Risca Male Choir Blog #16
What a month we’ve had. I am currently writing this during the week of extreme (almost Mediterranean) temperatures with an electric fan blasting into my face! Our first performance since the pandemic was to commemorate our dear friend, the late Gerry Pritchard. However, the morning of the funeral, I received the dreaded ‘ping’ from the NHS app!! Fortunately, Martin was present at the funeral and was available to give his best friend an appropriate send-off. He also held the rehearsal in the evening, and I am told the evening’s singing earned a round of applause from spectators in the shape of rugby players having heard our rendition of World in Union!
We are very fortunate to be in a position where we can sing outdoors with plenty of distancing to keep progressing as a choir. However, this month brought a whole new challenge to us. One Thursday, the rugby club held a match between two teams during our rehearsal – nothing prepares you for singing quietly with a game of rugby going on behind you which involves a lot of shouting! It took a lot of concentration and patience to get things done, but there were signs of improvement for sure!
Anyway, we’ve begun rehearsing some of our more difficult and new pieces, so it’s a sign that what we are doing is working. Let’s hope to get into our regular practice venue to begin sectionals soon!
Composers of the Month
Leonard Bernstein – 10th July, 1895—29 March, 1982
Composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, thinker, and adventurous spirit, Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) transformed the way Americans and people everywhere hear and appreciate music. Bernstein's successes as a composer ranged from the Broadway stage— West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town and Candide to concert halls all over the world, where his orchestral and choral music continues to thrive.
Bernstein's major concert works include three symphonies—subtitled Jeremiah (1944), The Age of Anxiety (1949), and Kaddish (1963)—as well as Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949); Serenade for violin, strings and percussion (1954); Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1960); Chichester Psalms (1965); Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers(1971); Songfest (1977); Divertimento for orcherstra (1980); Halil for solo flute and small orchestra (1981); Touches (1981) and Thirteen Anniversaries (1988) for solo piano; Missa Brevis for singers and percussion (1988); Concerto for Orchestra: Jubilee Games (1989); and Arias and Barcarolles (1988). Bernstein also wrote the one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti in 1952, and its sequel, the three-act opera A Quiet Place, in 1983. He collaborated with choreographer Jerome Robbins on three major ballets: Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946), and Dybbuk (1975). He received an Academy Award nomination for his score for On the Waterfront (1954).
As a conductor, Bernstein was a dynamic presence on the podiums of the world's greatest orchestras for almost half a century, building a legacy that endures and continues to grow through a catalogue of over 500 recordings and filmed performances. Bernstein became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958, a position he held until 1969. Thereafter, as permanent Laureate Conductor, he made frequent guest appearances with the orchestra. Among the world's great orchestras, Bernstein also enjoyed special relationships with the Israel Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic, both of which he conducted extensively in live performances and recordings. He won 11 Emmy Awards for his celebrated television work, including the Young People's Concerts series with the New York Philharmonic.
As teacher and performer, he played an active role with the Tanglewood Music Festival from its founding in 1940 until his death, as well as with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and Pacific Music Festival (both of which he helped found) and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Bernstein received many honours, including the Kennedy Center Honors (1980); the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal (1981); the MacDowell Colony's Gold Medal; medals from the Beethoven Society and the Mahler Gesellschaft; New York City's Handel Medallion; a special Tony Award (1969); dozens of honorary degrees and awards from colleges and universities; and national honours from Austria, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Denmark, Germany, and France. In 1985, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honoured Bernstein with the Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award. His writings were published in The Joy of Music (1959), Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts (1961), The Infinite Variety of Music (1966), and Findings (1982).
As the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Bernstein also delivered six lectures at Harvard University in 1972–73 that were subsequently published and televised as The Unanswered Question. In 1990, he received the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Arts Association awarded for lifetime achievement in the arts.
Bernstein died on October 14, 1990.
Here is the composer conducting his Chichester Psalms with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Jeunesse-Chor and Soloist of the Wiener Sangerknaben.
Lili Boulanger (21st August, 1893 – 15th March, 1918)
Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger was born into a musical family. Her grandfather was a cellist, her grandmother a famous soprano (Marie-Julie Boulanger, née Hallinger), her father a composer who had won the Prix de Rome in 1835. Her mother, Countess Raissa Myshetskaya, was a professional singer, and her sister was Nadia Boulanger, who became famous as a teacher, particularly to a generation of American composers.
Lili, as she was called, suffered a nearly fatal case of pneumonia when she was two years old. Although she survived, it would appear that her immune system was compromised, for she was a frequent sufferer from various illnesses. She was deeply attached to her father, who had been 77 years old when she was born. Inevitably, he died when she was young, only six years old. The family was closely involved in Parisian musical life; Fauré was a frequent house guest.
Their mother gave both sisters beginning music lessons, but they went on to study with eminent musicians. Lili took lessons from the great harpists Marcel Tournier and Alphonse Hasselmans, and also studied violin, cello, and piano. At the age of 16 she began studying composition. Her primary teachers were Georges Caussade and Paul Vidal. She made such progress that her elder sister, Nadia, realised she could not match her talent, and changed her career to teaching. Lili was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire in 1912. In May of that year she entered the famous Prix de Rome competition for composers, but she fell ill during the strenuous period of composition and had to withdraw. That year no one gained first prize. When she competed again in 1913, she became the first woman to win the coveted prize, being named co-winner with Claude Delvincourt (two prizes were available, counting the one left over from 1912). Her winning composition was a cantata, Faust et Hélène.
Measles prevented her from travelling immediately to Rome, but she arrived there in the middle of March, 1914. She faced the hostility of the director of the French Academy there, Albert Besnard, who was sure the mere presence of a woman among the residents would destroy discipline. She returned to France for a family vacation in July, and remained in France when World War I broke out, in order to give what help she could to the war effort. Back in Rome in 1916, she began work on an opera, La Princesse Maleine, based on a play by Maeterlinck. It is said that she identified with the lonely heroine. She returned to Paris due to illness, then returned to her family home in Mézy and died there in March, 1918.at the age of 25!
Her music stands in the main line of French music exemplified by Fauré. It is somewhat tinged with the influence of Debussy's Impressionism, and is generally beautiful, delicately coloured, and touching. There can be little doubt that the world lost a potentially great composer with her passing. Her substantial compositions include a psalm setting, Du fond de l'abime, and another cantata, Hymn de Soleil.
Here is her piece Hymne Au Soleil performed by Philharmonia Chor Stuttgart directed by Helmut Wolf, with soloist Helene Schneiderman, and pianist Émile Naoumoff.
Arwel Hughes (25th August, 1909 – 23rd September, 1988)
Arwel Hughes was born in Rhosllannerchrugog near Wrexham and was educated at Ruabon Grammar School and at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams and C. H. Kitson.
Following his studies at the RCM he became organist at the church of St Philip and St James, Oxford, and in 1935 returned to Wales to join the staff of the BBC’s music department. His duties included a great deal of conducting, and he directed the first performances of many works by Welsh composers, including Grace Williams, David Wynne, and Alun Hoddinott. He was also called upon to compose, arrange and orchestrate music for live radio broadcasts.
Hughes became Head of Music at BBC Wales in 1965, holding the post until his retirement in 1971. He was appointed OBE in 1969 for his services to Welsh music and for organising the music for the Investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales, in the same year. From 1978 until 1986 he was Honorary Music Director of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. Hughes was also the father of the Welsh orchestral conductor Owain Arwel Hughes.
For many years Arwel Hughes conducted performances by the Welsh National Opera, and his own two operas, Menna, to a libretto by Wyn Griffith, a tragedy based on a Welsh folk legend; and Serch yw’r Doctor (Love’s the Doctor), a comedy adapted by Saunders Lewis from Molière's L’Amour médecin, were produced by WNO in 1953 and 1960 respectively. These works played an important role in the development of opera in Wales, and demonstrate Hughes' lyricism and melodic originality.
He is best remembered for his music for chorus and orchestra. The large-scale oratorios, Dewi Sant (Saint David) and Pantycelyn, exemplify his imagination and technical competence and combine the early twentieth century British tradition with his original harmonic language. Gweddi (A Prayer) is a shorter work containing haunting melodies which encapsulate the spirit of the composer, which is recognisably Celtic.
The composer’s orchestral writing includes a Fantasia for Strings which has received many performances. From the 1940s onwards, he produced a stream of works for orchestra including Suite for Orchestra, Prelude for Orchestra (dedicated to the Youth of Wales), Anatiomaros, and a symphony. There are a quantity of songs and chamber music.
Here, we have an extract from the sublime Bryn Terfel singing Tydi a Roddaist with the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera, The Black Mountain Choir and… Risca Male Choir!! Some of the guys will probably remember this recording!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbepXHDOh7g
I hope you enjoy the three pieces I have chosen for this month – especially considering one of them includes us! We can’t wait to see you all soon, but until then, stay safe and hydrated in these extreme temperatures.