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Lewisham Choral Society

Edward Elgar: Give unto the Lord, Op. 74 - anthem

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 (Enigma Variations)

William Walton:

Belshazzar’s Feast - cantata

David Stout – baritone Forest Philharmonic Orchestra

James Orford - organ Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

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THE WORDS & MUSIC

Edward Elgar Give unto the Lord It was on 7 February 1914 that Elgar began to write his anthem Give unto the Lord. He worked quickly, taking just over six weeks to complete the vocal score; its orchestration however took half as long again. The words he set came from Psalm 29 and were centred on a devotion to the glory of God and an acknowledgment of his strength. This call to give oneself to God’s ministry was particularly appropriate as the work’s first performance – in a version for chorus and orchestra – was due to be given on 30 April that year, at what was then known as the Festival Service of the Sons of the Clergy in London’s St Paul’s Cathedral. The composer dedicated his anthem to the Cathedral’s then organist, Sir George Martin. The origins of the Sons of the Clergy charity (now known as the Clergy Support Trust) date back to 1655, when a group of clergymen’s sons gathered for a service in St Paul’s and a collection was taken for destitute clergy and their families. By Elgar’s time the service was seen as an occasion to bring together Church and State. It is still held today; the 366th annual service will be on 12 May 2020. St Paul’s Cathedral © Martin Bull

The vigour and power of the anthem’s contrapuntal choral writing is interspersed in a gentler interlude with the words In his temple and the work closes with the repeated words the blessing of peace. Less than two months after the anthem’s premiere Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo; was there a premonition of the war to come?

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Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength,

give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth;

it is the Lord that ruleth the sea. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation;

the voice of the Lord is full of majesty; the voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars.

Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. Yea, the voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire;

yea, the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness and strippeth the forests bare.

In His temple doth everyone speak of His glory. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

In his temple doth ev’ryone speak of His glory. The Lord sitteth above the water-flood; and the Lord remaineth a King for ever.

The Lord shall give strength unto His people; the Lord shall give His people the blessing of peace.

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Edward Elgar Enigma Variations On the evening of 21 October 1898 Elgar, having arrived home, was idly tinkering at the piano when his wife Alice stopped him to ask about the tune he had just absent-mindedly played. She liked it – and so he went on to produce from it the theme which formed the basis of one of his most renowned works. Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme are commonly known as the Enigma Variations. For this work consists of fourteen variations on a theme which – by being left unexplained by its creator – has posed a challenge that has generated much speculation over the years without being definitively answered. Many believe there is a secret melody hidden within.

The composer dedicated the variations to his “friends pictured within” and used them to depict these friends in styles which reflected their character or an event associated with them. In the score each variation is prefaced with the initials, name or nickname of the friend in question.

As the enigmatic theme ends, it leads without a pause into Variation I, headed C.A.E. This is Alice, Edward’s wife – and includes a fragment which Elgar is said to have whistled to her on arriving home. It prolongs the theme with what the composer called “romantic and delicate additions”. Variation II depicts Hew David Steuart- Powell, an amateur pianist with whom Elgar often played chamber music. This variation

Edward & Alice Elgar was Alice’s particular favourite. Variation III is Richard Baxter Townshend, an Oxford don, writer and amateur actor. Featured here is Townshend’s theatrical depiction of an old man’s low voice flying off into a soprano timbre. And the pizzicato violins, doubled

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by woodwind, represent the don’s bicycle bell as he scurries through Oxford’s streets. Townshend’s brother-in-law William (Billy) Meath Baker, a Gloucestershire country squire, is pictured in the brief Variation IV. Baker “expressed himself somewhat energetically” according to the composer: the music ends with the inadvertent slamming of the door as the dedicatee leaves the music room. Variation V reflects Richard, son of the poet Matthew Arnold and an amateur pianist, whose serious conversation was often interspersed with whimsical and witty remarks. Variation VI is Ysobel – Isabel Fitton, a viola pupil of Elgar. It illustrates the difficult exercise for beginners of crossing the strings of the instrument. Variation VII appears to suggest some of Elgar’s trials and tribulations as a piano teacher. His great friend, the architect Arthur Troyte Griffith, was not a competent pianist and the music here illustrates his teacher’s attempts to draw order out of chaos. The despairing slam at the end seems to indicate that these attempts were unsuccessful. Alternatively, this may also depict an occasion when the two friends were caught in a thunderstorm. They then sheltered in the home of Winifred Norbury, a secretary of the Worcester Philharmonic Society. The 18th century elegance of the house is portrayed in Variation VIII, along with a suggestion of Winifred’s characteristic laugh.

A single note is held by the first violins and the music moves on to Variation IX, famously given the name of the Old Testament patriarch Nimrod – “a mighty hunter before the Lord”. This is Augustus Jaeger, the German-born editor at Elgar’s publishers Novello & Co. and a close friend of the composer. Jäger is the German word for hunter. Elgar revealed that the music here

Augustus Jaeger told the story of an episode when Jaeger

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made a successful attempt to lift his friend out of a period of depression by reminding Elgar that Beethoven, despite having similar concerns, had managed to compose his Pathétique piano sonata at the time; a hint of this music appears at the start of the variation. Variation X – “Dorabella” – depicts Dora Penny with a gentle parody of her stutter in a passage played by the woodwinds. She was the step-niece of Billy Baker, dedicatee of Variation IV. Variation XI is for Hereford Cathedral organist George Robertson Sinclair – and his bulldog Dan! The story goes that Elgar, Sinclair and Dan were walking by the banks of the River Wye when the dog fell into the river, paddled upstream and barked with joy on landing back on dry land again. In Elgar’s words: “G.R.S. said ‘Set that to music.’ I did, here it is.” In Elgar’s words again Variation XII “is a G.R.S. and Dan tribute to a very dear friend (Basil Nevinson) whose scientific and artistic attainments and the wholehearted way they were put at the disposal of his friends particularly endeared him to the writer”. Nevinson was an accomplished amateur cellist (the variation begins and ends with a solo cello) who played chamber music with Elgar and Steuart-Powell, the dedicatee of Variation II.

There is one further enigma in these variations: the dedication of Variation XIII is just marked ‘***’ and given the subtitle Romanza. Elgar explained that “the asterisks take the place of the name of a lady who was, at the time of the composition, on a sea voyage”. The drums suggest the distant throb of a liner, over which the clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. But who was the lady? Some have proposed that the subtitle suggests Elgar’s first love, the violinist Helen Weaver. After her engagement to the then

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impecunious composer had been broken off by her family in 1884, she emigrated across the oceans by ship to New Zealand.

There is however much surviving correspondence to suggest an alternative: Lady Mary Lygon, a private piano pupil of Elgar’s and a keen promoter of his music. In the spring of 1899 she was on a sea voyage – to New South Wales, where her brother William had been appointed Governor. In a letter to him in February that year she had written: “went to see the Elgars who are most pleasant. He has written some big orchestra theme and variations. I am called incognita but I

only heard this today – as he is too shy to tell me and he would not play them.” In March Elgar wrote to her: “I felt so guilty after asking you about the dedication the other day”. But his shyness obviously prevailed – she sailed off to Australia, he finished the variation and the asterisks remained. Lady Mary’s granddaughter Morwenna is a soprano in our choir – for more on her grandmother’s story, please turn to page 23.

Variation XIV is headed ‘E.D.U.’ Alice Elgar’s nickname for her husband was Edu, from the German Eduard – the couple were both German speakers. This last variation brings back earlier themes depicting Alice and Jaeger (Nimrod) – “two great influences on the life and art of the composer”, as Elgar was to describe them in 1927. The whole work ends in a blaze from the orchestra and the organ, which Jaeger had persuaded Elgar to add with the closing additional 96 bars.

Enigma Variations was first performed at London’s St James’s Hall on 19 June 1899, conducted by Hans Richter. Richter wrote in his diary that “Elgar had a handsome and deserved success”. A revised version, adding the 96 new bars and the organ part suggested by Jaeger – the version

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we hear tonight – was premiered under the composer’s baton three months later at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester Cathedral.

“I felt that here was music the like of which had not appeared in this country since Purcell’s death”

Gustav Holst on the Enigma Variations

INTERVAL

William Walton Belshazzar’s Feast

The story of an episode during the Babylonian exile of the Israelites, as related in Walton’s cantata Belshazzar’s Feast, is drawn from the Bible – the book of Daniel, Psalms 81 & 137 and the Book of Revelation. A brief brass fanfare and a declaimed choral introduction lead to the chorus and the baritone soloist narrator recounting the tale of the exile, of longing for the homeland of Zion and the Jews’ bitterness towards their captors. The narrator describes the material riches of the city of Babylon

and the chorus tells of King Belshazzar’s great feast before expressing horror and outrage at the sacrilege he and his court commit by quaffing from the Israelites’ sacred vessels in order

Belshazzar’s Feast as depicted by Rembrandt

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to toast their heathen gods. An exuberant march section from chorus and orchestra describes the Babylonians’ hymn of praise to these gods. A miraculous inscription appears on the palace walls, the monarch dies and freedom is restored to the Jewish people.

The rejoicing reaches a climax and the baritone returns for an eerie depiction of the warning message which appears on the palace walls and the sudden death of the monarch that very night, marked by the chorus’s shout of the single word Slain. A joyous song of praise celebrates the Israelites’ freedom, briefly interrupted by a lament over the fall of a great city before the work closes with a series of triumphant choral alleluias. *** Thus spake Isaiah – Thy sons that thou shalt beget; they shall be taken away and be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon. Howl ye, howl ye, therefore: for the day of the Lord is at hand!

By the waters of Babylon, by the waters of Babylon, There we sat down: yea, we wept and hanged our harps upon the willows.

For they that wasted us required of us mirth; they that carried us away captive required of us a song. Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. Yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

By the waters of Babylon there we sat down: yea, we wept.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed,

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happy shall he be that taketh thy children and dasheth them against a stone. For with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all.

Babylon was a great city, her merchandise was of gold and silver, of precious stones, of pearls, of fine linen, of purple, silk and scarlet, all manner vessels of ivory, all manner vessels of most precious wood, of brass, iron and marble, cinnamon, odours and ointments, of frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour, wheat and beasts, sheep, horses, chariots, slaves and the souls of men.

In Babylon Belshazzar the King made a great feast, made a feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded us to bring the gold and silver vessels: Yea! The golden vessels, which his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken out of the temple that was in Jerusalem.

He commanded us to bring the golden vessels of the temple of the house of God, that the King, his Princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein.

Then the King commanded us: Bring ye the cornet, flute, sackbut, psaltery and all kinds of music: they drank wine again, yea, drank from the sacred vessels, and then spake the King:

Praise ye the God of Gold, praise ye the God of Silver Praise ye the God of Iron, praise ye the God of Wood Praise ye the God of Stone, praise ye the God of Brass Praise ye the Gods!

Thus in Babylon, the mighty city, Belshazzar the King made a great feast,

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made a feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousand.

Belshazzar whiles he tasted the wine commanded us to bring the gold and silver vessels that his Princes, his wives and his concubines might rejoice and drink therein.

After they had praised their strange gods, the idols and the devils, false gods who can neither see nor hear, called they for the timbrel and the pleasant harp to extol the glory of the King. Then they pledged the King before the people, crying, Thou, O King, art King of Kings: O King, live for ever...

And in that same hour, as they feasted came forth fingers of a man's hand and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote.

And this was the writing that was written: 'MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN' 'THOU ART WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING'. In that night was Belshazzar the King slain and his kingdom divided.

Then sing aloud to God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, bring hither the timbrel, blow up the trumpet in the new moon, blow up the trumpet in Zion for Babylon the Great is fallen, fallen. Alleluia!

Then sing aloud to God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob, while the Kings of the Earth lament and the merchants of the Earth weep, wail and rend their raiment. They cry alas, alas, that great city, in one hour is her judgement come.

The trumpeters and pipers are silent, and the harpers have ceased to harp, and the light of a candle shall shine no more.

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Then sing aloud to God our strength. Make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob. For Babylon the Great is fallen. Alleluia! *** On 21 August 1929 the BBC programme planner Edward Clark wrote to Walton to ask him to write a work for a small choir, soloist and an orchestra with no more than 15 players. The composer’s friend Osbert

Sitwell – in whose Chelsea home Walton was living at the time – compiled the text. Walton started work but found that the music he wrote needed far larger forces. The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham came to the rescue by programming the work for the Leeds Triennial Festival in 1931. 2 Carlyle Square, Chelsea – Walton’s home when writing Belshazzar © Martin Bull

Berlioz’s Requiem was also scheduled for the Festival, so large forces would not be a problem. Indeed Beecham even suggested to Walton that “as you’ll never hear the work again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?". The music must have come as a shock to Yorkshire singers and an audience schooled in Victorian oratorios – some of the ladies in Leeds Festival Chorus Leeds Town Hall © Martin Bull apparently objected to having to sing the word concubines. And the music was certainly louder than the usual fare; Walton had to reduce the percussion parts before the London premiere. Despite all this, and Beecham’s misgivings about the work’s future, not only did the premiere go ahead on 8 October – in Leeds Town Hall under the baton

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of Malcolm Sargent and with the noted baritone Dennis Noble as soloist – but it proved to be a great success and made Walton’s name.

THE COMPOSERS

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Edward William Elgar was born in the small Worcestershire village of Lower Broadheath on 2 June 1857. His father William was a piano tuner and shopkeeper and his mother Ann the daughter of a farm worker who worked as a barmaid. William was also a proficient violinist and Edward was soon taking lessons on both the violin and the piano. He began composing at an early age but remained largely self-taught in his future profession. He learnt German to help fulfil his dream of studying in Leipzig but his father could not afford to send him there. After school, he soon left his first job as a solicitor’s clerk to work at his father’s shop, selling musical scores and instruments. Meanwhile he also accompanied singers at the Worcester Glee Club and at the age of 22 became conductor of the attendants’ band at the Worcester & County Lunatic Asylum.

Getting his works published and performed was a struggle. In 1889 Elgar married the daughter of an army general, Caroline Roberts, eight years his senior and the couple moved to London to be to the centre of British musical life. Nevertheless, the struggle to make a living and a name for himself continued for Edward; the couple was by no means well-off and so they were soon obliged to move back to Worcestershire. Eventually however in the 1890s Elgar established what proved to become a long-standing relationship with the publishers Novello & Co. And his work for the great Midlands choral festivals began to be heard and

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appreciated. The prediction by his friend August Jaeger that his “time of universal recognition will come” was soon to be realised. In the final year of the decade his orchestral work, the Enigma Variations, received great acclaim and gained him renown at home and abroad. In 1904 he was knighted and in 1911 made a holder of the exclusive Order of Merit.

William Walton (1902-1983) William Turner Walton was born into a musical family in Oldham, Lancashire on 29 March 1902. His father Charles had studied music in Manchester under Charles Halle and became a church organist and a singing teacher; his mother Luisa had been a singer before marrying Charles. In 1912 Charles saw a newspaper advert for probationer choristers at Christ Church Cathedral School, Oxford and applied on his son’s behalf. After this initial help to William’s future, Charles almost spoilt it all by spending the train fare – which Louisa and William were due to use to get to Oxford for the entrance trials – in the local pub! The fare was borrowed from a local greengrocer but mother and son missed their planned train and arrived after the trials were over. However, a mother’s pleading won the school’s authorities over and William got through.

The boy thrived at the school and in Oxford – he never lived in the north again. He vowed that he must make himself interesting somehow “or when my voice breaks, I’ll be sent home to Oldham”. He started

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writing his own music and when the composer Sir Hubert Parry saw some of his early work, he said: “There’s a lot in this chap; you must keep your eye on him”. At the age of 16 he became an undergraduate of

Christ Church – said by some to be Oxford’s youngest since Henry VIII. He was introduced to contemporary music, including that by Stravinsky, Debussy and Sibelius and concentrated almost exclusively on his music studies, which unfortunately meant that he failed the Greek and algebra exams he needed to pass in order to graduate. So he was sent down from Oxford but luckily had by then encountered a fellow student, the writer Sacheverell Sitwell, who invited Walton to stay with him and his brother Osbert and

Osbert, Sacheverell & Edith Sitwell sister Edith in Chelsea. “I went for a few weeks and stayed about 15 years”, he later recalled. The Sitwells gave him not only a home but also an exciting cultural education: through them he studied with fellow composer Busoni and met Stravinsky, Gershwin, Berg and Schoenberg. It was again through the Sitwells that he made his first great success, with the appearance in 1923 of his musical accompaniment to some of Edith’s quirky poetry, named Façade. The work was certainly controversial – Noel Coward was so outraged by the avant-garde verses that he stormed out of the first public performance.

But Walton’s name was made. In 1929 his Viola Concerto was widely fêted. He met Elgar – their only encounter – at a Three Choirs Festival performance of the concerto in 1932 but the older composer didn’t share the general enthusiasm for the work. By then however Walton had moved on - his choral masterpiece Belshazzar’s Feast had been

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released upon the world to great acclaim the year before and Walton never looked back.

THE PERFORMERS David Stout – Baritone

A former Head Chorister of Westminster Abbey, David Stout studied Zoology at Durham University, sang with the choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge University and studied opera at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. David’s operatic roles include: Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro for both ENO and WNO; Kothner in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg for ENO; Leporello in Don Giovanni for Opéra Genève; Napoleon in War and Peace and Roucher in Andrea Chénier for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Marcello in La Bohème for Scottish Opera; Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore for Sankt Gallen; Angelotti in Tosca and Sancho Panza in Don Quichotte for the Bregenzer Festspiele; Rodrigo in Don Carlo for Grange Park Opera; and Count Douglas in Guglielmo Ratcliff for the Wexford Festival.

Discography includes: Haydn’s The Creation; Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Orchestra of the Swan; Wolf’s Eichendorff Lieder with Sholto Kynoch; Donner in Das Rheingold with the Hallé; Duc d’Albe for Opera Rara; and Jane Eyre with the English Symphony Orchestra. Forthcoming appearances include: Henry Kissinger in Nixon in China for WNO; Barnaba in La Gioconda for Grange Park Opera; and Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Oslo.

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Lewisham Choral Society is delighted to welcome David back with them, after he sang as bass soloist in their performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in March last year.

Forest Philharmonic Orchestra Under the direction of Artistic Director Mark Shanahan, Forest Philharmonic Orchestra has gained an impressive reputation for the high quality and vitality of its performances, and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014/15.

Originally the Leyton Municipal Orchestra, it was reconstituted under its current name in 1964 by its first Artistic Director, Frank Shipway. The first President was Zoltan Kodaly, with an illustrious list of patrons including Sir William Walton and soloists including pianists John Lill and Stephen Kovacevich.

Today, the orchestra continues to perform with top artists such as soprano Susan Bullock and pianists Stephen Hough and Ronan O’Hara, and gives opportunities to young musicians in the local Waltham Forest community through open rehearsals. The orchestra regularly performs with choral societies and in 2008 took part in the BBC 2 programme Maestro. As has been the case for the last 50 years, each string section is led by a professional player, whose input in rehearsals enables the orchestra to fulfil its aim of coaching the musicians of tomorrow while providing a forum for the leading amateur players of today.

In addition to its regular season at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, Forest Philharmonic performs within the borough and surrounding areas. The orchestra was invited by Waltham Forest Council to perform for HM The

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Queen for her visit to Walthamstow as part of her Diamond Jubilee, and in 2014 performed the live music accompaniment to Hitchcock’s film Blackmail as part of Beyond Barbican. Venturing further afield, the orchestra has also performed in the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, St John’s, Smith Square and St Albans Cathedral. Programmes cover a range of symphonic and smaller works from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky through to Elgar, Mahler and Strauss. The orchestra will relocate its season of concerts to Stoke Newington Assembly Hall from 2020 whilst Walthamstow Assembly Hall is closed for development work. More information including future concerts and opportunities to join the orchestra can be found at http://forestphilharmonic.org.uk.

James Orford – Organ James Orford is currently a Postgraduate Organ Student at the Royal Academy of Music having recently completed his undergraduate degree at the Academy with first class honours. He was the recipient of the Duchess of Gloucester’s Prize for Exemplary Studentship and has been awarded one of the Academy’s distinguished Bicentenary Scholarships. He has also held organ scholarships at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, King’s College, London and Truro Cathedral.

An active performer, James has given many recitals and concerts across the UK in a variety of notable venues, including St Paul’s, Westminster and Liverpool Cathedrals, several Cambridge college chapels, and the Royal Festival Hall. He has also performed at the St Albans, Edinburgh,

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London Handel, and Brandenburg Festivals, including performances of some of his own transcriptions for organ.

James works extensively as a choral accompanist and has collaborated with many professional and amateur choirs. Engagements as an accompanist have taken him across the globe to France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, the USA and Nigeria as well as to the Royal Festival Hall and other venues in the UK. His discography includes two critically acclaimed recordings with the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and a brand new release with King’s College, London.

Also an accomplished pianist, James regularly accompanies both instrumental and vocal soloists. He has performed with Susan Bullock CBE and Ian Bostridge CBE and won the accompanist prizes in the AESS Courtney Kenny and the John Kerr English Song Competitions and the Marjorie Thomas Art of Song Prize. He performed the Schumann Piano Concerto at Cadogan Hall and recently gave a world premiere performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall of his own two piano arrangement of Seek him that maketh the seven stars by Jonathan Dove.

Dan Ludford-Thomas – Conductor

Dan Ludford-Thomas enjoys a busy schedule as a conductor, chorus master and singing teacher in London. He directs a wide variety of choirs from professional ensembles, church and chamber choirs and large symphonic choruses. He performs regularly in major concert venues across the country including Birmingham Symphony Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. In 2012 he conducted over 300 singers and the Forest Philharmonic in a performance of Handel's Messiah in the Royal Festival Hall. In 2014 he conducted over 200

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singers in a performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Fairfield Halls, returning with the same forces to put on Mendelssohn's Elijah in 2016. In 2017 he conducted over 300 Singers and the London Mozart Players in a performance of Bach's B minor Mass at the Royal Festival Hall, returning with the London Mozart Players to conduct Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor in 2019.

Dan was the Chorus Master for the Choir of the Enlightenment, preparing them to sing Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Marin Alsop at the 2013 BBC Proms. He returned as Chorus Master for Marin, preparing the Choir of the Enlightenment to perform Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody and Triumphlied at the 2015 BBC Proms. In 2018, Dan returned to assist Marin, preparing the Choir of the Enlightenment for two performances of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the OAE, the second of which took place at the Royal Festival Hall and was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

In 2012 Dan worked as a choirmaster on BBC2’s The Choir: Sing While You Work and then became the Artistic Director of the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir, enjoying success as the co-producer and musical director for the Choir's 2015 Christmas Number One 'Bridge Over You'. He returned in 2013 to work on BBC2’s The Choir: Sing While You Work series 2 as choirmaster to Citibank Choir with whom he has continued as the Musical Director; highlights include performing at the Hammersmith Apollo and a series of concerts in New York. In 2015 Dan worked behind the scenes as choirmaster for The Choir: Gareth Malone's Great Choir Reunion.

Dan is the Musical Director of the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain with whom he has toured Spain (2016) and China (2018). He is also currently Head of Vocal Studies at Dulwich College, Musical

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Director of Concordia Chamber Choir, Musical Director of The Hackney Singers and Director of Music of Lewisham Choral Society.

Lewisham Choral Society

Lewisham Choral Society is one of London’s most popular community choirs, performing at local venues and major concert halls such as Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls, the Cadogan Hall and the Fairfield Halls. It is a large, lively community-based choir, with over two hundred singers. Founded in 1950 at Lewisham’s parish church as St Mary’s Singers, the choir has grown in size and ambition over the past 70 years and is now one of the largest performing groups in south London. The Society is a performing choir, staging four concerts a year and taking part in other choral singing events when opportunities arise. Under the professional direction of Dan Ludford-Thomas and his deputy Nico de Villiers, the choir has a

wide repertoire and performs music from the Renaissance to the 21st century, ranging from Tallis, Monteverdi, Bach and Mozart to Arvo Pärt, Cecilia McDowall and Eric Whitacre.

The choir would like to offer their special thanks to Nico de Villiers, their Assistant Director of Music, for his excellent support in preparation of the chorus for

this concert.

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Family links & a brief encounter

Morwenna Orton, a soprano in Lewisham Choral Society, has a direct family link with the story of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. As explained on page 8, her grandmother Lady Mary Trefusis, née Lygon, is probably the mystery dedicatee of the 13th of the variations. She was born in 1869, the daughter of the sixth Earl Beauchamp; the family home was Madresfield Court, near Malvern in Worcestershire. Elgar had been brought to Madresfield on his tenth birthday by his father who, as a piano tuner, travelled there twice a week from Worcester to tune the house’s pianos, spinets and chamber organ.

In 1879 Elgar Junior was appointed bandmaster of the Worcester and County Lunatic Asylum and travelled each week to Powick on the Madresfield estate to conduct the orchestra; whilst there he called into Madresfield Court to give the young Lady Mary piano lessons. She became a very keen musician and as a teenager organised her seven siblings – plus any otherwise unoccupied members of the household – into performing plays, concerts and mini-operas for her parents’ guests; sheet music came from Elgar’s father’s music shop. In 1895 she was appointed lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Teck and then to the Duchess’s daughter Princess May, being promoted in 1910 to Woman of the Bedchamber when the Princess became Queen Mary, wife of King George V.

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Lady Mary Trefusis appears towards the right end of the back row in this photo taken at the christening in 1923 of the future Lord Harewood, grandson of King George V and Queen Mary

Despite these responsibilities, she continued to encourage Elgar’s career, using her links with the court. And he wrote for – and conducted at – the local musical events she continued to organise. Wherever she went she organised choirs, at first in the village church and the nearby Industrial School for Girls. As her lady-in-waiting she accompanied Princess May, then Duchess of Cornwall and York, on a tour in 1901 of far-flung parts of the Empire on board the HMS Ophir. On one occasion during the voyage she formed the Ophir’s midshipmen into a choir and accompanied them on a harmonium.

In 1905 she married Henry Trefusis, younger son of the 20th Baron Clinton and moved to Porthgwidden, near Falmouth in Cornwall. The year before she had co-founded the Association of Competitive Festivals and in 1910 founded the competitive Cornwall Music Festival, which is still going strong to this day. In 1906 she was involved in the creation of the English Hymnal, of which composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was a co-editor. Her transcription of Green growth the holly, a Christmas carol attributed to Henry VIII, appeared in the original 1928 edition of the

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Oxford Book of Carols, also co-edited by Vaughan Williams. In 1923, she herself had edited her brother William's publication – by the ancient and exclusive bibliophile society, the Roxburghe Club – of Songs, Ballads and Instrumental Pieces Composed By King Henry the Eighth. Lady Mary’s arrangement of the King’s song Pastime with Good Company is still sung today.

She also had a keen interest in folk music and dance and in church music. She was the first Secretary of the English Folk Dance Society; Trefusis Hall in the society’s headquarters – Cecil Sharp House in Camden Town, London – is named after her. And when her granddaughter Morwenna was living in Ladywell, she came across a parish magazine from St Mark’s Lewisham; this contained an article written by Lady Mary, a luminary of the Royal Schools of Church Music, on music suitable for use in parish churches.

In contrast with the above, my own little story is of only a momentary connection with tonight’s other composer, William Walton…

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In 1977 London Mozart Players were celebrating their 28th season by inviting contemporary British composers each to choose the programme of a concert of their favourite music to present at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Malcolm Arnold and William Matthias appeared later in the series – and on 28 March, the day after his 75th birthday, William Walton undertook to conduct his Façade. Unfortunately however Sir William was too ill to direct the orchestra but did make a personal appearance in the audience. In fact he was brought into the hall in a wheelchair, which was placed right in front of where I was sitting. When the concert ended I decided that I simply couldn’t let the opportunity go to ask the great man if he would sign my programme. He kindly obliged but, to my embarrassment, when I turned round afterwards I realised

that a line of people also wanting an autograph had built up, stretching all the way up the stairs to the back of the hall! I made a hasty retreat but that first composer’s autograph which I had collected set me on the path of a new hobby which led me to obtain more composers’

signatures, collected at concerts and operas around the UK and abroad, from Reykjavik to Istanbul and Tashkent to Tórshavn… I have a total of 626 so far!

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WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN LEWISHAM CHORAL SOCIETY AS A SINGER?

Lewisham Choral Society offers a warm welcome to new joiners. We are open to singers in all voice parts and although we do not audition, the choir performs to a high standard and tackles some complex pieces which require a level of experience and musical ability. Rehearsals are relatively fast-paced, so may not suit complete beginners. We rehearse on Monday evenings from 8 to 10 at St Laurence’s Church, 37 Bromley Road, Catford, SE6 2TS: five minutes’ walk from Catford and Catford Bridge stations; buses 47, 54, 136, 171, 199 and 208 stop outside. Parking is relatively easy on nearby residential streets and there is limited parking within the church grounds.

Rehearsals of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 next spring start on Monday 6 January and continue until the concert on 18 March. We shall schedule additional rehearsals as and when necessary. Singers are welcome to join as new members on 6, 13 or 20 January.

Programme notes by Martin Bull Design of programme cover, concert posters and flyers by Ben Leslie

No flash photography, audio or video recording please

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Lewisham Choral Society, Registered Charity Number 1040570 acknowledges the support of the London Borough of Lewisham and is affiliated to Making

Music

Future Concerts

Saturday 21 December, 7.30 pm

Christmas Concert

featuring the premiere of In My Way by local composer Kate Whitley, commissioned in memory of LCS alto Miriam McLeod

St Mary’s Church, Lewisham, SE13 6LE

Visit our website for updates:www.lewishamchoralsociety.org.uk

Wednesday 18 March 2020, 7.30 pm

Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610

His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts

Queen Elizabeth Hall – Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX