150th Celebrations: Concert Series 2009

3rd January, 2009 4pm

Geoffrey Chew – Organ

Finlandia, op. 26 (1899, revised 1900)          Jean Sibelius (arr. H. A. Fricker)
This well-known piece, by Finland’s national composer, originated as part of the music for a patriotic fund-rai­sing pageant in Helsinki, though it is usually heard as an independent or­ches­tral tone-poem.

Meditation on Brother James’s Air (1947)                         Harold Darke
Harold Darke (1888-1976), a superb musician best known for his lovely set­ting of the carol “In the bleak midwinter”, studied composition with Stan­ford, and was the organist at St Mich­ael’s, Corn­hill, from 1916 to 1966. Among his penan­ces in later life was that of giving me organ les­sons at the Royal College of Music, though nothing I do today or at any other time should be counted against him.

Joie et clarté des corps glorieux (1939)                                        Olivier Messiaen
This may be regarded as a very slightly late celebration of Messiaen’s cen­te­n­ary (he was born on 10 December 1908). Joie et clarté (“The Joy and Splen­dour of the Glorified Bodies”), is the sixth piece in Messiaen’s Les corps glorieux, a set of seven “brief visions” of the Resurrection life, in which his colour­ful, ex­u­berant style in writing for the organ is put to use, as it is very often, in the service of his Catholic spi­rituality. The title refers to Matthew 13: 43, “Then the right­eous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”.

Interval

Dialogue sur les grands jeux(1710)                         Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
This brief movement concludes the first suite in the Livre d’orgue by Clér­am­bault (1676-1749), a contemporary of Bach who worked in Paris and was regarded as one of the finest organists of his time.

Serenade “by Haydn” (first publ. 1777)                          Romanus Hoffstetter?
This is from “Haydn’s” string quartet op. 3 no. 5. The six op. 3 quartets were attri­bu­ted to Haydn by their first publisher, Bailleux of Paris, but near­ly all experts think the attribution spurious; the com­poser was prob­ab­ly Haydn’s contemporary Romanus Hoffstetter (1742-1815). It is sad that this charming movement has been heard much less often since being de­tached from Haydn’s name. It is a “serenade” (ori­g­inally “a musi­cal greet­ing, usually performed out of doors in the evening, to a be­loved or a person of rank”) by virtue of its original accompaniment on plucked strings, suggesting a guitar or mandoline.

Salut d'amour, op. 12 (1888)                  Edward Elgar (arr. Edwin H. Lemare)
Elgar originally wrote this piece (‘Love’s Greeting’) for piano, and pub­lished it at a time when he needed to establish himself in London; for years it was his most popular piece. It was orchestrated in 1889 and has been arranged for many other combinations of instruments.

Crown Imperial (1937, rev. 1963)      William Walton (arr. Herbert Murrill)
This (originally orchestral) march, not in the composer’s usual style, is rather reminiscent of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Although ori­g­i­nally intended for the coronation of Edward VIII in 1937, it was first used after Edward’s abdication for the coronation of George VI that year.