.45 pm, to get them back to their cars. Tickets, priced at £10.50 and £12.50, with children half price, can be obtained from members of Watford Philharmonic Society, or by telephoning our Ticket Secretary on 01923 449458. Subject to availability, tickets may also be on sale at the door on the night of the performance.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)

The Lark Ascending 

Solo violin: Rebecca Boyle

This work was inspired by the playing of the violinist Marie Hall and a poem by George Meredith:

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 instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine that overflows
To lift us with him when he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Begun in 1914 and almost completed at the outbreak of war, after the war it was revised and given its first performance in 1921. From the start the music wonderfully catches the mood of the poem and later a theme appears which could well have derived from an English folk melody. There is also a more agitated section where it is ‘as though someone had disturbed a whole bushful of birds’.

ANTONIN DVORAK (1841-1904)

Gypsy Songs Op. 55

Tenor soloist: Philip Slane

Unlike Vaughan Williams and Kodaly, Dvorak did not have to go in search of his people’s folk music; it was all about him in the Bohemian village where he grew up. In any case his musical sympathies were more broadly ’Slavonic’ and his well-known Slavonic Rhapsodies draw also on the musical traditions of Slovakia, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. At this stage Dvorak had not heard the famous gypsy bands of Hungary, so the gypsy music he had in mind was probably Slovakian. Slovakia was more mountainous and exotic than his native Bohemia.

The poems he chose were originally in Czech but he actually set a German translation prepared by the author and they were composed for solo voice and piano. They are considered his finest set of songs and one of them, No. 4, became probably the best known of his compositions. Tonight we are singing them in English in an arrangement for chorus and orchestra by Cyril Salmons.

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)

Piano Concerto No. 2

Soloist: Wing Yun Wu

When Shostakovich wrote this concerto in 1957 the threatening figure of Stalin who had caused him so much trouble was no more. This may be one reason for the cheerful and optimistic tone of the work. Another was that it was written for the 19th birthday of his son Maxim whose playing of it assured his acceptance at the Moscow State Conservatoire. It quickly became popular and father often performed it himself.

The first movement starts in a jaunty march style and to our ears there is a hint of a drunken sailor lurking somewhere. By contrast the slow movement is restrained, opening with a melody on the strings. High spirits and rhythmic teasing return in the finale with considerable sections written with seven quavers to the bar.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Folk Song Suite

The rediscovery and rescue of English folk music was one of Vaughan Williams’ passions. He himself collected over 800 songs and published arrangements of many.

This suite of three movements was composed in 1923 for military band. (A friend wrote that he was ‘game to write something for the pier’). He delegated to his pupil Gordon Jacob the task of arranging it for orchestra (and also for brass band).

It is a wonderful selection of tunes. Here is the ‘cast’ in order of appearance:

1. Seventeen come Sunday; Pretty Caroline; Dives and Lazarus.

2. My Bonny Boy; Green Rushes.

3. Blow away the morning dew; High Germany; Whistle, daughter, whistle; John Barleycorn.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Serenade to Music

This was composed as a tribute to Sir Henry Wood on his completing fifty years as a conductor. The text is drawn from Act V of ‘The Merchant of Venice’. In the original version for 16 solo voices and orchestra, the parts were allotted to singers who had worked with Sir Henry. Their initials are over their lines in the score and Vaughan Williams had their particular vocal qualities in mind.

Ever practical, he also arranged the piece so that it could be performed with four solo voices and chorus or, as tonight, just with chorus. There is even an arrangement for orchestra alone.

ZOLTAN KODALY (1882-1967)

Psalmus Hungaricus

Tenor Solo: Philip Slane

Like Vaughan Williams, Kodaly was passionate in his work of rescuing and making known the wealth of his country’s folk music. He personally collected and published thousands of songs and from this work developed his ideas on musical education at its most basic which have had worldwide influence.

The Psalmus Hungaricus was written in 1923 to mark the 50th anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest as the Hungarian capital. In spite of the celebratory occasion however, the work is sombre in mood. The troubled history of the country which continued even after the achievement of independence in 1918 is reflected in Kodaly’s choice of an old Hungarian poem linking the sorrows of the nation with passages from Psalm 55. Though he uses no actual folk melodies their characteristic idiom can be felt very strongly.

Wing Yun Wu came to England from Hong Kong after being awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music, where she pursued her studies with Vivian Langrish, Gordon Green, Philip Fowke and Christopher Elton.

During her studies there she gained numerous prizes and awards both as a soloist and as a chamber music player. She won the Dudley National competition as well as the Hong Kong Young Musician of the year Award. She was also a prize winner at the Royal Overseas League Competition.

Wing Yun often performs as concerto soloist with orchestras and has appeared with among others the Croydon Symphony Orchestra, the Chiltern Sinfonia, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

She has also given recitals for Kong Kong Radio and Television as well as appearing at the Purcell Room, the Fairfield Hall and the Wigmore Hall. At the moment she enjoys a busy schedule of solo playing and accompanying as well as chamber music playing.

Rebecca Boyle (Violin)

Rebecca grew up in Pinner and was a very active member of the Harrow School of Young Musicians, the highlight being her performance of Bruch’s violin concerto in Bad Ischl on their tour of Salzburg.

Rebecca gained an Instrumental award to study music at Cambridge University, during which time she performed Tchaikovsky’s and Prokofiev’s 2nd violin concertos, among others. She then studied as a postgraduate under Yossi Zivoni at the Royal Northern College of Music. 

Since graduating in 1992, Rebecca has pursued a hectic teaching and freelance career. She has been leader of the Watford Philharmonic since 1995. She is also a member of the Caspian String Quartet which was the first recipient of the Bulldog Scholarship for Advanced postgraduate studies from Trinity College of Music. The quartet has also received scholarships to study with the Chilingirian Quartet and Emanuel Hurwitz. The quartet represented British culture on a tour to Jordan sponsored by the British Council, and has performed at both No. 10 and 11 Downing Street. They have travelled throughout the country performing for Music Societies and in Festivals.

Rebecca has recently become fascinated by the teaching methods of Kodaly and the Colourstrings approach to Music Kindergarten. She has established her own Music Kindergarten at home in Northwood where she lives with her husband and two children.

Philip Slane (Tenor)

Philip Slane began his musical career as a chorister at Winchester Cathedral, later studying at the Guildhall School of Music, and in the Opera School of the Royal College of Music, where his roles included Acis Acis and Galatea, Don Basilio Le Nozze di Figaro, Rodolfo La Bohème and Sellem The Rake’s Progress. As a member of the Royal Opera he sang roles in Fedora, Samson, Manon and The Midsummer Marriage; sang Alfredo La Traviata in concert, and took part in workshops for the Education Department as Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grimes Peter Grimes, Rodolfo La Bohème, Lensky Eugene Onegin and The Duke of Mantua Rigoletto. Other operatic roles have included First Prisoner Fidelio for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, an acclaimed Don José Carmen for Garden Opera, Agenore Il Re Pastore for Opera Italiana and Rodolfo La Bohème for Opera.

Philip Slane has a wide concert repertoire performing at concert venues and cathedrals in the U.K and abroad. Amongst these are Handel Israel in Egypt with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque soloists in New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Taipei, Messiah in Beauvais and Calais, and with The Hanover Band, Dvorak Mass in D in The Hague, Rossini Missa di Gloria at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and Stabat Mater in Ripon Cathedral, Verdi Requiem at the Brighton Festival and a concert tour of Australia including Sydney Opera House with Dr Martin Neary, as soloist with the English Chamber Choir. His recordings include Carissimi Ludicium Extremum for Erato, Amalakite Saul for Philips Classics and St Thomas Becket Becket: The Kiss of Peace for English Gramophone.

His current engagements include concerts throughout the UK as well as Messiah at the St Ignatio Church, Rome, the Nelson Mass at St Lorenzo, Florence, and Sellem The Rake’s Progress at the Winterthur Festival.