Photo: 123RF
This New Zealand Symphony Orchestra concert features music by Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly and Englishman George Butterworth, who both died during the 1916 Battle of the Somme. And a rare performance of Ross Harris' 'Symphony No 2' featuring soprano Madeleine Pierard.
Madeleine Pierard (soprano), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich
Frederick KELLY: Elegy for Strings, In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke's grave Photo: Kate Kennedy
Frederick Septimus Kelly came from a wealthy Sydney family, and was educated in England at Eton and Oxford. He was gifted as an athlete, as well as musically, and won an Olympic gold medal in 1908, rowing for England, so he seemed destined for a rich and fulfilling life. When war broke out, he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, with his friends, including the poet Rupert Brooke. Brooke died from septicaemia as they were on the way to Gallipoli, and Kelly began his In memoriam Rupert Brooke a matter of days later, after landing at Gallipoli. He finished the work in hospital in Alexandria, recovering from wounds.
Kelly was present at the burial of Brooke, in the dead of night on the island of Skyros, and when he had finished the work, he said he felt that as well as the poet’s character, it suggested the Greek surroundings, and also the rustling of the olive tree which bends over his grave. Kelly was wounded twice at Gallipoli, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He was killed in action during the last phase of the battle of the Somme at Beaucourt-sur-Ancre on 13 November 1916. He was 35.
Strings of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich
Recorded 21 April 2016, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
George BUTTERWORTH: A Shropshire Lad
English pastoral scene Photo: Robin Webster CC by 2.0
The English composer George Butterworth went to Eton and Oxford and enlisted soon after the outbreak of war. Butterworth didn’t write a great deal of music, and destroyed many of his works in case he didn’t return and have the chance to revise them. Among the works that survived, his settings of A E Houseman’s poems from A Shropshire Lad are among the most popular.
The poems were not about the Great War – they were written about twenty years earlier. But their themes of loss and the early deaths of young men resonated perfectly with the grief caused by the war.
Butterworth was one of many composers who were inspired by the melancholy nostalgia for a more rural England, and in 1911 and 1912 he set eleven of the sixty-three poems. This Rhapsody is a kind of orchestral summary or postlude, quoting from two of the songs: Loveliest of Trees and With Rue my Heart is Laden.
George Butterworth died in the Battle of the Somme, shot by a sniper in August 1916.
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich.
Recorded 21 April 2016, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
Ross HARRIS: Symphony No 2
Ross Harris Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust
The music of Ross Harris and the poetry of Vincent O’Sullivan have often complemented each other over the last ten years or so.
Several of their collaborations include stories from the First World War, including this 'Symphony No 2'.
Harris and O’Sullivan wanted the work to express the feelings of regret and loss of that war, without any patriotism or flag-waving. So they chose to tighten the focus from the mass-slaughter down to one particular death, and an inglorious one at that.
The story is the true one of a young New Zealand soldier who deserted, and was found living with a French woman. He was court-martialled for desertion and shot.
The eight poems are in the voices of both the soldier and the young woman, and in Vincent O’Sullivan’s words, tell of “hopeless freedom, fated love … and the certainty of loss”.
Madeleine Pierard Photo: Robert Cato
The work was written specifically for Madeleine Pierard, and she gave its première performance with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in 2006.
'Symphony No 2' was the winner of the 2006 SOUNZ Contemporary Award.
Recorded 21 April 2016, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
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