A Scotch Bestiary

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A Scotch Bestiary: Enigmatic Variations on a Zoological Carnival at a Caledonian Exhibition is an organ concerto by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was commissioned by the BBC and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was composed from 2003 to 2004 and was first performed by the organist Wayne Marshall and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 7, 2004. [1] [2] Paul Jacobs (organist) gave the American East Coast premiere of this work in January 2018 in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. [3]

An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolves in the 18th century, when composers including Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with solo parts which rarely call for the organ pedal board. During the Classical period the organ concerto became popular in many places, especially in Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia, reaching a position of being almost an integral part of the church music tradition of jubilus character. From the Romantic era fewer works are known. Finally, there are some 20th- and 21st-century examples, of which the concerto by Francis Poulenc has entered the basic repertoire, and is quite frequently played.

Sir James Loy MacMillan, CBE is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.

Contents

Composition

Background

A Scotch Bestiary was composed as a set of musical portraits for organ and orchestra. As the subtitle indicates, the piece was conceived in the style of such similarly episodic works as Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations , Camille Saint-Saëns's The Carnival of the Animals , and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition . Knowing the first performance was to be held in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, MacMillan musically based the episodes on the style of early Disney cartoons. These variations were inspired by "human archetypes and personalities" MacMillan had encountered throughout his life in Scotland. [1]

Organ (music) musical keyboard instrument

In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria, who invented the water organ. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, particularly during races and games. During the early medieval period it spread from the Byzantine Empire, where it continued to be used in secular (non-religious) and imperial court music, to Western Europe, where it gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument in the Classical music tradition.

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of Western classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and percussion instruments such as the timpani, bass drum, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, and mallet percussion instruments each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Edward Elgar English composer

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.

Structure

A Scotch Bestiary has a duration of roughly 33 minutes and is composed in two parts, the first of which is divided into several smaller movements:

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

Part I: The Menagerie, Caged

1. Ode to a cro-magnon hyena
A page is turned
2. Reptiles and Big Fish (in a small pond)
3. Her Serene and Ubiquitous Majesty, Queen Bee
Another page is turned
4. The red-handed, no-surrender, howler monkey
5. Uncle Tom Cat and his chickens
Yet another page is turned
6. Scottish Patriots
7. The Reverend Cuckoo and his Parroting Chorus
8. Jackass Hackass
The book is closed

Part II: The Menagerie, Uncaged

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a solo organ and a large orchestra comprising three flutes (2nd doubling alto flute, 3rd doubling piccolo), three oboes (3rd doubling cor anglais), three clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, four percussionists, harp, electric piano, and strings. [1]

Western concert flute Transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

Alto flute type of flute

The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, the second-highest member below the standard C flute after the uncommon flûte d'amour in B♭ or A. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the piccolo. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range. It is a transposing instrument in G, and uses the same fingerings as the C flute.

Piccolo small musical instrument of the flute family

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Reception

Reviewing the world premiere, Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times called it "a sonically spectacular concerto for organ and orchestra" and wrote, "What MacMillan has come up with is a two-part, quirkily animated concerto. His bumptious bestiary is just that, a musical book of fanciful animals impersonated by organ and orchestra. In the first part, he introduces 'a cro-magnon hyena' and the 'red-handed, no surrender, howler monkey,' as well as buzzing bees, lumbering reptiles, the cuckoo. In the second part, he lets them loose." [4] Andrew Achenbach of Gramophone similarly described it as "a caustic, loopy and exhilarating showpiece for organ and orchestra." [5] Stephen Johnson of BBC Music Magazine observed, "...while the Concerto has its moments of spellbound celebration, like the strings' imitation of improvised Gallic psalm-singing (one of the loveliest things in all folk music) in the central slow movement, A Scotch Bestiary is full of a black vitality which always threatens to explode into pure chaos. Some of MacMillan's targets – indicated in titles like 'The red-handed, no-surrender, howler monkey' and 'Scottish Patriots' – are easy to identify. Others, as the work's subtitle implies ('Enigmatic variations on a zoological carnival at a Caledoninan exhibition'), are more elusive to outsiders, but even then the acrid caricature remains wickedly entertaining." [6]

<i>Los Angeles Times</i> Daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper which has been published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It has the fourth largest circulation among United States newspapers, and is the largest U.S. newspaper not headquartered on the East Coast. The paper is known for its coverage of issues particularly salient to the U.S. West Coast, such as immigration trends and natural disasters. It has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of these and other issues. As of June 18, 2018, ownership of the paper is controlled by Patrick Soon-Shiong, and the executive editor is Norman Pearlstine.

<i>Gramophone</i> (magazine) UK monthly magazine published in London devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings

Gramophone is a magazine published monthly in London devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie. It was acquired by Haymarket in 1999. In 2013 the Mark Allen Group became the publisher.

<i>BBC Music Magazine</i> magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a monthly magazine. The first issue appeared in June 1992. BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC was the original owner and publisher together with the Warner Music Enterprises during its initial phase. Immediate Media Company has been the publisher since 2012.

See also

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Quickening is a cantata for countertenor, two tenors, two baritones, children's choir, chorus, and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was co-commissioned by The Proms and the Philadelphia Orchestra and was completed in 1998. Its world premiere was performed by the Hilliard Ensemble, the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and the Westminster Cathedral Boys' Choir under the direction of Andrew Davis at Royal Albert Hall, London, on September 5, 1999. The journalist Damian Thompson of The Spectator described it as "one of MacMillan's masterpieces."

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References

  1. 1 2 3 MacMillan, James (2004). "A Scotch Bestiary". Boosey & Hawkes . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  2. ↑ Johnson, Steven (September 19, 2004). "The best of the season". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  3. ↑ Stearns, David Patrick (January 12, 2018). "Philadelphia Orchestra Brit fest opens on a wild note (cue the hyenas) with MacMillan's 'Scotch Bestiary'". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  4. ↑ Swed, Mark (October 9, 2004). "At Disney Hall, the beast is released". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  5. ↑ Achenbach, Andrew (October 2006). "MacMillan Piano Concerto No 2; (A) Scotch Bestiary". Gramophone . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  6. ↑ Johnson, Stephen (20 January 2012). "Macmillan: A Scotch Bestiary; Piano Concerto No. 2". BBC Music Magazine . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
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