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    <td width="50%" height="11" class="search style1">Sir Malcolm arnOLD CBE 1921-2006</td>
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            <td colspan="3" valign="top" class="eleven"><h2 align="center" class="eleven"><span class="style3"><span class="style4">New and Events</span></span></h2></td>
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                  <span class="elevenbold">The Fourth Symphony </span></strong></p>
              <p class="elevenbold">The conductor John Gibbons discusses Arnold&rsquo;s  Symphonic status with particular reference to the Fourth Symphony - a work he  will be conducting in two concerts this October, including the gala evening at  this year's 'Malcolm Arnold Festival' in Northampton</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">&lsquo;The nine symphonies  of Malcolm Arnold are an extraordinary series of works that display concise  organic thinking coupled to a brilliant melodic dimension. Their very  tunefulness was like a red rag to contemporary critics whose avant-garde  leanings were at odds with both Malcolm and the general public. Tunes were the  preserve of films and &lsquo;light&rsquo; music and were perceived to be out of place in  symphonic works.&nbsp;&nbsp; In his ability to cross  over musical boundaries, Malcolm draws comparison with Leonard Bernstein, whose  serious works still struggle to gain full acceptance despite the enormous  success of his popular works like West Side Story. </p>
              <p class="elevenbold">Malcolm, like one his of his heroes, Dmitri Shostakovich,  wrote a great deal of light music and film music but regarded the symphony and  the quartet as the peaks of musical form. It is interesting to contrast their  reputations &ndash; Shostakovich the acknowledged symphonist but with a vast output  of film and &lsquo;light&rsquo; music hardly known in the West whilst whilst Malcolm  acknowledged as a great composer of film scores and 'light' music but often  misunderstood as a symphonist.</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">As I steadily conduct my way through the  symphonies in chronological order (2009 is my year for No. 4) I am constantly  amazed by the brilliance of the orchestration, the structural organization of  the material and his sheer bloody-mindedness to do his own thing. It is clear  that the years spent as a trumpeter with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and  the BBC Symphony Orchestra provided Malcolm with the perfect platform to learn  about orchestration, in particular, the need to make all the parts relevant.  Sitting amongst the orchestra he found &ldquo;I intensely dislike&rdquo; Wagner and  &ldquo;detest&rdquo; playing the Elgar Symphonies - though he considered the Enigma  Variations &ldquo;his masterpiece&rdquo;. The writer Donald Mitchell noted as early as 1955  that the fact Malcolm &ldquo;has sat inside an orchestra is very evident from the  natural feel of his instrumentation. Yet throughout his scores it is not only  his intimate experience of the potentialities of an orchestra that is explicit,  but also the judgment of an unusually discriminating and original ear. The pure  sound of Arnold&rsquo;s music is, to a degree, an expression of his exceptional  musical practicality, practicality that is raised to a very high level of  virtuosity&hellip;&rdquo;.&nbsp; </p>
              <p class="elevenbold">The influence of some of the composers he  most admired can be seen in the symphonies. From Sibelius comes a number of  musical devices such as bass pedal notes, swelling brass chords, ostinati and  short snippets of melody that gradually expand into broad statements; Mahler  surely is the inspiration behind the abrupt juxtaposition of unconnected  material, in particular the various marches, both fast and funeral, whilst  Malcolm claimed, in an article for Music &amp; Musicians in July 1956, that the  greatest musical influence on his life was Berlioz. His irregular phrase  lengths, such as the long first idea in the Symphonie Fantastique, and opaque  orchestration are clearly to he heard in all the symphonies. However, as a  Symphonist Arnold believes himself to be rooted in the Germanic tradition. &ldquo;I  don&rsquo;t see the symphony like Mahler, who said the whole world should be in it. A  Symphony should be classical in form, like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms.&rdquo;&nbsp; </p>
              <p class="elevenbold">An analysis of the first movement of the  Fourth Symphony allows us the opportunity to see how Malcolm bends the rules of  sonata form to match his compositional ideals some of which he identified in  the 1956 article:</p>
              <p align="left" class="elevenbold">&ldquo;another point which is always in my mind is  that of development. If one is really honest in listening to the music of all  periods there are times when one's mind is inclined to wander. This will happen  even when listening to accepted classical masterpieces, and to a greater extent  when listening to contemporary works. To put it crudely, the mind wanders  during the sections that occur in music between the recognisable themes -  always assuming that the theme or themes have said something to the listener. Very, very roughly  speaking, these parts of a composition are usually development sections; one  cannot write a piece of music by just repeating one theme, unless it is a  special effect one is after as in Ravel's Bolero. A composer has to compose something that contrasts and  will show his original thought in a new light, and the play between these two  or three or even more thoughts goes to make up a composition&rdquo;.</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">I have for some time  encouraged audiences at my orchestral concerts to consider listening to the  development sections in classical sonata form as an area of &lsquo;fun&rsquo; where the  composer shows us innumerable different ways of casting new light on the  motifs/tunes heard in the exposition section through their juxtaposition with  each other and daring harmonic twists and turns. It&rsquo;s a game where our  expectations are constantly dashed by the composer&rsquo;s inventiveness. Malcolm, to  my mind, takes this a stage further by turning the whole movement into a zone  of unexpectedness! </p>
              <p class="elevenbold">The main ideas in the  first movement of Arnold&rsquo;s Fourth Symphony (traditionally termed first and  second subject) are lyrical (particularly the glorious second subject melody)  and on each repetition undergo subtle changes: sometimes by orchestration,  canonic treatment of the melody or the use of related countermelodies. These  lyrical ideas are however thrown into sharp relief, even within the opening  Exposition section, with Malcolm turning the transitional passages into  sections that explode with life and energy as marimba, bongos and tom toms beat  out their Caribbean rhythms. What is usually a passage that can drift between  two ideas is now turned into a major contrasting idea. It reappears in expanded  form towards the end of the development section with music closely reminiscent  of Bernstein&rsquo;s West Side Story and then reappears in the middle of the  Recapitulation section to drive the movement to its climactic moment, marked by  a strike of the tam tam. The tension is now dispelled with the reappearance of  the second subject (now in the subdominant key of F major), a brief  reappearance of the first subject with its intertwining countermelody and then  a short coda which reprises the very opening of the movement.</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">Is this musical  structure clear for the listener and does it hold one&rsquo;s attention for the length  of the movement? It is ultimately a question that only each individual can  answer, hopefully after the chance to hear the work live in concert without the  distractions of ordinary life. I hope you can all join us for the closing  concert of the Malcolm Arnold Festival in the Derngate, Northampton on Sunday  25th October with the Fourth Symphony, Carnival of Animals, A  Flourish for Orchestra, Op.112 as well as the young Russian violinist, Boris  Brovtsyn playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.&rsquo;</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">The Ealing Symphony Orchestra complete  Malcolm Arnold symphony cycle reaches No. 4 on Saturday 10th October  in St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane, W5. Further details from <a href="http://www.ealingso.org.uk/">www.ealingso.org.uk</a>&nbsp; or the Hon. Secretary, Richard Partridge, on  020 8567 4075</p>
              <p class="elevenbold">John Gibbons, Conductor &amp; Composer. MA  (Cantab), FRCO, FRSA, Dip Ram</p>
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