SUITE:A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY op.446 (June 1992)

Published by: Highbridge Music Ltd
Instrumentation: vn1,vn2,va,vc,cb
[Key to Abbreviations]
Duration: 13 mins
First Performance: A first recording of the suite was made by the Northern Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel on 6th February 1993 in Leeds Town Hall. It was issued on ASV digital (CD DCA 905) in 1994 with two other of Howard Blake's works: Violin Concerto ''The Leeds'' (1992) and Sinfonietta for ten brass instruments (1981).

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ASV digital CD/PAUL DANIEL CD DCA 905 with Violin Concerto (The Leeds)

Movements

• 1: Larghetto 3 minutes 02 seconds
  Idyll
  

  The first movement speaks of an idyllic pastoral scene, but a dark shadow lurks beneath the beauty and serenity.

• 2: Alla Marcia 1 minutes 19 seconds
  March
  

  The second is a march which sounds almost incongruous played on sweet-toned strings rather than trumpet and drums.

• 3: Adagio 3 minutes 53 seconds
  Elegy
  

  The Elegy conveys desolation, man's inhumanity to man and the overturning of ideals.

• 4: Scherzando 1 minutes 33 seconds
  Scherzo
  

  The fourth movement is a rustic dance, interrupted briefly by a reference to the previous movement. It is as if a young veteran, determined to blot out the horrors of the past and make a new start, is haunted by intrusive memories.

• 5: Andante espressivo 3 minutes 06 seconds
  Finale
  

  The final movement is a resolution. Beauty still exists, though perhaps with added poigmancy, and idealism is not dead.
  
  (M.J.)

Notes

Programme note by Miranda Jackson:

In 1986 Howard Blake was commissioned to write the score for the film 'A Month in the Country', directed by Pat O'Connor and produced by Ken Trodd for Euston Films in conjunction with Channel 4. The score won him the British Film Institute's Anthony Asquith Award for Musical Excellence. The film starred Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh and Miranda Richardson whilst the script was adapted by Simon Gray from the book by J.L.Carr. It is a story of two former soldiers coming to terms with the horrors of the Great War amidst the serenity of the English countryside. One is an archaeologist excavating in a rural churchyard, the other is uncovering a mural as part of the restoration of the church. As sections of the mural gradually re-emerge, so they rediscover themselves and come to terms with the iconoclasm of the first world war.

Note by the composer: Director Pat O'Connor showed me the film in the final stages of editing. Some recordings of classical music had been added- an excerpt from Verdi's 'Quattro Pezzi Sacri' was used during the uncovering of the mediaeval mural and the flashback montage of the First World War which opened the film used an excerpt from Schubert's Mass in E flat with chorus and orchestra. This worked powerfully and I decided that my score should not compete but contrast with it by being scored 'purely' for string orchestra, a medium much-beloved by English composers of that era. It was this music with its sad hints of a lost age which I later adapted into the suite.

 

   

Performances

5th July 2006	Ensemble Orchestral Stringendo/Jean Thorel, Annexe de la mairie XIV arrt. Paris
21st May 2000	Barry Wordsworth, The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra Millenium concert 2000 in Hove Town Hall including Robert Cohen playing 'Diversions'

Reviews

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A lovely suite of string music written for the film A Month in the Country is also inspired. The bittersweet nostalgia of the three slow movements makes a telling contrast with the Alla Marcia second and the folksy Scherzando fourth.

Ivan March, Gramophone, 12/1994

Related Works

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