Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Thu 16 January 2025

Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958): Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis

With the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, composed in 1910, Vaughan Williams established himself indisputably as a major and distinctive voice in English music. Here the influences that forged his personal idiom – folksong, modality, and the glories of seventeenth-and eighteenth century English composers – were moulded together in their first maturity.

He found the basis for his form, in the seventeenth-century ‘fancy’ or ‘fantasia’, and for his theme he returned to the melody that Tallis had written, in 1567, for Archbishop Parker’s metrical Psalter, beginning with the words ‘Why fumeth in fight’, a tune which Vaughan Williams had already incorporated as No. 92 of The English Hymnal (1906). While in the process of composing the work, for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, he bore in mind another heritage, namely the city’s magnificent cathedral; he wished to exploit its acoustic and space in the scoring of the Fantasia and did so to brilliant effect: string quartet and double string orchestra, the second, a smaller ensemble, ideally placed apart from the first so that the antiphonal effects are more audible.

At the first performance, on 6 September 1910, the Fantasia preceded The Dream of Gerontius conducted by Elgar. As in the case of many premieres (then as now) the audience was waiting impatiently for the familiar work. Few of the more than 2000 people gathered in the cathedral would have known much about Vaughan Williams. As Herbert Howells (then on the cusp of eighteen) recalled, “He was thirty-nine, magisterial, dark-haired, clear-cut of feature … there at the rostrum towered the unfamiliar magnificent figure. He and a strangely-new work for strings were interposed between them and their devotion to Elgar”.

The spacious character of the Fantasia is established by its five hushed opening chords. Hints of the psalm tune follow, pizzicato, on lower strings, alternating with an oscillating chordal pattern which subsequently becomes a significant building block. The lambent tune, in the Phyrigian mode – which Tallis had embedded in a texture of four voices but which Vaughan Williams harmonised in nine parts – is played by both orchestras. The antiphonal divide between them established, the two orchestras ruminate, as if in dialogue, on different aspects of the theme. With a slight quickening of tempo, the solo viola plays a new, rhapsodic melody, although its provenance in Tallis’s theme is audible.

The viola theme and the swaying chords prominent, Vaughan Williams continues to draw inspiration from Tallis’s tune, in the process creating a glorious swathe of sound. Simultaneously, and akin to an Elizabethan motet, this propels the music forwards, to reach a quasi-declamatory climax. Tallis’s tune returns as a rapt duo between violin and viola, set against tremolo strings played over the fingerboard. Following the final ascent of the solo violin, the Fantasia ends on a widely spaced fortissimo chord, as massive as the Norman pillars that carry the nave of Gloucester cathedral. It hangs suspended, then fades to pppp and silence.

For Howells, and his friend and fellow student Ivor Gurney, it was the new work that spoke more directly to them, its language a revelation. Overnight the composer of the Fantasia became the musical leader of their generation. So profound was the impression that neither attempted to sleep after hearing it; both were so excited that they wandered around the streets of Gloucester all night in animated conversation. Herbert Brewer however, their teacher and the cathedral’s organist, was not so moved, describing the Fantasia as “a queer mad work by an odd fellow from Chelsea”.

© Andrew Burn

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Violin Concerto

1. Allegro moderato
2. Canzonetta – Andante
3. Allegro vivacissimo

The composition of the Violin Concerto in D major, marked Tchaikovsky’s return to musical inspiration after the traumas caused by his disastrous marriage to Antonina Milyukova. Such was the composer’s state of despair that he fled from Russia in the late summer of 1877, settling at Clarens on the shores of Lake Geneva. There he calmed himself, and with the aid of a lump sum and a monthly allowance from his new patroness Nadezhda von Meck, he embarked upon an extended tour of Italy, returning to Clarens in March 1878, when he was joined by a friend, the young violinist Josef Kotek.

Such was the enjoyment brought by playing duos with Kotek, that Tchaikovsky determined to compose a fully-fledged violin concerto. Within the astonishingly short space of eleven days, he completed the work in its first draft, before second thoughts about the slow movement led him to compose a replacement. On 11 April, less than a month from its inception, the full score was completed.

Naturally Kotek considered performing the work, but he withdrew when Tchaikovsky’s publisher Pyotr Jürgensen suggested that Leopold Auer, a Russian violinist with an international reputation, might be able to project a higher profile in the early days of its life. However in this context Auer proved a disappointment, vacillating for so long that rumours began to circulate that the solo part was unplayable. He finally agreed to give the première, in St. Petersburg in March 1881, only to withdraw a few days before. Then Adolf Brodsky came to the rescue, performing the concerto in Vienna on 4 December 1881, with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Hans Richter. The notorious critic Eduard Hanslick duly savaged it. As for Auer, in due course he took the piece into his repertory and gave it his wholehearted advocacy, not only in performance but also to his pupils, who included the young Jascha Heifetz.

The first movement opens with a lyrical theme whose function is introductory rather than organic. The conventional first subject coincides with the entry of the solo violin, and it is soon repeated using virtuoso effects such as double and triple stopping (playing on more than one string at a time). Since the violin is fundamentally a legato instrument, Tchaikovsky created basic material which is lyrical in character, and therefore the subsequent themes follow the precedents already set. It is in passage work and other development techniques that the more agile and rhythmic music is given a greater priority, especially when the first subject theme is worked up to a stirring climax. The cadenza is both a stunning display piece and a thematic synopsis of the movement.

The beautiful slow movement is a ternary (ABA) form whose central section communicates a mood of intense nostalgia, while the outer sections, as suggested by the title Canzonetta, are song-like in character. The initial material is subtly transformed in the later stages of the reprise, in order to lead directly into the finale, an exhilarating Allegro vivacissimo. This has a distinctly Russian flavour, with dance-rhythms to the fore and a second theme whose accompaniment features an imitation of peasant bagpipes. In keeping with the Romantic virtuoso tradition, Tchaikovsky builds up the music to a conclusion which ranks among the most exciting and extrovert among all his orchestral works.

© Terry Barfoot

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Scheherazade

1. The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship (Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo)
2. The Story of the Kalender Prince (Lento – Andantino)
3. The Young Prince and Princess (Andantino quasi allegretto)
4. The Festival of Bagdad – the Sea – the Ship is dashed to pieces on a rock surmounted by a Bronze Warrior (Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso)

In his autobiography My Musical Life, Rimsky-Korsakov revealed that he conceived the idea of what became his orchestral masterwork, Scheherazade, during the winter months of 1887-8. Inspired by the Arabian tales of the One Thousand and One Nights, and designated a symphonic suite, Scheherazade was first performed on 22 October 1888, under the auspices of the Russian Symphony Concerts, conducted by the composer. Demonstrating the composer’s superb command of orchestral colours and melodic flair, it was an immediate success.

Initially, Rimsky-Korsakov had given descriptive titles to the movements; however, anxious that the music should not be thought of as ‘programme music’, he omitted them when the work was published. Instead, “To direct but slightly the hearer’s fancy on the path which the composer’s own imagination had travelled”, he provided a brief preface to the score: “The Sultan Shakriar, convinced of the falsehood and inconstancy of all women had sworn an oath that to put to death each of his wives after the first night. However, the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life, by arousing his interest in the tales which she told him during 1001 nights. Driven by curiosity the sultan postponed her execution from day to day and at last abandoned his sanguinary design”. Needless to say, the descriptions found favour with audiences and stuck.

Of its thematic material, the composer wrote that “apart from the recurring theme for Scheherazade herself, other themes are deliberately shared across movements, for instance, the unison phrase, as though depicting Scheherazade’s stern spouse, at the beginning of the suite. In this manner … I had in view the creation of an orchestral suite … closely knit by the community of its themes, yet presenting, as it were, a kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images and designs of Oriental character”.

In the introductory section to ‘The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship’, a trenchant unison phrase, the so-called ‘Sultan’s motif’, is followed by the teller of the tales, Scheherazade, herself, personified by a solo violin. As the tempo quickens, the ‘Sultan’s’ motif begins its wider thematic role when it is combined with undulating low strings conjuring perfectly the motion of the waves and Sinbad’s vessel plying them. A tranquil middle section brings a new idea on flute, then Scheherazade’s voice is heard again, before the music surges to the movement’s climax with the two main motifs combined. Following the reappearance of the flute idea a further climax leads to a shortened recall of the first part, and a tranquil coda.

As if beginning another story, Scheherazade’s motif initiates ‘The Story of the Kalender Prince’. Its jaunty main theme, with oriental inflections, is heard first on bassoon, then passed around various instruments. Scheherazade’s motif returns, but now divided between by solo cello and oboe. Fanfares derived from the ‘Sultan’s’ motif, echo across the musical landscape until they are interrupted dramatically with the solo clarinet’s whirling cadenza accompanied by ad lib fluttering string pizzicatos. Soon the music morphs into a virile quick-march which Rimsky-Korsakov works up to climax and the cadenza idea returns with the solo bassoon instead in the limelight. After a recap of the first section, the music hurtles to its conclusion.

‘The Young Prince and Princess’ is the suite’s slow movement opening with a theme for the violins, redolent with wistfulness, yet rich in sound, due to Rimsky-Korsakov indicating that the melody is to be played on the instrument’s D string. When finished, the clarinet dashes off a mesmerising cadenza, the idea becoming a signature feature of the movement. A jocular tune accompanied by side-drum provides the central focus. The opening theme, singing now in the violins’ higher register ushers in the return of the story-teller’s voice, which combined with the solo oboe, leads to both sections being recalled and a coda of magical simplicity.

The finale, ‘The Festival of Bagdad – the Sea – the Ship is dashed to pieces on a rock surmounted by a Bronze Warrior’, starts with references to both the ‘Sultan’s’ and Scheherazade’s motifs. Thereafter, in fast exhilarating music, Rimsky-Korsakov’s reference to a kaleidoscope of images is wholly apt as one memorable idea follows another. These include a festive tune by the flutes, underpinned by three-fold rhythms; horn and trumpet tattoos – a reminder that Rimsky-Korsakov was Stravinsky’s teacher; the first violins creating a virtuoso rendering of Scheherazade’s theme, and the return of the second primary theme of the third movement, now glistening in new instrumental colours.

With interjections of the ‘Sultan’s motif, the music becomes increasingly frenetic, the orchestration even more dazzling until the climax is reached as the heaving waves return. Howling chromatic woodwind scales conjure the power of the storm, a tam-tam stroke the ship’s destruction. In the epilogue-like coda, the hushed ‘Sultan’s’ motif, is heard on cellos and basses, no longer a threat to Scheherazade as her motif soars above, her guile, fortitude, bravery rewarded.

© Andrew Burn