Gregson performance invite & a question


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Joe S. on February 14, 2001 at 00:15:30:

I'll be doing the Edward Gregson "Tuba Concerto" with the River City Concert Band here in Memphis on Sunday, March 11, 3:00 P.M. at the Rose Theater in the Buckman Fine Arts Center - corner of Perkins Rd. and Walnut Grove Rd. Its a nice venue (pic below) and I'm really looking forward to it.

I've never done the Gregson before, and regular discussion of the Gregson on this bbs peaked my interest causing me to choose it. If any of you find yourselves in Memphis that weekend and you've already "done" Graceland, Beale Street, etc., please come! We read through it tonight, and I think the band will do a really fine job, because the band members obviously like the piece.

I have a question about this piece: (Is there anyone on this bbs who knows Professor Gregson or who knew John Fletcher?)... The Gregson "Tuba Concerto" was written for John Fletcher, the tubaist with the London Symphony. There is a three-bar direct "quote" of the Vaughan William "Concerto" in the middle of the first movement of the Gregson. This is such a verbatum quote that permission had to be sought from Oxford University Press for its use in the Gregson. Clearly, that quotation was a tribute to the success of Mr. Fletcher's RCA recording of the Vaughan Williams "Concerto" with the London Symphony.

My question, however, concerns the THIRD movement of the Gregson. There is a soaring legato motif in the third movement that builds on itself. The intervals of the motif change a bit each time, and finally the motif is stated one last time and includes the highest note in the concerto. HARD TO IGNORE is the fact that this very high final statement of this motif includes the same exact intervals as the first line of the Carpenters' tune, "We've Only Just Begun". Edward Gregson composed this concerto in 1976. I happen to know (from a well-known Carpenters recording) that the Carpenters appeared nightly at the Palledium (a large and very famous London, England venue) for a week in late 1975. Was John Fletcher a Carpenters fan?...or Edward Gregson?...or did Mr. Fletcher perform in the pit orchestra at those Carpenters concerts, and possibly was he "glad" that the engagement was over (ie: NOT a Carpenters fan?), and is this some sort of private joke???...' just wondering if anyone knows about the use of this "Carpenters" motif in the Gregson...

...Oh, and don't forget to come, if you can!


Follow Ups: