Saturday 8th July 7.30pm

Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea
​TN37 6GL

​​Tickets from £7.50.
Side seats free to all
Central seats: Students/Under 18s/Universal Credit/Job Seekers: Free

Tickets from Eventbrite and
The Bookkeeper, St Leonards.

HPO SINGERS

HPO WIND QUINTET

THE WEALDEN CONSORT

​

Marcio da Silva Conductor
Stephanie Gurga Piano
Francis Rayner Piano

​Rachel Allen Soprano
Jessica Edom Soprano
Maya Colwell Mezzo Soprano
John Twitchen Tenor
Jack Lawrence-Jones Baritone

Carys Gittins Flute
Michael Stowe Oboe
Tim Ieraci Clarinet
Ben Exell Bassoon
Hannah Key French Horn

Running Time

1 hour 30 minutes,

including 20 minute interval

​​Fantasia Te Deum                                                                                                                                    Marcio da Silva (1983--)
Marcio wrote this choral work while he was studying in Marseilles, France, in 2007. He remembers the incentive of a composition competition in Brazil inviting submissions of works for chorus and orchestra. Although Marcio had composed various smaller works before, this was the first major work that he had attempted, and he spent two months developing the composition. Marcio aimed to write a festive piece - something with an underlying sense of celebration even though it would explore different moods. In due course he sent off the manuscript and was disappointed not to receive a response.

A year later he returned to the score to work on adapting it for another choir, but other projects diverted his attention at that point. He was prompted to revisit the piece earlier this year because he felt that it fitted logically within this programme - the music of Poulenc has always inspired him and his French studies included a close study of Poulenc's works. He has a particular love of Poulenc's unique harmonic language and his rhythmnic style. 

Marcio comments that when he revisited this piece, he began to realise the limitations of his musical understanding as a 23 year old, and how much he has subsequently learned about harmony, orchestration, and melodic shaping in the intervening years. He found that some judicial editing was needed! 

In terms of musical form, Marcio chose an episodic approach, with one recurring motif being explored and developed throughout. The piece is in one continuous movement, although there are clear sections delineated by changes of tempo and mood.

Wind Sextet.                                                                                                                                    Francis Poulenc (1899-1933)
Poulenc’s wind sextet was composed for flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, and piano. It was probably composed between 1931 and 1932. It was premiered in 1933 but was revised in 1939.

Poulenc was the most prolific member of the group of 20th-century French composers known as Les Six whose music is often seen as a neoclassic reaction against the musical style of Wagner and the impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel. In his Sextet Poulenc shows influences of the incidental music heard during the group's weekend visits to the circus, as well as the group’s general adherence to the melodic ideas set forth by Eric Satie.

There are three movements: I – Allegro Vivace; II. Divertissement – Andantino; III. Finale: Prestissimo.

The first movement (Allegro Vivace) is in ternary form and begins with ascending scales by all instruments before moving into an energetic beginning section with complex rhythms, jazz undertones, and an underlying line from the piano. The middle of the movement features a slower section initiated by a bassoon melody which is then repeated by the other instruments. The original tempo returns at the end of the movement as new themes propel the movement toward its end.

The second movement (Divertissement: Andantino) is in binary form (AABB), with the ‘A’ sections marked at a much slower tempo than the ‘B’ section. It is often interpreted as being influenced by the divertimentos of the Classical period. The ‘B’ sections seem to form a sort of musical, comedic relief. The piece employs a variety of textures in the winds with the piano serving in more of a secondary role.

The finale (Prestissimo) begins with a ‘gallop’ and is in rondo form. It has jazz and ragtime influences (again a product of Les Six’s outings to weekend shows). Musicologists see this as a satirical depiction of the neoclassical movement. The finale creates a sense of cohesion by repeating themes from the previous two movements, and it ends with a lyrical and solemn coda with influences from Maurice Ravel who was one of the composer's idols.

The premier of the sextet occurred in 1933 with Poulenc on the piano part. The piece was not well-received by traditionalists in the music community, with some criticising it as wandering and vulgar. Poulenc extensively revised the composition in August 1939 because he was dissatisfied with the original work. He told composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger, ‘There were some good ideas in [the original] but the whole thing was badly put together. With the proportions altered, better balanced, it comes over very clearly.’

Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano FP 43.                                                                                Francois Poulenc (1899-1963)
Poulenc composed this three-movement chamber work between 1924 and 1926. It was well received at its premiere in Paris, with the composer at the piano. Critics have praised the work's depth of feeling, noting touches of Mozartian flavour and echoes of Haydn, Gluck, Saint-Saens, and Stravinsky.
 
By 1924 the 25-year-old Poulenc had established himself as a rising young composer, firstly as one of Les Six - the name given to a group of composers who lived and worked in Montparnasse – and then with his music for the ballet Les biches. He had already composed several chamber works, and he began work on this trio for oboe, bassoon and piano in May 1924.
 
Poulenc was a slow and painstaking composer, and this piece took him two years to complete. Finally, he retreated to a hotel in Cannes to isolate himself from family and friends while he completed it. While there he met Igor Stravinsky who gave him some good advice ("quelques bons conseils") that helped him with the final version of the first movement. Poulenc dedicated the trio to Manuel de Falla, who was delighted with the work and promised to organise and take part in a performance in Spain as soon as possible. The premiere took place at the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris on 2 May 1926. It seems that the audience was impressed by its rare delicacy of instrumentation, and the subtlety with which the composer solved problems of form.
 
The trio is in three movements – I. Presto; II. Andante; III. Rondo.  
 
Like several of the composers whom Poulenc admired and who influenced him, he was not attracted to traditional sonata form with exposition and development of themes. He preferred what he called an ‘episodic’ style, in which a theme is presented with no development and is followed by a contrasting theme, similarly treated. Nevertheless, many years after the work was written, Poulenc told the musicologist Claude Rostand: ‘For those who think I don't care about form, I've no objection to unveiling my secrets here: the first movement follows the plan of a Haydn Allegro, and the final Rondo the shape of the scherzo in Saint-Saën’s Second Piano Concerto. Ravel always recommended this method to me, which he often followed himself.’
 
In their studies of Poulenc, various musicologists have suggested that this ex post facto analysis by Poulenc was to some extent myth-making – something he was given to. They suggest that the most striking feature of the trio is its depth of feeling, especially in the central Andante where Poulenc gives full rein to his lyrical gifts. It has also been observed that themes recall Mozart, most especially perhaps the first bars of the Andante.
 
Before the first movement presto begins there is a slow 15-bar introduction. Musicologists have likened this to the ceremonious overtures of the Versailles of Louis XIV, whilst others find in it a ‘Stravinskian starkness’. The presto begins with a double-dotted theme for the bassoon in B-flat minor, echoed by the oboe, a semitone higher. A new theme in F minor – which in a traditional sonata form movement might be the second subject – is succeeded by a middle section at half speed, which seems to reflect the influence of Gluck. The lively opening theme of the presto returns to round off the movement.
 
The second movement is marked Andante con moto. The opening theme in B-flat major is gentle and melodic, with a luxuriant piano accompaniment. There are further echoes of Gluck, with a quotation from his ‘Dance of the Blessed Spirits’. The oboe has a graceful, melancholy melody. The mood becomes less idyllic towards the end of the movement when the feel of the pastoral F-major is shadowed with chromatics, and the final chord is in F minor, a key associated with funeral laments.
 
The final movement is marked ‘très vif’ – very lively. The music maintains a frenzy of movement throughout. The piano plays without a single bar's rest, and the contrasting tones of oboe and bassoon used to maintain the unflagging impetus. Poulenc instructs the players not to slow down in the closing bars (‘sans ralentir’). Musicologists observe that this finale has affinities with a baroque French gigue, an Offenbach galop, and in the tight Stravinskian coda – the sharpness of post-war Paris.
 
The trio was seen as the composer's first major achievement in the sphere of chamber music. It was praised for the coherence of its construction and its equilibrium. Poulenc was famously self-critical, but looking back in the 1950s he said, "I'm rather fond of my Trio because it sounds clear, and it is well balanced." He also noted with satisfaction that the energetic finale was always followed by sustained applause ("applaudissements nourris"). In the last year of his life, after hearing a performance, he wrote that the work "retained an extraordinary fresh force and fantastic individuality".

Gloria.                                                                                                                                               Francis Poulenc (1899-1933)
Poulenc’s Gloria is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass. Poulenc would later claim that the idea for the work emerged while he worked on his opera, Dialogues des Carmélites, although it has been impossible to establish the dating of his initial sketches with certainty. The score was completed in July 1960.

The work is divided into six movements: I. Gloria in excelsis Deo. II. Laudamus te. III. Domine Deus, Rex caelestis. IV. Domine Fili unigenite. V. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei. VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris.

The first movement opens with a great chordal motif from the brass instruments. The chorus then enters singing in an accented and declamatory manner. Whereas the brass writing is in G amjor, the chorus enter in B minor. This juxtaposition of major and minor is an important one that returns throughout the piece.

The second movement is the most jocund, opening with a strange, quick brass introduction. A light tune repeats throughout this movement along with an often-changing time signature. The accentuation of the text in this movement has been referred to as ‘perverse’, due to its un-speechlike patterns.

The third movement is led by the extremely dramatic solo soprano line after a woodwind introduction. The movement ends with a raised third in the minor chord, preparing the way for the more joyful fourth movement.

The fourth movement is the shortest and resembles the second movement in the jocular nature of the orchestral phrases, but it contains some of the accented nature of the first movement in the chorus parts. The melodic lines are often pentatonic, and the quick tempo and rousing rhythms give a whirling and dancing impression, grounded by the constant return of the theme.

The fifth movement opens with woodwinds and resembles the third movement with the return of the soprano soloist as leader. The music is dark and mysterious, due in part to the inclusion of both an augmented fourth and an augmented fifth in the soprano's opening melodic line. The movement culminates a fifth lower than the beginning giving an uneasy, mysterious feeling to the end.

The sixth movement begins with alternating unaccompanied chorus and interjections of the orchestra intoning the fanfare theme from the first movement. After the introduction, the main setting of the text is reminiscent of the first movement. The final section is preceded by a solo ‘Amen’ from the soprano, echoed by the chorus. The chorus proceeds to repeat the text, this time over a mixture of minor and major chords in the orchestra. The fanfare theme from the first movement returns one final time before the final ‘amen’, triumphantly slower and grander. The final ‘Amen’ intoned by the soprano on a D relates to both the minor and major chords played simultaneously to end the piece. 

We do, however, recognise how much our audience value having printed programmes, and it remains HPO policy that we will return to producing these in September when life is slightly less hectic, nights include slightly more sleep, an August house move has been achieved, and we are not directly tied to Arts Council funding.

Photos from this concert can be viewed by clicking on the image below: