Peter Cowdrey won music scholarships to Winchester College and Trinity
College Cambridge, where he studied composition with Oliver Knussen,
before spending three years in the South Pacific recording Polynesian
music and working at a unversity in Tonga. He then spent several years
touring with world music group Orbestra.
Nuffield College Chapel
His works have been premiered at international festivals and at the Albert
Hall and the Purcell Room by performers including the Brodsky and
Emperor Quartets and flautist Wissam Boustany. His librettists include
Henry Shukman and Hamish Robinson, with whom he has written an opera
based on Michael Broadbent’s Wine Diaries, to be premiered in 2009. He
has been interviewed on In Tune and The Verb on Radio 3. Last year he
wrote the music for the RSC’s new production of Leo Butler’s I’ll be the
Devil.
As a pianist Peter is in demand as an accompanist for singers, including
baritone Henry Herford. He is also a member of the trio Jubovski, which
plays music inspired by east european gypsies from Haydn to the present
day. Last year he gave the premiere of his 12 Preludes for Piano at Cortona
in Tuscany.
For several years he was Musical Director of Opera Anywhere, and he is
MD of Suffolk Opera. Peter has been involved in educational projects with
Live Music Now, London Community Opera, Istanbul University, and
others. Current projects include a new group, The Conference of Birds,
which plays music inspired by birdsong over five centuries with dancers
and audio-visual backing, and a new company, Opera Maker, with Hamish
Robinson, which will write and produce new operatic entertainments to
order for corporate and private clients.
The Chapel Committee invites you to join them for
drinks and nibbles in the Hall after the concert
French, Italian &
Catalan Songs
23 January 2009, 5.30 p.m.
Programme
Ravel
Cinq melodies populaires grecques:
1. Le reveil de la mariee
2. La-bas vers l’eglise
3. Quel galant!
4. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques
Brian Todd studied English at New College many years ago, and now lives
on the edge of Oxford and enjoys the musical life of the city – he sings in
local choirs and opera groups, and enjoys different kinds of performance
on and off the stage. In the last few years he has appeared, for example, in
improvised comedy shows with Opera Anywhere, in a performance by
Choros of the St. John Passion at Douai Abbey, as the First Priest in Opera
Oxford’s production of The Magic Flute at the New Theatre, in a whole
range of choral repertoire in college chapels with Jubilate!, in the premiere
of a work by Jonathan Dove at the Spitalfields Festival with The Joyful
Company of Singers, and in Oxford Operatic’s production of Chess at the
Playhouse.
5. Tout gai!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Catalan song
Mompou
Damunt de tu nomes les flors, from Combat del Somni
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Harpsichord solo
Rameau
La Poule
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Poulenc
His chief love, though, is the song repertoire, particularly the lieder of
Schumann and Brahms, the french melodie, and italian songs, and he has
given solo recitals at odd intervals in and around Oxford, and in Italy. Next
month, with Peter Cowdrey, he will be taking a musical entertainment with
a mediterranean theme to various venues around the country for his
employers, ATG-Oxford, a company which specialises in walking holidays.
With ATG, Brian has worked extensively in southern Europe - seasonal
work which leaves plenty of time for music!
Banalites – Cinq melodies sur des poemes de Guillaume
Apollinaire:
1. Chanson d’Orkenise
2. Hotel
Brian turned seriously to singing about 15 years ago, studying singing
privately with Mary Moore and Annette Thompson, and at masterclasses
and summer schools. He is delighted to be giving this recital at Nuffield
College and hopes he will be the first of many performers at this very
special venue.
whom he redeemed with his blood, and to banish war which undoes everything!
Pray for peace, the true treasure of joy.
Of Anne playing the spinet.
Clement Marot
When I watch the pretty young brunette, and hear her voice and her fingers
making a sweet sound on the keyboard, both my eyes and ears feel a greater
pleasure than the saints in their immortal glory – and I become as glorious as they
are when I think that she might love me a little!
Social gallantries.
Paul Verlaine
The serenaders and their fair ladies swap insipid sweet nothings under
harmonious arbours – there’s Tircis, Amintas, and dull old Clitander, and Damis
who addresses all those verses to cruel beauties.. Their silk coats, their trailing
dresses, their soft shadows whirl in an swoon of pink and grey moonlight while
the mandolin jangles on in the breeze.
The boat.
Pietro Buratti
It’s a lovely night – quick, Ninetta, let’s go and breathe the fresh air on the water!
I’ve told Tonio to take off the awning so we can enjoy the breeze off the sea. How
beautiful to be alone on the lagoon in the moonlight! You don’t need your fan, my
darling – the zephyrs are all longing to caress you!
Ideal.
Carmelo Errico
I pursued you through the heavens like a rainbow, like a friendly star in the night
sky – I felt you in the light, the air, the scent of flowers, and my lonely room was
full of you. Bathed in your presence, I dreamed of your voice, and forgot all the
troubles of this world. Come back, my ideal! Come for a moment and smile on me,
bring me a new dawn!
Dawn separates light and shade.
Gabriele d’Annunzio
Dawn separates light and shade. Stars, it’s time to die – a greater love chases you
from the sky! Sad stars, sparkling eyes, quench your virgin fires for ever. For love
of night and dreams I am reluctant to face the day. Night, hide me in your bosom
while the day comes, but then let my blood give birth to the dawn, and this brief
dream to the eternal sun!
3. Fagnes de Wallonie
4. Voyage a Paris
5. Sanglots
-----------------------------------------------------------------------A sequence of five french songs with harpsichord:
Hahn
A Chloris
Quand je fus pris au pavillon
Poulenc
Priez pour paix
Ravel
d’Anne jouant de l’espinette, from Deux Epigrammes
Hahn
Fetes galantes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three italian songs
Hahn
La barcheta, from Venezia
Tosti
Ideale
L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra
A SUMMARY OF THE SONG TEXTS
Five Greek popular songs: French version by C. D. Calvocoressi of original Greek
words:
1. The bridegroom’s morning song: Wake up, my little partridge, and spread your
wings! See the gold ribbon I have brought for you to tie your hair with! If you
fancy it, let’s get married – our families are already linked…
2. Over by the church: Over by the church of Agios Sideros, holy Virgin, by the
church of Agios Costandinos, are gathered together an infinite number of the best
people in the world!
3. Which suitor: Tell me, Miss Vasiliki, which suitor can compare to me, of all
those you see going by? See these pistols and sword hanging from my belt! …and
it’s you I love…
4. Mastic-gatherers song: Soul’s joy, heart’s joy, dearest treasure whom I love
passionately, you are more beautiful than an angel! When you appear before us
like a lovely blonde angel in the sun, alas! our hearts all sigh.
5. All gay: All gay! Nice leg dancing, the crockery is dancing! La la la la!
Nothing but flowers.
Josep Janes
Nothing but flowers upon your body, like a white gift giving light to you - they
gave you their scented life in a kiss and you shone with light. If only I could be the
breath of a flower, and give my life to you like a lily on your breast, escaping from
the night that surrounds us!
Banalities.
Guillaume Apollinaire
1. Orkenise song: At the gates of Orkenise, a carter comes in and a beggar goes
out. The town guards challenge them and learn that the beggar is leaving his heart
behind, and the carter is bringing his heart to be married… Nothing but hearts in
Orkenise - the guards laugh. Oh Beggar, the road is hard! Carter, love makes your
head spin! The handsome guards knit arrogantly, and the town gates close slowly.
2. Hotel: My room is a cage.. the sun reaches an arm through the window.. but as
I want to smoke, to create visions, I light my cigarette at the sun’s flame. I don’t
want to work.. I want to smoke.
3. Heaths of southern Belgium: Misery gripped my heart on the desolate heath
where I rested under the pines as the west wind blustered. I had left the pretty
woods and the squirrels, and my pipe tried in vain to make clouds in the
obstinately pure air. I had nothing to offer the peat bog except maybe an
enigmatic song, and as the bees were drawn by the heather, my aching feet
crushed bilberries.. North! There, life twists the tough trees and bites death with
eager teeth, as the wind howls.
4. Journey to Paris: Ah, how charming to leave the dreary countryside – for Paris,
lovely Paris, which must have been made by the god of love!
5. Sobs: Our love is ordained by the stars, and within us are all those who have
gone before us – this is the song of the dreamers who carry their hearts in their
hands (remember the ebb and flow of people around the world, the unbroken
chain of cause and effect). My heart, like everyone’s, is bleeding, and seems to be
dying of love (our hands are tied, and nothing will be free till the end of time).
Such is the way of all things – let us tear out our hearts too, leave everything to
the dead, and hide our sobs.
To Chloris.
Theophile de Viau
If it’s true that you love me, Chloris – and I think you do - I believe I am happier
than any king! Even if I should exchange this life for the bliss of heaven, all that
they say about ambrosia would not come near the loveliness of your eyes!
When I was caught in the pavillion.
Charles d’Orleans
When I lost my heart in my gracious lady’s pavillion, I was scorched like a moth in
a candle flame. The spark of love made me blush crimson. If I were a merlin and
had his powerful wings, I would not have let her sting me so, when I was caught in
my lady’s pavilion.
Pray for peace.
Charles d’Orleans
Pray for peace, O Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and earth, and of your kindness
bid the saints to pray, and beg His Highness your Son to look after his people,