After a longish gap, perhaps of more than a year, Robert Bremner (c.1713–1789) resumed publication of the Periodical Overtures by issuing No. 25 on 10 June 1769. The composer was Thomas Alexander Erskine (1732–1781), the sixth Earl of Kelly, and this was the third time that Bremner had featured a composition by his long-time Scottish colleague (explore the earlier overtures XIII and XVII). Interestingly, the very first work by Erskine to appear in the series (Periodical Overture No. XIII) had also been issued after a long hiatus; perhaps Bremner felt that offering a work by a British citizen, instead of one of the many foreign composers who had contributed the majority of the overtures, might “kick-start” the renewed series with more energy. In any event, with the release of Periodical Overture No. 25, Bremner’s “Opera Quinta” was underway.
Thomas Alexander Erskine (Earl of Kelly) (1732-1781) The Periodical Overture in 8 Parts – No. XXV
Key: D | Movements: 3 (1) Allegro assai (2) Andante (3) Presto Duration: 15:28 Scoring: 2 violins, viola, basso, 2 oboes, 2 horns Originally published by Robert Bremner, London, 1769 (RISM E.777)
Purchase the score and performance materials:
https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/product/erskine-thomas-a-the-earl-of-kelly-3/
From the Preface to the printed edition: Unlike the other three symphonies by Erskine that appeared in the series, purchasers of Periodical Overture No. 25 received the advertised eight-part scoring—with no extra woodwind parts. The symphony also reflected many of the Mannheim traits that Erskine had helped introduce to the British public. The three-movement work opens with a common-time “Allegro assai” in ternary form. The first A section is peppered with oscillating sixteenth notes and it proceeds through a rising stepwise sequence. It is supported initially by “drum 8ths” and, later, measured tremolos. It is possible to see the influence of Erskine’s teacher Stamitz in the central B section (m. 37), which showcases the oboes playing an arpeggiated theme saturated with the short-long rhythms that were even then called “Scots [now Scotch] snaps.”1 A particularly dramatic passage begins at measure 53, which uses an extended Mannheim crescendo and a long stretch of minor mode to lead back to the return of A in measure 86.
The central movement—a graceful “Andante” in the dominant key of A major—conforms to the binary-sonata pattern that James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy call a “Type 2 Sonata,” diagrammed as ||: a/I b/V :||: a/V b/I :||.2 Interestingly, the second theme ends with another string of Scotch snaps (m. 34 and onward), creating a bit of a cyclic connection between the first two movements of this symphony.
Erskine returns to D major for a lively “Presto” finale. Although it employs a sonata-form structure, many of its features are gigue-like, such as the 6/8 time, the bouncy melodies, and the regular four-bar phrases. The first theme features the full orchestra rising and falling in a robust premier coup d’archet passage, while the second theme reduces the ensemble to just the two violin parts and a piano dynamic level. The first violins play a disjunct line in longer note values, supported by a steadily moving series of eighth notes in the second violins. Although Erskine uses the recognizable opening motif from the first theme to launch the development (m. 65), he varies the tone colour by featuring the oboes and then the horns—another touch that his teacher Stamitz would have appreciated. As is true in all the “Lord Kelly” selections published by Bremner, Periodical Overture No. 25 illustrates the “genius for composition” credited to Erskine by Burney.3 It certainly supports the British scholar Charles Cudworth’s view that “after the middle of the century, the Earl of Kelly was undeniably our most gifted symphonist.”4
Alyson McLamore
1 Charles Burney, A General History of Music From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1789), Vol. II, ed. by Frank Mercer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, [1935]), 858.
2 James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 353–4.
3 Burney, A General History of Music From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1789), 1018.
4 Cudworth, “The English Symphonists of the Eighteenth Century,” 48.