Martin Dalby

Programme Note

Concerto Martin Pescatore (1971) Martin Dalby
Some other performances: Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conductor Neville Marriner, Town Hall, Harrogate Festival, August 1971.

Scottish Baroque Ensemble, directed by Leonard Friedman, Edinburgh Art Centre, 20 November 1973.

Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Alun Francis, 1973

Scottish Baroque Ensemble, directed by Leonard Friedman, Purcell Room, 1 July 1975.

Trinity College, conducted by Bernard Keefe.

Programme note:

Concerto Martin Pescatore was commissioned by the 1971 Cheltenham Festival and was given its first performance there by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields directed by Neville Marriner. It is similar to two works that Dalby had written earlier that year: Cancionero para una Mariposa and Whisper Music. These three works and some that followed after, exploit an element of freedom in allowing layers of texture to move independently of each other, then to come together at certain fixed points.

Concerto Martin Pescatore is dedicated to the Italian pianist and conductor, Piero Guarino, the Director of the small orchestra in which Dalby played the viola during his years in Italy.

The kingfisher of the title is represented in references to the bird's song, le Martin P?cheur in Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux and Ravel's song le Martin P?cheur (words by Jules Renard) from his song-cycle Histoires Naturelles.

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Private note 1: Martin Pescatore means Kingfisher, a lovely if elusive bird. It was also the sobriquet bestowed upon Dalby by the members of L'Orchestra dell'Accademia di Napoli, the orchestra in which Dalby played the viola during his period in Italy from 1963Ñ1965. Apparently it referred to his large appetite for food Ñ not a characteristic nowadays Ñ and for some practical jokes that he and others played.

The work was requested originally by Piero Guarino for L'Orchestra dell'Accademia di Napoli. In fact it was the Cheltenham Festival commission that encouraged Dalby to complete the work. Guarino was presented with a score and set of parts but he never performed; the aleatoric methods used in its composition were not to his taste.

The work itself was intended to be played without a conductor although it has never been played without one. It would take a fair degree of organisation between the principals in the orchestra to arrange an unconducted performance but the score is laid out with this in mind. Indeed in the end it might be easier to put together in this way. Bernard Keefe as conductor went so far as to add bar lines in certain places for his performance with the students at Trinity College in London. Simon Rattle on the other hand was presented with these marked parts for a performance with the strings of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and declined to perform the work in this manner. *When hiring parts it is important to determine whether Keefe's set with added bar lines be ordered or a clean set as the composer originally intended.

Private note 2: The "Keefe solution" gave rise to correspondence between Robert Walker at Novellos and Dalby about revising the work using Keefe's "annoted score and his comprehensive list of instructions" Ñ "a small number of alterations which did not detract from the music, the concerto, which as it stands is problematical, could be made easier to perform. This involves a few minor bar changes and some conducting figurations, and I am writing to you to suggest that we might incorporate these in a new score."

In his reply Dalby establishes the essence of the problem: "one problem with Concerto Martin Pescatore is that it was intended to be performed without a conductor. It never has been and so people label it "problematical." It is laid out so that individual section leaders can themselves lead various passages. Naturally they must work out between themselves which these passages are. To lay it out for a conductor might raise other problems when it is performed without one. Neville Marriner barred the whole thing out and made life impossible both for himself and the p;ayers. Alun Francis conducted it with the Ulster orchestra as it stands and found it relatively straight forward (Difficult of course Ñ it is a piece for virtuosi) and gave a magnificent performance.

I appreciate that conductors have to conduct and that material must be given for them them to conduct to. If "Pescatore" is to be conducted then the maestro must understand where to stand still, when to beat and which sections of the orchestra to conduct. Even then will other sections have to be lead by their leader.

I shall be happy to consider Bernard Keefe's suggestions but I am afraid that we might lose the "concertante" intentions of the piece."

It is significant that Simon Rattle refused to do the piece when he was presented with the Keefe amendments; he required the original version as the composer had intended. Maybe the significance was that he did not want to do the piece at all and was seeking an excuse to back out Ñ the composr thinks not.

Private note 3: Concerto Martin Pescatore was to have been all about Kingfishers. In the end it has less to do with the birds than was originall intended. This is no doubt for the good. The bird's call is high-pitched, lonely and brief Ñ a short group of isolated notes. The concerto takes account of other calls that the birds make: while building nest holes, looking for food and courting. The young too make their own busy trilling sounds while eager for food. These change as they grow older day by day. Their sounds underlie the opening textures of the piece.


Private note 4: The work is mentioned in a biography about the Academy of St Martin in the Fields compiled by Susie Harries (daughter of Neville Marriner) and her husband Meirrion, though details of this publication are not known.

Letter to Susie Harries in reply to her request for information for a biography of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields:

I wrote Concerto Martin Pescatore in 1971 during my first six months as Cramb Research Fellow in Composition at Glasgow University. It has much in common with two other works written during that period Ñ Cancionero Para Una Mariposa and Whisper Music Ñ particularly in the method of some of its notation and the way the music is built of tiny motives, many of them derived from other music. In the case of Concerto Martin Pescatore, shapes are taken from Ravel's song Le Martin P?cheur from his song-cycle Histoires Naturelles and the Kingfisher's call as portrayed in Messaien's Catalogue d'Oiseaux, for Martin Pescatore (Martin P?cheur) is the Kingfisher. There are also continuous throbbing noises which give the taste to the work's texture which are my versions of the strange sounds that kingfisher chicks make when clamouring for food. I borrowed a tape of various kingfisher sounds from the BBC's effects library.

But why kingfishers and why kingfishers in Italian? After I left the Royal College of Music in 1963 I spent two years in Rome on a scholarship, professing to be a student of composition. To earn a little more badly needed money I played 2nd viola (or last whichever you prefer) in a group called L'Orchestra dell'Accademia di Napoli Ñ a group similar in constitution (if sadly not in standard) to the basis of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Ñ strings 43221. It was directed by a brilliant musician called Piero Guarino to whom the work is dedicated. We did a number of terrible (luxurious by student standards) tours around the continent where I was thought by my Italian colleagues to be somewhat eccentric. One of my eccentricities was to consume vast amounts of food. They therefore thought it apt to to call me Martin Pescatore and continually asked me to write a Concerto Martin Pescatore for them. I never did.

In the end thework was written specifically for the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with all this history at the back of my mind. As I remember, the request came from the Cheltenham Festival itself who paid the commission fee helped, as was usual, by the Arts Council of Great Britain. The Academy gave the first performance at the Cheltenham Festival and the second later in 1971 at rhe Harrogate Festival.

Did I write it with the Academy in mind? Most certainly, yes.
Specifically how? First, knowing the virtuosity of each member there are solo parts for all, or at least for 33221, which is the minimum performing strength. For the sake of some Tutti passages it is better with 43221 though it can be played by full string sections. Knowing too the skill of certain members of the Academy in playing chamber music the work is conceived as a sort of overgrown chamber work. This is the reason for the unconventional system of barring and notation. It was designed to be played without a conductor, the leader giving the main cues and the other principals at times leading their own sections, sometimes independently of the main body, sometimes even leading the whole ensemble for a few bars. Being laid out in this way and for these reasons it becomes somewhat impractical when there is a conductor as your father will testify. Maybe one day I shall prepare an alternative version for conductor or perhaps rewrite the whole thing more conventionally. After all what is the point of free and aleatoric passages when each performance by successive ensembles (S.B.E., Ulster Orchestra, for example) sound the same? And sounding the same is what I really want.

As for personalities in the Academy: the bass bass part, for example, was written for the extraordinary talents of John Gray and the viola part for Moth. As for the rest, Concerto Martin Pescatore was written as a celebration of the unique and wonderful style of the Academy.

What do I remember of their performances? Well, Cheltenham was nervous, at least I was. I had not been able to,attend the preliminary rehearsals and Alfred Brendel had pinched most of the final one. I remember your father being perturbed about conducting my style of free notation. I don't blame him. He added bar lines to some passages which I disapproved of (and still do) believing that they confuse rather than clarify. In the end, or possibly in the circumstances, he was right: the performance was extremely exciting and very beautiful. I cannot recall how accurate it was. It must have been; it is one of my happier memories.

But the Harrogate performance was even better Ñ considered and flawless. Even the players began to admit something of musi\cal worth. It surprised me then at the time, though it does not surprise me now, how bewildering the players found the notation. However the experience was one which I shall always cherish, one that I regard with pride and one that taught me an enormous amount. It helped me to grow a little older and a little wiser and fond as I am of Concerto Martin Pescatore it is unlikely that I should write a piece in so formidable a way now.

I hope this is helpful.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,


Martin Dalby 30 September 1980.