Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
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Last Night of the Summer Pops
A Celebration of the 90th Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Saturday 16 July 2016 7.30pm
WILLIAM WALTON (1902-1983)
March: Crown Imperial
Oldham-born William Walton created ceremonial works that in their deft blending of fanfare, colour and sense
of Britishness proved him to be the true heir of Sir Edward Elgar. The most famous examples of this are his two
coronation marches, both of which we hear tonight. The first, Crown Imperial, was commissioned by the BBC
for the coronation of Edward VIII who, as is well known, abdicated before he was crowned. In the event, the
piece was first performed at the coronation of his brother George VI in 1937 (though it had been broadcast on
the radio three days before). Walton very deliberately borrowed the outline of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance
marches with two renditions of a stirring march theme framing a more expansive and suitably noble melody.
HUBERT PARRY (1848-1918)
I Was Glad
The music of Hubert Parry has recently enjoyed something of a revival. At the suggestion of Prince Charles (who
some time ago presented an appreciative TV documentary about the composer), the royal wedding in 2011
featured no fewer than five Parry works. As many will remember, this glorious 1902 setting of lines from Psalm
122 was the processional music in that service as Catherine Middleton (now Duchess of Cambridge) walked up
the aisle. It was originally composed for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 and revised for that of
George V in 1911. It has featured in every coronation since.
JEREMIAH CLARKE (c.1674-1707) arranged by Henry Wood (1869-1944)
Trumpet Voluntary ‘The Prince of Denmark’s March’
Clarke’s ‘Trumpet Voluntary’ was originally a keyboard piece written around 1700 entitled ‘The Prince of
Denmark’s March’. In this resplendent arrangement for trumpet, strings and organ, however, it has become a
perennial favourite with the trumpet taking the limelight. For years it was misattributed to another English
baroque composer, Henry Purcell, and was actually known as ‘Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary’. It was played at
Prince Charles’s marriage to Diana Spencer in 1981.
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1757)
Zadok the Priest
Zadok the Priest is the first of four anthems composed by Handel for the coronation of George II in 1727. It has
been performed during the anointing of the sovereign at every coronation since – Zadok being one of the Old
Testament holy men who anointed King Solomon. After a gently pulsating orchestral introduction Handel
springs a surprise when the chorus, reinforced by three resplendent trumpets, enter in full-throated fashion. The
middle section (‘And all the people rejoic’d, and said’) is an appropriately joyful triple-time dance, while in the
final section the words ‘God Save the King’ (heard chordally) are interspersed by busy ‘Amens’. The anthem
closes with a splendid ‘Allelujah’ cadence.
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Fantasia on Greensleeves
Part of Vaughan Williams’s major contribution to the English Musical Renaissance in the early decades of the
20th century was as a tireless collector and arranger of folk-songs. The composer first used ‘Greensleeves’ – a
folk song that was at one time wrongly attributed to no less a figure than Henry VIII – in a production of
Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor at Stratford in the summer of 1912. In the play a humorous
Falstaffian rant contains the line, ‘let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves’.
Appropriately, Vaughan Williams returned to this glorious melody in his opera Sir John in Love (1929), a work
in which Shakespeare’s loveable bon viveur is once again the corpulent central character. Two extended
renditions of ‘Greensleeves’ are separated by a contrasting central section, an arrangement of the haunting
Norfolk folk song, ‘Lovely Joan’.
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS arranged by Roy Douglas (1907-2015)
All People that on Earth do Dwell
During planning for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, Vaughan Williams suggested that a piece involving
congregational singing would enhance the event. It proved to be a controversial idea and was initially rejected.
However, when the Queen heard about it she happily embraced it. Vaughan Williams (and later Roy Douglas)
produced this superb arrangement of ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell’, a hymn also known as the ‘Old
Hundred’ because it is a setting of the 100th Psalm. Its original tune is attributed to the 16th-century French
composer Loys Bourgeois.
GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934)
Jupiter from The Planets
Along with an interest in folk music, the great English composer Gustav Holst was fascinated by astrology and
extremely well-read in the subject. This found musical expression in his most famous work The Planets, a sevenmovement orchestral suite inspired by the character and astrological significance of each planet of the solar
system. In his own words ‘Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity’ celebrates the “abundance of life and vitality” in music
that is “buoyant and hopeful”. Certainly Holst gives us a succession of memorable tunes, including the noble
theme given the words ‘I vow to thee my country’ by Cecil Spring-Rice.
WILLIAM WALTON
March: Orb and Sceptre
The second of Walton’s coronation marches was first performed at the crowning of our own Queen Elizabeth on
2 June 1953. Like its predecessor, its title is taken from a famous speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V which,
Walton often told friends, contained enough titles to keep him going for a very long time (he vowed that ‘Bed
majestical’ from the same oration would do the trick for Charles’s coronation!). Again like its predecessor, Orb
and Sceptre contains a swaggering main theme and a contrasting middle section in which the strings introduce
another trademark Walton march tune. The opening theme returns before a grand refrain of the central march
builds to a splendid, brass-heavy ending.
GEORGE BUTTERWORTH (1885-1916)
The Banks of Green Willow
When Lieutenant George Butterworth was killed by sniper fire on the Somme in 1916, Britain lost its most
talented and promising young composer. Like his mentor Vaughan Williams, Butterworth collected original folk
songs from the countryside and was already one of the most effective exponents of the English pastoral style.
In 1913 Butterworth completed his last major work, this evocative orchestral idyll, a work based on two folk
songs he had heard in Sussex some years before. The title song is introduced by a clarinet; then, after the music
builds to a fervent climax, an oboe sings out the second tune, ‘Green Bushes’. The great Adrian Boult conducted
its first performance in February 1914 in West Kirby (his first professional engagement), the players having been
drawn from both the Liverpool Philharmonic and Manchester’s Hallé. Its London premiere a few weeks later
was the final time Butterworth was to hear his music.
WILLIAM WALTON
Coronation Te Deum
Walton’s other contribution to the 1953 coronation took the form of a brilliant though subtly contrasted setting
of the Te Deum. Traditionally the Te Deum is a Christian hymn of praise to God that gives thanks for blessings
such as the election of a pope, the canonisation of a saint, or, appropriately for Walton in 1953, the coronation of
a new monarch. Throughout the piece Walton’s musical word painting, choral writing and scoring (organ and
brass being prominent) is consummate. No wonder Walton was once described as “the finest Master of the
Queen’s Musick that never was”.
EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934)
Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 in D
In 1901 Elgar composed the first of his so-called Pomp and Circumstance Marches, the title of which was
borrowed from a line in Shakespeare’s Othello (‘Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!’) It was not
entirely to the composer’s pleasure that its central melody – sung to the words of A.C. Benson’s ‘Land of Hope of
Glory’ – would soon eclipse in popularity not only ‘God Save the Queen’, but everything else Elgar himself wrote.
After conducting its Proms premiere on 21 October 1901, Sir Henry Wood described a scene of patriotic fervour:
“The people simply rose and yelled. I had to play it again – with the same result … Merely to restore order, I
played the march a third time”.
HUBERT PARRY orchestrated by Edward Elgar
Jerusalem
Even during the years when much of Parry’s music rather languished in obscurity, his evocative setting of
William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ was well known and well loved. Based on the patriotic myth that the young Jesus
Christ actually walked ‘upon England’s mountains green’, the hymn has served a variety of interests including
the lobby group ‘Fight for the Right’ (which commissioned its composition during the First World War); the
England cricket team; the Labour Party; and, perhaps most famously, the Last Night of the Proms, where it is
invariably sung with enormous gusto. Feel free to continue this long and noble tradition!
TRADITIONAL arranged by Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
Fanfare and God Save the Queen
This celebration of our monarch’s ninetieth birthday comes to a fitting conclusion with ‘God Save the Queen’,
here preceded by the fanfare Gordon Jacob composed for her coronation in 1953. We don’t know who wrote it,
and around 140 composers (including Beethoven, Liszt and Debussy) have quoted or adapted the tune, but
Jacob’s fanfare and deftly-scored version of the anthem itself more than suffices!
Programme notes by Anthony Bateman © 2016