The test-piece for the 171st British Open Championship to be held at Symphony Hall in Birmingham on Saturday 06 September has been announced.
‘Star Crossed Lovers’ is a new work commissioned by Martin and Karyn Mortimer for the event by the composer and arranger Stephen Roberts.
It is the third time he has written a work for the British Open – following ‘Arabian Nights – Fantasy on Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade for Brass Band’ in 2013 and ‘Reflections on Swan Lake in 2015. He also arranged movements from Holst’s ‘The Planets’ which was used at the 2003 contest.
‘Star Crossed Lovers’ takes its title from the prologue to Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’, written around 1591 and first published in quarto version in 1597.
‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.’
‘Star-cross’d’ is a metaphor for the higher power of fate that controls human destiny and from which Shakespeare created the tragic irony by telling the audience what will happen to the characters before they know it themselves.
The music is based on Sergei Prokofiev’s music for the ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’, first composed in 1935, but revised for its Soviet premiere at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad in 1940.
The composer writes of the work: “I have tried to create something that is cohesive and stands as a work in its own right by using some of Prokofiev’s most memorable musical motifs and fusing them with passages of my own in a similar musical style.
The emphasis is very much on emotion, with the main themes expressing the opposing passions of love and hate and creating a musical drama that will test both the technical and expressive qualities of bands and conductors.
The work lasts about sixteen minutes and is both tuneful and dramatic in style, with three cadenzas to test the soloists in smaller groups.
The opening is based on the dissonant chords of the ‘Duke’s Command’, followed by an exposition of the main themes of love and hate. The opposition of major and minor chords becomes a musical oxymoron that expresses these counterparts, and the menacing rhythms of the main hate theme will be well known to those who are familiar with the ‘Dance of the Knights’.
This is taken from scene where the Montague and Capulet families face off during a masked ball.
The test piece is full of wonderfully expressive melodies, but Prokofiev’s most beautiful themes are reserved for the love scenes and the piece ends exultantly with plangently soaring music.
Shakespeare’s play ends quietly with tragic reflection but, curiously, it was originally intended that Prokofiev’s ballet should end with the lovers coming back to life.
This notion was quickly abandoned, and it is true to say that quiet endings do not suit competitions, so ‘Star Crossed Lovers’ ends with a triumphant affirmation of love over hate and a test of the stamina and lyrical qualities of the competing bands.
