ONE OF THE MOST ATTRACTIVE OCCUPATIONS So Seiber described taking a folk “tune in its entirety and giving it a suitable framework.” It was 1959, in his essay “Folk Music and the Contemporary Composer” (Recorded Folk Music, II, July-August 1959, pp. 6-9) For Seiber, it was the previous generation of composers, such as “the Russian “narodniki”, with Grieg, Janácek, Bartók, Vaughan Williams, Kodály and Holst”, who formed their “musical language on the basis of folk music.” “Experiments such as Bartók’s helped the modern composer to become aware of new rhythmic possibilities, and to make his metrical schemes more flexible.” But writing in 1959, he felt “the heyday of nationalism in music has passed.” Folk idioms were no longer required to release music from classical strictures. And Seiber wrote that he didn’t “think that the use of such material has affected in any way the musical style of my other, more “abstract” works.” For Le Rossignol (track 3) he produced a richly diverse texture for the guitar part., but felt no need to include distant, atonal pitches such as Luciano Berio would a few years later, when producing his quite sparse setting in 1964. (The fourth of his folk-songs for mezzo and seven instruments, this particular song being scored for clarinet, crotales and harp) Now that folk music no longer served a liberating function for Art music, Seiber could revel in the “sheer delight of handling such beautiful material. I find the challenge of exercising one’s ingenuity to provide a skilful and musically satisfying framework for the tune most stimulating.” It was at the time of this article that Seiber collaborated with his friend and pupil, the Australian composer Don Banks, to produce a collection of arrangements of North American folk songs for Alan Lomax, published after his death in 1960. Lomax’s musical beliefs would have sat well with Seiber’s attitude that folk song was no longer a key to modernity. Lomax wrote that “The first function of music, especially folk music, is to produce a feeling of security for the listener by voicing the particular quality of a land and the life of its people.” However, for Lomax it was entirely appropriate to have the qualities expressed in these American folk songs set by a European and an Australian composer. “Everywhere in the New World we find songs that were popular in the days when the colonists set sail from their homelands. Thus American song is, in one aspect, a museum of musical antiques from many lands.” (Alan Lomax, The Folk Songs of North America in the English language, p.xv-xvi) Three sets, each of four songs, are of French origin. The Four French Folk Songs also date from 1959, the guitar parts being edited by Julian Bream. Seiber derived the core melodies and texts from Le livre des Chansons, published in the 1940’s by Henri-irénée Marrou (writing under the pseudoname of Henri Davenson). The historian Marrou had already modernised the antique spelling of the lyrics. Also from this book comes Ne l’oserais-je dire?, the last of the Four Old French Songs, published posthumously in 1961. The other three texts come from Chanson du XVe siècle, edited by Gaston Paris in 1875. Again the medieval French has been modernised for Seiber’s publication. The guitar parts for this set were edited by John Williams. The Four Medieval French Songs date from 1945. Here the antique spelling and syntax of Old French is maintained. The quartet accompaniment is also the most all’antica of the French settings, with the options of viola and cello or viola d’amore and viola da gamba. Seiber does not shy away from the inherent innuendo of some lyrics. The last song of this group, Pourquoi me bat mon mari? acts as the underlying tenor in Guillaume de Marchaut’s motet Se j’aim mon loyal ami, but with the more salacious section of the lyrics exorcised. (Motet M16) Seiber may also have known Yvette Guilbert’s two setting from the 1920’s, after she had moved from the young risqué performer captured by Toulouse-Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge to a noted collector of medieval French songs. (Guilbert, Yvette, Chanteries du Moyen Age, harmonized by Edmond W. Rickett. Heugel c.1926, first version, Vol.1, No.6, p.12) By contrast, Gaston Paris suggested that Gentilz galans de France referred to the 1488 battle of Saint-Aubin during the war between Charles VIII and François de Bretagne. Cambridge University Library holds three manuscripts with just the lyrics and vocal lines from this set of medieval songs. They are in Seiber’s hand and that of Hedli Anderson. Hedli was an actor in some of W. H. Auden’s plays in the London Group Theatre in the 1930’s. Auden and Benjamin Britten composed the Cabaret Songs for her. (CUL MS. Add. 8959.106, 107[2] & 125) The solid strophic and dance forme fixé of these songs are set with considerable flexibility. There are manuscripts of Seiber’s arrangements of various sixteenth and seventeenth century orchestral works in the British Library that may indicate the process leading to this flexibility. (BL. Add. MS 63599) The arrangements are first written out in black ink, following the uninflected notation of the originals. Then, using pencil and coloured crayon, dynamic and tempo fluctuations are added, bringing the arrangements to life. The Four Greek Songs originally appeared in string orchestral arrangement in 1942, these guitar arrangements being by Gregg Nestor. Tyrone Landau July 2012 Tyrone Landau: As a tenor, Tyrone has appeared in numerous operas in Australia, England and Europe. His roles have included Il Conte d’Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Agenore in Il Re Pastore, Gastone in La Traviata, Cochenille and Pittichinaccio in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Albert in Albert Herring, Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Don Basilio and Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro, Erster Priester and Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte, Testo in Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Alfonso in Alfonso und Estrella, and Der Narr in Wozzeck. Recent productions have been Henze’s Das Wundertheater (Cantiere di Montepulciano). Manifeste de l’Hotel Chelsea and Triumphant Desire for Kings Place, London, and Dido and Æneas for Fana Unge Musikkteater, Norway. He sung for the Royal Opera House (London) in productions of Exposure and the role of Turkey in The Owl and The Pussycat as part of the London 2012 Festival. He sang Messe un Jour Ordinaire by Bernard Cavanna for Radio France, Paris, and in L’Agité du Bocal by the same composer, with Ars Nova Ensemble, Paris. His song cycle, Friends Like The Rain, recently been performed by Bergen Natjonale Opera. Geoffrey Morris: Melbourne born guitarist Geoffrey Morris is equally at home in the musical worlds of the modern and the ancient. To date he has premiered over 200 new works for guitar but has also performed little know works of the baroque and classic- romantic eras on reproductions of period guitars. Geoffrey has accompanied many of Australia’s finest singers including Sally-Anne Russell, Siobhan Stagg, Jane Edwards, Deborah Kayser, Brenton Spitelli and Lyndon Terracini. As a free-lance musician he has performed with the Black Arm Band, Elision, Song Company, Paul Grabowsky, ANAM, Astra, etc. He cites study periods with the late New York based musician Pat O’Brien as having particularly shaped his musical path. Since the 1990’s he has worked in a duo with Tyrone Landau in the performances of renaissance, baroque, classical and modern works for tenor and guitar. The duo has produced three cds; Malena , A Most Attractive Occupation- music of Mátyás Seiber and Bonaparte & Betsy