Berkeley: Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 17 / Six Preludes, Op. 23 / Concertino, Op. 49
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Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989) Instrumental Music A descendant of the Earls of Berkeley, Lennox Berkeley also had an element of French ancestry, further...
Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989)
Instrumental Music
A descendant of the Earls of Berkeley, Lennox Berkeley
also had an element of French ancestry, further
developed by his study at Oxford of French and his
period in Paris, where, on the advice of Ravel, he
became a pupil of Nadia Boulanger. During his time in
Paris he became a Catholic, an important influence on
his work, and continued in loyalty to the traditional
Latin liturgy with various settings. Although they had
been to the same school, Gresham's School, Holt, it was
not until 1936 that he met Benjamin Britten, ten years
his junior, at the International Society for Contemporary
Music gathering in Barcelona. The two composers
collaborated on Mont Juic, an orchestral work based on
Catalan dances that they had heard. The friendship
proved productive, once the basis of their relationship
had been clearly established. Both composers held high
opinions of each other's musical achievements, and
continued to do so. In 1938 they shared the occupancy
of The Old Mill in Snape. The following April Britten
and Peter Pears left for Canada and the United States.
Lennox Berkeley moved to London in 1940 and during
the war worked for the BBC. Marrying in 1946, he
served from then until 1968 as professor of composition
at the Royal Academy of Music, with a series of pupils
then and in later years that included some of the leading
composers of the next generation, the recipient of many
honours, notably in England, where he was knighted in
1974, the United States and France.
Berkeley's association with Britten, the English
Opera Group, and the Aldeburgh Festival was the
inspiration for a number of important compositions,
notably the operas Nelson, A Dinner Engagement, Ruth
and Castaway. His setting of the Stabat Mater in 1947
was dedicated to Britten, who conducted the work, and
his Four Poems of St Teresa of Avila were given their
first performance by Kathleen Ferrier. His literary
interests elicited settings of texts by French and English
poets, the latter including W.H.Auden, who, with
Christopher Isherwood, had been part of Britten's circle
in the mid-1930s. His generally tonal style, more akin to
French music of the period, came to be modified and
fertilised by serialism, a system he used eclectically,
much as Britten did.
Berkeley's Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 17,
was written in 1943 and published two years later, with
a dedication to his friend Gladys Bryans, with whom he
and Britten had stayed during a short working holiday in
Gloucestershire in 1937. As the composer later pointed
out, the work is in what was then considered a modern
idiom but made no excessive demands on either
performers or listeners. The structure is straightforward,
with a first movement that has a forthright first subject
and secondary contrasting material, returning in
modified recapitulation. The movement ends in hushed
serenity, its final violin A major chord modified by the
piano's addition of an inversion of the chord of F sharp
minor. The slow movement is in the form of a sombre
melody that rises to a climax, before subsiding, its final
D minor chord again modified by the piano. The third
movement, in 5/4, is in the form of a theme and
variations, the first of the latter slightly faster, the
second capricious in its mood, the third rubato, the
fourth a satirical waltz, and the fifth marked Andante,
followed by the return of the original theme and metre.
The Five Short Pieces for Piano, Op. 4, were written
in 1937 and dedicated to Berkeley's friend, the Corsican
Jose Raffalli, with whom he had shared a flat in Paris
and who was killed during the war, when he was in the
French Resistance. The graceful first piece opens in 7/8,
with following changes of time signature that give it a
certain flexibility. The Poulenc of the Promenades is not
far away in the following Allegro moderato, and the
third piece has a particular melodic charm. The fourth
piece has accompanying figuration at first in the right
hand and the melody in the left, before rôles are
reversed, with the accompanying figuration then placed
in a middle part. The set ends with an Allegro that starts
in 11/8 and has the now expected shifts of metre.
Berkeley's Andantino for Cello and Piano,
Op. 21/2a, is a transcription by the composer of a
soprano solo from his Festive Anthem, settings of
George Herbert and Henry Vaughan commissioned by
Walter Hussey, Vicar of St Matthew's, Northampton,
who had earlier commissioned Britten's Rejoice in the
Lamb. The anthem was first heard at St Matthew's in
1945.
The Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo were seemingly
written in 1939 and published in 1983 with a dedication
to the clarinettist Thea King. The first piece is
dominated by the descending minor and major thirds of
the opening figure, as the Lento second piece is by the
returning dotted figuration. The group ends with a lively
Allegro that explores the full range of the instrument.
The piano Mazurka was commissioned by the BBC
among works designed to mark the 250th anniversary of
the birth of Haydn in 1732, and was first performed in a
broadcast by John McCabe in 1982, to be published by
Berkeley's publishers Chesters in the following year as
a tribute to his eightieth birthday. It is among the
composer's last completed works, a composition of
simple clarity, before the illness that clouded his final
years.
Berkeley's Duo for Cello and Piano, Op. 81, No. 1,
was written in 1971 and dedicated to the publisher
George Rizza. Improbably enough Op. 81, No. 2, is the
Palm Court Waltz, arranged by the composer for piano
duet from an earlier piece of entertainment music. The
Duo, commissioned by the Park Lane Group for their
Young Artists and Twentieth Century Music Series, is in
a weightier vein, the first part dominated by the
rhythmic figuration with which it opens, a triple-metre
cello melody over stark piano chords, to which
secondary material of contrapuntal suggestion provides
a strong contrast. A strongly melodic passage marked
Meno vivo leads to a development of these elements and
a structural climax. The opening returns in a concluding
passage, before the final Presto con fuoco.
The Six Preludes, Op. 23, were written in 1945 and
first performed in that year by Colin Horsley. These
pieces are further testimony to Berkeley's interest in and
idiomatic handling of the piano. There is an inevitable
feeling of France in the rippling accompanying
figuration of the first piece and in its characteristic final
notes. The following Andante presents two poignant
melodies, later heard in conjunction. The third of the set
makes greater technical demands, while the fourth, with
its nostalgic melody set off, as it continues, by the upper
notes added above by the left hand. The tuneful fifth
Prelude is introduced by a jaunty melody in 7/8, which
later returns in recapitulation, after a middle section of
syncopated rhythms. The set ends with an Andante of
Gallic autumnal charm.
Berkeley's Concertino for Recorder or Flute,
Violin, Cello and Harpsichord or Piano, Op. 49, here
using the alternative instrumentation, was written in
1955. The first movement, in sonata form, has a
secondary theme based on the descending scale, a
contrast with the more angular earlier material. Aria I,
for flute and cello and marked Lento, is based on a
ground derived from the twelve-note series, a contrast
with the shorter Andantino Aria II, for violin and piano,
a dramatic movement with harmonies not far from
Aldeburgh. The last movement is a rondo, as finely
crafted as the rest of the work.
Keith Anderson
Violin Sonatina, Op. 17 (more info)
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I. Moderato - 4:19
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II. Lento - 3:38
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III. Allegretto, Variations 1-5 - 5:16
5 Short Pieces, Op. 4 (more info)
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I. Andante - 1:09
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II. Allegro moderato - 0:51
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III. Allegro - 1:54
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IV. Andante - 1:58
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V. Allegro - 0:48
Andantino, Op. 21, No. 2a (more info)
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Andantino for Cello and Piano, Op. 21, No. 2a - 2:56
3 Pieces (more info)
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I. Moderato (in tempo rubato) - 1:39
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II. Lento - 2:12
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III. Allegro - 1:13
Mazurka, Op. 101, No. 2 (more info)
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Mazurka for Piano, Op. 101, No. 2 - 1:24
Duo, Op. 81, No. 1 (more info)
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Duo for Cello and Piano, Op. 81, No. 1 - 6:19
6 Preludes, Op. 23 (more info)
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I. Allegro - 1:47
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II. Andante - 1:56
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III. Allegro Moderato - 1:40
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IV. Allegretto - 1:58
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V. Allegro - 1:51
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VI. Andante - 2:32
Concertino, Op. 49 (more info)
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I. Allegro Moderato - 4:30
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II. Aria I (for Flute and Cello) - 3:32
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III. Aria II (for Violin and Piano) - 2:37
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IV. Vivace - 3:33