Features: The Sea
The ocean has inspired composers in many ways. It can be mysterious and primeval, the bringer of both life and death, a source of tranquillity or joy or simply a jolly excuse for a patriotic roar-up. Why not enjoy a little of all of these with this week's suggested listening?play now
Benjamin Britten: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
Britten's operatic tale of a persecuted fisherman's descent into madness depicts the sea as an elemental force which passes dispassionate and seemingly arbitrary judgement on guilty and innocent alike. This set of orchestral interludes from the opera is often performed as a suite.
Henry J Wood: Fantasia on British Sea Songs
This popular concoction was originally devised to celebrate the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1905. Wood was of course the founding conductor of the Proms; the Fantasia was to become a Last Night fixture. Wood also accidentally 'founded' the London Symphony Orchestra, which was formed by forty players who resigned from his orchestra when he banned the use of deputies!
Edward Elgar: Sea Pictures
Elgar's appealing song cycle for contralto and orchestra predates Wood's fantasia by six years. It includes settings of texts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer's wife.
Poul Ruders: The City in the Sea
This widely-acclaimed contemporary Danish composer here provides a suitably eerie setting, also for contralto and orchestra, of a poem by Edgar Allen Poe which describes an engulfed city ruled by a personified Death.
Toru Takemitsu: Toward the Sea
This beautifully evocative and perfectly executed duet for flute and guitar is by Japan's best-known 20th century composer. A set of three delicate miniatures, it deals with its theme from three very different perspectives.
Claude Debussy: La Mer
This influential piece is a sophisticated exploration of innovative orchestration and harmonic ideas, perfectly evoking three distinct impressions of the ocean. Despite the fact that it was completed in 1905 (in Eastbourne!), the same year in which Wood's Fantasia (see above) was premiered, it's hard to imagine two more different ideas of the sea or two more different compositional approaches.
Franz Schubert: Meeresstille II in C, D. 216 / OP. 3 NO. 2 (Calm at Sea)
A theme which has attracted many composers is here presented with a beautiful sense of peace and resolution in a simple but elegant setting for soprano and piano.
Bill Perkins: Sea Swirls from Swing Spring
Bill Perkins was a cool jazz saxophonist and flautist popular on the West Coast jazz scene, known primarily as a tenor saxophonist. He is probably most remembered, however, for playing tenor for The Lighthouse All-Stars. This song, with it's revolving horn tune, is anything but cool and calm.
Johnny Collins, Dave Webber, Pete Watkinson: Shanties and Songs of the Sea
In the days when human muscles were the only power source available aboard ship, sea shanties served a practical purpose: the rhythm of the song served to synchronize the movements of the sailors as they toiled at repetitive tasks. This album is a fascinating collection of these lost songs!
