A Christmas Day
Alec Davison reviews a new work by Tony Biggin
To have had one is barrier-leaping, to have had two is beginning to be a custom, but to have had three major musical premieres performed in London’s Royal Festival Hall is surely a rarity to be recognised. Such are the unique gifts of Quaker composer Tony Biggin. Following performances of his oratorios The Gates of Greenham in 1985 and Cry of the Earth in 1990, both given by the Quaker Festival Orchestra and Chorus, the 5 December hat-trick was something different. But again the Hall was packed and the crowded audience, not Quakers this time, was just as exuberant in its reception.
The work was a specially commissioned orchestral piece, A Christmas Day, drawing on the full musical resources of the Cavendish Ensemble, including every variety of orchestral instrument, a large percussion section and the magnificent Festival Hall organ. Friends will have come to know Tony’s rich orchestral colouring, as well as his great grace for developing melody upon melody, through swelling themes and delicate echoes. His work is always marked by passion and energy, climax and telling variety. It is memorable and we left the Hall with unforgettable tunes.
In the manner of a tone poem, the work explores that time of year when darkness and light are in change, when seasons evolve from raw wind and tempest to exquisite frosts and snows, from city cacophony to country stillness, and when parties of people meet for reunions and rituals. The work’s programme tells of dark, atmospheric dawn, to the seasonal bustle of shoppers and street entertainers, journeying to fireside evenings and stories by starlight. Its framing is archetypal but the original development of its sprightly themes makes this work eminently appropriate for performance at any time of year and for both adult and youth ensembles looking for something new and fresh.
A Christmas Day was the plum in the pudding of a remarkable evening, which included a semi-staged version of John Rutter’s The Reluctant Dragon, redolent at times of Gilbert and Sullivan among others, and a variety of carols, often with audience participation. The chorus of some hundreds of performers was made up of partners from the choirs established throughout the country that are attached to retail shops in the John Lewis Partnership and Waitrose. This was just one such gathering during the year that will take place in a range of concert halls and performing venues. But the venue and occasion this Christmas was something special.
It marked the twentieth anniversary of the Cavendish Ensemble, a group of skilled and well-qualified musicians who are also established partners – all very much in the manner of the Quaker Festival Orchestra. They perform together throughout the year, across Britain, as well as abroad. Both orchestra and chorus are remarkable projects to spring from a commercial workplace base. Here is an opportunity for those many employees who, through their schools and colleges, have gained much enjoyment from music making to develop their enthusiasms into adulthood and in partnership with their paid work. It is a rare enterprise that continues to be bold even in these times of commercial austerity.
As an act of faith in this difficult year, as well as booking the Royal Festival Hall for the Cavendish Ensemble’s special anniversary, the John Lewis Partnership Music Society promoted a national search for a new orchestral work from an experienced composer that it could premiere to mark the occasion. The theme was to be seasonal but not another carol medley! Would that the Society of Friends had not lost its own growing musical tradition. But not bound by words this time, here was an opportunity in which Tony could again fully flourish… and the rest is Music.
