Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Ralph Vaughan Williams

English Documentary Scores by Great Composers

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have an hour of English documentary scores.

In England, unlike in the United States, there is no delineation between “film composer” and “concert composer.” What is often regarded here as “hack work,” there is seen as just another aspect of what it means to be a working artist. There is no disgrace in a composer earning a living, and some of the nation’s greatest musicians – including those in the employ of the Royal Family – have contributed finely-crafted works to its body of cinema.

We’ll hear music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, from “The People’s Land,” Benjamin Britten, from “The King’s Stamp,” William Alwyn, from “The Green Girdle,” and Sir Arthur Bliss, from “The Royal Palaces of Britain.” All four films are patriotic utterances on distinctly English themes.

You may not have seen any of the movies, but the music is beautiful. I hope you’ll join me for selections from English documentaries, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later, at your convenience, as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

The complete documentary short, “The Green Girdle,” is posted on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWQDeD4J0As

As is “The King’s Stamp”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSsJHlLFg4

Thank you, Internet!

PHOTO: It’s not about what you think

December 4, 2014
Advent Calendar Day 2 Wassail Song & Recipe

ADVENT CALENDAR – DAY 2

I had a deadline this morning, and car trouble, and a funeral, so I’m a little late posting today, but I hope the anticipation makes it all the more special.

For me, the Christmas carol that best heralds the season is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of this Wassail Song, native (like the composer) to Gloucestershire. Interesting that I would always associate it with the advent of Christmas, since apparently wassailing is tied in some traditions to Twelfth Night celebrations, which actually conclude the celebration of Christmas on January 6.

I found this video of Father Christmas himself directing a Cleveland ensemble in the work. They can’t spell “choir,” but they sure can sing.

Here’s a wassail recipe, if you’re interested. You also get a bit of history – including the origins of the custom we call toasting.

Wassail

Enjoy! Hic hic…

December 1, 2014
Douglas Lilburn New Zealand’s Musical Pioneer

Being such a huge Sibelius fan, I remember being positively charmed by my discovery of the music of Douglas Lilburn. Lilburn is probably New Zealand’s most celebrated composer.

Lilburn studied journalism and music at Canterbury University College, then part of the University of New Zealand, before embarking for London’s Royal College of Music. There he was tutored by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The two remained good friends, with Lilburn sending his former teacher gifts of New Zealand honey.

Lilburn made his mark at home not only as a composer, but as a conductor and a noted teacher. For decades, he was associated with Victoria University in Wellington, beginning in 1947.

Astonishingly, for one whose own music was so rooted in tradition, Lilburn founded the first electronic music studio in Australasia. This followed visits to electronic facilities at Darmstadt and the University of Toronto.

Actually, his comparatively thorny Third Symphony signaled something of a turning point. Soon after its completion, in 1961, he shifted his attention exclusively to electronics, a field in which he spent the remainder of his career. Many of his works in the medium evoke the New Zealand landscape and the natural sounds he loved so well.

Lilburn died in 2001. He was 85 years old. He has been described as “the elder statesman” and “grandfather of New Zealand music.”

Happy birthday to this antipodean giant!

Liliburn’s “A Song of Islands” (1946):

The composer in the electronic music studio he founded:

PHOTO: Lilburn in a whimsical mood

November 2, 2014
Ralph Vaughan Williams Birthday Folk Music Legend

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams. What does that say about me? I don’t care. I love his stuff.

Vaughan Williams, of course, cultivated a musical language with its roots in English folk melody and the great Tudor traditions. Like Bartók and Kodály in Hungary, he helped rescue England’s rich rural musical heritage from extinction.

Vaughan Williams was a musical democrat, who believed the works of the world’s greatest composers were a birthright of the common man. He bicycled around the countryside, not only notating songs of agricultural workers, but rehearsing village choirs for his beloved Leith Hill Festival, which he directed from 1905 to 1953.

He adored the “St. Matthew Passion.” Since many of the singers could not read music, he would go through the work with them page by page.

In middle age, my eyebrows seem to aspire to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ stature. I wonder if his compositional strength, Samson-like, was contained in those unruly tufts?

Celebrate Vaughan Williams by listening to “The Running Set”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMPUYo1A_BU

PHOTO: Vaughan Williams and Foxy, engaged in a shedding contest

October 12, 2014
John Shirley-Quirk Obituary

Bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk, a recording studio stalwart of music by Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Frederick Delius, among others, died on Monday. He performed most of his repertoire on stage in England, naturally; Americans are very lucky to have so much of it preserved on recordings. Stateside, he has been on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music since 1991.

My favorite Shirley-Quirk recording is his “Five Mystical Songs” of Vaughan Williams, on texts of the metaphysical poet George Herbert, which I try to get on the air every Easter. Here he is in Vaughan Williams’ “Linden Lea.”

Thanks for the beautiful music, John.

PHOTO: Shirley-Quirk (left) with Sir William Walton

April 9, 2014

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