Introduction

It takes multiple voices to create harmony, a basic building block of music. This evening’s performance celebrates and highlights all those that contribute to the harmony and impact of music, from bass to soprano, from soloist to the collective ensemble, and from the composer to the interpreter.

Edward Elgar:
Introduction and Allegro

The interplay between contributors is immediately apparent in the Introduction and Allegro, written in 1905 by Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Scored for solo string quartet and string orchestra, the work is reminiscent of a Baroque concerto grosso, which juxtaposes a large group of instruments (the ripieno) with a smaller group of soloists (the concertino). The solo quartet first emerges from a bold, homorhythmic opening, with an ascending line that becomes an important theme that later reappears.  Solo cellist Nathan Watts attests, “The first time I heard it, I was blown away by how rich the sound that Elgar gets out of the string orchestra is.” Throughout, when the forces of the ensemble join the soloists the writing is lushly romantic. Contrast is imposed by the intimacy of solo lines (such as the folk-inspired viola solo at the opening, said to evoke a Welsh tune) and the later, fiendishly contrapuntal writing of the Allegro, described by Elgar himself as “a devil of a fugue.” Unity plays an integral role in the architecture of the work: the two main themes of the Introduction (the rising quartet melody and the viola’s song) are elaborated upon in the later section.

Vaughan Williams:
Nocturne and Scherzo

At the time that Elgar’s fame was in its ascendancy, a young Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was attempting to find his own compositional voice. After finishing his studies at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College, Cambridge, the young composer continued to search for his individual style, eventually seeking further training from Maurice Ravel. In the intervening period, he composed myriad chamber works that he later deemed unfit for publication. Finally made available posthumously, these works offer a glimpse into Vaughan Williams’ own, youthful and developing “inner voice.” The Nocturne and Scherzo, composed between 1904-1906, hints at Vaughan Williams’ future.  The chromaticism of the Nocturne and the incorporation of ‘As I walked out,’ an English folk tune, which appears as the melodic basis of the Scherzo presages Vaughan Williams’ later compositions.  “You can tell, even in this early work, that [Vaughan Williams] had a vivid imagination, and that these diverse ideas were just beginning to coalesce,” says cellist Patricia Ryan. 

Anna Clyne:
Prince of Clouds

Anna Clyne (b. 1980) adds a contemporary English voice to tonight’s musical conversation. Prince of Clouds, composed in the summer of 2012, is a concerto for two violins, à la J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto in D minor.  Commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the IRIS Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Curtis Institute of Music, the composer writes:

When writing Prince of Clouds I was contemplating the presence of musical lineage—a family-tree of sorts that passes from generation to generation. This transfer of knowledge and inspiration between generations is a beautiful gift. Composed specifically for Jennifer Koh and her mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music, Jaime Laredo, this thread was in the foreground of my imagination as a dialogue between the soloists and ensemble.

These elements are abundantly apparent, as the soloists echo one another, weaving in and out of the string orchestra that, at times, envelops them. Soloist Giancarlo describes the experience of playing Prince of Clouds:  

The soloists and orchestra are often playing in the same register or texture, so it’s a continual question how much we (as soloists) should blend in with the orchestra as a whole versus how much we should try to break free and explore our own voices.

Benjamin Britten:
Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings

Tenor Christopher Bozeka describes the Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) as “one of the most unique pieces in the orchestral repertoire.” Indeed, multiple elements make this work utterly distinct. Written for Dennis Brain, a young horn player who Britten discovered playing in the R.A.F. Central Band, and Peter Pears, a celebrated tenor and Britten’s lifelong partner, the ensemble combines Britten’s love of the string orchestra, his interest in text setting (at the same time he was composing the Serenade, he was also writing a number of choral works, perhaps in preparation for his first large-scale opera, Peter Grimes), and an atypical solo voice: the French horn. The piece, in fact, is bookended by movements for unaccompanied horn, which makes use of natural (rather than tempered) harmonics, immediately marking the music as uncommon. Artistic director Natalie Lin comments, “The way that Britten treats the Tenor and Horn not simply as soloists, but as an integral part of the ensemble's texture is really fascinating, and adds such beautiful timbres to the string ensemble.” The Serenade also is unusual in that it utilizes texts by multiple English authors from varied eras, including Romantic poet John Keats, Ben Jonson (a contemporary of Shakespeare), and Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate during the Victorian period. Despite the diverse array of writers, the song cycle is unified by its subject matter: each poem addresses the concept of night, as Edward Sackville-West, music critic and dedicatee of the Serenade, wrote, “…the lengthening shadow, the distant bugle at sunset, the Baroque panoply of the starry sky, the heavy angels of sleep; but also the cloak of evil—the worm in the heart of [William Blake’s] rose, the secret sense of sin in the heart of man.”

— written by Anya Wilkening