Refugee composers have added to the genetic musical resources
of the British Isles. Emigrants have returned the favour. The
emigrants include W.H. Bell, Edgar Bainton, Erik Chisholm and
Healy Willan. Among the long list of immigrants we can count
Franz Reizenstein, Roberto Gerhard, Egon Wellesz, Berthold Goldschmidt
and the composer whose reputation is the beneficiary of this
disc.
Hungarian composer Seiber was born in Budapest. He studied with
Kodály and accompanied the older composer in expeditions to
collect in folk songs. In 1928 Seiber was appointed director
of the jazz department at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt.
In 1933 he arrived in England in flight from the Nazi regime.
He made London his home and became a British subject in 1935.
Eleven folksy songs are covered by the Yugoslav Folk Songs
(SATB, 1942), the Hungarian Folk Songs (SSAA, 1950)
and the Two Soldiers’ Songs (TTBB, 1932). The music
is pretty much in the ripe English style mapped out by Grainger,
Geoffrey Bush, E J Moeran and RVW. Seiber brings out the full
panoply of effects including humming and ticking ‘lah-lah’ word
patterning. Fairy Tale is positively Delian but then
so are many of these eleven songs.
The 1924 Missa Brevis is typically pure in the pristine
medieval tradition espoused by Holst and RVW – the latter in
his own Mass. The Sanctus is grand in volume and passionate
in its devotions. Sirmio starts in the same place but
steps beyond to the extent that the setting ends in a representation
of chuckling laughter through Catullus’s Latin text. The
Three Graces, though dating from only two years before
his death, belong to the same aesthetic region as the Missa
Brevis.
The two witty German language madrigals are Morgenstern settings.
From the same year as Sirmio come the Three Nonsense
Songs with flighty, rhythmically bladed and imaginatively
bedecked settings of three limericks. Out of the same style
guide comes the jazzy delicacy of Zwei Schweinekarbonaden
where fun is made of the famous Walton Belshazzar’s Feast
words Mene Tekel Upharsin.
This collection has been most naturally recorded. The music
is in the best and sweetest tradition of English choral singing
as is the performance which places emphasis not only on contour
and dynamic but also on enunciation. Reverberation suffices
to impart a lively atmosphere but is held back enough to avoid
blurring of words.
The Soldier’s Farewell by Erich Itor Kahn (1905-1956)
is a passionately entwined and faintly melancholic piece. Alan
Gibbs’ own Gloria in Excelsis is a short and rapturous
piece. It was composed in Seiber’s memory in 1962. Kodaly wrote
many works for a cappella choir. Media Vita in
morte sumus is gently and tenderly done with rising ramps
of ecstatic sound. It too was written to commemorate Seiber.
Texts and translations are printed in full in the booklet which
also supplies notes by Julia Seiber Boyd and Seiber pupil, Alan
Gibbs. These address the subject of the composer and his music.
Seiber’s other pupils include Don Banks, Ingvar Lidholm, Peter
Racine Fricker (whose Fourth Symphony is dedicated to Seiber’s
memory), Hugh Wood, Anthony Gilbert and Malcolm Lipkin.
Seiber recordings have not been numerous but the store of Seiber
on CD has gradually increased. The three string quartets are
on Delphian.
The Quartetto Lirico was issued in EMI’s British Composer
series. There’s a chamber music anthology on Hungaroton.
Easy to overlook that Australian Eloquence have included the
1960 Decca Three Fragments from A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man by Peter Pears (reciter) and the
Dorian Singers and Melos Ensemble conducted by the composer
on 480 2152.
We can hope that the small handful of Seiber broadcasts including
Ulysses might be issued on commercial CD but securing
licensing rights can be a recalcitrant task.
A Seiber choral collection to carry these songs into our affections
and into the singing repertoire of choirs across the world.
Rob Barnett
Track-listing
Yugoslav Folk Songs (SATB, 1942)
[1] 1. The Unfaithful Lover 1:01
[2] 2. Handsome Mirko 0:59
[3] 2a. Eighteen Shining Buttons 1:36
[4] 3. Heaven Above 2:15
[5] 4. Hussars 0:42
[6] 4a. Fairy Tale 2:54
Three Hungarian Folk Songs (SSAA,1950)
[7] 1. The Handsome Butcher 1:04
[8] 2. Apple, apple 1:55
[9] 3. The Old Woman 0:44
Two Soldiers’ Songs (TTBB, 1932)
[10] Spring (Tavasz) 1:01
[11] Farewell (Búcsú) 3:15
Missa Brevis (with plainsong)
[12] Kyrie 3:27
[13] Gloria (plainsong) 3:37
[14] Credo (plainsong) 4:11
[15] Sanctus 1:14
[16] Benedictus 1:41
[17] Agnus Dei 3:58
[18] Sirmio (1956) 3:08
Two Madrigals (SATB, 1927-29)
[19] Ghost (Gespenst) 3:28
[20] The Problem (Das Problem) 1:42
Three Nonsense Songs (SATB, 1956)
[21] There was an old lady of France 0:55
[22] There was an old person of Cromer 1:03
[23] There was an old man in a tree 0:58
[24] Soldier’s Farewell (SATB, 1960) – Kahn 3:15
[25] Gloria in Excelsis (SSAA, 1962) – Gibbs 1:10
[26] Media Vita in morte sumus (SATB, 1960) - Kodály 4:27
Three Graces (SATB, 1958)
[27] I 0:42
[28] II 0:51
[29] III 0:56
[30] Zwei Schweinekarbonaden (TTB, 1930) 1:58
Choir of the 21st Century/Howard Williams