Clive Strutt - Overtures

Overtures

The Concert Overture "William Cobbett" was created by making a transcription for orchestra of the Rondo for oboe and piano in 1962, the bicentenary year of Cobbett's birth (9 March 1762) at Farnham in Surrey, close to where the composer was born and grew up. Cobbett was a local figure with whose attitudes to life the composer was sympathetic. The overture received a rehearsal performance by the BBC Northern Ireland Light Orchestra in Belfast in 1969, under the auspices of the BBC's light music rehearsal scheme. The conductor was Havelock Nelson and the producer was Alan Tongue. It was on this occasion that Strutt first met and became acquainted with Derek Bell, the harpist in the orchestra, who became a lifelong friend and exponent of Strutt's works.

In 1973 another transcript was made, for small orchestra, of a single movement originally written for string quartet, under the title King Richard II. At the head of the score of this concert overture appears a quotation from Shakespeare, generally known as John of Gaunt's speech. The quartet dated originally from 1962 and 1966. The orchestral scoring is for double woodwind, two trumpets and two horns, timpani, three percussionists, celesta and strings, and the duration is six minutes.

In 1987 a concert overture entitled "Céilidh" (a Scottish Gaelic word denoting a dance-cum-social gathering) appeared, this also being a transcription but this time from an original piece for clarinet quartet. The work is entirely based on Scottish dance tunes, namely the slow march "John Bain McKenzie's March" (also known as "The Fairy Piper", the Strathspey "Dainty Davie", and the Reels "Maxwell's Rant" and "The Fairy Dance". The scoring is for double wind and brass (without tuba), timpani, percussion and strings, the only exception being that the clarinet section is expanded to four players, and includes bass, alto and piccolo clarinets. The premiere was given on 30 November 1996 (St. Andrew's Day) at the Nicolson Square Methodist Church Edinburgh by the New Edinburgh Orchestra under the American conductor Daniel G. Monek, with Lucy Creanor as leader. Another public performance was given on 1 December 1999 at Adelaide's, Bath Street, Glasgow by the Glasgow Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tommy Fowler.