LSO Discovery

Italian-British composer Francesco Paolo Tosti’s life story was a rags-to-riches roller-coaster ride. His promising career as violinist was cut short due to ill health. He then became so poor that he could only afford to eat oranges and stale bread. A chance meeting with royalty, however, gave him enough money and notoriety to travel to England where he wrote songs so famous that within a few years he was knighted by his ‘friend’ King Edward VII. By 1906 he was one of the most popular song composers in the world with staggering fees to match. La serenata is one of his most famous tunes

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Franz Schubert is now one of the most performed and popular composers of the Classical period, but in his lifetime he struggled to be taken seriously outside of his small circle of musician friends. He wrote an amazing amount of music, including more than 600 songs – many of which are the jewels of German Lieder. Des Sängers Habe was written in 1825. It was a difficult time for the composer. He was gravely ill and the words, from a poem by his friend, really spoke of his plight. The song is at times angry, at times resigned, and the message is: 'You can take everything from me but if I have my music, I will still be rich’.

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Gabriel Fauré’s career started when pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin was still alive and ended when Arnold Schoenberg was causing controversy with his Serial techniques. No other composer’s career so neatly bridges this stylistic gulf. Without Fauré’s harmonic and melodic innovations there would be no Claude Debussy, no Maurice Ravel, no Francis Poulenc – all composers who came after Fauré. It was Fauré, during his role as Head of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire, who pushed the boundaries further than anyone else and encouraged the next generation of composers to follow suit. He was also a master of the French art song. This song, which translates as ‘The white moon gleams in the woods’, is from a collection of nine songs from 1894. The words are from symbolist poet Paul Verlaine and the topic is love.

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This song was recently called ‘the greatest British art song ever’ by mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly. Composer Hebert Howells said it was the thing he was most proud of and Walter de la Mare, the poet whose words are so wonderfully set, said it was simply ‘perfect’. Howells was an English composer who is now perhaps best known for his religious works. He was one of a group of up-and-coming composers at the Royal College of Music who all had an interest in art songs. Howells’ life and career was halted by disease in 1914 and he was prevented from fighting in the First World War. Many of his friends were not so ‘lucky’ and did not return from war, leaving Howells one of the few to survive. King David was written in 1923. The words talk of sorrow and of solace found in nature.

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In his adult life, Hugo Wolf lived with mental ill health and depression, leading to his withdrawal from public life aged just 37. Wolf’s true genius was in the creation of Lieder (art songs) and he wrote hundreds of these despite being concerned that the genre was second-rate to the larger scale opera and symphony. His unique talent lay in putting the words first and writing music to suit the drama of the text, regardless of whether or not it followed the 'rules' of harmony and form. Today we hear settings of poetry by Joseph Eichendorff and by Eduard Morike. These were written during happy times living with supportive friends and in good health.

The song titles translate as Homesick (Heimweh), Prayer (Gebet) and Insatiable Love (Nimmersatte Liebe).

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A child prodigy, who had caught much attention in his native Austria and across Europe by his early teens, Erich Korngold accepted an invitation from film director Max Reinhardt to adapt Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for a 1935 movie. In doing so, he ‘invented’ film music as we know it today. Once in Hollywood he went on to have a stellar career winning several Oscar nominations and many awards. Despite considerable fame and riches, Korngold missed Europe and desperately wanted to be taken seriously as an orchestral composer. However when he tried to return after the Second World War his ‘serious’ works were deemed desperately old-fashioned by the critics. Glückwunsch (Congratulations) was written during the peak years of his Hollywood fame and its gorgeous melody was later re-used in a film about the Brontë sisters.

_{Note by Rachel Leach}

1 Come unto these yellow sands
2 Full fathom five
3 Where the bee sucks

Michael Tippett was born in London to an entrepreneur father, whose business ventures led to a slightly nomadic life for the family. Tippett announced his intention to be a composer at the age of ten: this came out of nowhere along with other young pronouncements that he stuck to, namely his homosexuality and his atheism. He came to prominence during and after the Second World War, and is now often thought of as one of the England’s finest 20th-century composers, alongside Benjamin Britten. Songs for Ariel was written for the Old Vic’s 1962 production of The Tempest. Ariel is a powerful spirit and these three very short songs neatly capture his mischievous personality.

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Born in Germany, George Frideric Handel studied for a law degree and only took up music after the death of his father, who had objected to the pursuit of music. After gaining a little fame at home, he travelled to Italy and was declared a genius by his rival, Arcangelo Corelli. He then travelled to England and, realising the potential for fame in a country with no composers of his stature, he settled in London and championed the British music scene. His first successes were with Italian-style opera before moving on to oratorios (unstaged operas with an often sacred topic). This incredibly dramatic song is from a music drama called Hercules. It is sung by the main female character as, wracked with guilt, she wishes for madness.

_{Note by Rachel Leach}