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LABEL: Decca

ARTIST: Benjamin Britten

TITLE: Bach Brandenburg

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442 9521

Benjamin BrittenImogen Holst

Sir Adrian Boult

J.S. BACH

The Six Brandenburg ConcertosSheep may safely graze

Air from Suite No. 3

The 1953 AldeburghFestival Opening Concert

Sellinger’s RoundPurcellArne

Eloq uence

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Recording producers: John Culshaw (Sellinger’s Round, Arne, Purcell); Ray Minshull (Bach:Brandenburg Concertos, Clarke, God Save the Queen); Erik Smith (Bach: Air, Sheep may safely graze)Recording engineer: Kenneth WilkinsonRecording location: Parish Church, Aldeburgh, United Kingdom, June 1953 (Sellinger’s Round, Arne,Purcell); Kingsway Hall, London, UK, November 1959 (Bach: Air, Sheep may safely graze), KingswayHall, London, UK, December 1961 (Clarke, God Save the Queen), The Maltings, Snape, UK,December 1968 (Bach: Brandenburg Concertos)Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-HomjiArt direction: Chilu Tong · www.chilu.comBooklet editor: Bruce Raggatt

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)

CD 1 74’13

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 10461 I Allegro 4’212 II Adagio 4’053 III Allegro 4’424 IV Menuetto; Trio I 3’525 V Polacca; Trio II 4’40

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 10476 I Allegro 5’267 II Andante 3’528 III Allegro assai 2’59

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 10509 I Allegro 10’370 II Affetuoso 5’36! III Allegro 5’31

Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051@ I 7’02£ II Adagio ma non tanto 4’55$ III Allegro 6’17

English Chamber OrchestraBenjamin Britten

CD 2 76’49

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 10481 I Allegro 6’482 II Allegro 5’11

This collection ends with four ‘bonus tracks’(CD 2, ^-(), all of them once issued on aDecca EP. The two Bach favourites (Air fromSuite No. 3 and Bantock’s orchestralarrangement of ‘Sheep may safely graze’ fromthe so-called ‘Hunt’ Cantata) were recorded bySir Adrian Boult during the same sessions ashis Handel Arias record with Kenneth McKellarand make their first appearance on CD, asdoes one of the two Britten-conducted items,Trumpet Voluntary.

DECCA

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Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 10493 I Allegro 7’274 II Andante 4’085 III Presto 5’12

English Chamber OrchestraBenjamin Britten

BYRD / OLDHAM · TIPPETT · BERKELEY · BRITTEN · SEARLE · WALTON

Sellinger’s Round (Variations on an Elizabethan Theme)6 I BYRD: Theme 1’317 II OLDHAM: Variation No. 1: Allegro non troppo 1’008 III TIPPETT: Variation No. 2: Lament 3’509 IV BERKELEY: Variation No. 3: Andante 1’380 V BRITTEN: Variation No. 4: Quick & Gay 1’57! VI SEARLE: Variation No. 5: Nocturne 2’13@ VII WALTON: Variation No. 6: Finale – Presto giocoso 2’58

The Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra(leader: Olive Zorian)Benjamin Britten

THOMAS ARNE (1710-1778)

£ Ode in honour of Great Britain: Rule Britannia (Alfred) 5’17

Sir Peter Pears, tenorAldeburgh Festival Chorus

The Aldeburgh Festival OrchestraImogen Holst

$ Now the air shall ring (The Fairy Prince) 3’59

Arda Mandikian, sopranoGladys Whitred, sopranoAldeburgh Festival Chorus

The Aldeburgh Festival OrchestraImogen Holst

version of 1740, when it formed thetriumphant climax of Alfred, a patrioticMasque with music by Arne and a libretto byJames Thomson. The song was an immediatesuccess at its royal first performance, and it hasbeen sung ever since, though it has sufferedmany changes during the two hundred yearsof its life, and it is seldom heard with thebright exuberance of its original orchestration.

PURCELL:‘O Lord, Grant the Queen a Long Life’ *

O Lord, grant the Queen a long life, thather years may endure throughout allgenerations. Amen. She shall dwell before Godfor ever. O prepare Thy loving mercy andfaithfulness that they may preserve her. As forher enemies, clothe them all with shame, butupon herself let her crown flourish. Amen.

A little-known work that remainedunpublished until the early nineteenth centuryand has not been reprinted. The wonderfulblend of joy and solemnity which Purcell sooften achieves in his music can be recognisedin the repeated Amens of the chorus,punctuating each line of the prayer, in thetenderness of the sudden change to the minorat ‘O prepare Thy loving mercy’, and in thecharacteristic dance at ‘let her crown flourish’,where Purcell borrows the rhythm he so often

uses for an Alleluia.* In Purcell’s original setting the title was‘O Lord, Grant the King a Long Life’.

ARNE: ‘Now all the Air shall Ring’Now all the air shall ringAnd every trembling singWith every varied voiceIn union sweet rejoiceTo sound and sing:God Save The Queen

This duet is taken from The Fairy Prince, anadaptation of Ben Johnson’s Masque ofOberon, which Arne set to music in 1771.The work is almost unknown, although someof its tunes are among the best the composerever wrote.

No full score is available: a rare copy of thevocal score, in the possession of HubertLangley, has been used for this performance,which is possibly the first revival since theeighteenth century. The duet is appropriateas a token of homage in the coronationprogram, for the sopranos’ flourishes inthirds and sixths are graceful in theirsparkling vitality and the chorus’ heartfeltrepetition of the word ‘save’ with its suddenquietening to piano, is never for an instant indanger of sounding perfunctory.

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HENRY PURCELL (1659-1695)

% O Lord, Grant the Queen a Long Life 7’00[Purcell’s original: O Lord, Grant the King a Long Life]

Alfred Deller, counter tenorSir Peter Pears, tenorNorman Lumsden, bass

Aldeburgh Festival ChorusThe Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra

Imogen Holst

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)

^ Air (Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068) 5’13& Sheep may safely graze 5’28

(Cantata BWV 208: Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd)arranged by Sir Granville Bantock

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent GardenSir Adrian Boult

ANON. arr. Britten

* God Save the Queen 2’39

London Symphony ChorusLondon Symphony Orchestra

Benjamin Britten

JEREMIAH CLARKE (1674-1707)

( Trumpet Voluntary 2’47

Trumpeters of Kneller Hall Royal Military School of MusicKenneth Alwyn, director

London Symphony OrchestraBenjamin Britten

Total timing: 151’02

Round or The Beginning of the World, adance tune which was already well-knownwhen Queen Elizabeth I played it on thevirginals in the setting by William Byrd.

The Theme is played with Byrd’s harmoniestranscribed for strings.

Variation I. Allegro non troppo (ArthurOldham): A brief, energetic assertion,alternating with a violin solo that soars up tothe heights and then rushes downhill to pauseon a question-mark.

Variation II. Lament (Michael Tippett): Themusic is founded on the first slow Air on aGround in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, whichTippett happened to be rehearsing at the timehe wrote the variation. The muted stringsembroider each expressive phrase in flowingdemisemiquavers which add to the tragicbeauty of the underlying harmonies.

Variation III. Andante (Lennox Berkeley): TheElizabethan theme is clearly recognisable in anelegant six-four that steps outside the fettersof its key with delicate precision.

Variation IV. Quick & gay (Benjamin Britten):A lively dance in a rhythm which suggests ahornpipe. The quiet opening, over repeatedpizzicato chords, mounts in excitement until it

reaches an energetic fortissimo. Then, to addto the excitement, there is a quotation fromGloriana; the closely-packed crescendo of thetrills bursts into an exuberant gesture ofwelcome, while the sweeping marcatocrochets bring a recollection of the crowd’striumphant homage to the Queen. After this,the dance unwinds itself, and ends as quietlyas it began.

Variation V. Nocturne (Humphrey Searle): Thehushed tremolo weaves a fragile texture ofsound, while a haunting variant of the themerises and falls in a melancholy Adagio.

Variation VI. Finale: Presto giocoso (WilliamWalton): A cheerful fugue in a rapid six-eight,with staccato quavers fluttering their waythrough an inverted Sellenger’s Round. Afterthe counterpoint has worked up to a bustlingclimax the original version of the theme isheard in a two-four augmentation, a devicethat follows the Elizabethan tradition of the‘capers’ in a Morris Dance. The brief return tothe staccato six-eight quavers brings the fugueto its final energetic statement, and provides afitting end to the set of variations.

ARNE: Rule BritanniaThis ‘Ode in honour of Great Britain’ is thefamous song ‘Rule Britannia’ in its original

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The concertino group of the Concerto No. 4 inG major consists of two flutes and a soloviolin. The first movement is a very lively affair,with the violin constantly striving to outdo theother instruments in virtuosity, while in thepastoral slow movement the violin againcomes to the fore, and the music gathersmomentum as long passages of violinisticfiguration compete for attention with fugalentries in flutes and ripieno.

The Concerto No. 5 in D major is the mostforward-looking of all the six Brandenburgs,and the elaborate harpsichord part (whichincludes a spectacular extended cadenza inthe first movement) has assured the work aplace in the history of the keyboard concerto.Flute and violin make up the other twoinstruments of the concertino, and the middlemovement belongs to the soloists alone,whose parts here interweave with agracefulness and transparency characteristic ofmuch French music of the time. The dancingtheme of the finale is introduced fugally by thesoloists, with the ripieno strings latercontributing equally in passages of great poiseand beauty.

The Concerto No. 6 in B flat is the mostintimate composition of the set. Scored forstrings and continuo only (without violins), it

is consequently dark in colouring and, likeNo. 3 in G, dispenses with the conventionalconcertino-ripieno distinction. The texture isreduced in the slow movement to that of atrio sonata for two violas and cello, and thethird movement is a carefree jig whosesyncopated rhythm imparts a delightfulbounce to the music.

Sellinger’s Round(Variations on an Elizabethan Theme)This is the first performance of a set ofvariations specifically written for the SixthAldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts by sixEnglish composers. Together with the Arneand Purcell items on this collection, it wasrecorded at the Festival’s opening concert on20 June 1953.

When Benjamin Britten wrote to ask thecomposers to contribute to the work, SirWilliam Walton suggested that the audienceshould be invited to guess who had writteneach variation. He also suggested that eachcomposer might introduce a short quotationfrom one of his own works. The competitionfor the names of the composers was heldduring the Festival, but the search for thequotations still goes on.

The variations are on the tune of Sellinger’s

J.S. BACH: Brandenburg ConcertosBach came into contact with and played forMargrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg atthe time when he was Kapellmeister of thecourt at Cöthen. The Margrave requested himto send some more of his compositions, butseveral years were to elapse before he wasable to oblige this potential patron. The set ofsix concertos which Bach eventually submittedon 29 March 1721 was written during one ofthe happiest and most productive periods ofhis life: he enjoyed a cordial relationship withhis employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, and the band of eighteen trainedmusicians placed at his disposal meant that hisworking conditions were favourable indeed.

The Brandenburg Concertos constitute anextremely varied group of works, bothstylistically and structurally – they reveal theinfluence of the Italian concertos of Vivaldi andCorelli, but also of the Ouvertures and dancesuites of the French school – and in the richdiversity of orchestral colour displayed in theset as a whole. When other composers issuedconcertos in sets, these were generallyintended for a unified orchestral group withthe same solo instrument featured in each,and Bach’s abundance of differentinstrumental groupings accentuates the

‘presentation’ aspect of the Brandenburgs.

In terms of layout, the Concerto No. 1 in Fmajor is the most unusual of the six, and in theopening movement there is considerableexperimentation and interplay between theconcertino group of oboes and horns and theripieno of strings and continuo. The solo lineof the succeeding Adagio is shared betweenthe first oboe and the ‘violino piccolo’. Thesecond Allegro features some exuberant hornwriting and the concerto ends with asequence of dances in contrasting tempi andfor varied instrumental groups.

The concertino group of the Concerto No. 2(also in F major) consists of trumpet, flute,oboe and violin. All soloists participate equallyin the jaunty first movement; the trumpet issilent in the eloquently expressive slowmovement, but reasserts itself brilliantly in theconcluding fugal Allegro.

The Concerto No. 3 in G major was composedfor a homogenous instrumental group ofstrings and continuo. Both fast movements arecharacterised by their regular, throbbingrhythmic patterns; instead of a fully written-outcentral movement, Bach simply indicated twochords marked Adagio, and it is almost certainhe intended a short cadenza at this point.