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Sunday, June 24, 2012 |
| ARCHIVE • 2012 • SUN 17 • MON 18 • WED 20 • FRI 22 • SUN 24 |
| Newport Harbor Lutheran Church, 4 p.m. Festival Finale Pacific Chorale’s John Alexander Singers Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Intermission Roy Whelden (born 1950)
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Reception
It was written by the American composer and viola da gamba player Roy Whelden, who has performed and recorded with many internationally known ensembles, including Sequentia (Cologne) and Ensemble Alcatraz (San Francisco). As a composer, he has received commissions for a diverse range of works, including chamber music, songs cycles, choral works, and incidental music for plays. Whelden holds a degree in music theory from the Eastman School of Music and a doctorate from Indiana University, where he specialized in Early Music Performance. Commenting on this commission, Whelden writes: “When I was asked to create a new piece for voices and strings based on Purcell’s Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day, I immediately called to mind a twentiethcentury masterwork, Igor Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Stravinsky’s ballet suite is a piece I had known and loved since childhood. It was one of the few recordings available in the public library of the farm community where I grew up. “In Pulcinella, Stravinsky chose a number of independent works by the astoundingly prolific Baroque composer Giovanni Pergolesi (who died at age 26) and moulded them into a coherent work, a 35-minute ballet. The task I set for myself in the Ode after Purcell was the opposite: I chose movements and pieces of movements from Purcell’s 50-minute ode to create a piece of smaller dimensions. “How did I make the selections? What were my criteria? First, I chose texts that moved and inspired me. For the most part, the favored texts were those that showed a universal, or at least a less parochial, perspective. ’Thou tun’st this world below, the spheres above, Who in the heavenly round to their own music move.’ Now, that’s a stirring and universal emotion, in contrast to the somewhat narrow outlook of the verse invoking the wish that the ’British forest prove as famous as Dodona’s vocal grove.’ (That last line is found in the verse for the first chorus ’Hail! Bright Cecilia’; in fact, I did use a portion of that verse, but set it with completely different music than Purcell’s original.) “Second, I wanted to work with those melodies from Purcell’s Ode that suggested compelling shapes for me when looked at from different perspectives. Often the most interesting shapes were things that I found in dreams. ’Wondrous machine’ is an example. It’s got a wonderfully virile ostinato, which eventually suggested a different harmonization (or, more accurately, different counterpoint), which in turn lead to a slight alteration of the original ostinato. And in the course of working on the piece, I ended up changing the text as well. ’Wondrous machine [i.e. organ — Purcell’s instrument], To thee the warbling lute, Though used to conquest, Must be forced to yield’ became the more universalized ’Wondrous Cecelia, All disharmonious thought, Though used to conquest, Must yield to thee.’ “If I have altered the music and texts of Purcell’s wonderful Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day, I don’t wish to imply any criticism of the original. Purcell’s mastery of counterpoint, his surprising twists of harmony and able text settings are above criticism. The morphogenesis of my own Ode after Purcell is clear and apparent, even if there is no single measure from the original which survives unaltered. “My work is a genetic descendant — an illegitimate daughter, if you allow — of Henry Purcell.” BACK
Notes by Graydon Beeks and Roy Whelden |
enry
Purcell was universally mourned as the “British Orpheus”
after his premature death at the age of 36. This afternoon’s
concert juxtaposes music from the first part of his life, when he
was primarily a composer for the English court, with works from
after 1690, when — during what was to be the final five years
of his life — he focused on composing music for the theater.
he
concert opens with the first datable Ode for St. Cecilia’s
Day, Welcome to all the Pleasures, performed on
November 22, 1673 as part of an annual concert celebrating the patron
saint of music. It is, like all of Purcell’s early odes, relatively
small in scale, scored for an orchestra of strings and continuo
only. The musical highlight is the alto solo Here the Deities
Approve, which is one of the very best of Purcell’s many
airs written over a repeated bass pattern or “ground bass.”
urcell’s
incidental music for a revival of Thomas Shadwell’s play The
Libertine, which tells a version of
the Don Juan story, represents his theater music. Generally assigned
a date of 1692, it may actually have been written shortly before
the composer’s death in November 1695. The song Nymphs
and Shepherds is typical of Purcell’s pastoral music,
while the chorus In These Delightful Pleasant Groves was
one of the pieces that kept Purcell’s name alive throughout
the 19th century. 
nlike her husband William, a dour military man, Queen Mary seems
genuinely to have loved music. When she died of smallpox on December
28, 1694, Purcell mourned her with the Latin elegy O
Dive Custos Auricae Domus set to a text by H. Parker
and arranged for two sopranos and continuo.
BAROQUE MUSIC FESTIVAL CORONA DEL MAR
Post Office Box 838 | Corona del Mar, CA 92625-0838
Tel. (949) 760-7887 | info@BMF-CdM.org
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