CPMusicLibrary's video: Evangeline by Malcolm Forsyth excerpt from part 1

Evangeline - A Cantata for high voice, trumpet obligato and chamber orchestra. 1.1.2.1./2.0.0.0./perc.hp.sts, solo tpt Evangeline A Cantata for High Voice, Trumpet Obligato & Chamber Orchestra Malcolm Forsyth (1993-94) Text by Henry W. Longfellow, adapted by Stuart Laughton Scoring: Soprano, trumpet solo (doubling natural trumpet and flugelhorn) + 1.1.2.1./2.0.0.0./timp.hp./sts + optional women’s chorus Introduction 4'35" Part the First 19'25" Part the Second 17'00" Epilogue 7'00" Total 50'00" This work was commissioned by the Laughton-Humphreys Duo, with financial assistance from the Canada Council. It was the result of a long-held dream of trumpeter Stuart Laughton in collaboration with conductor Simon Streatfeild to bring to the concert hall an adaptation of Longfellow’s celebrated epic poem of the uprotting and exile of French settlers in Nova Scotia by the British Crown in 1755. “This is the forest primeval...” is surely one of the most loved of opening lines learned by the American children of a generation or two ago. Composer Malcolm Forsyth was persuaded to set the text as far back in time as 1990, and began the task in earnest in 1993 while on a Fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. The Introduction is an atmospheric setting of an evocative opening scene describing the land of Acadie (now Nova Scotia) and the little town of Grand-Pré on the shores of the basin of Minas. Soprano voice intones the famous lines accompanied by soft strings and sprays of woodwind colour. Part the First describes the gentle maid Evangeline, “pride of the village”, her betrothal to Gabriel and the subsequent tragedy of the burning of the town by the British military. An opening dance featuring solo trumpet in a happy mood gives way to dark and foreboding cellow, the snare drum hearalding the Governor’s dreaded royal order of the exile and a passionate Dirge as the people are marched to the waiting ships. The sound of the women in the little church rises above the clamour, singing the hymn “Sacre coeur de Jesus”. The drama heightens steadily, until suddenly flames are seen as the village is torched. Part the Second opens with the soprano aria in which the longing of the exiles for their destroyed homes mingles with a description of their plight as they said in makeshift craft down the rivers and tributaries of the Mississippi towards the haven of Louisiana, still rules by the French king. The most heart-rending moment of Longfellow’s poem occurs when the two barges, one carrying Evangeline and the other Gabriel) for they were torn apart in the tumult of the departure years before) actually pass one another in the reeds at night, but unaware, they sail on. An extended dialogue between soprano and natural trumpet evokes this scene. The tragedy is played to an conclusion when, years later in a town near New Orleans, Evangeline, now a nun in a convent, recognizes the aged and sick Gabriel on his deathbed in the sanatorium. Her anguished scream and his last gasp fade to silence. A solo viola accompanies the declamatory lines. The Epilogue is a sad reminiscence of the Vicissitudes of these earlier settlers’ lives by the grandmothers who experienced it, to their young descendants who listen raptly before the firesides of cottagers who where eventually able to return to Acadie...and always the forest primeval, listening, unchanged, bearing witness. The lament of the solo flugelhorn precedes the telling of the tale and together with the soprano, they spin the epic to its inevitable conclusion. Notes by the composer. The vocal score is for sale on our website: https://cpmusiclibrary.ca/product/evangeline-forsyth-vs/