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June 21st 2008
Summerfest
Venue: St. Paul's Church, Chipperfield (click
here
for map)
Tickets: £10.00 (Children £5)
(Programme included)
Doors open at 7.00 pm
Concert starts at 7.45pm
Soloists
Vanessa Bowers – Soprano
Robert Meinardi – Tenor
Conductors
Delia Meehan
Alan Taylor
(top)
Programme
Psalmfest
John Rutter
INTERVAL
( Wine and soft drinks are available )
SOLO ITEMS
Vanessa Bowers Wozu noch Mädchen
R. Strauss
Allerseelen R. Strauss
Robert Meinardi Ecco, ridente in cielo
Rossini
Una furtiva lagrima Donizetti
Vanessa Bowers Deh vieni, non tardar
Mozart
Song of a nightclub proprietress M. Dring
Robert Meinardi O sole mio E. di Capua
In Windsor Forest
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(top)
DELIA
MEEHAN
has
been the Conductor and Musical Director of the Chipperfield Choral Society since
1991. On completing her studies at the Royal Academy of Music she returned to
teach the oboe on the Junior Exhibitioners’ Course and also taught at Reading
University and the Royal Holloway College (University of London).
Throughout
her teaching career Delia has worked in close association with both the
Berkshire and Hertfordshire youth orchestras and wind bands. She is currently
the Senior Instrumental Tutor and Woodwind Coach with the English Schools’
Orchestra, which undertook a tour of Australia during the summer of 2003 in
conjunction with the Australian Youth Choir, giving concerts in Brisbane,
Melbourne and Sydney.
Delia
teaches full-time at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Elstree, and a
Gala Concert in the Barbican has been the highlight of this academic year.
As a member of the panel
of examiners for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music Delia has
had the opportunity to travel to Malaysia and the Far East in this capacity. She
was invited to adjudicate at the Kota Kinabalu Music Festival in Sabah, Borneo
in August 2005 and 2006 and has been invited to do so again in the summer of
2007. She has also been invited to adjudicate at the inaugural festival in Kuala
Lumpar in 2007.
Delia is a regular adjudicator
in this country, especially locally at the Chesham Festival of Music and the
Three Rivers Young Musician of the Year competition, which takes place each
summer.
ALAN TAYLOR: After early musical studies in
Bedford, Alan was a chorister at St. Catharine’s College Cambridge and graduated
with an honours degree in Music followed by a post-graduate Diploma in
Education. A first post as a Head of Music in Nottinghamshire was followed by
his appointment in 1961 as Director of Music at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’
School in Elstree, where he spent the remaining 35 years of his teaching career.
During that time he oversaw the design and building of a palatial Music School
which is considered to be one of the finest in the country.
Out of school, Alan worked with all the major conductors and his choirs were
continually in demand for performances in the London concert halls, especially
at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and for taking part in many broadcasts,
Promenade Concerts and recordings. A particular highlight was an invitation to
conduct Bach’s B minor Mass
in the 1972 Berlin Festival.
His contribution to Music and Music Education was recognised in 1982 with the
award of an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
For over 40 years Alan has been an examiner for the Associated Board of the
Royal Schools of Music and since retirement from teaching in 1996, has
maintained close links with young musicians in his post as Course Director of
the English Schools’ Orchestra and Choir, which undertook a tour of Australia in
the summer of 2003, giving concerts in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney.
He also enjoys adjudicating and deputising for Choral Society and Orchestral
conductors when required and he particularly enjoys working with Delia Meehan
and the Chipperfield Choral Society, with which he has been associated for the
past ten years.
VANESSA BOWERS
started singing at a
very early age, studying with her mother Kate Bowers. She joined the Royal
Academy of Music Vocal Studies Programme in 2005 as an undergraduate and studies
under Elizabeth Ritchie and Audrey Hyland. Through the RAM she has had the
opportunity to perform Bach’s B Minor Mass at Spitafields Music Festival
under the baton of Trevor Pinnock and Handel’s L'allegro under William
Christi. She has also sung Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and Purcell’s Circe as
well as taking part in a master class with Robert Tear. She recently gave the
first performance of Alex Campkin's operetta Between the Notes.
As a soloist Vanessa has performed with a wide range of
groups including the Chess Valley Male Voice Choir and High Wycombe
Philharmonic, with whom she most recently performed the dual roles of 'Gabriel
and Eve' in Haydn’s The Creation . She has performed the Soprano solo in
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
She recently performed as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem from
scratch, under the baton of Robert Pepper, in aid of charity. She
has also performed as a soloist for the Concordia Singers taking the role of
'Angel' in Handel’s Jephtha, 'Miriam' in Song of Miriam by
Schubert and the soprano solos in Vivaldi’s Chamber Mass. She
has sung the soprano solos in Mozart’s Litenae laurentenae and Haydn’s Little
Organ Mass, both under the direction of Nicholas Walker. More recently she
has been working as a soloist for Winterbourne Opera where she played the title
role of 'Semele' in their July 2007 production of Handel's opera. She also
played the 'Foreign Princess' in Rusulka by Dvorak and 'Iris' in Semele for
Aylesbury Opera.
In the summer of 2008 she will take the role of 'Susanna' in Le
Nozze di Figaro for Winterbourne Opera and sing as a soloist in Judas
Maccabeas for Concordia Singers. Vanessa is delighted to be
returning to perform with the Chipperfield Choral Society, as she was last here
aged 12.
ROBERT
MEINARDI
is a fourth generation singer
who was born in Varese, Italy in 1984. He first studied singing with his mother,
the soprano Krystina Garbiakova, and sang in one of her choirs at the age of
three. He studied at the Scuola Europea and won a place at the Liceo Musicale in
Varese but instead came to England with his family. He won a choral scholarship
to study at Reigate St Mary’s Choir School under Charles Thompson, becoming head
chorister and soloist in films, recordings, television and radio broadcasts,
oratorios and innumerable other engagements.
At the age of 13 Robert went to study at Ampleforth College,
where he won an honorary choral scholarship and sang in the Schola Cantorum as
tenor soloist whilst studying with Richard Hill and David Bowman. He recorded
extensively including the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Tallis and solo
items, and had extensive recital experience.
At the age of 18, Robert won an entrance award to the Royal
Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he studied principally with
Patrick McGuigan and found great inspiration in Stefan Janski, the Director of
Opera Studies. He graduated in 2006.
He has sung in most countries of Europe and Hong Kong,
including with the International Festival Ensemble of Stuttgart under Helmut
Ruhling. He has been soloist and first tenor section leader with the National
Youth Choir, sings with Laudibus and was an assistant tutor to the Yorkshire
Youth Choir. He has taken part in Master-classes with Della Jones, Ian
Partridge, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson amongst many others and has also studied
with Peter Poppel and Peter Wilson.
Robert started singing at Glyndebourne Festival Opera last
year. He is currently performing with Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2008 and will
be going on tour in September with Carmen and The Magic Flute.
ROSEMARY VENNER
has been the Society’s
rehearsal pianist since 1994 and sings with the altos during performances.
Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music, Rosemary was a freelance
accompanist and coach for several years before moving into office
administration. She now divides her time between business and music. Rosemary
is also a member of the BBC Symphony Chorus.
NICHOLAS KING
was an organ scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge and Organist &
Choirmaster at Folkestone Parish Church before becoming Director of Music at
Hemel Hempstead School in 1979. He was subsequently Assistant Director of
Studies, later Vice-Director & Director of Studies, at the Royal College of
Music and Chief Examiner in Music for Trinity College, London. Since 2002 he has
concentrated on freelance performance, teaching, adjudicating, composition and
research.
He
has maintained an active recital career, including recordings and BBC
broadcasts, and has developed a successful series of Friday lunchtime
concerts at St. John's, Boxmoor where, in addition to training as a lay reader,
he has been Director of Music since January 2006
(top)
Conductor – Alan Taylor
Organ – Nicholas King
Oboe – Delia Meehan
Clarinet –
John Rutter was born in London in 1945 and attended Highgate School
where, at the time, there was an impressively strong musical tradition and
especially a fine reputation for choral singing. It was there that Rutter’s love
of choral music first became apparent and where he first learnt the intricacies,
techniques and the inner workings of writing for voices. It was there also that
he learnt the importance of words in music and that music itself was
fundamentally spiritual. From that time, choral music has been central in
Rutter’s life and has inspired him to create pieces in what he himself describes
as, ‘this infinitely diverse and imposing sound medium’. He has become probably
the most popular and widely performed composer of his generation, especially in
the United Kingdom and America. Rutter is a skilled musical craftsman and has a
particular gift for memorable melodies based on solid harmonic foundations. His
music is often gentle and introspective but can also be joyful and intriguingly
rhythmic. All those characteristics are to be found in the various movements of
Psalmfest, composed over a period of 20 years, mostly as individual pieces for
liturgical use, but gathered together and first performed collectively in
concerts in America in 1993.
The opening movement of Psalmfest, O be joyful in the Lord (Psalm 100) begins in
an appropriately celebratory mood with joyful rhythmic syncopations and a
sparkling, fast moving semiquaver organ accompaniment. The middle section is
more restrained and tranquil and reminds us to be thankful, ‘for the Lord is
gracious and his mercy is everlasting’. The opening music soon returns and
becomes ever more exuberant to the final Amen.
There have been many memorable settings of Psalm 121 (I will lift up mine eyes
unto the hills), and the second movement of Psalmfest is no exception. The
opening ascending phrase sung by the tenor soloist and then by the chorus,
vividly matches the imagery of the text. There are some colourful harmonic
progressions for the choir at ‘The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil’, and
more so for the final sequence of Amens.
The third movement, Praise the Lord, O my soul (Psalm 146) affords Rutter every
excuse for returning to the extrovert mood of the first movement and here again
the music is based on a driving but constantly changing rhythm. There are
fluctuating time signatures, guaranteed to keep any choir on its toes. After a
few slightly calmer phrases in the section beginning ‘The Lord helpeth them that
are fallen’, the concluding ‘Gloria’ is yet again an uninhibited paean of
praise.
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) introduces the soprano soloist who is joined
by the tenor for the opening section. A solo oboe also plays a prominent part in
establishing the pastoral mood. The chorus is suitably subdued as it walks
through the ‘Valley of the shadow of death’, but hope is restored by the
soloists as they sing of ‘Loving kindness and mercy’. The chorus has the final
word and closes the movement in appropriately peaceful tones.
In movement five, The Lord is my light and my salvation (Psalm 27), a solo
clarinet joins the tenor and soprano soloists for the first phrases, followed by
the choir who express courage at ‘Though an host of men were laid against me’.
Thereafter soloists and chorus alternate to express the changing moods of the
text.
The penultimate movement in tonight’s performance, O how amiable are thy
dwellings (Psalm 84) is a tranquil duet for the two soloists. Here Rutter has
created a fitting air of musical serenity in which the dynamic level rarely
moves above mezzo piano.
The finale, O clap your hands together all ye people (Psalm 47, vv 1-7) returns
to the bright and rhythmic mood of the first and third movements. Here again are
syncopated rhythms bouncing along merrily over constantly changing time
signatures and a powerful organ accompaniment. A few middle bars, ‘He shall
subdue the people under us’, calm the excitement, but not for long, and the full
forces are let loose again at ‘God is gone up with a merry noise’, and even more
so for ‘O sing praises unto our God’. The final bars entreat everyone to
repeatedly clap their hands together and the organ delivers the exultant and
irrepressible concluding bars.
1. (Choir) O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands:
2. (Tenor solo & Choir) I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence
cometh my help.
3. (Choir) Praise the Lord, O my soul; while I live will I praise the
Lord:
4. (Soprano & Tenor solos & Choir) The Lord is my shepherd: therefore can I lack
nothing.
5. (Soprano & Tenor solos & Choir) The Lord is my light and my
salvation;
6. (Soprano & Tenor solos) O how amiable are thy dwellings: thou Lord of hosts!
7. (Choir) O clap your hands together, all ye people:
(top)
In Windsor Forest Ralph Vaughan
Williams (1872 – 1958)
Conductor – Delia Meehan
Piano – Rosemary Venner
Ralph Vaughan Williams, the 50th anniversary of whose death we
commemorate this year, was a key figure in the 20th century renaissance of
British music. Following Elgar and Parry, he became a composer of great
originality and throughout his long life wrote much for both choral and
orchestral genres. His music was often unpredictable and he refused to be bound
by convention or to conform to what was expected of him, but eventually his love
of folk music and the richness of Elizabethan polyphony became huge influences.
Much of his music strongly portrays those influences (though there are notable
exceptions). The wide variety in his choral music, consistently shows his
sensitivity to the beauty and idiosyncrasies of the English language, and he
chose texts carefully, ranging from Shakespeare to Hardy and from Whitman to
poems composed by friends.
Between 1924 and 1928, Vaughan Williams remarkably wrote three operas, and the
first of these was ‘Sir John in Love’, based on Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merry
Wives of Windsor’. As the title suggests, the opera focuses on the colourful
character of Sir John Falstaff, his amorous intentions and bibulous habits. The
opera is in four acts and ambitiously requires twenty soloists and elaborate
staging. Unlike Verdi and others who were also inspired to write stage works
based on Falstaff and his dissolute activities, Vaughan Williams’s portrayal of
the character is different. He is seen in the opera not merely as a monstrous
mountain of flesh, or simply a buffoon, or as an old and unattractive figure for
whom the idea of him falling in love would invite ridicule, but as a genial,
high spirited and expansive character. The libretto of the opera closely follows
Shakespeare’s plot, but the play itself did not provide Vaughan Williams with
all the needed choruses and arias, so he ‘borrowed’ from other Shakespeare plays
and poets and cleverly interpolated their lyrics. ‘Sir John in Love’ is one of
Vaughan Williams’s most melodious scores, packed with vitality, rumbustious high
spirits and romantic love, and was first performed at the Royal College of Music
in London in 1929. A year later, in 1930, the five movement cantata ‘In Windsor
Forest’ was produced, based on music adapted from the opera. It colourfully
captures the essence of some of the most engaging scenes in the opera, though
regretfully the hit number - Mrs Ford’s singing of the famous Elizabethan tune
‘Greensleeves’ - was not included.
The first movement, The Conspiracy, (for the ladies of the chorus), employs the
familiar Shakespearian text from ‘Much ado about nothing’, ‘Sigh no more
ladies’. It bemoans the fickle nature of men and closes with a final judgement
and an Elizabethan shrug of the shoulders (‘Hey nonny, nonny’) acknowledging
that ‘Men were deceivers ever’.
The tenors and basses of the chorus ignore this affront and in the second
movement, ‘Back and sides go bare’, take refuge in a typical Falstaffian
drinking song that extols the feel-good properties (and possibly more), of
‘Jolly good ale’.
Next comes the scene from Act four of the opera ‘Round about in a fair ring’, in
which Falstaff is lured into the forest to Herne the Hunter’s oak to be taught a
lesson for trying to seduce Windsor wives. Falstaff is taunted by children and
women dressed as fairies who are encouraged to ‘Pinch him black and blue ‘til
sleep has rocked his addled head’.
The fourth movement, ‘Wedding Chorus’ takes us to the closing scene of the opera
and is a haunting setting of Ben Jonson’s ‘See the chariot at hand wherein my
lady rideth’. It signifies the happy ending when various romantic entanglements
are sorted out, (though not Falstaff’s).
So to ‘The Epilogue’, the final section of both the opera and the cantata. We
are informed that whatever has happened we should not take it too seriously and
after all ‘the world is but a play’. Falstaff is forgiven for all his
misdemeanours. He realises he’s been fooled and all ends in happiness and
reconciliation.
1. (Women) The Conspiracy
2. (Men) Drinking Song
3. (Soprano solo & Choir) Falstaff and the Fairies
4. (Choir) Wedding Chorus
5. (Choir) Epilogue
(top)
(top)
For More Information Contact:
Chipperfield Choral Society
Chipperfield, Hertfordshire, UK
Internet:
Secretary@chipperfieldchoral.co.uk
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