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Details
Dorchester Abbey
High Street
Dorchester on Thames
Oxfordshire
OX10 7HH
England
Tickets
Programme
William Alwyn – The Innumerable Dance: An English Overture
Stanley Bate – Symphony no.2 (World Premiere)
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue
Arthur Bliss – Cello Concerto
Frederick Delius – The Walk to the Paradise Garden
Performers
Raphael Wallfisch – Cello
Martin Yates – Conductor
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
Lewis Foreman gives a talk from 5:15pm prior to the concert in the Village Hall.
The English Music Festival celebrates the brilliance, innovation, beauty and rich musical heritage of Britain with a strong focus on unearthing overlooked or forgotten masterpieces of the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century.
There have been many significant first performances at the English Music Festival’s opening concert over the years and this year sees the BBC Concert Orchestra give the much-anticipated World Première of the Symphony no.2 by Stanley Bate (1911-1959); another outstanding student from the Royal College of Music, whose teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams, R.O. Morris, Gordon Jacob, and Arthur Benjamin.
Stanley Bate’s prolific but vastly neglected output is overdue for re-evaluation and his works although being gradually recorded have yet to find a place in the concert hall. Symphony no.2 op.20 was completed in the spring of 1939, but the work appears to have been withdrawn by the composer without ever having achieved a performance.
Bate's wife and fellow-composer, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, claimed her husband wrote a dozen or more symphonies and thirty or so piano sonatas. Often writing ‘en voyage’, Bate's idiom can be dramatic and turbulent contrasting with interludes of beauty, lyricism and exuberance.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ‘Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue’ is a student work dating from 1901; the year of the composer’s first published composition, 'Linden Lea'. Originally intended as a Symphonic Rhapsody in three parts, Vaughan Williams referred to it as his ‘trombone piece’. Drawing praise from his teacher Charles Villiers Stanford who, according to the composer’s wife Adeline, chose the title for the piece, the work was put aside while the composer was finding his own voice and unheard until a revival by the recording label, Dutton.
“The scoring is evidence of an experienced hand, writes Lewis Foreman; “a distinctive piece in the British music of its time”, to which critics of the day concurred; ‘The Times’ describing the Elegy as “a really valuable addition to modern English music – Mr Vaughan Williams is obviously a musician of great skill and power”, and another critic describing the piece as “a masterly expression of restrained emotion”.
The 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) this year is providing an opportunity for re-evaluation of some of the composer’s works from his large output that continually fall under the radar. ’50 for 50’ is a project co-ordinated by The Arthur Bliss Society which aims to secure at least 50 performances of the composer’s works world-wide during 2025.
For the EMF's opening concert the BBC Concert Orchestra, will give a rare performance of the composer’s Cello Concerto featuring one of today’s leading exponents of the instrument and champion of British music, Raphael Wallfisch, who has previously recorded the work with the Orchestra.
Dedicated "To Mstislav Rostropovich with admiration and gratitude", the Concerto is scored for small orchestra with the addition of harp and celesta. Heroic in character with ‘Quixotic’ flourishes and a soulful slow movement; according to Bliss, “There are no problems for the listener - only for the soloist!”
Tickets are on sale from the website and by means of a postal booking form. Tickets for individual concerts will also be available on the door, subject to availability. Full Festival and Day Passes are also available.
Dorchester Abbey is the venue for the duration of the long weekend with talks taking place in the Village Hall as well as a Festival Lunch (pre-booking required). A dedicated mini-bus shuttle operates to/from Didcot Parkway rail station - bookings should be made via the website when the timetable is published.
