Brentwood Arts Festival 2014 Thursday, 10 July, 1pm Brentwood Cathedral

Brentwood Cathedral Music Department presents

from the Great War and other

Conflicts

Michael Frith - Organ

Brentwood Arts Festival is supported by

Michael Frith Michael Frith studied at the Universities of Durham (where he was an Organ Scholar) and Cambridge, and has divided his subsequent career between compos­ing, performing and teaching. Tn 2006 he retired from his post as Senior Lecturer in Music at Middlesex University but continued unril 2012 as a Visiting Lecturer, specialising in 19th and early 20th Century music.

He has written for various journals and books, and performed and lectured at international academic conferences, chiefly on aspects of the French organ tradi­tion. He is the editor of Zemlinsky Studies (2007), a collection of articles by leading scholars on the life and works of the Austrian composer and conductor Alexander von Zemlinsky.

His compositions include a considerable quantity of church music, works for chorus and orchestra (Sinfonia, 1978; Voices of Innocence, 1980), a Clarinet Sona­ta (1988), a Viola Concerto (1989) and an Organ Symphony (1991).

He was Director of Music at All Saints' Church, Hertford from 1982 to 1995. As an organist he has performed in many parts of Britain and on the conti­nent, both as soloist and choral accompanist, including broadcasts and recordings. His most recent recording, on the organ of Brentwood. Cathedral, is of the Prelude and Fugue on 'Cromer '(2011) by Peter Fribbins, released last year on the Guild label.

Programme Herbert Howelis (1892-1983): Rhapsody in C sharp minor, Op. 17, No.3 (1918) In March, 1918, while the up-and-coming composer Herbert Howelis was a guest of Dr Edward Bairstow, Organist of York Minster, the city suffered an intense Zeppelin night bombing raid. Sleep was impossible, but it was highly productive for Howelis, who wrote the Third Rhapsody for organ in one all-night sitting.

Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656): A Sad Pavan, for These Distracted Times (1649) Worcester, where the ageing Tomkins was Cathedral organist, was the last major city to fall to Cromwell's army in the English Civil War, and the fervently Royalist Tom­kins, dismissed from his post, saw his world collapsing around him. W'orse was to follow when news reached him of the execution of King Charles I on January 30th, 1649. This Pavan was his response.

Jean Langlais (1907-1991): Chant Heroique (from Neuf Pieces, 1942/3) 'To the memory of Jehan Alain, killed, heroically for France when defending Sau-mur, June, 1940'. Jehan Alain was one of a family of organists, as well as a composer of outstanding promise and originality There are oblique references to the Mar­seillaise in this brief, but impassioned, tribute by one of his admiring friends and colleagues.

Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941): A Solemn Melody (1910) Walford. Daviess best-known work was originally written for strings and organ, as a 'voluntary' for a John Milton commemoration in Bow Church, the composer being at that time organist of the Temple Church. In 1922 he was knighted, in 1927 he moved to St George's, Windsor, and was appointed Master of the Kings Mustek in 1934. This piece perfectly fitted the national mood during and after the First World War and soon became an essential component of almost all Remem­brance services.

George Frederick Handel (1685-1759): Ouverture (from Concerto In Judas Maccabbaeus 1747)

It was Handel's practice to perform his concertos during the intervals in oratorio performances, in this case Judas Maccabaeus. The oratorio narrates a particularly bloody Old Testament massacre: but. it was written to celebrate the slaughter of the Scottish Jacobite rebels at Culloden in 1746 under the Duke of Cumberland, oi whom Handel, as an erstwhile Hanoverian himself, thoroughly approved. This is his own arrangement for solo organ of the first movement — an introduction and allegro - of the original Concerto a due tori No. 3.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Solemn Prelude: For the Fallen (1916/7) arr. Harvey Grace (1874-1944)

Elgar s most significant: contribution to the war effort was the composition of The Spirit of England, a setting for soloists, chorus and orchestra of three recent poems by Lawrence Binyon which featured in the opening concert of the Festival at Brentwood Cathedral on Saturday evening. This organ arrangement, by one of the most distinguished British musicians of the inter-war period, is an abbreviated version of the third movement. It omits the central section in which the chorus sing those memorable and poignant words 'They shall not grow old as we drat are left grow old... we will remember them', but as a solo organ piece it still admira­bly expresses the collective grief of a nation in mourning.

Max Reger (1873-1916): Dankpsalm, Op. 145, No.2 (1916) Among Reger s last works were Seven Pieces for Organ (of which the seventh is an optimistic anticipation of German victory in World "War I , which, the publish­ers prudently withheld). However, the second piece of the set, this Thanksgiving Psalm, avoids excessive bombast and is one of Reger's finest shorter works. Be­tween moments of extravagant rhetoric and extreme dynamic contrasts, it incor­porates two traditional German chorales: the first: is an expression of faith in God'? providence, and the conclusion is based on Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.

There will be a retiring collection at the end to help meet the costs of this concert.

festival

Closing concert of the Brentwood Arts Festival 2014

Saturday 12 July, 7.30pm Brentwood Centre

Royal British Legion Youth Band, Brent wood

playing a selection of music associated with the Great War

Karl Jenkins The Armed Man: a Mass for Peace

Hutton & Shenfieid Choral Society Brentwood Choral Society Howard Wallace Chorale

Bra-vissima Brentwood Songsters

Brentwood Philharmonic Orchestra Phoenix Youth Orchestra Conductor Tim Hooper

Julia Wilson-James - Soprano Susan Marrs - Mezzo soprano

Matthew Haas-Tenor Daniel Rudge-Baritone

Tickets: £14/£12/£S brentwoodartsfestival.org. uk or01277 200305 or in person at the Brentwood Theatre

(Duicinea String Quartet An opportunity to hear this highly acclaimed young quartet ^

Thursday 10 July, 8pm - Memorial Hall, Brentwood School

Elgar: String Quartet, Opus 83 (composed in 1918) Plus music by Mozart & Webern

Hosted by the Brentwood Musical Society as part of the Brentwood Arts Festival Tickets: £\i) (£5 cons) - available on the door or from the festival box office