Program Notes: Antarctic Symphony

SALINA FISHER 
Rainphase 
BORN: October 6, 1993, in Christchurch, New Zealand 
WORK COMPOSED: 2015 
WORLD PREMIERE: July 2, 2015, in Wellington, New Zealand, with the National Youth Orchestra conducted by José Luis Gomez. 

What to Listen For:

• Rainphase calls for an array of colorful percussion techniques, including dipping one antique cymbal in water and bracing another cymbal against a pedal timpani for additional resonance. 

Rainphase calls for an array of colorful percussion techniques, including dipping one antique cymbal in water and bracing another cymbal against a pedal timpani for additional resonance. 

“No two raindrops sound alike,” observed R. Murray Schafer, the late composer and pioneer of acoustic ecology. Anyone who has spent time in Seattle or anywhere with wet weather can hear what meteorologists call “rain phase” — the characteristics of precipitation and its transformation over time. 

Inspired by the chaotic beauty of Wellington’s rain in her native New Zealand, Salina Fisher states that Rainphase portrays “its shape and shapelessness, transparency and density, energy and calm, and its capacity for reflection in both a literal and emotional sense.” 

Rainphase begins with an evocative metallic drone of bowed percussion and hushed double basses and cellos. Tender but brief string melodies peek through pellet-like strokes of percussion, plucked harp notes (a sly nod to Debussy’s La mer) and vibraphone. Clouds of strings glide and hover, joined by the winds and swelling horns. This hint of imminent rain recedes and yields to bursts of wind created by brass and wind players who huff and blow through their instruments. These gusts swirl throughout the orchestra much like the windward currents seen and felt at multiple distances and elevations, from among the treetops to along the ground. 

The rain arrives with the string section playing col legno — tapping the strings with the wood of the bow. We immediately hear the composer’s fascination with “the variation in sound and movement of raindrops depending on the material upon which they fall, and the texture created when these countless individual timbres and rhythms happen all at once.” After a frenzied yet fleeting squall, the remaining fragments subside and flow towards a wistful conclusion. 

BENJAMIN BRITTEN 
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a 
BORN: November 22, 1913, in Lowestoft, England 
DIED: December 4, 1976, in Aldeburgh, England 
WORK COMPOSED: 1944–1945 
WORLD PREMIERE: June 13, 1945, in Cheltenham, England, with the composer conducting. 

What to Listen For: 

• Although separated by distinct titles, the first three pieces continue attacca (“without pause”) into the next interlude. 

• Britten combines instruments in unusual ways, from the thrilling contrast in Sunday Morning between horns and high wind instruments to Moonlight’s closing melody of piccolo, flutes, harp, trumpets and xylophone. 

The Four Sea Interludes originated in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes Op. 33, a searing opera about an outcast fisherman suspected of murder in a seaside community. The London premiere on June 7, 1945, was a triumph and cemented Britten’s reputation in England; a flurry of subsequent performances in Europe and the United States established his fame worldwide.  

Mindful of the possibility of concert hall performances and potential conducting engagements, the composer extracted the interludes from Peter Grimes into a symphonic suite while working on the opera — hence the “a” after the opus number 33. The interludes appear in the same order as they do in Peter Grimes except for Storm, which Britten placed last as an aptly dramatic finale. 

The Four Sea Interludes present vivid portraits of the sea from day to night. Dawn rises with a plaintive song in the violins supported by the flutes playing dolcissimo (“very softly”). A flourish by the clarinets, harp and violas is followed by lumbering chorale by the brass and bassoons along with timpani, cellos and double basses. These three sections repeat but seem altered enough to proffer a hint of optimism. The song returns and tries to soar above the sunny flourish heard earlier but again yields to the chorale, now magnificently elongated by the composer, who adds a splash of gong, timpani and bass drum.  

Depicting an early morning call to worship, Sunday Morning has improbable roots. Britten patterned elements of the music on a transcription of Balinese gamelan made by his friend Colin McPhee. The composer transforms the mood dramatically throughout this interlude; the sprightly, staccato theme in the winds becomes ever more urgent when taken up by the strings. A quickly descending scale introduces a second theme propelled by the flute and piccolo. The gamelan influence becomes apparent when the opening returns, ominously punctuated by tuba, bells and gong strokes reminiscent of the Balinese gong wadon.  

Described by Britten as a “look out over the quietly moving sea,” Moonlight is a nocturne animated by swaying interjections from the harp and flutes. The entire orchestra joins a slow, hymn-like peroration. As strings swell then taper off, the xylophone leads a mournful ticking of time ebbing away.  

Of all the interludes, Storm gave the composer the most trouble, requiring revisions both practical — the director of Peter Grimes needed an additional 90 seconds for a scene change — and personal. Britten knew the elemental power of the sea intimately; he once remarked that his childhood home in Lowestoft “directly faced the sea,” and added, “my life as a child was colored by the fierce storms that sometimes drove ships onto our coast and ate away whole stretches of the neighboring cliffs.” Fast, ferocious music grouped in alternating measures of two and three beats conjure images of lashing waves, thunderous rage and eventually, calm. 

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 
Sinfonia antartica 
BORN: October 12, 1872, in Down Ampney, Gloucester, England 
DIED: August 26, 1958, in London, England 
WORK COMPOSED: 1949–1952 
WORLD PREMIERE: January 14, 1953, in Manchester, England, with the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. 
SEATTLE SYMPHONY PREMIERE: April 25, 2024, with Gemma New conducting the Seattle Symphony. 

What to Listen For: 

• The solo soprano and chorus sing in the first and final movements of the symphony. 

• An arsenal of percussion instruments — notably bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone and a wind machine —convey eerie desolation. 

Ralph Vaughan Williams was a life-long champion of a distinctly English style of music. In 1902, the composer (whose first name rhymes with “safe”) declared, “English music was not dead, but only dormant.”  

Seeking an alternative to the pervasive influence of German and Italian composers, Vaughan Williams believed the solution was to welcome the entirety of English music into the concert hall, from the madrigals of Tudor England and vocal works of Henry Purcell to music-hall ditties and country folk tunes.  

The composer’s eclectic approach eventually included the cinema. Unlike his younger rival Benajmin Britten, who scored documentaries in his 20s during the 1930s, Vaughan Williams — nearing 70 years of age — eagerly embraced writing film music in the 1940s.  

In 1948, Vaughan Williams scored Scott of the Antarctic, an adventure film chronicling Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s disastrous expedition across our globe’s southern-most continent. Also cataloged as the composer’s Symphony No. 7 “Antarctic,” the Sinfonia antartica was, according to the composer, “suggested” by the film with its themes “derived from my incidental music to that film.” Sticklers for spelling will spot an ostensible misspelling of Antarctica, but Vaughan Williams chose the Italian rendering “Antartica” to linguistically match “Sinfonia.” 

The Prelude begins with a stately, striving theme that is heard throughout the symphony. What the composer calls “a few antarctic shimmerings” from a quiet xylophone and clustered notes on the piano introduce a haunting wordless soprano solo. After rushing towards a great climax, bells and bass toll, foreshadowing misfortune. Against a backdrop of wind, the voices return. A trumpet solo, forthright and proud, revives the mood of the beginning. 

Extending the defiant tone of the Prelude, the Scherzo glitters, first with the glockenspiel and thick chords on the harp, then with jaunty exchanges between the strings and winds. A playful, ambling trumpet solo twice interrupts a cascade of dizzying textures. The Scherzo ends indecisively with uncertain chords on strings and muted brass.  

Guttural harp tones along with flurries on the celesta and xylophone unveil the lonely, ever-shifting terrain of Landscape. A loud crash from the gong disrupts a busy backdrop of tremolo strings and thrumming winds. Slow, trudging pedal tones on the organ take us into bleak territory. Soon, an exhortation on the flute emerges as a beacon of progress and perhaps hope. Yet a glacial — and menacing — passage for organ and orchestra confirms that barriers both mighty and mysterious lie ahead.  

Vaughan Williams prefaced Intermezzo with lines by John Donne (1571–1631): “Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime / Nor hours, days, month, which are the rags of time.” A folk-like chant by the oboe (and later the strings) affirms that love is unbounded by time, geography or distance. Bells and bass drum challenge this sentimental refrain, after which appears a musical memorial to Captain Oates, a leading member of Scott’s expedition who chose death instead of burdening his comrades with the care of his injuries.  

Marked Alla marcia, the Epilogue is indeed a march. A muffled snare drum and hectoring brass segue into arrogant tramping by the cymbals and bass drum. The bells, an echo from the end of the Intermezzo, reappear leading to a recollection of the Prelude’s opening. The music dissipates, leaving stranded, desperate voices lost in the Antarctic wind.  

All notes by Christopher DeLaurenti © 2024