Dog Days : An Opera In Three Acts

David T. Little's Dog Days. An Opera in Three Acts.

Walking

Show-Case : Five Piano Pieces

All artistic Paris knows Madame Amos, a great patron of contemporary painting, of art in general and music in particular. Her collection of paintings and objects dart is world famous. Her interest and initiative are responsible for the creation ofmany works of art. Tcherepnin wanted to express in music his impressions of the figurines in Madame Amos show-case, which was composed in 1946 and consists of five movements.The first movement is inspired by a group of miniature greyhounds in glass,which in the show-case stands next to a massive porcelain cow. the greyhounds are full of action, whilst the cow is placid. This contrast inspired the composer. How often in life is our enthusiasm thwarted by something as placid as a cow!The secondmovement presents the crabs. We can picture two crabs seeing one another from afar and approaching each other backwards. There are two versions: one for the children wherein the crabs devour one another (which is true to zoological law), the otherfor adults, which we leave to their imagination, and which is equally faithful to the laws of nature. Assuming that the second version takes place, the frog which is next to the crabs begins to gossip, thus scandalizing all the creatures in theshow-case. The uproarious noise of the poultry, followed by the scurrying of the weasel provides the rhythm for the fourth movement.Tcherepnin declares that the big porcelain deer is one of the most beautiful pieces, if not the most beautiful, inMadame Amos collection. The contemplation of the deer reminded Tcherepnin of an incident which he relates; it was in Austria in the forest of Hagengut near Mariazell where, before the war, he spent a few days holiday on the estate of his friend,Alfred von Porada. Walking peacefully in the forest Tcherepnin suddenly found himself confronted by a deer advancing in his direction. Both stopped and stared, but only for a few seconds. Thanks to the music we shall know the thoughts of Tcherepnin,but we shall never know those of the deer, which swiftly fled.

Friday Afternoons op. 7/12 : No. 12 Old Abram Brown

Text: anon. (in 4 parts) Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes Difficulty level: 1-2 This set of mainly unison songs [Friday Afternoons] for young voices is a gift for a concert of music for upper voices. It is a substantial work taken as awhole but its individual movements are both short and straightforward in their various challenges. Britten wrote the work for the boys of his brother's preparatory school (age 7-13), Clive House, Prestatyn, in Wales to sing.However he encountered a problem with copyright over the use of the Lone Dog. He therefore wrote Begone, dull care to replace it. When these issues were resolved years later the song was included as an appendix item in the 1994edition. The real beauty of these songs is that Britten never writes down for the children. These are art songs in the best sense of the word and mix both dark and light humour with seriousness and romance to create a little worldof changing scenes and emotions. The texts are, as always, carefully chosen to give Britten maximum variety of mood and to challenge and encourage the childrens' interest and involvement. The piano parts carry a lot of theresponsibility for the creation of mood and atmosphere and ideally need a pianist of reasonable accomplishment to do them justice. In There was a monkey Britten writes an increasingly challenging part which is very effective inmaking the charged mood rise to its climax. However, he writes an easier alternative part which can be played if the pianist finds the other too difficult. The mixture of texts gives Britten wonderful opportunities for wordpainting. The lively Begone, dull care which opens the work, the nonsense poem of A tragic story where a man wants his pigtail to hang in front so he can see it, the gentle story of the Cuckoo and his progress through the monthsof the year, the rather sobering story (especially in our post-fox hunting ban days) of the shooting of a fox by a farmer whose geese it has killed, the sublime A New Year's Carol - and so on, leading to the powerful four partcanon of Old Abram Brown. These little pieces demonstrate so clearly Britten's genius - his ability to write really good music which is so recognisably his - without any feeling that he is making compromises for the young singers.