Robert Simpson

Robert Simpson (composer)

Robert Simpson was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.He is best known for his orchestral and chamber music , and for his writings on the music of Beethoven, Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius. He studied composition under Herbert Howells...

 composed his Symphony No. 11 in 1990, dedicating the work to the conductor and composer Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor (composer)

-Biography:Taylor was born in London in 1964. He attended the Junior Royal Academy of Music. He studeid composition with Robin Holloway at Queens' College, Cambridge University and later at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music. He later continued his composition...

, who was scheduled to give the premiere at Cheltenham Town Hall

Cheltenham Town Hall

Cheltenham Town Hall is an early-20th century assembly rooms in Cheltenham, England. Unlike most town halls, it is a public venue and not the seat of the borough council, which is housed in the nearby municipal offices....

 with the City of London Sinfonia

City of London Sinfonia

The City of London Sinfonia is an English chamber orchestra based in London. In London, the CLS performs regularly at Cadogan Hall and St Paul's Cathedral. It is also the resident orchestra at Opera Holland Park. The CLS has annual residencies in four towns in Southern England: Ipswich, King's...

 on 15 July 1991. However, this event never took place, and the actual premiere was given at the Malvern Festival in 1992, by the same performers.

Form

The symphony is approximately 28 minutes in length and is divided into two movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

 of approximately equal length:

1. Andante

   The symphony opens with a lyrical line given out by the first violins, which rises up from the note D before descending through widely-leaping intervals. The musical material for the entire symphony grows out of this line. Passages of quietly intense string writing alternate with moments of reflection, where there is often only two or three lines moving at any one time. There is much lyrical writing for divided cellos in the middle of the movement, before a tightening of note values that gives the illusion of an increase in tempo. The movement gradually accelerates in this way, eventually climaxing on the note C from the entire orchestra before fading out into a quiet coda, which ends mysteriously and unresolved.

2. Allegro vivace

   This movement begins softly with quiet colouristic effects that seem to bubble from the texture: brooding sustained brass resonances and flickering woodwind and string pizzicati. Eventually the music becomes louder and more intense, with a great sense of Beethovenian dynamic energy. After a primary climax, the middle of the movement is dominanted by mysterious threads of contrapuntal lines that gradually increase in dynamic. The climax of the work is built up, where gestures from the first movement are returned, now having undergone a different experience. This climax fades out on a timpani roll, which leaves a short, witty coda where fragments of the music are broken up and disappear into thin air.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a chamber orchestra: two flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, two oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, two clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, two bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, four horns, two trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, and strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

.

Discography

Currently, the only commercially available CD is a Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...

 performed by the City of London Sinfonia

City of London Sinfonia

The City of London Sinfonia is an English chamber orchestra based in London. In London, the CLS performs regularly at Cadogan Hall and St Paul's Cathedral. It is also the resident orchestra at Opera Holland Park. The CLS has annual residencies in four towns in Southern England: Ipswich, King's...

 conducted by Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor (composer)

-Biography:Taylor was born in London in 1964. He attended the Junior Royal Academy of Music. He studeid composition with Robin Holloway at Queens' College, Cambridge University and later at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music. He later continued his composition...

. The work is coupled with a performance of Simpson's Variations on a Theme of Carl Nielsen

Carl Nielsen

Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...

for Orchestra.