Mátyás SEIBER (1905 - 1960)
Choral Music A Cappella: Yugoslav, Hungarian and Nonsense Songs and other
choral music
Choir of the 21st Century/Howard Williams
rec. Rosslyn Hill Chapel, London NW3, 14-15 October 2011. DDD
Track-listing at end of review
SOMM CÉLESTE SOMMCD0105 [60:05]
Refugee composers have added to the genetic musical resources of the British
Isles. Emigrants have returned the favour. The emigrants include W.H. Bell,
Edgar Bainton, Erik Chisholm and Healy Willan. Among the long list of immigrants
we can count Franz Reizenstein, Roberto Gerhard, Egon Wellesz, Berthold Goldschmidt
and the composer whose reputation is the beneficiary of this disc.
Hungarian composer Seiber was born in Budapest. He studied with Kodály and
accompanied the older composer in expeditions to collect in folk songs. In
1928 Seiber was appointed director of the jazz department at the Hoch Conservatory
in Frankfurt. In 1933 he arrived in England in flight from the Nazi regime.
He made London his home and became a British subject in 1935.
Eleven folksy songs are covered by the Yugoslav Folk Songs (SATB,
1942), the Hungarian Folk Songs (SSAA, 1950) and the Two Soldiers’
Songs (TTBB, 1932). The music is pretty much in the ripe English style
mapped out by Grainger, Geoffrey Bush, E J Moeran and RVW. Seiber brings out
the full panoply of effects including humming and ticking ‘lah-lah’ word patterning.
Fairy Tale is positively Delian but then so are many of these eleven
songs.
The 1924 Missa Brevis is typically pure in the pristine medieval
tradition espoused by Holst and RVW – the latter in his own Mass. The Sanctus
is grand in volume and passionate in its devotions. Sirmio starts
in the same place but steps beyond to the extent that the setting ends in
a representation of chuckling laughter through Catullus’s Latin text. The
Three Graces, though dating from only two years before his death, belong
to the same aesthetic region as the Missa Brevis.
The two witty German language madrigals are Morgenstern settings. From the
same year as Sirmio come the Three Nonsense Songs with flighty,
rhythmically bladed and imaginatively bedecked settings of three limericks.
Out of the same style guide comes the jazzy delicacy of Zwei Schweinekarbonaden
where fun is made of the famous Walton Belshazzar’s Feast words Mene
Tekel Upharsin.
This collection has been most naturally recorded. The music is in the best
and sweetest tradition of English choral singing as is the performance which
places emphasis not only on contour and dynamic but also on enunciation. Reverberation
suffices to impart a lively atmosphere but is held back enough to avoid blurring
of words.
The Soldier’s Farewell by Erich Itor Kahn (1905-1956) is a passionately
entwined and faintly melancholic piece. Alan Gibbs’ own Gloria in Excelsis
is a short and rapturous piece. It was composed in Seiber’s memory in 1962.
Kodaly wrote many works for a cappella choir. Media Vita in morte
sumus is gently and tenderly done with rising ramps of ecstatic sound.
It too was written to commemorate Seiber.
Texts and translations are printed in full in the booklet which also supplies
notes by Julia Seiber Boyd and Seiber pupil, Alan Gibbs. These address the
subject of the composer and his music. Seiber’s other pupils include Don Banks,
Ingvar Lidholm, Peter Racine Fricker (whose Fourth Symphony is dedicated to
Seiber’s memory), Hugh Wood, Anthony Gilbert and Malcolm Lipkin.
Seiber recordings have not been numerous but the store of Seiber on CD has
gradually increased. The three string quartets are on Delphian.
The Quartetto Lirico was issued in EMI’s British Composer series.
There’s a chamber music anthology on Hungaroton.
Easy to overlook that Australian Eloquence have included the 1960 Decca Three
Fragments from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Peter
Pears (reciter) and the Dorian Singers and Melos Ensemble conducted by the
composer on 480 2152.
We can hope that the small handful of Seiber broadcasts including Ulysses
might be issued on commercial CD but securing licensing rights can be a recalcitrant
task.
A Seiber choral collection to carry these songs into our affections and into
the singing repertoire of choirs across the world.
Rob Barnett
Carries these songs into our affections and into the singing repertoire of
choirs across the world.
Track-listing
Yugoslav Folk Songs (SATB, 1942)
[1] 1. The Unfaithful Lover 1:01
[2] 2. Handsome Mirko 0:59
[3] 2a. Eighteen Shining Buttons 1:36
[4] 3. Heaven Above 2:15
[5] 4. Hussars 0:42
[6] 4a. Fairy Tale 2:54
Three Hungarian Folk Songs (SSAA,1950)
[7] 1. The Handsome Butcher 1:04
[8] 2. Apple, apple 1:55
[9] 3. The Old Woman 0:44
Two Soldiers’ Songs (TTBB, 1932)
[10] Spring (Tavasz) 1:01
[11] Farewell (Búcsú) 3:15
Missa Brevis (with plainsong)
[12] Kyrie 3:27
[13] Gloria (plainsong) 3:37
[14] Credo (plainsong) 4:11
[15] Sanctus 1:14
[16] Benedictus 1:41
[17] Agnus Dei 3:58
[18] Sirmio (1956) 3:08
Two Madrigals (SATB, 1927-29)
[19] Ghost (Gespenst) 3:28
[20] The Problem (Das Problem) 1:42
Three Nonsense Songs (SATB, 1956)
[21] There was an old lady of France 0:55
[22] There was an old person of Cromer 1:03
[23] There was an old man in a tree 0:58
[24] Soldier’s Farewell (SATB, 1960) – Kahn 3:15
[25] Gloria in Excelsis (SSAA, 1962) – Gibbs 1:10
[26] Media Vita in morte sumus (SATB, 1960) - Kodály 4:27
Three Graces (SATB, 1958)
[27] I 0:42
[28] II 0:51
[29] III 0:56
[30] Zwei Schweinekarbonaden (TTB, 1930) 1:58