The English Rose

The English Rose

A symbol of England from medieval times, the rose stands also as a reminder of England’s long attachment to nature. Embedded in its culture, whether it be a love of gardens, long walks through the counryside, masques or the backdrop to Midsomer Murders, the natural world is everywhere, forming the imagery of English poetry, literature and music. This concert spans 3 centuries with music by Dowland, Purcell, Pepusch, Rubbra and others. Expect music that is restrained, funny, even ecstatic, but nothing ostentatious. Danielle Grant (soprano), Cathy Upex (gamba, cello), Alana Blackburn (recorder), Diana Weston (harpsichord).

SUNDAY, 28TH AUG. 2011 AT 2.30PM
ST LUKE’S CHURCH, OURIMBAH RD, MOSMAN

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667- 1752) ‘When Love’s soft passion’, Words by Mr James Blackley

Bertin Quentin (d. 1767) Sonata op. 1/2

Henry Lawes (1596-1662) ‘The Lark’

John Dowland (1563-1626) ‘Flow my tears’

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) From Two English Folk-songs ‘Searching for Lambs’

Henry Purcell (1659 – 1696) Suite in d  Z. 668 for harpsichord

Purcell ‘Sweeter than Roses’ from Pausanias

William Topham, Sonata in c for flauto and basso continuo

Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986) Cantata Pastorale Op. 92, for high voice, treble recorder, harpsichord and cello

Nature and poetry – the title for this concert The English Rose reminds us that, for many English people, gardens, long walks through the countryside and the natural world are things that are identifiable as national pastimes and interests. No less a cultural identity is the language – poetry and literature. Everywhere in English culture – from 19th century poetry to Midsomer Murders, 18th century masques to insistence on the rights of ramblers’ routes – everywhere there is the presence of nature and poetry and the connections between the two. This concert, broad in its scope, takes compositions from the early 17th century in songs by Henry Lawes and John Dowland through those of Henry Purcell and the later Johann Pepusch, to the 20th century – represented by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edmund Rubbra. No less ‘pastoral’ for having no words, the two recorder suites by Bertin Quentin and Topham are unpretentious and charming. Not all our composers were born in England, but their claim to Englishness lies in their having absorbed and been influenced by English qualities.

The preponderance of vocal works in this concert is a reflection of the dominance of vocal writing in English music generally. Apart from Purcell, who could compose in any form, few English composers wrote for the large forces seen in German, French and Italian music, nor for show-off instruments such as the violin. Their forte was the small, the intimate, the voice.

The answer to why this should be so is probably best sought in the vocal texts. Poems set to music by Campion, Dowland, Lawes and other late Renaissance/early baroque composers delighted in word-play, double meanings and esoteric ‘conceits’. Though influenced by Italian practices (Luca Marenzio in particular), Dowland’s Englishness was not lost due to his whole-hearted absorption of English poetry into his musical thinking. The beauty and meaning of the language was never allowed to be obscured in the ‘affect’ of the music.

This attention to the language of the text did not diminish over time. The English tradition of spoken drama in which music played an important but subsidiary role meant that the European development of opera (which was sung throughout) failed to take a hold until well into the 18th century. Nevertheless, Purcell like his contemporaries of the Restoration, was well aware of Italian practises. He wrote many sectional stand-alone songs which alternated recitative and aria in miniature operatic form and which related a complete short story (Cupid the Slyest Rogue Alive, Sweeter than Roses, Mad Bess). It was Purcell’s great skill that he could respond to each text musically with word-painting, eccentric harmonies and characterful melodies.

Rubbra wrote vocal works throughout the extent of his career as a composer, often of a liturgical nature. Cantata Pastorale has three sources of text – Plato, MS of St. Augustine at Canterbury and MS. of Benedictbeuern Monastery. It is interesting how few composers think anything of merging mythological with Christian poems. The text of the cantata flows naturally, despite the difference in origins.