六月2 伊丽莎白主题变奏

 2 June
Divertimento on Sellinger’s Round
2. ‘A Lament’: Andante espressivo
by Michael Tippett (1905–1998)
https://music.douban.com/subject/6522531/
Michael Tippett 召集了一群音乐家同胞，共同创作了伊丽莎白主题变奏，庆祝伊丽莎白二世的加冕仪式，在1953年的这一天。
The idea that a group of ego-driven, highly individualistic classical composers might collaborate meaningfully on a single piece of music may seem unlikely, but it’s happened on a few occasions. In 1872, for example, some of the Russian composers associated with the ‘Mighty Handful’ group – including Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov – joined forces on Mlada; in 1909 Diaghilev commissioned five composers, including Igor Stravinsky and Alexander Glazunov, to provide music based on Chopin for the ballet Les Sylphides; and in 1952, Benjamin Britten saw the premiere of a composite work called La guirlande de Campra, assembled by seven French composers, including Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre.
让一群高度个人主义的古典作曲家就一首音乐进行有意义的合作似乎是不太可能的，但这种情况的确发生过几次。例如，在 1872 年，俄罗斯的强力集团——包括鲍罗丁、穆索尔斯基和里姆斯基-科萨科夫——联手创作Mlada； 1909 年，佳吉列夫委托伊戈尔·斯特拉文斯基和亚历山大·格拉祖诺夫等五位作曲家为芭蕾舞剧 Les Sylphides 提供基于肖邦的音乐； 1952 年，本杰明·布里顿 (Benjamin Britten) 观看了名为 La guirlande de Campra 的复合作品的首演，该作品由弗朗西斯·普朗克 (Francis Poulenc) 和杰曼·泰耶弗 (Germaine Tailleferre) 等七位法国作曲家组成。
That duly inspired him to rally a group of his own musical compatriots – himself, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton – to create a joint work called Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, celebrating the forthcoming coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which was to take place on this day in 1953.
They’d each be working with an Irish dance tune called ‘Sellinger’s Round’ or ‘The Beginning of the World’, which had been a hit at the time of Elizabeth I. Tippett contributed the second movement, a lament, which then became the basis for his own stand-alone Divertimento on Sellinger’s Round, a haunting and unusual work with an undulating solo violin melody that insinuates itself into your consciousness.
This was music that stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it; despite its explicit rooting in the traditions of the past it remains quite unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.