Forsyth’s Viola Concerto

When Forsyth’s Viola Concerto in G minor was first performed at the Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts on 12 September 1903 it represented a significant development – possibly the first full-blown concerto for viola by a British composer. It is interesting that when it was published in 1904, by Schott of Mainz, the title was given in French and the piano reduction was by the composer John Ireland – this was presumably Forsyth offering a paid job to supplement Ireland’s meagre income as a church organist. The first performance was played by the violist Émile Férir, to whom the published score is dedicated (‘à son ami Férir’). It was repeated by Dan Godfrey at Bournemouth on 28 March 1907, when the soloist was the Dutchman Siegfried Wertheim, Tertis’s successor as the first viola of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. Yet Tertis ignored it.

It is interesting to see the status of solo viola players before Tertis came on the scene. At the first performance Tertis would have been the first viola in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, yet he does not mention the work. This reinforces the impression that Tertis appears not to have related to this concerto: he does not include it in his list of British viola concertos in his autobiography. Soon afterwards Férir went to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he appeared as a soloist on twenty-four occasions between 1903 and 1918, and in 1912 he appeared with the Boston Symphony as soloist in Forsyth’s Chanson Celtique. When Sir Henry Wood conducted at the Hollywood Bowl in 1926, he tells us, he again encountered Férir.

Forsyth is certainly a master of the singing line, and was clearly writing for a player whose instrumental timbre was known to him. The concerto’s unusual introduction is notable for the solo viola’s questionings and contrasting assertive double-stoppings (appassionato), followed by wistful musings (lento dolce), all of which is eventually elaborated into a long statement. An orchestral tutti announces another idea without the soloist, but there is a pause before we reach the movement proper with the soloist’s ever-extended lyrical line, propelled forward by oft-repeated triplets, and soon repeated by the orchestra.

The slow movement is very simple. It opens portentously with a trumpet call, soon repeated by horns, before the soloist sings its elegiac tune elaborated over forty-six bars, this mood being underlined by the ensuing cor anglais. The viola returns more passionately with new material and over a broad span builds to a climax when the orchestra sings out the opening theme. The long closing viola cantilena returns us to the elegiac mood and the vision fades as if in a dream.

The finale opens with much orchestral huffing and puffing, in no way typical of the lyrical movement that follows which is constructed from a jerky dotted idea and a lovely tune that might have been written by Dvorák. The soloist is sometimes emphatic with much double-stopping, especially towards the end, but the overall impression of good humour remains.

from notes by Lewis Foreman © 2005

Composer Ruth Gipps was born in Bexhill-on-Sea, England in 1921. Gipps’ family was very musical and her mother was the principal of the Bexhill School of Music.

Gipps was considered a child prodigy. She won competitions where she was the youngest participant by far, and had her first composition bought by a publishing house when she was 8 years old. She entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 16 and studied oboe, piano, and composition. At age 26 she became the youngest British woman to receive a doctorate in music.

At age 33 a shoulder injury ended her performance career and Gipps decided to focus on composition and conducting. These days, there is a small but growing number of women on the podium, when Gipps began conducting she was one of very few and faced harsh criticism from her peers. Gipps used this as a driving force to prove herself through her work, and it was probably the reason she founded so many groups that created performing opportunities for living composers and young professional musicians. She founded the London Repertoire Orchestra in 1955 as an opportunity for young professional musicians to become exposed to a wide range of music. She founded the Chanticleer Orchestra in 1961, a professional ensemble that included a work by a living composer in each of its programs, often a premiere performance. Later in her life, she served as chairwoman of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain.

Gipps composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos, and numerous chamber and choral works.

Cecil Forsyth was an English composer who studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Music in London, England. He also played the viola in various London orchestras.

He had a bit of success with his compositions including the Viola Concerto in G minor (which was premiered at the Proms in 1903 with Émile Férir as soloist and recorded in 2004 by Lawrence Power on the Hyperion label), the operas Westward Ho! and Cinderella, the “choral ballad” Tinker, Tailor, and a piece for viola and piano called Chanson celtique.

While he and his compositions are well known amongst viola players for giving their instrument the opportunity to shine, he is best known as an author. In 1914 he published a book titled Orchestration.

Forsyth described the history and inner workings of orchestral instruments as well as techniques and what is considered “playable” by musicians. The book is described as “an unparalleled insight into the inner working of an orchestra–a vivid impression of what it is like to be a violinist, clarinetist, trombonist, or other orchestral player.”

Christos Hatzis was the easy choice when it came to picking someone to write a piece in honour of flute emeritus Randi Nelson. His composition Departures breathes life into the instrument that Randi loved so much and she was thrilled when the SSO performed the work in 2019. The SSO is delighted to work with Hatzis and to give the world premiere of his new work Up to Her Waist in Lupins.

“I feel strongly that with my music, I am trying to force a tiny opening in the clouds that will allow His Light to shine through. At best, I am a follower, not a master, and my MASTER holds the patterns and patents of my being and work. So, in the best of circumstances, I can only think of myself as an imitator.”

CHRISTOS HATZIS

With two earlier Juno awards, two 2017 Juno nominations and a 2017 Juno award for his double CD Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation, several national and international awards and a slew of recent commissions by internationally recognized touring artists and orchestras, University of Toronto professor Christos Hatzis is constantly active on the international music scene. Hatzis’s music is continuously presented in performance and broadcast (approx. 100 performances worldwide each of the past three pre-Covid years,) an online audio playlist with over 1,700,000 hits, and a stream of CD recordings on Naxos, Deutsche Grammophon, Centrediscs, EMI, Analekta, Sony, CBC and other major and independent labels, several of them all-Hatzis albums. The Hilary Hahn’s Deutsche Grammophon recording In 27 Pieces, which includes Hatzis’s Coming To won a Grammy Award in 2015 and topped many international top 10 lists that year. Christos Hatzis is widely recognized as “one of the most important composers writing today” (CBC) and “a contemporary Canadian master” (New Yorker). He is pioneering a distinct breed of 21st Century music which combines intellectual complexity and clarity, emotional/psychological directness and technical mastery of various media and musical idioms. His recent work focuses on climate change, geopolitical diversity, indigenous issues, migration, environmental consciousness and human rights. Recent premieres include Vernal Equinox, a marimba concerto commissioned by marimbist Theodor Milkov on the theme of the of the Greek independence war and its recent Bicentennial. Hatzis often writes about contemporary music and its relationship to today’s society and has recently completed the writing of a book on Pythagorean harmonic and metaphysical philosophy titled Resonance: A Journey of Connections Made by Intuition and an esoteric memoir titled Searching for the Right Key: The First Forty Years.