New "Variations on a Theme by Purcell"

Synopsis

The year 2002 marked the 10th anniversary of BBC Music Magazine, and to commemorate the occasion, the magazine’s editor asked the British composer Colin Matthews to coordinate a bold commissioning idea: a set of seven orchestral variations on a theme by Henry Purcell, a tune entitled “Hail, Bright Cecilia.”

The resulting suite, called “Bright Cecilia Variations,” had its premiere on today’s date in 2002 at a “Last Night of the Proms” concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with the BBC Symphony led by its American conductor, Leonard Slatkin.

This is Colin Matthew’s orchestration of the Purcell theme, which was followed by Matthew’s original variation, and in turn by six other variations. These were written by three additional British composers, namely Judith Weir, David Sawer and Anthony Payne, plus one each by the Danish composer Poul Ruders, the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg, and the American Michael Torke.

Of his variation, Torke had this to say: “I wanted to create almost a jungle frenzy, by having four drummers from the percussion section playing tom-toms, and shadowing those rhythmic beatings with melodic woodwind and brass fragments all drawn from the original theme… The result is vigorous, which I hope will help express one of the notions I believe is vitally important in classical music.”

More detailed background and program notes to the Variations can be found in the November 2002, issue of BBC Music magazine (Vol. 11, no. 3), which also contained premiere CD recording of the work.

Music Played in Today's Program

Colin Matthews (b. 1946) Bright Cecilia Variation BBC Philharmonic; Gianandrea Noseda, cond. BBC Music Vol. 11, no. 3

On This Day

Births

• 1737 - Austrian composer Johann Michael Haydn, in Rohrau; He was the younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn (b. 1732);

• 1760 - Italian composer Luigi Cherubini, in Florence (although August 14 is occasionally cited as his birthdate);

• 1910 - American composer and eminent theatrical conductor Lehman Engel, in Jackson, Miss.;

• 1910 - Swiss composer Rolf Liebermann, in Zurich;

Premieres

• 1854 - Bruckner: Mass in Bb ("Missa Solemnis") in St. Florian, Austria;

• 1952 - Frank Martin: Concerto for Harpsichord, in Venice;

• 1954 - Britten: opera "The Turn of the Screw," in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice;

• 1968 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 12, in Moscow, by the Beethoven Quartet;

• 1978 - Barber: Third Essay for Orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta;

• 1994 - Richard Danielpour: Cello Concerto, commissioned and performed by San Francisco Symphony conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, with soloist Yo-Yo Ma;

• 1996 - Stockhausen: "Freitag aus Licht" (Friday from Light), at the Leipzig Opera;

• 1997 - Saariaho: "Graal Théâtre" (chamber version), in Helsinki, by the Avanti Ensemble and violinist John Storgards.

• 2002 - David Amram: Flute Concerto ("Giants of the Night"), in New Orleans by the Louisiana Philharmonic conducted by Klauspeter Seibel, with James Galway the soloist;

• 2002 - Colin Matthews, Judith Weir, Poul Ruders, David Sower, Michael Torke, Anthony Payne, and Magnus Linberg: "Bright Cecilia: Variations on a Theme by Purcell," at Royal Albert Hall in London, with the BBC Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting; This set of orchestral variations on a Purcell theme was commissioned by BBC Music magazine to celebrate its 10th anniversary;

Others

• 1731 - J.S. Bach performs organ recitals in Dresden on Sept. 14-21;

• 1741 - Handel finishes scoring his famous oratorio, "Messiah," begun on August 22 (The entire work was composed in a period of 24 days); These dates are according to the Julian "Old Style" calendar (Gregorian dates: Sept 2 to Sept. 25);

• 1914 - W. C. Handy copyrights his most famous song, "The St. Louis Blues";

• 1973 - The Philadelphia Orchestra gives a concert in Beijing, the first American orchestra to perform in Red China; Eugene Ormandy conducts symphonies by Mozart (No. 35), Brahms (No. 1) and the American composer Roy Harris (No. 3).