GUY WOOLFENDEN OBE

Tim Reynish

Novermber 2009

In so far as music criticism deals seriously with radio at all, it tends to concentrate on Radio 3, such are the cultural blinkers most critics wear. At the least, this means that good things on the other networks get missed - such as the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra playing Guy Woolfenden last Friday, again on Radio 2. If you're in the new-music business and smirking, ask yourself if typecasting someone as a theatre composer isn't another case of cultural blinkers ...... A piece like Gallimaufry, with its witty ingenuities, expert layout, and a tune that stays with you as long as Carousel's, has helped thousands of players to cut their musical teeth and stirred thousands more with the adventure of living music. Yet how many "contemporary" specialists have heard a note of it?

Robert Maycock The Independent

Guy Woolfenden, composer, conductor, broadcaster and formerly a hornplayer with Sadlers Wells Opera, is perhaps the most successful BASBWE commissioned composer, bringing his experience of theatre to the medium; he was for many years head of music at the Royal Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, with scores for every Shakespeare play to his credit. Two early BASBWE commissions, Gallimaufry (1983) and Illyrian Dances (1986) both draw on music he has written for the Shakespeare canon; the language is a pastiche of late English renaissance, looking back to both 16th century and the early 20th century, but with twists in the metrical structure and a harmonic piquancy which avoid the obvious. More direct are Deo Gracias (1985 G&M Brand) and S.P.Q.R. (1988). For the 1991 International Conference, he wrote a fine set of variations, Mockbeggar Variations (1991). Other pieces include Curtain Call (1997), commissioned for performance at the 1997 WASBE Conference in Austria, French Impressions (1998) written for the Metropolitan Wind Symphony of Boston, and Rondo Variations (1999) a movement for Clarinet and Wind Ensemble. Most recent pieces are Birthday Treat (1998), Firedance, (2002), Celebration (2003, Ariel) and the charming Bohemian Dances, which received its first performance in St Paul, Minnesota on 6th May 2005. A year later, he wrote a five minute easier work, Claremont Canzona, for  the 150^th anniversary of Cheadle Hulme School, and for the WASBE Conference in Killarney in 2007, he wrote a Divertimento in three movements, a wonderful addition to the repertoire. Like Gregson, he has recorded most of the works on professional disc with the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra and other groups; his wife under the name Ariel publishes most of his music. I wrote of the premiere:

While it is relatively easy to find exciting and energetic music for the less experienced band, too many composers drop into sentimentality all too easily. A movement which I found quite beautiful was the second movement of Guy Woolfenden's new Divertimento, a traditional three movement work with a slightly contemporary feel to the first and a cheerful bounce to the third. Guy came to BASBWE and WASBE and wore his seventieth birthday lightly, conducting a wonderful performance in Killarney of his first wind work, Gallimaufry. If you only know Illyrian Dances, try Gallimaufry, Divertimento or Mockbeggar Variations, all containing movements of sheer lyrical charm.

The works of Guy Woolfenden are perhaps typical of a new wave of music for wind orchestra of the past three decades, demonstrating both charm and wit, grateful part-writing for all players, enough harmonic, melodic and rhythmic twists to entertain both players and audiences with music rooted in tradition without ignoring developments of the last hundred years. I believe that it is ignorance of the medium, which leads to this repertoire being largely ignored.  

A review in the Online version of the Music Teacher’s Journal perhaps sums up Guy’s style:

Guy Woolfenden’s Rondo Variations is a graceful work written in a beguilingly simple style that skilfully avoids an overtly saccharine flavour. The rondo theme exploits well the instrument’s character with playful leaps across wide intervals, a compact variation form that takes the listener through a series of mood changes away from the quirkiness of the opening towards more plangent and fluid melodic lines in the slower section; Merrick and the orchestra combine to make these changes highly effective.

I find it difficult to be objective about Guy’s music. He was a close colleague in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, at Cambridge and in the Sadler’s Wells Horn section, he was my best man and the first composer I commissioned for BASBWE. All of his music for wind orchestra over the past twenty six years is attractive, superbly written for the instruments, and is basically musical, by which I mean that you can discuss phrasing, balance and articulation in a way which is impossible in more prosaic functional music.

He is a fine conductor, and I wrote in 2007 after the BASBWE Conference that it was…   fascinating to hear the opening of the slow movement of Illyrian Dances where he encourage the horn and woodwind to think orchestrally sharing the phrase as if handed seamlessly from cellos to violas. This kind of sensitivity in timbre and dynamics was sometimes lacking in performances during the weekend. With Guy, we celebrated the 21st birthday of Gallimaufry, commissioned by the RNCM for the first Manchester BASBWE Conference in 1983, we explored Illyrian Dances commissioned by Tony Veal for the first Warwick BASBWE Conference, Mockbeggar Variations commissioned for the joint WASBE/BASBWE Conference in 1991, and two recent works, Curtain Call and French Impressions, while the Saturday evening gala had a performance of Fireworks. For anyone unfamiliar with his music, may I urge you buy the CD of Guy conducting the RNCM, and to explore the Ariel publications                      

www.arielmusic.co.uk