Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 ‘Pastoral’

(Soprano – Aileen Thomson)

-----------------------------------Interval (15 mins) -----------------------------------

The Battle of the Somme Film

Music by Laura Rossi

Ben Palmer, Conductor

Victoria Gill, Leader

The Battle of the Somme:

The IWM 1916 silent film by Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, with a 2006 score by Laura Rossi

The Battle of the Somme was one of the most lethal battles in human history. Between the 1st July and 18th November 1916, three million soldiers clashed on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in Northern France, of which a third were injured or killed. Despite the mass slaughter, the result was inconclusive, and the First World War continued for nearly two more years until it finally ground to a halt on the 11th November 1918. Importantly, it was also the first instance of armed combat to be filmed and widely circulated back in the UK, free from the pomp of the propaganda films that had been showing until then. The Battle of the Somme (1916) remains a landmark in the history of non-fiction cinema, both as the first feature-length film made about a war and as a hugely influential factor in public perception of life on the Western Front. The footage, taken by British official cinematographers Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, constitutes some of the most iconic imagery of the battle and of the war in general. It ranges from benign scenes of troops smiling in intrigue and amusement at the cameras to controversial depictions of dead and wounded soldiers. Some of the most striking shots are of the colossal preliminary bombardment from the first day of battle: the single bloodiest day in British military history. Reports of gasps and shouts at early viewings show just how new and shocking this depiction of the cost of war was to audiences at the time. Over half the population saw the film, with twenty million tickets sold in the first two months alone: a box-office record that wasn’t beaten until Star Wars in 1977.

The Somme100 Film project has been running since July 2016, initiated to mark the centenary of the battle. By July 2017, there will have been 100 screenings of the historic film in countries ranging from the UK, France, and the Netherlands to Canada and New Zealand. Every performance features a soundtrack performed live by a wide variety of amateur, youth, and professional orchestras. The score, by British composer Laura Rossi, was first commissioned by the Imperial War Museum in 2006 for the ninetieth anniversary viewing in the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra. During her research for composing the score, Rossi discovered that her Great uncle, Fred Ainge, was involved in the battle as a stretcher bearer in the 29th Division on the first day of fighting. During her research for composing the score she traced her great uncle’s footsteps through his diaries, and revisited the sites of the battlefields. Her score is a sensitive response to scenes of great poignancy and even horror, and, alongside Rossi’s own distinctive voice, shows the subtle influence of the great wartime composers, such as Vaughan Williams.

© John Warner

The Battle of the Somme 1916 Film Credits: Sponsor - War Office; Production Company - British Topical Committee for War Films Producer - William F. Jury; Cameramen - Geoffrey H. Malins and J.B. McDowell Editors - Charles Urban and Geoffrey H. Malins; Restoration Credits Restoration by Dragon; Supervised by David Walsh, Imperial War Museums (IWM) Film with click track created with the generous assistance of Mike Eden, Matthew Lee and The Film Archive, IWM.

Part of Somme100 FILM - The Battle of the Somme Centenary Tour Somme100 FILM is an international project, working with IWM as part of the First World War Centenary Partnership to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. It aims to bring together 100 live orchestral performances of the iconic 1916 film The Battle of the Somme with composer Laura Rossi’s acclaimed score, commissioned by the Imperial War Museums.

Somme100 FILM team: Artistic Director – Laura Rossi Project Manager – Neill Quinton Producer – Melanie Crompton Education Consultant – Ellen Thomson PR Consultant – Jane Nicolson, Arts PR Arts administrator – Bright Ivy Tour Projectionist/ film technician – Mike Eden Web design – Mike Outram Graphic Designer – Isobel Stuart Music commissioned with the generous support of The Eric Anker-Petersen Charity. Thanks to the Imperial War Museums for permitting use of The Battle of the Somme film and for all their support. www.iwm.org.uk Thanks to Faber Music for supporting the tour. Thanks to Arts Council of England for supporting the Centenary tour. www.artscouncil.org.uk

About IWM’s First World War Centenary Partnership: IWM is leading the First World War Centenary Partnership, a network of local, regional and international cultural and educational organisations. Together, the Partnership is presenting a vibrant programme of cultural events, activities and digital platforms, enabling millions of people across the world to discover more about life in the First World War. IWM established the First World War Centenary Partnership in 2010. The founding ambition for the Partnership was that its members would collectively organise and present a vibrant, diverse and far-reaching programme to reflect how people want to remember, commemorate and debate the conflict in their own communities, in a way that is meaningful for them. For more information about First World War Centenary Partnership activities visit www.1914.org

Vaughan Williams:

A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3)

The First World War left a profound impression on Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). He had joined up in 1914 when war broke out, despite being 42 years-old (old for a soldier). He drove ambulance wagons in France and Greece as a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, before being commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1917, and saw action in France in 1918. As was the case for the other 42 million soldiers who took part, the war inevitably left its emotional mark on him. One of a number of friends and colleagues who Vaughan Williams lost in the conflict was Oxford-educated George Butterworth, who was shot by a sniper on the Somme on 5 August 1916.

The Third Symphony, entitled A Pastoral Symphony by the composer, received a relatively prickly reception following its premiere on 16 January 1922 (conducted by Sir Adrian Boult). Its reserved, introverted character, at a time when the likes of Stravinsky and Richard Strauss were reigning supreme on the continent, prompted the composer Peter Warlock to describe it famously as ‘all just a little too much like a cow looking over a gate’. For decades, the symphony’s quiet and profound beauty was dismissed as dull and out-dated, a legacy that is still not entirely absent from its reception. However, Vaughan Williams’ idea of the pastoral was not as naïve as has so often been portrayed; his experience of war made sure of that. He described the symphony as follows:

It’s really wartime music — a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night in the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset. It’s not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted.

This highly revealing quotation clarifies how, if the work is to be associated with

landscape, it is not the rolling hills of Suffolk or some quiet corner of the Cotswolds. The title of the symphony, which must in part be responsible for the misguided reception, may well have been meant semi-ironically. Vaughan Williams seems to adopt the somewhat romantic folk-song-inspired musical language of his pre-War works to depict pastoral scenes destroyed and churned-up into bloody battlefields. In this light, the elusive harmonies of the first movement, the last-post-esque trumpet cadenza in the second (supposedly inspired by overhearing a soldier practising his bugle), the crooked rhythms of the scherzo, and the wordless soprano lament of the finale come across far more elegiac than they might seem at first.

© John Warner

Ben Palmer Conductor From the 2017/18 season, Ben Palmer is Chief

Conductor of the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck. In February 2017 he celebrated ten years as Artistic Director of OSP (the Orchestra of St Paul's), which, under his leadership, has established itself as one of London’s most dynamic and versatile chamber orchestras. Acclaimed for his innovative and imaginative programming, he is in great demand as a guest conductor, both in the UK and abroad. He has made a speciality of conducting films live to screen, with performances of Psycho, Casablanca, Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, Neil Brand’s score for

Hitchcock’s The Lodger, Peter and the Wolf, The Battle of the Somme, and The Snowman, in venues including the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall and the Roundhouse. Current and future film with orchestra projects include Home Alone at Sage Gateshead with Royal Northern Sinfonia, The Gold Rush with the London Mozart Players, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with OSP in the Royal Festival Hall, a triple bill of Chaplin Mutual Comedies at the Proms at St Jude’s, and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Recent guest conducting engagements include the BBC Singers, Aurora Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, Southern Sinfonia, the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin, the Orquestra Clássica do Sul, the Kazakh State Chamber Orchestra “Academy of Soloists”, the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra, and Oxford University Orchestra. As well as conducting his own concerts with the Royal College of Music Philharmonic and the period-instrument RCM Classical Orchestra, he is frequently invited to prepare the RCM Symphony Orchestra for conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Sir Roger Norrington, Jac van Steen, Maxim Vengarov, John Wilson and Thomas Zehetmair. He has worked closely with Norrington since 2011, acting as his assistant conductor for concerts, tours and recordings, and at the BBC Proms. Other orchestras he has conducted include the Gabrieli Consort & Players and Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra (whilst acting as assistant to Paul McCreesh), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and Britten Sinfonia.

His recordings include music by Antonio Lotti with OSP and chamber choir The Syred Consort (selected as BBC Radio 3 Record Review’s ‘Disc of the Week’, and chosen as one of Presto Classical’s Top Ten CDs of 2016), a disc of music for strings with OSP (premiere recordings of Elgar, Malcolm Arnold and Robert Simpson), the DVD/Blu-ray recording of Neil Brand’s score for Hitchcock’s The Lodger for The Criterion Collection, and a recording of his own work, Bach Dreams, with the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin on the Neue Meister label.

In addition to his work as a conductor, he is in great demand as a composer, arranger and orchestrator. A trumpeter and composer by training, he studied music at the University of Birmingham, graduating with first class honours in 2003, staying on at Birmingham to

complete an MPhil in composition with Vic Hoyland, before moving to London in 2005 to study at the Royal Academy of Music with composer Simon Bainbridge. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) earlier this month, and is more than halfway through his lifetime ambition to conduct all 107 Haydn symphonies. www.benpalmer.net • @ConductorBen (Photo – Andy Staples Phototography)

Victoria Gill Leader Victoria Gill was born in North London in

1996. She began learning the violin at the age of three, and took up the piano at the age of six. Her first violin teachers were Hannah Biss and Felicity Lipman. In 2008, Victoria became a pupil at The Purcell School where she held a scholarship, and studied the violin under Tony Cucchiara.

Victoria has partaken and won prizes in the North London Music Festival. She has performed at several concerts and at external venues during her school years, including St. Alban’s Abbey and the Royal Festival Hall, and has also performed with her string quartet at venues such as St Martin-in-the-Fields, Wigmore Hall and St James’ Palace. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra for three years, having performed at numerous venues such as Buckingham Palace and the BBC Proms. She has recently had masterclasses from Máté Szűcs, Markus Däunert and Vadim Repin, and is currently an apprentice of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, having this year performed with Martha Argerich and Janine Jansen.

Victoria is currently an undergraduate, studying Music at Christ Church, Oxford, and is taking violin lessons from Yossi Zivoni. (Photo – Hattie Morrison)

Upcoming concerts in Oxford:

Oxford University Wind Orchestra & Oxford University Brass Band

Saturday 27th May, 8pm, University Church

Philip Sparke – The Year of the Dragon Eric Ball – Devon Fantasy

Rimsky-Korsakov – Trombone Concerto

Soloist: Rebecca Swanson; Conductors: Chloe Rooke & Myrddin Rees Davies

Oxford University Sinfonietta

Friday 2nd June, 8pm University Church

Ravel – Tombeau de Couperin; Pärt – Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten; Beethoven – Symphony No. 1

Conductor: Tom Fetherstonhaugh

Oxford University String Ensemble Saturday 3rd June, 8pm

University Church

Bruckner – Adagio for Strings Fuchs – Serenade No.1 in D major

Bloch – Concerto Grosso No.1

Conductor – Kieran Lamb

Oxford University Philharmonia

Wednesday 7th June, 8pm Sheldonian Theatre

Stravinsky – Funeral Song Rachmaninov – Symphony No. 1

Conductor – Hannah Schneider

Oxford Millennium Orchestra

Saturday 10th June, 8pm Sheldonian Theatre

Helios Overture; Hansel & Gretel Overture; Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld;

Beethoven – Symphony No. 5

Conductor – David O’Neill

St. Peter's Chamber Orchestra Monday 12th June, 8pm

Church of St. John the Evangelist

Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Conductor: John Warner

Oxford University Chorus Wednesday 14th June, 8pm

Sheldonian Theatre

Handel's 'Zadok the Priest' and other Coronation Anthems

Vivaldi's 'Gloria'

Conductor – Joe Davies

Oxford University Chamber Orchestra

Saturday 17th June, 8pm University Church

Mendelssohn – Ruy Blas Overture Schumann – Symphony No. 4

Sibelius – Symphony No. 5

Conductor – Ben Palmer

OUO Michaelmas Term Concert Thursday 9th November, 8pm, Sheldonian Theatre

Prokofiev – Symphony No. 5

Conductor – Natalia Luis-Bassa

The Oxford University Orchestra

Ben Palmer Conductor Victoria Gill Leader

First Violin Bass Trumpet Rachael Ballard Richard English † Alex Dobson Petrichor Bharali Chris Xuereb Michael Dunne Ellen Dunn Matt Ward † Tom Fetherstonhaugh Victoria Gill † Flute/Piccolo Shun Hioki Rosie Arnell Trombone Heather Jeffery Ellie Blamires * Alex East Evangeline Kozitza Eleanor Roda ‡ Will Foster † Ed Hathaway Oboe/Cor Anglais Second Violin Chloe Barnes *‡ Tuba Maria Bates Charlotte Hill Robert Ham David Favara Chris Pegrum Athena Hawksley-Walker † Rosy Hall Piano/Celeste Johanna von Kietzell Clarinet David Palmer Yuki Kimura Miranda Davies Imogen Lawler Joshua Grubb * Oliver Lunt Aaron Hartnell-Booth ‡ Harp Hannah Schneider Imogen Emmett Rosie von Spreckelsen Bassoon Viola Patrick Bolton ‡ Conor Carleton James Branchflower * Timpani/Percussion Daniel Fletcher Cameron Alsop Georgia Russell † Darius Latham-Koenig Monika Papayova Horn Oliver Nelson † Francesca Di Lorenzo John Warner Jennifer Gibbs * ‘Cello Alaina Oltrogge Oliver Bealby-Wright Bradley Young ‡ Soprano Ruth Friedlander Aileen Thomson Sarah Jenkinson Angus McCall † Hannah Merchant † section leader * principal Vaughan Williams Poppy Miller ‡ principal Battle of the Somme Katie Schulz Andrew Snell

Friends of the Oxford University Orchestra

Musical Patrons Sponsors Ian Bostridge Dr Stuart Baran Steven Isserlis Kath Horner

Midori Dr & Dr M. Jenkinson Charlotte Woolley

Benefactors Anonymous in memory of Matt Carver, Friends

1986-2008 Clare Taylor George Teal

This ensemble provides an opportunity for the University’s top musicians to play challenging and exciting repertoire with exceptional professional conductors and soloists. Ticket sales alone are unable to cover the cost of any concert, so it is thanks to the generous support of the University’s Music Faculty, corporate sponsors, and people like you we are able to continue to put on these ambitious concerts. With a small donation you could help support us in this activity.

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The Oxford University Orchestra Committee Hannah Merchant Manager Angus McCall Strings Rep Robert Ham Treasurer Chloe Barnes Woodwind Rep Victoria Gill Secretary & Leader Matt Ward Brass Rep Johanna von Kietzell Publicity Oli Nelson Percussion Rep John Warner Publicity & Social Sec. Joshua Grubb Webmaster

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We would like to thank:

David O’Neill, James Longstaffe and Neil Farrow, for taking rehearsals;

The Newman Trust, Wesley Memorial Church, and the Faculty of Music, for rehearsal venues;

The Faculty of Music, Andrew Ker, Chris Fletcher-Campbell, and Oxford Philharmonica for use of instruments;

Jemini Flowers;

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Jason Sengel for poster design;

Maggie Burge and Claire Sampson at the Sheldonian Theatre;

Craig and IsisAV