By the Blue Hawaiian Waters

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By the Blue Hawaiian Waters
Light music by Albert Ketèlbey
Key C major
Published 1927 (1927)
Scoring orchestra

By the Blue Hawaiian Waters is a piece of light classical music for orchestra by Albert Ketèlbey. He composed the "tone-picture" in 1927. The piece was published by Bosworth the same year.

Light music British musical style of "light" orchestral music

Light music is a generic term applied to "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues until the present day. Its heyday occurred during the mid‑20th century.

Albert Ketèlbey English composer, conductor and pianist

Albert William Ketèlbey was an English composer, conductor and pianist, best known for his short pieces of light orchestral music. He was born in Birmingham and moved to London in 1889 to study at Trinity College of Music. After a brilliant studentship he did not pursue the classical career predicted for him, becoming musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a conductor of his own works.

Contents

History

Some of the music of By the Blue Hawaiian Waters had been incidental music in a play Ye Gods in 1916. Ketèlbey wrote the "tone-picture" in 1927. It was probably first performed in Harrogate the same year, and published that year, also in versions with piano. [1] [2]

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack".

Harrogate town in North Yorkshire, England

Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters and RHS Harlow Carr gardens. 13 miles (21 km) away from the town centre is the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Nidderdale AONB. Harrogate grew out of two smaller settlements, High Harrogate and Low Harrogate, in the 17th century. Since 2013, polls have consistently voted the town as "the happiest place to live" in Britain.

Theme and music

A synopsis of scenes by the composer mentions that after a short introduction and a vigorous hula dance, a lover plays his "native love-call", followed by the "Song of the Hula Girl". [2] The work is concluded by a lively dance at a betrothal ceremony. [2]

The piece in C major and common time is marked Allegretto dolce (with flowing movement). [3] The melody of the love-call is played by the clarinet. [2]

C major tonality

C major is a major scale based on C, with the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common key signatures used in western music. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and its parallel minor is C minor.

In 1929, it was recorded, conducted by the composer. [4] He made only minor cuts, and added a Hawaiian guitar, played by Len Fellis, "a star of many a dance band". [5] Ketèlbey replaced the clarinet by an alto saxophone for the love-call, making it "one of the earliest recordings of a standard orchestra to include a saxophone". [2] It was reissued in 2002 in a collection of his light music. [6] A review notes that the work "treads a dangerous and ultimately unsuccessfully schizophrenic path between the hula and urbane romanticism." [5]

Alto saxophone type of saxophone

The alto saxophone, also referred to as the alto sax, is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s, and patented in 1846. It is pitched in E♭, and is smaller than the tenor, but larger than the soprano. The alto sax is the most common saxophone and is commonly used in concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, military bands, marching bands, and jazz. The fingerings of the different saxophones are all the same so a saxophone player can play any type of saxophone.

A recording with Frieder Weissmann  (de ) conducting the Berliner Symphoniker, possibly in March 1931, also used the saxophone and Hawaiian guitar, but additionally gong, xylophone and a men's chorus singing without words, because it was coupled with In a Chinese Temple Garden which requires the larger ensemble. [2]

Gong East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument

A gong is an East and Southeast Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat, circular metal disc which is hit with a mallet. The gong traces its roots back to the Bronze Age around 3500 BC. The term 'gong' traces its origins in Java and scientific and archaeological research has established that Burma, China, Java and Annam were the four main gong manufacturing centres of the ancient world. The gong later found its way into the Western World in the 18th century when it was also used in the percussion section of a Western-style symphony orchestra. A form of bronze cauldron gong known as a resting bell was widely used in ancient Greece and Rome, for instance in the famous Oracle of Dodona, where disc gongs were also used.

Xylophone musical instrument of the family of mallets

The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African and Asian instruments, diatonic in many western children's instruments, or chromatic for orchestral use.

A men's chorus or male voice choir (MVC), is a choir consisting of men who sing with either a tenor or bass voice, and whose music is typically arranged into high and low tenors, and high and low basses —and shortened to the letters TTBB. The term can also refer to a piece of music which is performed by such a choir.

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The clarinet is a musical-instrument family belonging to the group known as the woodwind instruments. It has a single-reed mouthpiece, a straight, cylindrical tube with an almost cylindrical bore, and a flared bell. A person who plays a clarinet is called a clarinetist.

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References

  1. ↑ McCanna, Tom. "Works for orchestra". albertketelbey.org.uk. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 McCanna, Tom. "By the Blue Hawaiian Waters". albertketelbey.org.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  3. ↑ By the Blue Hawaiian Waters. Bosworth. 1927.
  4. ↑ Manheim, James. "Albert Ketelbey: In a Monastery Garden; In a Chinese Temple Garden; Sanctuary of the Heart; Will You Forgive? / By the Blue Hawaiian Waters, Tone Picture". AllMusic . Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  5. 1 2 Woolf, Jonathan (2003). "British Light Music / Albert Ketèlbey (1875–1959) / In a Monastery Garden". musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  6. ↑ "Ketelbey: In a Monastery Garden (Ketelbey) (1924–1932)". Naxos . 2002. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
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