Prom 42 - 17.08.14: 'Lest We Forget', BBC SSO, Clayton / Williams / Manze

[Pabmusic]

I've wondered the selfsame thing ever since I first heard the Third, though funnily enough, this is the first time I'm aware that anyone else has mentioned it. It's worth remembering that that particular theme was not the patriotic hymn it was made into without Holst's permission, and much against his wishes, after it had appeared in The Planets. A message to Holst, perhaps? Who knows.

I see the resemblance - interesting. But the Jupiter tune wasn't turned into a hymn behind Holst's back - he did it himself in 1921. Imogen wrote "At the time when he was asked to set these words to music, Holst was so over-worked and weary that he felt relieved to discover that they 'fitted' the tune from Jupiter".

There's so much potential for myths, isn't there? "RVW was an ambulance driver" - yes he was. At least until he accepted a commission in the Royal Artillery (heavy guns as well) and enjoyed it so much that he insisted on directing the fire of his battery lying down because he was too ill to stand (during the Spring offensive of 1918). We humans are bundles of contradictions and hindsight is very useful.

[David Underdown]

I've been noting that particular one too Pab, the photo of him in last night's programme (alongside the biography at least) was in Royal Garrison Artillery uniform, but the biog was still the standard one only mentioning his RAMC service (9and I'm sure Kate Kennedy knows the full story too). No other source I've found mentions that he lied about his age (the other way to that which is normally mentioned) in order to join up in the first place, but it's clear enough in his service record. However, he'd only just arrived back in France at the time of the Spring Offensive and was charged with managing the horses as the heavy guns withdrew, so I think the incident when he was ill was a little later in the year. (I'm just preparing programme notes for a concert including Dona nobis pacem later in the year).

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

My thoughts on last night's prom in fuller form...

http://bachtrack.com/review-prom-42-butterworth-manze-roderick-williams-august-2014

[David Underdown]

There's so much potential for myths, isn't there? "RVW was an ambulance driver" - yes he was. At least until he accepted a commission in the Royal Artillery (heavy guns as well) and enjoyed it so much that he insisted on directing the fire of his battery lying down because he was too ill to stand (during the Spring offensive of 1918). We humans are bundles of contradictions and hindsight is very useful.

Actually I missed part of this yesterday, no RVW wasn't an ambulance driver, he was a wagon orderly. The drivers were attached to RAMC units from the Army Service Corps, driving (particularly of motor vehicles) being seen as a skilled role. See http://www.1914-1918.net/fieldambulances.htm

His service record WO 374/75055 shows he also qualified as a signaller

[Pabmusic]

Actually I missed part of this yesterday, no RVW wasn't an ambulance driver, he was a wagon orderly. The drivers were attached to RAMC units from the Army Service Corps, driving (particularly of motor vehicles) being seen as a skilled role. See http://www.1914-1918.net/fieldambulances.htm

His service record WO 374/75055 shows he also qualified as a signaller

Always happy to have the correct info. Thanks, David.

[french frank]

I love the piano accompaniment to the Butterworth, but hearing the orchestration it seemed (to me) to make the poems bleaker, somehow more touching - which enhanced the overall effect of this concert. Don't know quite how to explain it - maybe the single voice seems more vulnerable set against the orchestra rather than being the 'equal' of the piano?

[Have the software gremlins been at work again, crediting Rudi Stephan's piece to one Stephan Sechi? 'Kelly' otherwise unidentified.]

[Pabmusic]

I love the piano accompaniment to the Butterworth, but hearing the orchestration it seemed (to me) to make the poems bleaker, somehow more touching - which enhanced the overall effect of this concert. Don't know quite how to explain it - maybe the single voice seems more vulnerable set against the orchestra rather than being the 'equal' of the piano?...

You wouldn't believe how much I worried over this. The songs are so well known and there's no suggestion GSKB ever considered orchestrating them. It seemed to me that the biggest danger would be to try to make the orchestra emulate the piano.

Fortunately I know GSKB's orchestral works very well indeed (I edited three volumes of pretty well his complete surviving output, and I'd conducted all the orchestral pieces) and I'd already produced a newly typeset edition of Love Blows As The Wind Blows, which GSKB had originally written for piano and string quartet but later orchestrated, making changes as he did so; so I had a feel for his style. Also, we are used to the Shropshire Lad Rhapsody, which uses some themes from Loveliest of Trees and With Rue My Heart Is Laden - so orchestral guise is not so unfamiliar. Then there's the fact that the piano part is not especially pianistic. I don't mean that critically, it's just that it's generally in a more 'neutral' style. Roddy Williams alluded to this on the radio just before the performance.

I knew they would sound very different, and you're probably right - bleaker. Or vulnerable.

By the way, I think the BBC failed to pick up on one possible joke. The second song id headed "Think no more lad. Tune traditional" and Antony Burton assumed in the programme note that that means it's a folk tune (Penny Gore repeated this). I suspect it's not. I know there have been attempts to identify the tune, but with no luck (the EFDSS has all the folk tunes he collected). My suspicion is that Butterworth was doing what the Coen brothers did in the opening credits of Fargo when they tell us "This is a true story", knowing (and later admitting) that it's not - for 'artistic' reasons.

[ardcarp]

If by 'bleaker' you mean an intensification of the yearning-for-things-lost then I'd agree. More 'emosh' as my teenage grandchildren would simply put it.

[french frank]

I knew they would sound very different, and you're probably right - bleaker.

Thinking again, the voice comes over as more 'human scale' against forces outside and beyond it - it may be sheer imagination, but it pleases me .

(Ah, yes, the old cliché: I found this story in an ancient book - now lost)

[David Underdown]

This 1999 edition of the Journal of the RVW Society has quite a good overview of his wartime career http://www.rvwsociety.com/journal_pd...journal_16.pdf (there are still a few military infelicities however).

The war diaries for the time 2/4th London Field Ambulance was in France are now digitised and can be downloaded for £3.30 each WO 95/3029/1 and WO 95/3029/1. Those for Salonika, WO 95/4927 are not yet digitised (but hopefully should be towards the end of the centenary period). For his period as an officer, WO 95/325 covers his unit, 141st Heavy Battery, RGA as part of 86 Brigade RGA. This is about to be digitised.

There is as an awful amount of rubbish out there about is military service, some US programme notes for Dona nobis pacem that I found last night had him in completely the wrong places.

[Richard Tarleton]

Nice review by Geoff Brown in today's Times - can't post link because of paywall but I'll pm Pabs - I think a quote is in order -

...Sensitivity shone too from PB's lightly-scored orchestrations, at their most evocative in the muted strings and shadowy coda of "Is my team ploughing?" The orchestra, delicate as a snowflake, responded in kind...

[antongould]

Absolutely superb IMVHO Pabs - has sent me searching the internet to see if there is anything to replace the much missed Radio Downloader.......

[Nick Armstrong]

Absolutely superb IMVHO Pabs - has sent me searching the internet to see if there is anything to replace the much missed Radio Downloader.......

Remember anton that it's on television this Friday which may be easier to record (without recourse to dodgy computer programs and/or Gould family felons )

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04f85kz

[antongould]

Thanks for that Rumpole our clever BT box is currently recording all the Proms output on BBC4 - how does it do that?

[Maclintick]

Earlier, this concert re-proved one of my pet theories - anything with Roderick Williams in is likely to be worth attention. What a communicative singer he is, with a perfect noble stage presence for this sort of repertoire that draws the audience in with every word.

Lovely orchestration Pabmusic - the last song in particular. That final tam-tam stroke was lump-in-throat stuff...

Yes, Simon B. A sombre but spellbinding concert with a very attentive audience who dared not breathe during Roddy Williams' devastating sotto voce in "Are my Team Ploughing ?" (beautifully sensitive orchestrations, Pabs). I've nothing to add to Heldenleben's spot-on review of the concert, apart from to note that the building itself seemed to quiver with echoes of past ceremonies of remembrance - not only the annual British Legion Festival, but grief-laden musical war-memorials such as the Foulds "World Requiem", & the extraordinary spiritualist congregations of the 20s where people gathered in huge numbers, attempting to come to terms with the unbearable.

Huge contemporary resonance in this centenary year, of course, touched on in Julian Barnes' disturbing re-imagining of the Edwardian zeitgeist "Arthur & George" -- Arthur being Conan Doyle, whose decease prompted the largest seance in British history in this same building...

The owner of the intrusive mobile phone during an especially poignant horn solo from David Flack in the VW Pastoral slow movement appeared to be more upset by her inattention
than anyone else, so she should be forgiven...