PROGRAMME NOTES

Overture to the Cycle of Arthurian Music Dramas

‘Rutland Boughton worked at the five dramas of his Arthurian cycle on and off for nearly forty years. It began as a Wagnerian epic, developed through a conventional tale of kings and queens and unhappy lovers, sidetracked brilliantly into the moving personal story of Elaine the Lily Maid, and ended as a political tract with strong religious overtones. In the sense that it embraces every aspect of his personal development it is the consummation of Boughton’s life-work.’ (Michael Hurd: ‘Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals’, OUP, 1993, p. 302.) He began work on the cycle in January 1908, at the age of 30, with The Birth of Arthur, which he finished the next year. The Round Table followed, composed in 1915-16. The third part, The Lily Maid, was composed in 1933-4 and the final two parts, Galahad and Avalon, were composed in 1943-4 and 1944-5 respectively in Kilcot, near Newent in Herefordshire. Boughton lived in Kiloct from 1927 until his death in 1960 and produced there some of his finest works, including his 2nd and 3rd symphonies, a number of pieces for the oboe, some chamber music and orchestral works.

Much influenced by the theories and practices of Wagner, Boughton set out to create a new form of opera, which he later called ‘choral drama’. In 1911 he left Birmingham and moved to Glastonbury where, together with his partner, Christina Walshe, and the young poet Reginald Buckley, author of Arthur of Britain, he sought to establish a national festival of drama. His intention was to create at Glastonbury, the alleged resting place of King Arthur and a place steeped in legend, a kind of English Bayreuth. The first Glastonbury* Festival, however, opening the day after war broke out in 1914, began not with the project of the Arthurian cycle but with Boughton’s new choral drama, The Immortal Hour. The Birth of Arthur was not given at Glastonbury until 16 August 1920 and was actually preceded there by the second part of the cycle, The Round Table, on 14 August 1916. The Lily Maid received its first performance in Stroud on 10 September 1934. Galahad and Avalon remain unperformed to this day.

The Overture to the Cycle of Arthurian music dramas was composed in October and November 1936. It, too, has remained unperformed until now. So far three Arthurian themes have been identified in the overture. They all originate from Act 2 of The Round Table. The first does not appear complete until some 30 bars have elapsed but all the music until then is derived from it. Michael Hurd defines it as ‘Knights’ chorus’ and adds ‘Once again in the island of Britain’. It is first heard in full on four unison horns and is then followed by a vigorous passage for strings and a more delicate one for solo clarinet and harp with strings. These themes are developed until a central quiet passage is reached. Here we have ‘Merlin’s vision of England (peace)’, beautifully scored for harp and divisi strings. The music then gradually resumes its vigour and the previous themes return. The pace now quickens and a new theme is heard, ‘Proclaim a new and glorious guest’. The overture finally heads for a rousing and jubilant conclusion.

* Before finally settling on Glastonbury, there was some suggestion that Letchworth Garden City was deemed a suitable location for the festival project – the Arts and Crafts Movement was significant at that time. Considering the nature of the Glastonbury Festivals today, one wonders what might have happened to Letchworth had Glastonbury not been favoured …


Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra

i: Poco adagio – Allegretto – Allegro – Largo sostenuto – Allegretto - Allegro
ii: Lento espressivo – Allegro con spirito – Lento (Cadenza) – Largo

Composed in August and September 1943 in Kilcot, Gloucestershire, where Boughton spent his later years, this concerto is dedicated to his youngest son, Brian, who was studying Trumpet at The Royal College of Music under Ernest Hall. The work seems to have been written with no particular soloist or performance in mind but the composer was no doubt rather put out when both Ernest Hall and George Eskdale declared it too difficult to play. Boughton seems to have run it through on the piano with the young William Overton and then to have put it to one side. It was never performed during his lifetime, the first performances being given by John Wallace with the Fife Sinfonia on 23 and 24 September 1989 – nearly 50 years later. John Wallace subsequently recorded the work on the Sanctuary Classics label (White Line CDWH2159) in 2006 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simon Wright.

As usual with Boughton, conventional forms are used in an unconventional way. For a start, there are two movements (rather than three), each containing a series of contrasting sections and moods and both having some musical material in common (the central Largo sostenuto of the first movement reappearing as the final section of the second).

The first movement is a sonata form structure with a slow introduction, but Boughton replaces the customary Development section with a second slow introduction (Largo sostenuto). Thus the two halves of the sonata form structure reflect each other:

Slow Introduction 1 → Exposition
Slow Introduction 2 → Recapitulation

And the Exposition and the Recapitulation both end with references to the opening introduction (Poco adagio), the Exposition allowing it to peter out, the Recapitulation glorifying it in a brief exaltation.

The second movement, too, begins with a slow introduction (Lento espressivo). The melodic gist of this recurs as parentheses to the soloist’s cadenza, this leading to the final apotheosis of the work.

So:

Movement I:

a. Introduction 1: Poco adagio
an extended, dark, emotionally profound section; a sombre, arching melody predominates, accompanied by pronounced dotted rhythms and the rocking thirds which grow organically from them; the soloist is silent;
b. Transition: Allegretto
with the entry of the soloist a lighter mood is introduced, but the dotted rhythm persists;
c. Exposition: Allegro
i. first subject
an extrovert, fanfaric episode;
ii. second subject
a regularly phrased, slightly anguished (chromatic) episode;
d. Codetta:
a brief reference to the Poco adagio introduction peters out with the rocking thirds;
e. Introduction 2: Largo sostenuto
Boughton at his diatonically melodic best; the material is played twice with a brief interlude, first by the soloist then by the trombones and lower strings with superb, elaborate decorations on the upper strings and solo trumpet – a prime example of what I call Boughton’s ‘lyrical counterpoint’;
f. Transition:
an acceleration into the Allegretto wherein the dotted rhythm is now absent;
g. Recapitulation:
first and second subjects increasingly elaborated by the soloist;
h. Coda:
the final apotheosis of the Poco adagio introduction;


Movement II:

a. Introduction: Lento espressivo
as in Movement I, an extended, dark, sombre and emotionally profound section;
b. Transition: Più mosso
this time the soloist does not have to wait so long before entering;
c. Allegro con spirito
this would be a rondo structure if it went on long enough; as it is, the Cadenza intervenes;
d. Lento
various references to the slow introduction are interspersed with solo flourishes;
e. Largo
the central Largo (sostenuto) of Movement I returns briefly but ardently and a final – and arrestingly majestic – detour to the flattened supertonic key (G flat) serves only to emphasise the finality of the reference to the main theme and the return to the work’s tonic key.

The work is overtly virtuosic and the spotlight – apart from during each movement’s opening introduction – remains firmly on the soloist. But Boughton is such a consummate master of the orchestra that the orchestral players have much to enjoy and much musical interest to impart to the overall quality and success of the work – and a very fine work it is, a true ‘Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra’.


Symphony No. 2 (‘Deirdre’) – A Celtic Symphony

i: The Young Girl: The Old King or The Young Lover - Allegro vivace
ii: Moonlight Idyll: Deirdre and Naisi - Adagio molto – Più mosso
iii: Love and Death - Allegro moderato

Boughton’s Symphony No.2 began life as a ballet. Michael Hurd writes: ‘ The ballet came about when Terence Gray, the founder and director of the Cambridge Festival Theatre, sent Boughton a volume of ‘dance dramas’ and asked him to write music for one of them: ‘The one on Deirdre made the strongest appeal and I set about it. When I had made the first sketch he brought Ninette de Valois down to hear it. She spoke enthusiastically at the time, but I thought he responded to it somewhat chillingly.’ At all events, nothing more was heard and Boughton decided to cut his losses and turn the whole thing into a purely orchestral work that, with a little stretch of the imagination, might reasonably pass as a symphony. To do this he simply removed some 67 bars, most of which were concerned with a scene-setting commentary by a ‘Bard’. The result was a thirty-six minute work that relied heavily on a ‘programme’ – a work that was not quite a symphonic poem, and certainly not a symphony in the usual sense of the word. Boughton suggested it might best be thought of as ‘A music drama without action’, but pointed out that the underlying conception was symphonic in the wider sense.’ (Michael Hurd: ‘Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury festivals’, OUP, 1993, p.198.) The original ballet was completed on 17 March 1926 and the symphony finished the following year. The first performance was given by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra on 15 January 1933 – two days after Boughton’s 55th birthday – conducted by the composer. The symphony was later broadcast on 20 January 1939 and the following article by Rutland Boughton appeared in The Listener:

‘The dramatic conception which informs this work has dictated its structure. There are three movements: the first, allegro, a slow movement, and a finale. In the finale is merged what would generally be called the scherzo. However, though there are defiance and even joy, there is no jest in the manner of Deirdre’s death.

Within these movements the themes pursue their own musical logic and are related in certain formal proportions. There is deliberate choice and contrast of theme, but that choice has no connection with the usual first and second subjects of symphonic form. So also there is calculated balance of section with section; but that balance is not decided according to the usual plan of statement, free fantasia and recapitulation. However, I believe that if any listener will take up an attitude without preconception or prejudice in the matter of form, what might seem formally heterodox will not be noticed, and the dramatic values of the music will be found to have their own natural shape. This is not to signify any depreciation for the acknowledged form of great symphonies. With them I am not here concerned. This work might have been called a cycle of symphonic poems; but the uses of the symphonic poem have been too definitely associated with realistic details to serve as a title for this work. A better alternative sub-title might be ‘A music-drama without action’.

The Music and its story
First movement: The young girl – the old king – and the young lover.
Deirdre is wild as the mountain where she has her home. She cares much for the beasts, the winds, the skies, the flowers, and the mystery of the stars and the tarns, and is indifferent to the fate which, she has been told, is in store for her. For King Conochar has willed that Deirdre shall be his queen. Her music as the expression of free virginal hill-life is stated and fully developed, chiefly by strings and woodwind. Conochar’s music is introduced by trumpets. With the coming of the king there came also the three young sons of Usna, and when Deirdre’s eyes fall upon Naisi it is he who enters her heart. The first timid phrase of what becomes the love-tune is heard on oboe and violas with a dark background of trombones. The conflict arising in Deirdre’s heart in her fear of the king and her passion for Naisi constitutes the middle section of the first movement. She makes her choice; and the last section is devoted to a happy dance rhythm developed chiefly in transformed themes of Deirdre and her love – until the closing bars sound a new theme as of a shadow in the background stalking their happiness.

Second movement: Moonlight Idyll.
The lovers have run away together, and this is the music of their consummated joy. A smaller orchestra is used. The strings are much sub-divided – into solo quartet with two lines of tutti in each of the four upper parts. The cloud which shadowed the joy of the first movement passes also over the peace of this one.

Finale: Love and Death, with a dance of death-defiance.
This is the longest movement, and less simple in its dramatico-emotional development. Deirdre may love Naisi, but Conochar has power over their lives. Music as of an adverse power opens the movement. A feeling persists that the power may be used tyrannically. (This being a ‘Deidre’ symphony, its moods are developed continuously from her point of view- until the last few bars, when she no longer has a point of view.)

Foiled Tyrant
When the tyrannous music has been fully stated it is followed by Deirdre’s counter-music: first, a soft coaxing appeal, which fails; then, conscious of the certainty of death, a weak sobbing reaction. But an innate sense of her right to her own life and to Naisi arouses the flood of her love and an assertion of her own full womanhood. That asserted, it strives with the tyranny which is more crudely and emphatically proclaimed. With ever fiercer exaltation Deidre faces her doom by the side of her lover – finally leaving the tyrant only the clay of the beauty he was unable to win.

Having read this note the listener is asked to put it aside that no confusion may result in any accidental association of its details with sections to which they do not refer. The music is dramatic in so far as it refers to aspects of human emotion and conflict’ but the musical method pursued follows its own laws and has affinity with the lyrical rather than the realistic uses of music in stage works.’

The symphony is dedicated ‘To Kathleen’, Boughton’s third partner.

For those who, like me, are not entirely versed in Celtic (Irish) mythology, the following article taken from ‘Wikipedia’, whilst being treated with the customary ‘pinch of salt’, may be of some interest:

Deirdre or Derdriu
is the foremost tragic heroine in Irish Mythology. Her story is part of the Ulster Cycle. Deirdre was the daughter of the royal storyteller Fedlimid mac Daill. When she was born, Cathbad the druid prophesied that she would be very beautiful, with curly golden-brown hair and mesmerising grey-green eyes, but that kings and lords would go to war over her, and Ulster’s three greatest warriors would be forced into exile for her sake. Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster, decided to have her brought up in seclusion by Leabharcham, an old woman, and marry her when he was old enough. However, she met, fell in love with, and eloped with Naoise, a handsome young Black Irish warrior, hunter and singer, accompanied by his two brothers – the sons of Uisnech. They fled to Scotland, but wherever they went the local king would try to kill Naoise and his brothers so he could have Deirdre. Eventually they ended up on a remote island, where Conchobar tracked them down. He sent Fergus mac Róich to them with a message of safe conduct home, but on the way back to Emain Macha Fergus was waylaid, forced by his personal geis (curse) to accept any offer of hospitality. He sent them on to Emain Macha with his son to protect them. After they had arrived, Conchobar sent Leabharcham to spy on Deirdre, to see whether or not she had lost her beauty in her long years of travel. Leabharcham, trying still to protect Deirdre from a marriage to Conchobar, told him she had lost all her beauty. However, Conchobar had sent another spy, Trendhorn, who told him that Deirdre was as beautiful as ever, although not before having his eye put out by a silver chess piece, thrown by Naoise. The next day, Naoise and his brothers, Ardan and Ainle, faced Conchobar outside Emain Macha, aided by a few Red Branch Knights, before Conchobar evoked their oath of loyalty to him and had Deirdre dragged to his side. At this point, Éogan mac Durthacht threw a spear, killing Naoise, and his brothers were killed shortly after. Fergus and his men arrived immediately after this. He was outraged by this betrayal of his word, and went into exile in Connacht, and fought against Ulster for Ailill and Medb in Táin Bó Cúailnge (the Cattle Raid of Cooley). Frustrated by Deirdre's lack of love for him, Conchobar offered her to Éogan mac Durthacht, the man who'd murdered Naoise. She committed suicide by leaning out of her chariot and dashing her head against a rock. In some versions of the story, she died of grief.

So now you know! But I prefer the ‘dashing her head against a rock version’ – it’s so much more ‘I’ll do anything to avoid marrying you, you old king’!

David Hilton (Trumpet)

Born in Worcester in 1979, David first became interested in the trumpet at the age of 9. After several years learning with Duncan Connor, David gained a place at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He went on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a full time student, studying with Paul Cosh and Paul Beniston. While at the college he won through to the final in the Brass section of the BBC 'Young Musician of the Year' competition in 1998 and then gained a place with the European Union Youth Orchestra.

In 2001 David graduated with a First Class Honours degree and has since enjoyed a varied freelance career, ranging from solo and chamber music to performing with many of the country's finest orchestras, such as The London Philharmonic Orchestra, The BBC Symphony Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra and The Halle Orchestra. David is continuing his freelance career and is currently Principal Trumpet with The Glyndebourne Touring Opera Orchestra.

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THE 2010 RUTLAND BOUGHTON FESTVAL