Summer's Last Will and Testament (Lambert)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Summer's Last Will and Testament is a choral masque or cantata by Constant Lambert, written between 1932 and 1935, and premiered in 1936. It is scored for chorus and orchestra, with a baritone solo also featured in the last of its seven movements.[1] It is based on the play of the same name by Thomas Nashe, written around 1592. Lambert considered the work his magnum opus,[2] and it is his largest work in any genre.[3] However, it attracted little attention at its 1936 premiere and had only one or two other performances in Lambert's lifetime[3] (he died in 1951).

It has received only one complete commercial recording to date, released in 1992. This, along with a general resurgence of interest in Constant Lambert's music, has led to the work being reexamined, and performances are starting to take place.[4][5] The Guardian critic said the 1992 recording had made available to the public "a masterpiece buried for far too long".[6]

In 1949, Lambert said to Sir Frederick Ashton: "I like Summer's Last Will and Testament the best of all my work".[4] Malcolm Arnold called it "one of the undiscovered treasures of the English choral repertoire".[5]

Background and premiere

Summer's Last Will and Testament was written between 1932 and 1935, a period in which Lambert was busy with his conducting and orchestration duties with Sadler's Wells, conducting the London premiere of Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins (under the title Anna-Anna), and completing his book Music Ho!.[7] Lambert's friend, the conductor and composer Hyam Greenbaum provided support, ostensibly with the choral parts, but also with advice on the composition. Lambert inscribed the vocal score he gave to Greenbaum: "To Hyam Greenbaum (who as far as I remember wrote most of this work) from Constant Lambert".[8]

The work was premiered at the Queen's Hall in

King George V had died just over a week before, and the sombre mood of the country was undoubtedly inimical to a work replete with references to plague, disease and death, and to the persistent aura of fatalism which affected much of Lambert's music.[9] Although this tepid response could well have been anticipated under the circumstances, Lambert considered he had failed as a composer, and completed only two major works in the remaining sixteen years of his life.[10]

The piece lasts about 55 minutes. It was dedicated "to Florence", his then wife Florence Chuter (aka Florence Kaye), whom he had married in 1931.[8] A limited edition of the two-piano score, with six drawings by Michael Ayrton as frontispieces to the main movements, was issued by Oxford University Press in 1946.[11]

Movements

The sections of Summer's Last Will and Testament are:

  • Intrata (orchestra alone)
  • Madrigal con ritornelli: Fair Summer droops (orchestra and chorus)
  • Corante: Spring, the sweet Spring (orchestra and chorus)
  • Brawles: Trip and go, heave and ho! (orchestra and chorus)
  • Madrigal con ritornelli: Autumn hath all the Summer's fruitful treasure (orchestra and chorus)
  • Rondo burlesca: King Pest (orchestra alone)
  • Saraband: Adieu, farewell earth's bliss! (orchestra, baritone solo and chorus)[6]

King Pest is also an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name.[1]

Orchestration

Summer's Last Will and Testament is scored for the following forces:

  • baritone solo
  • chorus SATB
  • 3 flutes
  • 3 oboes
  • 3 clarinets
  • 3 bassoons
  • 4 horns
  • 3 trumpets
  • 3 cornets
  • 3 trombones
  • tuba
  • timpani
  • percussion
  • 2 harps
  • strings[12][need quotation to verify]

For the vocal score, the orchestral part was arranged for piano four-hands by Archibald Jacob.[13] In the score, Lambert says he asked Jacob to produce "a clear presentation of the contrapuntal texture of the full score rather than a pianistic transcription".

Recording

Summer's Last Will and Testament has had only one complete commercial recording.

AIDS, from which Palmer himself would die just three years later.[14]

Tapes of a 1965 broadcast conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent also exist,[4] and there were two notable revivals broadcast during the 1980s and 1990s by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Brighton Festival Chorus conducted by Norman Del Mar (10 May 1986),[15] and by the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo (5 October 1999).[16]

The penultimate movement, the Rondo burlesca subtitled King Pest, written for orchestra alone, has sometimes been performed separately[1] and has been recorded separately (by Norman Del Mar and the English Chamber Orchestra, released in 2007).[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954, Eric Blom, ed.
  2. ^ Lisa Hardy, The British Piano Sonata 1870–1945
  3. ^ a b David Mason Greene, Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers
  4. ^ a b c d e Music Web International
  5. ^ a b "CONSTANT LAMBERT - SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT". www.musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  6. ^ a b c "Lambert: Summer's Last Will and Testament, The Rio Grande & Aubade héroïque". Hyperion Records. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  7. ^ Mike Ashman, Lost in music, The Guardian, 7 May 2005
  8. ^ a b Lloyd, Stephen. Constant Lambert, Beyond the Rio Grande (2015) p 221
  9. doi:10.1093/ml/LV.2.241
    . Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  10. ^ "Constant Lambert (Composer, Arranger) - Short Biography". www.bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  11. ^ Music & Letters, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Apr., 1947), p. 197
  12. ^ "Lambert". UK: Oxford University Press.
  13. OL 19576269M
    . Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  14. ^ "OBITUARIES: Christopher Palmer". The Independent. UK. 27 January 1995. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25.
  15. Archive.org. Bright Festival Chorus. Archived from the original
    on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  16. ^ BBC Genome Project
  17. ^ "Lambert: Pomona, Music For Orchestra, Etc / De ... | Buy from ArkivMusic". www.arkivmusic.com. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Summer%27s_Last_Will_and_Testament_(Lambert)&oldid=1220924090"