British Classical Guitarist

Michael Butten

Plays English, Italian, German and Spanish Classical Guitar Classics by Dowland, Legnani, Bach and Arnold.

• Luigi Legnani - Fantasia - Op. 19.• J. S. Bach - Violin Sonata No.3 - BMV 1005. • Sir Malcolm Arnold - Fantasy - Op 107.• John Dowland - Fantasia No. 7, Lachrimae Pavan, Lord Strang’s March and Frog Galliard.

St. Albans Cathedral.Lady Chapel at 13:00.

Saturday 24th Feb, 2018

Free Admission.Retiring Collection for the Cathedral Music Trust and Music Department. Guitar – José Luis Romanillos – 1975 ‘La Juana’ -

courtesy Phil Bardsley, St. Albans, UK.

John Dowland

John Dowland (1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and Singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as “Come, heavy sleep” (the basis of Benjamin Britten’s 1963 composition for classical guitar solo written for Julian Bream, Nocturnal after John Dowland), “Come again”, “Flow my tears”, “I saw my Lady weep” and “In darkness let me dwell”, but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century’s early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists.

In 1580 Dowland went to Paris, where he was in service to Sir Henry Cobham, the ambassador to the French court, and his successor, Sir Edward Stafford. He became a Roman Catholic at this timeIn 1584, Dowland moved back to England where he was married. In 1588 he was admitted Mus. Bac. from Christ Church, Oxford. In 1594 a vacancy for a lutenist came up at the English court, but Dowland’s application was unsuccessful – he claimed his religion led to his not being offered a post at Elizabeth I’s Protestant court. However, his conversion was not publicized, and being Catholic did not prevent some other important musicians (such as William Byrd) from having a court career in England.

From 1598 Dowland worked at the court of Christian IV of Denmark, though he continued to publish in London. King Christian was very interested in music and paid Dowland astronomical sums; his salary was 500 daler a year, making him one of the highest-paid servants of the Danish court. Though Dowland was highly regarded by King Christian, he was not the ideal servant, often overstaying his leave when he went to England on publishing business or for other reasons. Dowland was dismissed in 1606 and returned to England, in early 1612 he secured a post as one of James I’s lutenists. There are few compositions dating from the moment of his royal appointment until his death in London in 1626. While the date of his death is not known, “Dowland’s last payment from the court was on 20 January 1626, and he was buried at St Ann’s, Blackfriars, London, on 20 February 1626.”

Two major influences on Dowland’s music were the popular consort songs, and the dance music of the day. Most of Dowland’s music is for his own instrument, the lute. It includes several books of solo lute works, lute songs (for one voice and lute), part-songs with lute accompaniment, and several pieces for viol consort with lute. The poet Richard Barnfield wrote that Dowland’s “heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense.”

One of his better known works is the lute song “Flow my tears”, He later wrote what is probably his best known instrumental work, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares, Figured in Seaven Passionate Pavans, a set of seven pavanes for five viols and lute, each based on the theme derived from the lute song “Flow my tears” It became one of the best known collections of consort music in his time. His pavane, “Lachrymae antiquae”, was also popular in the seventeenth century, and was arranged and used as a theme for variations by many composers. He wrote a lute version of the popular ballad “My Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home”.

John Dowland was married and had children. However, he had long periods of separation from his family, as his wife stayed in England while he worked on the Continent.

Sir Malcolm Arnold

Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. His output of works features music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, the youngest of five children from a prosperous Northampton family of shoemakers. After seeing Louis Armstrong play in Bournemouth, he took up the trumpet at the age of 12 and five years later won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music (R.C.M.).

At the RCM he studied composition with Gordon Jacob and the trumpet with Ernest Hall. In 1941 he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) as second trumpet and became principal trumpet in 1943

In 1941 he registered as a conscientious objector, but in the event he was allowed to continue in the LPO. In 1944, after his brother in the Royal Air Force had been killed, he volunteered for military service. When the army put him in a military band he shot himself in the foot to get back to civilian life. After a season as principal trumpet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra he returned to the London Philharmonic in 1946 where he remained until 1948 when he left to become a full-time composer.

Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by the age of 30 his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain His natural melodic gift earned him a reputation as a composer of light music in works such as some of his concert overtures and the sets of Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish and Cornish dances. He was also a highly successful composer of film music, penning the scores to over a hundred features and documentaries, including titles such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Hobson’s Choice and the St Trinian’s series.

His nine symphonies are often deeply personal and show a more serious side to his work, which has proved more controversial. Arnold also wrote a variety of concertos and chamber works, as well as music for the theatre including major ballets.

His later years saw a decline in both health and finances. In 1978 he was treated as an in-patient for several months in the acute psychiatric ward at the Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London, and in 1979 he entered St Andrew’s Hospital in his home town of Northampton to be treated for depression and alcoholism. He overcame both, despite being given only a year to live in the early 1980s. He lived for 22 more years, albeit with a carer, Anthony Day, and completed his 9th and final symphony in 1986. By the time of Arnold’s 70th birthday celebrations in 1991, his artistic reputation with the general public was recovering and he was even able to enjoy a triumphant appearance on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall to receive an ovation after a Proms performance of his Guitar Concerto.

Arnold died at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Norwich, on 23 September 2006 aged 84, after suffering from a chest infection. That same day his last work, The Three Musketeers, was premiered in a Northern Ballet production at the Bradford Alhambra. The score included no new music by Arnold, but excerpts from various of his compositions were arranged by John Longstaff. The original score was compiled by Anthony Meredith.

A dispute was fought out over the royalties of Arnold’s 9th Symphony. Anthony Day was granted rights, having been left a substantial part of Arnold’s estate.

Luigi Legnani

Luigi Rinaldo Legnani (7 November 1790 – 5 August 1877) was an Italian guitarist, singer, composer and luthier.

Born in Ravenna, Legnani was trained as a string player while very young but dedicated himself to guitar and voice. His debut as an operatic tenor was in Ravenna in 1807; his singing career spanned 17 years. His career as a guitarist began with a concert in Milan in 1819; with his concerts in 1822 concerts in Vienna and return visits in 1833 and 1839 he tried to continue the guitar tradition established there by Mauro Giuliani.

Legnani is perhaps best known for his 36 Caprices op. 20 for the guitar, which cover all the major and minor keys, and which were probably inspired by Paganini’s 24 Caprices for the violin. He and Paganini were friends from the 1830s; while it was once thought that he and Paganini performed together in public (Powroźniak mentions a concert in Northern Italy in 1837), there is no evidence to support this claim. After the 1850s Legnani retired from active performance and became an instrument maker, concentrating on guitars and violins. The “Legnani model” guitar

was popular in Central Europe through the middle of the nineteenth century.

Legnani composed some 250 works, which were published in his lifetime throughout many of the major publishing houses in Europe. He died in Ravenna.

As a regular visitor to Vienna, Legnani cooperated with Johann Georg Stauffer and his son Anton to make guitars according to Legnani’s design, to be followed by a number of other luthiers (“Nach dem Modell des Luigi Legnani” / ‘after the model of Luigi Legnani’).

Later he began making his own guitars, and some of his instruments still exist:There is some confusion regarding the luthierie of Legnani, as there seems to have been a second (earlier) Luigi Legnani who seems to have been an apprentice of Zosimo Bergonzi.

Was Legnani a luthier? Sergio Monaldini affirms clearly that there is no reliable evidence that Legnani ever built a guitar or a violin, and there is no guitar signed by him.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. Having become an orphan at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother, after which he continued his musical formation in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university’s student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened in some of his earlier positions, he had a difficult relation with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland in 1736. In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after eye surgery in 1750.

Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach’s compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular.[4] He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments.He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employ the genres of canon and fugue.

Throughout the 18th century Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach-biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals and websites exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including for instance the Air on the G String, and of recordings, for instance three different box sets with complete performances of the composer’s oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.

Michael Butten

Born in Berkshire, Michael Butten studied at the RAM Junior Academy, where he twice won the Lower Strings Prize, before being awarded a scholarship at the Academy to continue his studies with Michael Lewin. In his first year he won the Julian Bream Prize, adjudicated by Julian Bream, and, shortly afterwards, gained the Nervi/Bodrato Prize as the youngest semi-finalist at the Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition in Alessandria. On completing his BMus degree with first class honours, he received from the Academy one of the Regency Awards for Notable Achievement and in June 2014, as a postgraduate with a scholarship from Help Musicians UK, he became the first guitarist ever to win the R.A.M. Club Prize. He was the 1st prize winner at the 2016 Ivor Mairants Guitar Award, and is a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. Upon leaving the Academy in 2016 he also won the David Russell Prize.

Notable among his solo engagements have been concerto performances at the Malcolm Arnold Festival in Northampton, the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo with the Berkshire Youth Orchestra and the Windsor and Maidenhead Symphony Orchestra, concerts with the Berkeley Ensemble at The Forge and in the City of London to celebrate the music of Malcolm Arnold, and recitals and festivals in Germany, Italy, Holland, and Belgium. He also recorded the Malcolm Arnold Serenade with the Chamber Ensemble of London for their CD ‘A British Serenade’. After performing at Kings Place for the London International Guitar Festival, he was selected to tour the UK on the IGF’s Young Artist Platform.

Having been, for several years, leader of the National Youth Guitar Ensemble, Michael has remained highly active in chamber music, regularly collaborating with Academy guitarists, singers, wind players and string quartets; his musical interests have extended from performing with the Manson Ensemble in Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse to learning the theorbo for a Royal Academy Opera production of Il Giasone by Cavalli under the direction of Jane Glover. With the tenor Oliver Johnston he has appeared in masterclasses with the late Robert Tear and in 2014 was invited to present, with the tenor Julian Gregory, a programme for the Lennox Berkeley Society; this was soon followed by his participation at the Academy in a special concert of all Berkeley’s music involving the guitar, which drew warm critical acclaim in the Daily Telegraph. He has also performed with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, at Endellion Music Festival with tenor Mark Padmore, and as part of Tetra Guitar Quartet at the Iserlohn Guitar Festival in their last ever concert.

Of particular interest to Michael is the often neglected guitar music of British composers, British renaissance lute repertoire and the link often found between the music of both eras. He is currently preparing a solo recording devoted to the music of John Dowland.

“In soulful music with hardly a trace of Englishness, he was already exploiting the guitar’s possibilities, and in this performance Michael Butten summoned up a subtle range of colours.”

The Independent review of Lennox Berkeley and the Guitar Concert

“This was playing of exceptional accomplishment, distinguished by a natural warmth of tone and finely judged nuance of expression.”

Classical Guitar Magazine

“Arnold devotees will surely be delighted by Michael Butten’s account of the Opus 50 Serenade for Guitar and Strings, which opens this new disc with a strikingly committed and technically adroit performance of this exacting score. Butten’s playing, whilst thoroughly poised, is also noteworthy for its powerful sense of musical imagery, most touchingly and affectingly realised in the thoughtful central episode.”

Beckus Magazine review of ‘British Serenade’ CD, with the Chamber Ensemble of London

http://www.michaelbutten.co.uk/

The Guitar Being Played Today and the History.

The fine and rare classical guitar being played today by Michael Butten is a José Luis Romanillos construction ‘La Juana’ of 1975’, and has been loaned to Michael by Phil Bardsley from St. Albans who bought the guitar from Romanillos on completion in 1975, and has been subsequently played by him over the years. It is the exactly the same construction as the ‘very famous’ 1973 Romanillos used by one of the three most Distinguished Classical Guitarists of the 20th Century, Julian Bream, for his recordings and global performances in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

José Luis Romanillos Vega was born in Madrid in 1932, and at thirteen years of age, he was apprenticed to a Madrid cabinet maker. In 1956 he moved to England to work in a hospital in Epsom and a few months later to a hospital in London. Five years later he made his first Spanish guitar in London -1961.

In 1970 he set up a workshop as a Guitar Luthier in the village of Semley, Wiltshire, encouraged and supported by the English Guitarist Julian Bream. All Romanillos guitars have received recognition from Guitarists Internationally as much for their sound as for their aesthetical appearance. The pure sound and the harmonic balance of the strings is what Romanillos looked for in his quest to produce the subtle ‘Spanish Sound’. The Daily Mail called him ‘the Stradivari of the Guitar’ and the Italian magazine Sei Corde “The Most Important Living Stringed Instrument Maker’. From the early 1970’s, Romanillos made no more than 10-12 guitars per year – hence the rarity - and they were all 100% his craftsmanship. He did not employ any sub-workers in his workshop.

His designs were based upon those of the most famous Spanish Guitarist and Luthier of the 19th Century, Antonio de Torres Jurado. He was born 13th June, 1817 in Almeria, Andalucia and died 19th November, 1892.

It is from his designs that the first recognizably modern classical guitars have evolved. Most acoustic guitars in use today are derivatives of his designs.

When he was 12, he started an apprenticeship as a carpenter. There are some doubts as to who taught Torres, one theory being that around 1842, Torres may have gone to work for José Pernas in Granada, rapidly learning how to construct guitars. He shortly thereafter moved to Seville, and opened a shop on the Calle de Cerragería No. 7 that he shared with Manuel Soto y Solares. Although he made some guitars during the 1840’s, it was not until the 1850’s on the advice of the renowned guitarist and composer Julián Arcas, that Torres made it his profession. Julián Arcas offered Torres advice on construction, and their collaboration gave Torres a huge interest into all.

Torres guitars are divided into two periods. The first, belonging to Seville from 1852–1870; the second between 1871-1893 in Almería. The guitars Torres made were so superior to those of his contemporaries, that by example they changed the way guitars were built, first in Spain, and then in the rest of the world. Although they are not particularly loud by modern standards, they have a clear, balanced, firm and rounded tone that project very well.

Like Romanillos, he made no more than 12 guitars per year and likewise 100% his construction.

Programme Notes – Phil Bardsley, 24th February, 2018 – St. Albans, UK.

philbardsley@hotmail.com

The Liturina Ensemble

English, German, and Italian Period Classics by Dowland, Purcell, Handel, Britten,

Corelli, Boccherini and Vivaldi.

Perform

St. Albans Cathedral.Nave at 19:30.Saturday 24th March, 2018.

• Corelli - Trio Sonata in D Major Op. 3, No. 2 - Strings with Harpsichord

• Handel - Soprano, Strings with Harpsichord. ‘Ira Sdegni from Teseo’, ‘With darkness deep as is my soul’ ‘O that I on wings could fly’ from Theodora and

‘Un’aura placida e lusinghiera’ from Faramondo

• Vivaldi - Baroque Bassoon Concerto in D Minor, RV 481 with Strings and Harpsichord

• Purcell - Tenor with Classical Guitar - ‘There’s not a Swain’, ‘Not all my Torments’, ‘If Music Be the Food of Love’, ‘I’ll Sail Upon the Dog-Star’.

• Purcell - Soprano with Classical Guitar - ‘Sweeter Than Roses’.

• Boccherini - Introduction and Fandango Duet - Classical Guitar with Harpsichord

Interval 20/25 mins

• Britten - Soprano with Classical Guitar - ‘I Shall Give My Love an Apple’, ‘The Soldier and the Sailor’, ‘Master Kilby’.

• Britten - Tenor with Classical Guitar - ‘Happy Were He’ from Gloriana

• Vivaldi - Baroque Bassoon Concerto in A Minor, RV497 with Strings and Harpsichord

• Purcell - Duets for Soprano and Tenor accompanied by Strings with Harpsichord - ‘My Dearest, My Fairest’, ‘Sound the Trumpet’ and ‘Celemene, Pray

Tell me’.

• Dowland - Tenor with Classical Guitar. - ‘Come Again’, ‘In Darkness Let Me Dwell’, ‘Can She Excuse’, and ‘Fine Knacks for Ladies’.

• Boccherini - Quintet in E Minor - Strings with Classical Guitar

• Dowland - Tenor with Classical Guitar - ‘Come, Heavy Sleep’.

Cathedral Box Office Ticketing - The Box Office is open for enquiries and ticket sales on Weekdays, 10.00 -16.45, Saturdays, 10.00 -15.45, and Sundays 13.00 -17.00. Tel. 01727 890290.

Ticket pricing £ 25.00, £ 20.00 and £ 15.00. Concession £ 10.00 for disabled and free adjacent seat for ‘Carer’.

Alternatively, Book On Line at ‘www.stalbanscathedral.org’

Retiring Collection for the Cathedral Music Trust and Music DepartmentPerformance Director – Phil Bardsley, St. Albans, United Kingdom.

All enquiries to ‘philbardsley@hotmail.com’.

‘The Liturina Ensemble’

• An Ensemble of highly talented, energetic ‘Prize Winning’ Young Classical Instrumentalists and Vocalists all of whom are Graduates, Studying as

Postgraduates or Postgraduates at/from The Royal College of Music and The Royal Academy of Music, in London.

• The Ensemble comprises of the following Performers – Ian Tindale (Harpsichord/Organ/Piano), Gabriella Jones (Violin), Abel Cziczer Balazs (Violin),

Geeta Nazareth (Viola/Violin), Iain Hall (Cello/Recorder), Matthew Lewis (Bassoon/Baroque Bassoon), Katie Cowling (Oboe/ Recorder/Dulcian), Sophie

Gallagher (Soprano), Joel Williams (Tenor) and Michael Butten (Classical Guitar).

• Prior to studying at The Royal College of Music in London, Four of the Ensemble members studied at Cambridge University – Ian Tindale was Organ

Scholar at Selwyn College and Joel Williams Choral Scholar at King’s College. Full details upon all within their Bios per the below Link.

• The Ensemble has a broad and deep Repertoire which includes Traditional Period Chamber Music and Vocals through to the 20th Century. The inclusion of the Classical Guitarist, Michael Butten, provides an interesting and unusual

‘Repertoire Extension’ such that the Ensemble can perform interesting Period and 20th Century Concertos with both the String Quartet and with Small Orchestra. In addition, likewise accompanying the Vocalists, Sophie Gallagher and Joel Williams.

• The Ensemble will be performing ahead at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Christchurch, Oxford, St. George’s, Bristol, Cadogan Hall, St. Martin’s

in the Fields, St. John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall in London.

www.liturinaensemble.com

Enquiries to Phil Bardsley, St.Albans, United Kingdom. ‘philbardsley@hotmail.com’

St Albans Cathedral Music Trust

The St Albans Cathedral Music Trust(Registered Charity No.1051072) has been established to support the Dean and Cathedral Council in their wish to preserve and enhance the centuries of choral worship here at the Cathedral of the first British martyr, St Alban.

The Trust’s vision is:- daily choral services led by the Cathedral Choir or Abbey Girls Choir, with a continuing place for voluntary choirs and music groups;- an organ which is sufficiently expressive and versatile for the Cathedral’s use and for the International Organ Festival;- high quality musical events with concert appearances by the Cathedral’s own musicians and visiting performers;- full orchestral works in the liturgical setting on occasions during the year;- the sharing of the Cathedral’s musical resources with others through an education programme that encourages children and young people to get involved in music and music-making, and by visits of the Cathedral’s choirs to other parish churches;- raising an endowment fund of £3m to meet the cost of maintaining the Cathedral’s music and its instruments.

To turn our vision into reality and to give music in the Cathedral the secure future it deserves will require committed financial support. The Trust welcomes donations both large and small from all who value the contribution of choral worship.

How you can help?

How you can help:Become a Patron – with an annual donation of £100 or more you will receive a monthly music list, twice-yearly newsletters, an invitation to the annual Advent Carol Service followed by dinner, and advance booking for Cathedral sponsored concerts

Sponsor an organ pipe – from £25; help keep our organ in the best possible condition

Endow a Day’s Music - £7,500 (£6,000 if gift aided) you can choose a date – subject to availability – on which your gift will be recognised by means of a commemorative sign displayed in the Cathedral on the chosen day. Automatic enrolment as a lifetime Patron

Endow a chorister or lay clerk – for a gift of £25,000 (£20,000 if gift aided) or £50,000 (£40,000 if gift aided) the donor has their name associated, in perpetuity, with a particular chorister’s or lay clerk’s place in the choirs, marked by an engraved medal they wear when singing. Automatic enrolment as a lifetime Patron

Leave a gift in your will – legacies large and small help the trust continue its work

Further InformationIf you would like further information about the work of the Trust or ways you can support the Trust or would like to make a dona-tion, please contact:St Albans Cathedral Music TrustTel: +44 (0)1727 890231email: music-trust@stalbanscathedral.org

Trustees: Christopher Muhley Chairman, The Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John Dean of St Albans, Andrew Lucas Master of Music, Ralph Abel Smith, Professor Timothy Blinko, Moira Dean, Peter Letanka, Christopher Melluish, Lady Shelagh Nichols, John Palmer, Sir Peter Trevelyan, Gini Trower