HighworthChoralSociety

No. I *240

Fairly

A Commemoration in MusicOf Bastille Day -

And Other Matters

Saturday July 14th 2007

From The HCS Chair

Maki

THE NATIONAL SEt*RAUO

Welcome to our Summer concert, based this year around a French tteme. We are presenting it incabaret style, with three shorter breaks in the programme rather than one major interval: we hope thiswill meet your approval.

As usual, we make a charge (reasonable, I hope you agree) for audience tickets, as we have to meetour financial ouGoings over tie season. Some of ttese we pay willingly (e.g. fees to qualityprofessional soloists), some we simply accept as part of tie costs of running a choir (e.g. hiringrehearsal space). But one expense for this concert has particularly annoyed us: recent legislationmeans that we have to obtain (and pay E21 for) a Temporary Events Licence for tiis concert. We canonly think of this as a Tax On The Ms. If you are within voice-range of a national politidan, please bendtheir ear!

Margaret Watkins, HCS Chair.

CONCERT DETAILS

Musical Director, Highworth Choral Society: Mike AveryPiano: Chris Williams

Guest Accordion Soloist Alison Porter

1. La Marseillaise (Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, 1760-1836) The Choir

This was originally "The War Song of the Army of the Rhine', but received its current title after it was taken

up by a detachment of troops from Marseilles which had arrived in Paris. The National Convention, theRevolutionary goveming body, adopted it as the oficial Anthem on this day in 1795, but Napoleon l,Louis XVIII and Napoleon Ill (presumably not wanting too much revolutionary spirit around when they wereactually in power) each banned it. It was oficially (and surely permanently) re-adopted in 1879.

2. Bonjour Mon Coeur (Orlando di Lasso (about 1532-1594)(ed. Rafael Omes; Publisher. Choral Public Domain Library: mew.cpdl.org)

The Choir

The composer Orlando di Lasso (or Roland de Lassus, Roland Delattre, or other variants) was bom inMons (now in Belgium), but worked in various parts of Europe. He is best known for his Masses andmotets, but composed a wide variety of other works. These included some 150 French chansons: this oneis set to words by the poet Pierre de Ronsard.

As a child, he had a particularly beautiful voice. It is said that, on three separate occasions, powerful menwanting to strengthen their choirs carried out an unsubtle recruitment process: they simply abducted him.

3. The Gendarmes (Jacques Offenbach, 1819 - 1880) Tenors and Basses

(arranged by Henry Geehl, words by Henry Famie. Publisher. Edwin Ashdown Ltd.)

Jacques Offenbach was bom in Cologne but took French nationality. The music is from one of his lesswell-known operetas, Genevieve de Brabant (not from the 1859 original but the 1867 revision), and wasoriginally sung by two men of the woods. The lyricist Henry Famie transmuted them into policemen(inspired by certain characters from the Penzance area?) when arranging the piece for four-part malechorus. Famie wrote or adapted many other opera libretti — and one of the first manuals of golf instrucüon.

Americans should recognise the tune as the setting for the US Marines' Hymn.

4. Accordion Solos (to be announced) Alison Porter

5. Two Items from "Soutl Pacific" (Rogers and Hammerstein)1. Some Evening Jim Ludlow (Bass)2. Margaret Wad(ins (Alto)

(publishers: Chappell & Co., Bond Street)

"South Pacific- opened as a musical on Broadway in 1949; the film version came out in 1958. The story isbased on two short stories by James Michener from a •Some Tales from tie Souti Pacific".

6. Two Ibms from "Cannen" (Georges Bizet) Choir1. When The Guard Comes 2. Thanks Good Friends

(publisher. Novello)

A recent Guardian advert for a trip to 'Classical Spain' said: 'It's the real Spain of Camen, Figaro andFlamenco'. Acwally, 'Carmen' was a novel by Frenchman Prosper Merrimée, dramatised by his compatriotGeorges Bizet, who never visited Spain. Also: Figaro was a created by another Frenchman,Beaumarchais, set most memorably in opera by an Austrian (Mozart) and an Italian (Rossini).

In our first excerpt, the street urchins of Seville imitate the detachment of soldiers based in the locality, of

whom one is Don José, soon to be ensnared by Carmen. The second takes place in an inn: the ToreadorEscamillo's bravado is probably easier to express there than in the bullring.

First Break

7. Gymnopédies No. 1 (Erik satie, 1866-1925) Chris Williams (Piano)

Erik Satie was French bom but witl a Norwegian mother (hence the 'k' in his forename). His works and hislifestyle were individualistic (some would say eccentric), as were many of the titles he gave his pieces,notably "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear (there are seven in the set. Obviously!). Fortunately, Chrishas declined to play Satie's "Vexations", whose few bars performers are supposed to perform 840 times.

8. "La Mer" (Charles Trenetl Leo Chauliac) Garry Douel (bass)

(publisher Editions Raoul Breton, Paris)

The French singer Charies Trenet (1913-2001) and his collaborator Leo Chauliac composed this song in1943 (reportedly on a train, and noted down on lavatory paper). Trenet first recorded the song in 1946; ithas received over 400 other recordings. The lyrics give an impression of the sea (in its calmer moments):"Beyond The Sea" sung by Bobby Darin and others to the same music, is not a translation of the original.

9. Au Bord de l'Eau (Gabriel Fauré, 1845-1924) Lisa Cherrett (Soprano)(publisher. Inc.)

Fauré wrote this song in 1875, in his late twenties; it was published two years later. The words are byRené-Francois Sully-Prudhomme (1839-1907). The poet portrays two lovers, sitting by a stream, looking atthe clouds, the smoke from a distant cotage, flowers, trees; ignoring the passing of time and forgettingabout the world's troubles, thinking only of their enduring love.

10. Pavane (Choral version, Op. 50) (Gabriel Fauré, 1845-1924) Choir(publisher. Alphonse Leduc et Cie., Paris)

Fauré originally composed this an an orchestral work, but was persuaded by a wealthy patron, CountessElizabeth Greffulhe (probably wmout too mu&l dificutty, as he was not particularly well 00 to produce thisversion wit1 added off-stage chorus (a later version included dancers as well). The words are by theSymbolist poet Robert, comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, in the style of the poet Vedaine. The work is notin the form of the Renaissance Pavane, but shares its coolness and elegance.

Translation of the words:

Its Lindor, it's Tirds, and all our conquerors! It's Myrtil, it's Lyde, the queens of our hearts!How insolent they are, how ever-proud! How they dare rule our fates and our days!"Pay atenion!" Follow the the beat! O deadly insult! The rhythm isnt so slowl And the fall surer!We'll pull down a peg or two! We'll soon be their lackeys!How ugly they are! Dear little face! How crazy they are! Flirtatious airs and graces!And its always the same! And its thus atways!

love one another! We hate one another! We curse our loves!Farewell, Myrtil! Eglé! Chloé! Mocking fiends! Farewell then and greetings to the tyrants of our hearts!

(Lindor, Tircis, etc. are figures from the pastoral romances of Virgil and other writers).

Second Break

11. No Regreb (DumonWaucaire) Sarah Cantwell (Soprano)(publisher. Faber)

Although she speaks French, Sarah has opted not to use the French lyrics for the song 'Non, Je NeRegrete Rien", which will always be associated with the unique voice of Edith Piaf, who recorded it in1960, dedicating her performance to the French Foreign Legion.

12. Excerpts from 'GIGI' (Lemer & Loewe) (publisher. Chappell)Thank Heavens For Litde Girls (Sopranos and Altos)

2. I remember It Well (Soprano: Margaret Message; Bass: Mike Saunders)3. The Night They Invented Champagne (The Choir)

Lemer and Loewe based their musical 'Gigi' on a novel by the French Miter Colette (in full, SidonieGabrielle Claudine Colete Gauthier-Villars de Jouvanel Goudeket, 1873-1954) which had previously beena film then a Broadway stage play. Gigi is a 15-year-old whose grandmother Mamita is training her in tieways of a high-class Paris courtesan, but who becomes romantically involved with an eligible bachelorGaston: Gaston's uncle, Honoré, was once involved romantically with Mamita ("I Remember It Well").

13. Plaisir d'Amour (Martini)(Public Domain: arranged A. WIIiams)

Pat Williams (Soprano), Allan Williams

Like Offenbach, Jean Martini (1741-1816) was originally German (Johann Schwartzendorf) but became aFrench national: unlike Offenbach, he is remembered for just one work, and this is it. The lyrics, from thepoet Jean de Florian, begin "The pleasures of love last for a moment; the sorrows of love last for a lifetime".

14. Accordion Solos (to be announced)

Third Break

15. Excerpts from "Les Miserables" (KreumerlC-M. Schönberg)

Soloists in order of singing:

Alison Porter

Choir

Helen Berry (Alto), Pat WIIiams (Soprano), John Howard (Tenor), Lisa Cherret (Soprano), Trevor Smith

(Tenor), Graeme Watkins (Bass), Sarah Cantwell (Soprano), Margaret Watkins (Alto)

Les Miserables is based on the novel of that name by Victor Hugo, set in the years following the Napoleonic

Wars: the revolutionary spirit of 1789 had not vanished after Napoleon's rule or his overfrrow . The plot is

complex, but forms round the Valjean and Javert, the police who is searching for him;

the abandoned waif Cosete, who is pictured on the posters for this longest-running of West-End musicals,

also features prominently.

The choir will be singing suite arranged by Ed Lojeski (publ. Hal Leonard Corporation),

interspersed numbers by John Howard ("Stars") and Lisa Cherrett and John Howard ("A Heart Full of

Love") (both publ. Wse Publications London/NY/Sydney).

THE END

hope you have enjoyed tonights concert. You can hear us again on tie

Ilowing dates:Saturday 15th December 2007: Christmas ConærtSaturday 26th April 2008: Spring Concert

concerts will be at St. Michael's Parish Church, Highwotü.

e welcome new members in all voices: our first rehearsal for 2007-8 will be on

onday 3rd September, at Wameford School main hall, starting at 7.30pm.

Members of Highworül Choral SocieO' singing in tiis Concert:

Sopranos: Marjorie Archibald, Helen Booth, Loma Bowie, Sarah Cantwell, Lisa Cherret, Maria Gardiner,

Sheila Headon, Lynn Hamitton Morris, Diana Meniman, Margaret Message, Sheila Pregnall, Hannah

Robonson, Pat Williams, Laura Willingham.

Altos: Pauline Baker, Helen Berry, Brenda Boyd, Mavis Bridger, Chris Dunster, Amanda Jefferies,

Catherine MacVicar, Mairi McLean, Alison Porter (guest), Rosemary Williams, Julie Young.

Tenors: John Howard, Haydn Jones, Eddie Meech, Phil Perkins, Trevor Smith, Gwen Stokes.

Basses: John Deaton, Garry Douel, Jim Ludlow, Roger Moore, Mike Saunders, John Stephens,

Graeme Watkins.

HIGHWORTH CHORAL SOCIETY WEB SITE: www.highwotfichoral.org.uk