Concerts and Events
Five additional Centenary concerts announced:
Latest: In a Birthday concert at St Ives Guildhall on 28th June 2013, the Cornish Sinfonia (conductor David Frost) will play Lloyd's Symphony No 6, together with world premieres of three works - Le Pont Du Gard, the orchestral setting of In Memoriam, ( bothby George Lloyd,) and Morvoren Fantasy for Violin, Strings and percussion by David Frost. For more details of Cornwall's professional orchestra, see http://www.cornishsinfonia.co.uk. This concert has been made possible by the generous support of St Ives Town Council.
EC4 music will give two concerts of Lloyd's choral setting of John Donne's poem A Litany at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8AU on 26th and 27th June 2013. (They previously performed the piece in 2004) Soloists to be announced.
The Lloyd Cello Concerto is to be performed by the Westminster Philharmonic (soloist Bartholomew LaFollette) at St John's, Waterloo, London on March 2nd 2013.
The Farnaby Brass ensemble under Paul Thomas will play Lloyd's Symphony No 10 for Brass at the St Ives festival in September (DetailsTBC)
Details of times, venues and soloists will be found on the Centenary concerts calendar here:
The St Ives Trust and Study Centre flying the George Lloyd flag
George Lloyd was born and grew up in St Ives, where his grandmother Frances (Fanny) Lloyd was an early member of the St Ives artists' colony, and his parents were closely involved with the St Ives Arts Club. The St Ives Trust and Study Centre now have a collection of recordings, correspondence, and documents relating to George Lloyd and his roots in the town, and in the nearby village of Zennor. The Trust has joined the Cornwall coordinating group, formed to manage the Centenary concert series in Lloyd's native Cornwall.
The St Ives Trust is a charitable organization which aims to promote the history and heritage of St Ives and has an archive of material open to the general public. For information visit the St Ives Trust online at: www.stivestrust.co.uk
Visitors to Cornwall may like to know that George Lloyd composed his first opera Iernin in the mill at Bridge Cottage, Zennor, the home of the Wayside Museum, co-founded and managed for many years by his mother, Primrose Lloyd. The Museum houses over 5000 artefacts tracing the folk history of the area since the stone-age. It is open to the public April to October, and well worth a visit. 01736 796945
Unusual Christmas Carol discovered among George Lloyd’s papers.
As Society members may know, the composer’s nephew and executor William Lloyd has discovered a most unusual Christmas Carol, written in the form of a ‘table top double mirror canon’ combined so that the sheet music is in the shape of a cross.
The carol is short - it has one line of lyrics only - and is performed by four singers standing or sitting in a square, with each singer reading a line of music as normal, from left to right. The melodic line is only seven bars long, but is reversible, so that although the singers start at opposite ends of the same line, which they are reading upside down in opposite directions, the intervals are inversions written to harmonise with each other. Two pairs of singers produce four separate lines. The 7 bar piece is simply repeated as often as required.
Since the manuscript is in George Lloyd’s own hand it is assumed that he composed the piece, but any evidence to the contrary will be welcome. No other example of a Table Canon in mirror form in the shape of a cross is known to us. It is written in French, and as George Lloyd’s wife Nancy was French-speaking Swiss/Irish, it is believed that the words originated in Switzerland.
Joyeux Noel, Joyeux Noel, soit la fete benie, Joyeux Noel
Note: A Table Canon is a retrograde and inverse canon, meant to be placed on a table in between two musicians who both read the same line of music, in opposite directions. The form is not common, though examples can be found in the works of Bach, Mozart, Webern and other composers who turned their attention to party tricks.
The mental gymnastics of writing such a piece are almost matched by those required to typeset the work using Sibelius software, but composer Alex Silverman managed to accomplish the feat. The Sheet music is available free on request from the Albany website here.
( The Carol has been adopted by The Futility Closet, a global website dedicated to curiosities in art, literature and science. You can view their site here: )
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