Proms at Home

Gerald Barry’s Canada

Welcome to Proms at Home!

Open your ears, unlock your imagination and enjoy the musical ride.

As part of this week’s Proms at Home we’re going to be watching, listening to and exploring a fantastic piece of music by Gerald Barry called Canada.

Canada

You’ll see Canada performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and an amazing singer called Allan Clayton. He’ll sing some words in English and then sing the same words in French and German. Don’t worry if you can’t understand all of them – just think about how the sound of the words and the music make you feel. Here are the words:

Canada! What joy in the open air!
Breathing freely again!  Only here is life!
Only here!

Canada! Quelle joie au grand air de respirer librement!
Ici seulement la vie! Ici seulement!

Canada! In freier Luft den Atem leicht zu heben!
Nur hier, nur hier ist Leben!

Canada.

Speak softly! 
We are watched with eyes and ears.
Canada.

You’ll hear that one word appears more than any other: the word ‘Canada’, which is the name of a large country in North America.
It’s a place of open spaces, exciting cities, huge mountains and beautiful lakes.

Watch this clip of Allan Clayton performing Canada at the
2017 Proms:

The singer is excited, calling out the name of the country. He seems to be remembering how Canada makes him feel. In this country he can breathe deeply, out in the open air.

Most of us have been inside our homes a lot more than usual this year. Just like the singer, can you imagine stepping outside into a new world? What does that world look like? What does it sound like?

_{(Johny Goerend, Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau)}

Listen Out …

For the brass instruments. At first they play a proud, majestic fanfare, but soon they lead the whole orchestra in a mad helter-skelter dance full of jumping, jerky rhythms. Do these sound like the different kinds of feelings we have when we arrive somewhere new?

Where Next?

The words used in Canada (all except the name of the country) were first sung in an opera called Fidelio, written by the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, whose 250th anniversary the Proms is celebrating this year. This was his only opera, but he had to rewrite it three times before he finally felt he’d got it right. The last version was finished in 1814.

In the opera, a group of prisoners sing together as they emerge from a dark dungeon into the sunshine. It is a short moment of happiness and relief for them. Why do you think Gerald Barry remembered these words when he composed Canada?

Here’s a clip of that Prisoners’ Chorus, performed by the BBC Philharmonic and the Spanish choir Orfeón Donostiarra at the 2017 Proms:

Why not listen to one of the most famous arrivals in all music? The magical, sparkling Arrival of the Queen of Sheba will make you feel like a superstar. It was written by George Frideric Handel in 1748. Handel was a German composer who lived in London.

Here’s the piece being performed by the Chineke! Orchestra at the 2019 Proms:

Or you could step into the world of French composer Lili Boulanger who, because of illness, spent much of her life inside like Beethoven’s prisoners. She used music to dream up a beautiful spring morning beyond her window in her wonderful piece D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning). This was one of the last pieces of music she wrote before she died in 1918, aged just 24.

Here’s a clip of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales performing the piece at the 2018 Proms:

Your Turn …

Later in Gerald Barry’s piece the singer repeats the word ‘Canada’ over and over again. Take a word that you know very well (it could be your name or a place or an object) and keep repeating it. After a while does the word start to sound different or strange to you?

In this video the composer Jessie Maryon Davies will show you how to write a one-word word song using your voice and body percussion. Why not upload your finished piece to BBC Proms at Home? It might be featured in the BBC Proms at Home creative showcase!

There are two pieces by Beethoven himself in tonight’s Prom, including the oddly titled Leonore No. 3 overture (actually written for the second version of Fidelio) and his exciting Symphony No. 5. Why not learn a bit more about Beethoven and his symphony at the BBC Ten Pieces website.

_{Proms at Home notes by Andrew McCaldon}