
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Behind the final door on this year’s Advent Calendar is a short but exciting work by one of England’s more curiously neglected composers, Hugh Wood. The Variations for Orchestra began life 30 years ago, apparently composed over a three-year period from 1994 to 1997. That seems a surprisingly long time for a 15-minute work of this kind, which perhaps testifies to a degree of struggle in the composition process. None of which, however, comes across in the music itself.
The work’s opening gambit is interesting and unexpected, inasmuch as the Introduction is hugely powerful, articulating a progression of rising fourths (G – C – F), interspersed with boisterous rising phrases that each come smashing down. The tail end of this is subdued, even sombre, leading into one of the most innocuous Themes you’ll ever encounter (0:59), winds articulating wide intervals, each phrase halted by a surly staccato and tremolando response. Its gnarly language suggests we’re in for Stravinskian-level coolth.
Wood moves through the first few sections very quickly. Variation I (2:04) focuses on the Theme’s wide intervals in the midst of more frantic tremolandos, becoming (via the brass) pulse-heavy and dance-like; Variation II (2:31) takes over, turning those intervals into a wild angular act of pure play, leading – just 25 seconds later – into the hobbling pulse of Variation III (2:56), amassing into a steady tutti processional. Variation IV (3:40) injects energy back into the music, abruptly propelling it on, now fleet and light, skittering along over smaller, tilting phrases. The first substantial section is Variation V (4:26), using the theme as the basis for brass fugato, its slow durations and jagged counterpoint broken up by occasional syncopated rhythms, a kink in the solemnity. Variation VI (5:52) casts aside what went before in a rapid sequence with repeated notes everywhere, the consistency of pulse shaped into cheeky Tresillo (3+3+2) rhythms, ending with an upbeat shriek.
That Stravinskian quality to the Theme is made manifest in Variation VII (6:25), subtitled “Hommage I. S.”, another fugato, this time in the strings that explores and plays with the Theme’s wide contour. Brief repeated notes (like an intrusion from the previous variation) cancels this out, switching to more ruminative wind music, before the strings wrestle back control, restarting the fugato from the bass upwards. The repetitions return at the end, triggering a final string flourish. Variation VIII (7:58) is a real blink-and-you’ll-miss-it passage, pitches rising quickly from the contrabassoon, up through the registers of upper winds and straight back down again, segueing into Variation IX (8:22), an intense section where the wide intervals serve as the seed for a rising, angular lyricism distinctly redolent of late Berg. Though it lasts a mere 90 seconds (pretty lengthy in this context) it feels much longer, bulding to an impassioned sequence of loud sustained notes, climaxing on a shrill tremolo, ending up on somewhat dazed rising semitones that cycle round and round, closing with an inversion of those rising, angular phrases, like a pair of deep sighs. Variation X (9:53) picks up this thread with added momentum, turning it into a more robust mix of brisk and slow elements, ending up akin to a waltz, returning to Variation IX’s lyrical emphasis later on. Despite a powerful climax, the music immediately fragments into isolated vestiges, halting, slowing, deconstructed.
The work ends with a dual throwback, in a Finale (11:52) that sets out as a quick, boisterous fugue, once again fixated on the wide intervals from the Theme, the regularity of its pulse challenged by brass syncopations in a way that surprisingly brings Walton to mind (particularly when the tambourine gets involved). Wood channels this into a leaping, angular pile-up of more and more weight, before a last-minute reappearance of the opening low G leads to yet another, final, crash.
This performance was given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pascal Rophe at the closing concert of the 2000 ISCM World Music Days in Luxembourg.
Programme note
This work was written to a BBC commission between July 1994 and April 1997. An Introduction precedes the Theme, which is presented on woodwind. There are ten variations, mainly fast and short, mostly attacca. Variations V and VII feature fugatos: Variation V for brass, and VII for strings, interspersed with fanfares then lyrical four-part writing for solo woodwinds, before a fuller return of the string fugato. Variations IX and X bring strings into greater prominence than hitherto – the upper stings in IX and the cellos in X. The finale is a prelude and a fugue, the prelude being a repeat of the music of the introduction, the fugue mainly on strings.
The piece is dedicated to Alan Boustead, trusted musical friend and counsellor over many years.
—Hugh Wood
Great choice for the 25th. ‘Proper’ contemporary music – a stupid term but I just like Wood’s no-nonsense atonal language, showing that one can be powerful and expressive using it. I expect you know the Symphony and Piano Concerto, both very exciting, compelling works although I’m not so keen on all the Mozart (I believe) quotes in the symphony – I guess that kind of thing was in vogue then.