Our Town: Cheltenham & The Cotswolds IV

Companion webpage for Concert Programme

Two Concerts of Piano Music
Performed by Bridget Yee and Christopher Guild

Presented by the Cheltenham Music Festival Society
At Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

The Performers

Bridget Yee (12 November)

Bridget is from Sarawak, Malaysia. She started piano at three, and came to Wells Cathedral School on a scholarship at 11. She has won numerous competitions around the world and performed in many wonderful venues. Still only 20, an undergraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, she also composes and plays double-bass and cello.
“I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been exposed to music at a young age. Music is such an integral part of everyone’s life, whether or not one realises it,’ she told Free Malaysia Today. ‘Watching a film, music plays a massive part in communicating the plot. Even if it’s not a part of your professional life, it acts as a vessel for us to release our emotions when we need it most.”

Christopher Guild (19 November)
Christopher is from Moray in Scotland. He studied piano at the Royal College of Music and has toured extensively as a recitalist and concerto soloist. He has a passion for the post-WWII music of the British Isles, especially Scotland, making numerous recordings. He has taught piano and music in many top schools and is currently on the visiting music staff at Dean Close in Cheltenham. He enjoys ensemble and orchestral playing, and his repertoire ranges from Beethoven to the present day.

Programme: 12 November

Bridget Yee

Joseph Haydn Fantasia in C.

Cesar Franck Prelude, Fugue and Variation.

Carl Vine Bagatelles, Nos. 2 and 5.

Frédéric Chopin Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49.

Arturo Márquez Danzón No. 2 (arr. Gómez-Tagle).

Sergei Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42.

Bridget’s Pieces

Joseph Haydn: Fantasia in C. Haydn (1732–1809) was born into the family of a wheelwright and a cook in rural Austria. Amateur musicians, they arranged for the boy to become an apprentice chorister. Frequently ill-treated and hungry, he survived to become both a celebrated composer and head of music in the aristocratic Esterházy household in Hungary, where he was treated as a high-ranking servant. In 1789, he wrote to a music publisher offering a piano piece, based on an Austrian folk-song called D’ Bäurin hat d’Katz verlor’n (‘The farmer’s wife has lost her cat’). In his pitch he said ‘it cannot fail to receive approval from connoisseurs and amateurs alike … not particularly difficult’. You be the judge of that.

César Franck: Prelude, Fugue and Variation. Franck (1822–90) was born in Liège, now Belgium but then part of the Netherlands. He spent most of his career as a church organist and choirmaster, leaving his more personal compositions until late in his career when he had become professor at the Paris Conservatoire. One of his pupils, Vincent d’Indy, said his first success was in his 69th year. There is hope for us all. This piece, originally for organ, was written in his years of obscurity and published in 1868.

Carl Vine: Bagatelles, Nos. 2 and 5. Vine (b.1954) was born in Perth, Western Australia. He is a composer of dance, symphonic and instrumental music and a senior lecturer at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His Five Bagatelles were written in 1994 and combine ‘motoric jazz influences, sonorous harmonies, and brief, heart-stopping moments of lyricism’, according to their publisher, Faber Music. Deceptively simple and charming.

Frédéric Chopin: Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49. Chopin (1810–1849) was born in Żelazowa Wola, in eastern Poland. In 1831, following the November Uprising against the occupying Russians, he fled to Paris (telling the authorities he was en route to London). In France, he was recognised as a player and composer of genius, despite making only about 30 public performances in his short life; the rest were in private salons. This piece was composed in 1841. He called it Fantaisie to escape from formal, rigid titles and immediately wrote this: ‘Today I finished the Fantasy – and the sky is beautiful, a sadness in my heart – but that’s all right. If it were otherwise, perhaps my existence would be worth nothing to anyone. Let’s hide until death has passed.’

Arturo Márquez: Danzón No. 2 (arr. Gómez-Tagle). Márquez (b.1950) was born in Sonora, Mexico, but brought up in California where his father was a mariachi musician. Returning to Mexico as a teenager, he received a conservatory education and began composing orchestral music. He achieved fame when he began writing for Latin ballroom dancing. This piece, from 1994, has become known as ‘Mexico’s second national anthem’. Danzón is a formal partner dance, originating in Cuba but embraced in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Sergei Rachmaninov: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943: other transliterations are available) was born into an aristocratic family in Staraya Russa in northern Russia and showed early promise, helped by a livc-in music teacher. He did well at St Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, but his first symphony had a disastrous premiere, possibly because the conductor, Alexander Glazunov, was drunk. This piece, from 1931, is based on theme called La Folia, used (but not written) by Arcangelo Corelli in 1700. Rachmaninov struggled with it: ‘I’ve played the Variations about fifteen times, but of these fifteen performances only one was good.’

Programme: 19 November

Christopher Guild

Henry Purcell (tr. Stevenson) Toccata.

Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘The Lake in the Mountains’
(from the film 49th Parallel)

Ralph Vaughan Williams Hymn-Tune Prelude on ‘Song 13’ (Orlando Gibbons)

Edward Elgar Variations on an Original Theme,
Op. 36 ‘Enigma’.
Theme: Andante
Variation I: L’istesso tempo ‘C.A.E.’
Variation II: Allegro ‘H.D.S-P.’
Variation III: Allegretto ‘R.B.T.’
Variation IV: Allegro di molto ‘W.M.B.’
Variation V: Moderato ‘R.P.A.’
Variation VI: Andantino ‘Ysobel’
Variation VII: Presto ‘Troyte’
Variation VIII: Allegretto ‘W.N.’
Variation IX: Adagio ‘Nimrod’
Variation X: Intermezzo: Allegretto ‘Dorabella’
Variation XI: Allegro di moto ‘G.R.S.’
Variation XII: Andante ‘B.G.N.’
Variation XIII: Romanza: Moderato ‘* * *’
Variation XIV: Finale: Allegro Presto ‘E.D.U.’ 

Christopher’s Pieces

Henry Purcell: Toccata. Purcell (1659-1695) was fortunate. He was born into a family of court musicians, the Restoration of the Monarchy brought both jollity and patronage, gloomy religion was out of favour, and there were lots of new instruments to play with. Christopher tells us this toccata (a virtuoso showpiece for keyboard) was traditionally attributed to J. S. Bach and played on the harpsichord. This 1955 transcription of the Toccata in A (ZD229), by Ronald Stevenson, makes the piece sonorous, like Busoni’s versions of Bach’s organ works.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: ‘The Lake in the Mountains’ (from the incidental music for the film 49th Parallel); Hymn-Tune Prelude on ‘Song 13’ (Orlando Gibbons). Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, was passionately attached to folk song and the music of the Tudors, and composed prolifically throughout his long life. 49th Parallel (1941) was directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger and financed by the British Ministry of Information to encourage the USA to enter the Second World War. It was RVW’s first film score. The USA was already committed by the time it the film was released.
The second piece was written in 1930 and based on a melody by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), who was employed by King James I and Prince Charles, later to become King (before losing his head). These are the words of the original hymn, published in 1623:

O, my love, how comely now,
And how beautiful art thou.
Thou of dove-like eyes a paire
Shining hast within thine haire,
And thy locks like kidlings be,
Which from Gilead hill we see.
Edward Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 ‘Enigma’.
Elgar (1857-1934) was born in Lower Broadheath, Worcestershire, son of a pianist/tuner and the daughter of a farmhand. Considering himself an outsider by class and religion (he was Roman Catholic), he was largely self-taught in music and took a while to achieve recognition. That came in 1899 with the premiere of these Variations. The word ‘Enigma’ appears over the first six bars of the music, and that is the name by which the piece became known. They represent his friends. ‘I’ve written the variations each one to represent the mood of the ‘party’ [the person],’ he explained, ‘and have written what I think they would have written – if they were asses enough to compose’. Christopher Guild has kindly cracked the code for us.

Theme: Andante
Variation I: “C.A.E.” Caroline Alice Elgar, his wife.
Variation II: “H.D.S-P.” Hew David Stewart-Powell, well-known amateur pianist, with whom Elgar played chamber music; he used to improvise a run over the keys before playing.
Variation III: “R.B.T.” Richard Baxter Townshend, an Oxford don who enjoyed amateur theatricals.
Variation IV: “W.M.B.” William Meath Baker, squire of Hasfield, Gloucestershire, who “expressed himself somewhat energetically”
Variation V: Moderato “R.P.A.” Richard Penrose Arnold, son of poet Matthew Arnold. An amateur pianist who could be serious one moment, light-hearted the next.
Variation VI: “Ysobel” Isabel Fitton, a viola pupil of Elgar. This variation makes a play of string-crossing exercises.
Variation VII: Presto “Troyte” Arthur Troyte Griffin, Malvern architect, an enthusiastic amateur pianist. The variation evokes he and Elgar being caught in a thunderstorm and running for shelter.
Variation VIII: Allegretto “W.N.” Winifred Norbury, secretary of Worcester Philharmonic Society who lived in a fine 18th century home, who had a distinctive laugh.
Variation IX: “Nimrod” Augustus Jaeger (his surname meaning ‘hunter’ in German; Nimrod was “a mighty hunter before the Lord” in the Old Testament). Jaeger worked at Novello, Elgar’s publisher.
Variation X: “Dorabella” A friend with a characteristic stutter.
Variation XI: “G.R.S.” George Robertson Sinclair, the energetic organist at Hereford Cathedral. The variation depicts Dan, Sinclair’s bulldog, jumping into the river then emerging with a triumphant bark.
Variation XII: “B.G.N.” Basil George Newman, an amateur ’cellist.
Variation XIII: “* * *” Helen Weaver, to whom Elgar was engaged. The engagement was broken off and, shortly after, she emigrated to New Zealand. Echoes of Beethoven’s ‘Liebewohl’ (farewell) Sonata and Mendelssohn’s A Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage are heard.
Variation XIV: “E.D.U.” ‘Edu’ was Alice Elgar’s name for Edward.

The Quiz

1. Who had a posthumous No. 13 hit in the UK Singles Chart with the unwitting assistance of a man from Yatton, Somerset?
2. Who wrote a football song called ‘He Banged The Leather For Goal’ about a player called Billy Malpass?
3. Who switched from brass to piano after falling out of a tree at the age of 10?
4. Which composer – not deaf, dumb or blind – did Pete Townshend of The Who credit with inspiring the opening of ‘Pinball Wizard’?
5. Who had an asteroid named after him by Freimat Börgnen in 1973?
6. Which unworldly composer, on being taken to the racy Folies-Bergère by a friend, remarked ‘Who are those ladies? I don’t seem to know any of them’?
7. Which exile disliked teaching piano in London? He said, ‘The people are crafty here. When they don’t want to do something they save themselves by going to the country. One of my pupils left without paying me for nine lessons.’
8. Which composer enjoyed – apart from the sounds of his own country – the music of ‘the Beatles, Doors, Carlos Santana and Chopin’?
9. Who asked for lessons from Edward Elgar, was turned down, and turned instead to Maurice Ravel, who said he was ‘my only pupil who does not write my music’?

The Answers

1. Rachmaninov: it was ‘If I Had You’ by The Korgis, credited to Rachmaninov/Davis; 2. Elgar, a Wolves fan; 3. Carl Vine. 4. Purcell. 5. Haydn. 6. Franck. 7. Chopin. 8. Marquèz. 9. Vaughan Williams.

About The Cheltenham Festival Music Society

Since 2017, more than 130 free Young Musician Concerts have been held in Cheltenham. The concerts, at 1:00pm on Tuesdays, give young people the opportunity to perform, either as solo performers or as part of a school’s music department. Soloists have included Gloucestershire Young Musicians of the Year and performers from London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
The concerts, arranged by the Cheltenham Music Festival Society, are free, but there is a collection at the end to pay the charge levied by the Cheltenham Trust for use of Pittville Pump Room and the expenses of some of the performers. For more information, contact Andrew Auster: a.auster30@gmail.com.

Forthcoming Attractions

2024
26 November: Cheltenham College
03 December: Pate’s Grammar School
2025
14 January: Rupert Egerton-Smith {piano}
21 January: Balcarras School
28 January: Ju Ju Dancers perform for Chinese New Year and Dean Close School
04 February: Stephen Selby {piano}
11 February: Violet Wong {trumpet} and Winnie Chan {piano}
25 February: The Serinus Trio {2 flutes & piano}
04 March: Eleanor O’Driscoll {soprano} & Chloe Underwood {piano}
18 March: Nina Savicevic {piano}
25th March: Concert for Ukraine {tbc}
01 April: Ivan Hovorum {piano)