The Wivelscombe Quartet
Featuring: Lucy McIlwraith (Mezzo Soprano)

Date: 14th August 2024
Place: St Andrews Minster
Royal Parade, Plymouth
Time: 1300-1400

The St Andrews lunchtime recitals programme is free, informal, and fun. Drop in and try it out!

Funiculì, Funiculà - (Denza / arr. Thorp)

Allegro, Quartet Op 76 No 3 'Kaiser' - (Haydn)
Jinks, The dripping quartet - (Atkinson)

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and the White - (Tennyson, Quilter / arr. Coath)
Urlicht - (Mahler, Trad.  / arr. Coath)

Jorge Adios - (Piazzolla / arr. del Soldà)
Muerte del Angel - (Piazzola / arr. del Soldà)

Let’s do it - (Porter / arr. Thorp)
O sole mio - (Capua / arr. Thorp)

Sea Fever  -  (Masefield, Ireland / arr. Coath)
My baby just cares for me - (Donaldson, Kahn / arr. Simone, Coath)

Funiculì, Funiculà is a song from 1880 by Luigi Denza with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco. It was written, perhaps as a joke, to commemorate the opening of the first cable railway (funicular) on Mount Vesuvius. It was presented at the Piedigrotta Song Writing festival in Naples the same year and became almost instantly popular in Italy and abroad - the sheet music sold over a million copies in the first year. Strauss (Richard) and Rimsky-Korsakov were both convinced it was a traditional Neapolitan folk song and incorporated it into their compositions - in Strauss's case this resulted in a lawsuit and Denza being paid royalties.

The words are a load of light-hearted nonsense about an unnamed man romantically pursuing his innamorata Nannina up and down the mountain.

Allegro 1st Mvt - Quartet Op 76 No 3 'Kaiser' The set of six String Quartets, Op. 76 was the last set composed by Haydn (the father of the string quartet) in 1797 or 1798. At the time Haydn was employed at the court of Prince Nicolaus Esterházy II and was also working on the oratorio 'The Creation'.

The Op. 76 quartets are among Haydn's most ambitious and sophisticated chamber works. The third quartet in the set is known as the 'Emperor' or 'Kaiser' because the second movement is based on the hymn tune Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (God save Francis the Emperor).  This was apparently written by Haydn and is now best known as the German national anthem. 

We are playing only the Allegro (first movement) which has a random Scottish dance in it.

Jinks - The Dripping Quartet The line-up of Wivelscombe Quartet players isn't fixed and Ruth Atkinson is a founder member of the quartet on cello. This short movement, played entirely pizzicato, was written by Ruth to evoke the incessant drip of a troublesome tap and features a watery ostinato of twos against threes. 

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal is a poem by Tennyson in a setting by Roger Quilter. It has fourteen iambic lines, like a sonnet, but without the usual sonnet rhyming scheme, and was first published in 1847 as one section of a multi-part work 'The Princess: A Medley'.  The  middle section of the poem is not in the sung version.

The words of the poem, while they pass for softly romantic to 21st century ears, are about as racy as a Victorian poet could get away with. They include a reference to the myth of Danaë, an ancient Greek princess who was locked away in a prison by her father. The King had been warned by the Delphic oracle that he would be killed by any son born to her. According to the historian Appollodorus she was visited in her prison by Zeus in the form of a shower of golden stars (meteors) and as a result gave birth to the hero Perseus.

The King threw both Perseus and Danaë into the sea - but it didn't do any good as they both survived - and Perseus unknowingly bumped in to his grandfather many years later at a sporting event and fulfilled the prophesy by killing him, quite by accident, with a badly aimed discus. 

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up
And slips into the bosom of the lake
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me

Urlicht was written in 1892 or 1893 and uses a traditional text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn a collection of German folk poems. The Urlicht (primordial light) of the title is the light of creation - and of Heaven, the Red Rose in the first line is likely to refer to the blood of Christ, and the whole thing is more like a prayer than a poem. The song has a free musical structure, barely two bars in a row have the same time signature, with some elements of a church Chorale and some elements more like Lieder.

The song became part of Mahler's plan for his 2nd symphony which took more than a decade to come together with this song used as the 4th movement. The Symphony was not performed until 1901. The work as a whole deals with resurrection and the finale which follows this song was inspired by music Mahler heard at the funeral of his friend and mentor Hans von Bülow.

Urlicht
O Röschen rot
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein
Je lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein

Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg
Da kam ein Engellein und wollt mich abweisen
Ach nein ich liess mich nicht abweisen
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben
Wird leuchten mir bis an das ewig selig Leben

Primordial light
O tiny red rose
Man lies in the greatest need
Man lies in profound pain
I would rather that I was in heaven

Then I came upon a broad path
And an angel came to turn me away from it
Ah no! I refused to be  diverted
I am from God and to God I will return
Dear God will give me light
That will guide my way to blessed eternal life

Two Piazzola Tangos. Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was a composer, arranger and virtuoso Bandoneon player (a type of accordion). He was the founder of the nuevo tango style incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. At one point in his life Piazzola thought that his future would be in classical composition and became a student of the famed teacher and composer Nadia Boulanger in Paris - Boulanger encouraged him to explore new compositional processes but definitely not to abandon Tango.

We have chosen two tangos that are in sharply contrasting styles; the first mellow, contemplative, and slightly elegiac; the second fiery and driven by a relentless internal impetus.

Let's Do It  was written in 1928 by Cole Porter. It was introduced in the musical 'Paris' in the same year sung by the star of the show Irène Bordoni. 

Porter is careful to make clear that the 'it' referred to in the title is 'falling in love' so as not to offend anyone too much - but no one was fooled then and certainly not now. The words have been re-written endlessly to include references to contemporary culture, but also to update some unfortunate vocabulary choices.

The arranger playfully quotes Schubert's Trout Quintet - although this is not one of the creatures in the lyrics!

O Sole Mio was, for nearly 75 years after its publication, attributed to Eduardo di Capua alone. Capua had apparently composed it in April 1898 while touring with his father's band. It turned out, however, that di Capua had in fact bought a set of tunes, including this one, from another musician, Alfredo Mazzucchi, in the preceding year. This led to Mazzucchi's daughter lodging a declaration with Italy's Office of Literary, Artistic and Scientific Property to have her father recognised as co-composer of this and a number of other songs.

Elvis Presley had new words written for the tune, and a worldwide hit with the resulting 'It's Now or Never'. In concerts Elvis would explain the origins of the song and have one of his support singers Sherrill Nielsen perform a few lines of the original Neapolitan version.

The song's title means (roughly) 'My Own Sun' and the words compare the light from the face of the writer's beloved to the sun coming out after a storm.

Sea Fever is a poem by John Masefield first published in 1902 and our arrangement is based on the setting by John Ireland written in 1913.  The opening lines are among the best known in English literature - much misquoted and parodied, most famously by Spike Milligan.

Masefield was a sailor, homeless wanderer, barkeeper, carpet factory worker, bee-keeper, and poet laureate.

John Ireland's setting has elements of English folk song, as you might expect, but there are echoes of Debussy reflecting influences from mainland Europe and musical 'Impressionism' (a term that Debussy hated and rejected).

My Baby Just Cares for Me was written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn for the film Whoopee! (1930) starring the immensely successful comedian Eddie Cantor. It has been recorded by a wide range of artists including Bing Crosby, George Michael, and Michael Bublé.

However the song started its slow rise to real fame when it was recorded by Nina Simone in 1957 , a version which was used thirty years later in an advert for Chanel No 5. As a result of the advert, Simone's version reached number 5 in the UK charts and was also featured in a hugely popular Aardman animation. All this led to a rediscovery of Simone, who was living and working in Europe in relative obscurity, and a belated appreciation of her artistry and activism.

Simone's version is unmistakable. It features her re-written lyrics, characteristic classical-crossover piano style, and a languid shuffle beat accentuated by syncopated brush drumming.