Oakeley, Sir Herbert (Stanley)



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Ovezov, Dangatar


(b 1 Jan 1911; d 5 May 1966). Turkmen composer and conductor. In 1940 he entered the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied with N. Timofeev, but the advent of world war II prevented him from completing his studies. He headed the Turkmen Composers' Union (1940–48) and is considered a founder of Turkmen art music. The main areas of his compositional work are opera and symphonic music, while as a conductor he directed the orchestra of the Turkmen Theatre of Opera and Ballet (1941–8). He became a People's Artist of Turkmenistan in 1961 and was granted the State Prize of Turkmenistan in 1966.

WORKS


(selective list)

Shahsanem and Garib (op), 1943; Leyli and Medjnun (op), 1946, collab. Yu. Meytus; Aina (op), 1957, collab. A.G. Shaposhnikov; over 100 songs and romances

RAZIA SULTANOVA

Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso]


(b Sulmo [now Sulmona, Italy], 43 bce; d Tomis [now Constanţa, Romania], 17 ce). Roman poet.

1. Life and writings.


Ovid was born into a family of equestrian rank and educated for public life, but as a young man he decided on a literary career. He first attracted attention with his light, sophisticated love elegies, the Amores. His Heroides, love letters written between mythological figures, and Ars amatoria established him by the time he was 40 as the leading exponent of Roman wit and elegance. His masterpiece is the Metamorphoses (see Pan; Syrinx), a vast collection of legends and mythology using the theme of change as a unifying device. In 8ce he was exiled by Augustus for some unknown indiscretion. He spent the last years of his life pining for Rome in the Black Sea fishing village of Tomis, where he wrote the Tristia and Epistulae ex ponto (‘Letters from the Black Sea’).

His work is of some musical significance. In the Tristia he mentioned that some of his poems were performed in the pantomime, although they were not intended for it. Medea, a lost drama presumably had musical portions. A passage in the Amores suggests that he may have played the lyre on occasion. Wille argued strongly that Roman lyric and elegiac poetry in general, and that of Ovid in particular, was regularly sung. Most classicists, however, maintain the view that, unlike Greek lyric poetry, it was recited rather than sung.


2. Later musical treatments.


Ovid has provided inspiration, notably through the Heroides and Metamorphoses, for European literature (from the 12th century) and eventually a wide range of music. Letters in the Heroides from Penelope to Ulysses, Phaedra to Hippolytus, Dido to Aeneas, Ariadne to Theseus, Medea to Jason, and the epistolary exchanges between Paris and Helen, Leander and Hero were absorbed by many librettists and composers. The Metamorphoses became a main source for works treating the myths of Greece and Rome, particularly involving such characters as Acis and Galatea, Apollo and Hyacinth, Ariadne, Daphne, Echo and Narcissus, Hercules, Medea, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion, Venus and Adonis.

In Rinuccini's libretto Dafne, set by Jacopo Peri and Jacopo Corsi (Carnival 1598), Marco da Gagliano (1608) and (in translation) Schütz (1627), Ovid actually delivers the prologue. Other Ovidian operas are Cornacchioli's Diana schernita (1629); Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne by Cavalli (1640); the Venus and Adonis of Blow (c1683); Rameau's Pigmalion (1748); Galuppi's Arianna e Teseo (1763 and 1769); the Paride ed Elena of Gluck (1770); Auber's Actéon (1836); Héro et Léandre by Augusta Holmès (1875); settings of Boito's Ero et Leandre by Bottesini (1879) and Luigi Mancinelli (1896); Pizzetti's projects for an Apollo and Leda (c1900); a one-act poème lyrique, Hélène, by Saint-Saëns (1904); the Narcissus of Rebikov (1913); and Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (1912 and 1916) and Daphne (1938). Further dramatic works are the festa teatrale Ercole in Tebe of Boretti (1670), and an Actéon pastorale by M.-A. Charpentier (1683–5), with a Metamorphoses ballet by Maximilian Steinberg (1914). In a genre of their own are Handel's Apollo e Dafne (c1708), Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708), Acis and Galatea (1718) and Hercules (1745). Vocal settings have been as diverse as Mudarra's songs with vihuela accompaniment (1546) and a Tarantella chorus by Elliott Carter (1936). Instrumental works include Dittersdorf's 3 symphonies exprimant 3 métamorphoses d'Ovide and Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for solo oboe by Britten (1951).


BIBLIOGRAPHY


G. Wille: Musica romana (Amsterdam, 1967), 282–6

S.E. Hinde: ‘Ovid’, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (Oxford, 3/1996)

JAMES McKINNON (1), ROBERT ANDERSON (2)


Owen [Llwyn-Owen], Morfydd


(b Treforest, 1 Oct 1891; d Oystermouth, 7 Sept 1918). Welsh composer, mezzo-soprano and pianist. She was educated at University College, Cardiff (BMus 1912), and at the RAM with Frederick Corder (Lucas Silver Medal 1913, ARAM 1918). World War I frustrated her ambition to study folk music in St Petersburg in 1915, and she developed instead her collaboration with Ruth Lewis, the pioneering Welsh ethnomusicologist. Many of her 180 compositions – orchestral works, choral, chamber and piano music, and a wealth of exquisite vocal miniatures – bear the imprint of folksong. Her mercurial yet emotionally intense personality, which intrigued a wide circle from David Lloyd George to D.H. Lawrence and Ezra Pound, also shines through. Productivity and engagements dwindled after her sudden marriage in 1917 to the Freudian psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, with whom she had a chequered relationship. Her early death was the result of a failed appendicectomy. A four-volume memorial edition of her songs, orchestral and piano music was published in London, 1923–4, and a centenary edition in Cardiff, 1991–6. Despite the brevity of her life and output, Owen was a pivotal figure in early 20th-century Welsh music.

WORKS


Orch: Romance, str, 1911; Nocturne, 1913; Prelude, 1913; Morfa Rhuddlan, 1914; The Passing of Branwen: Death Music (Threnody), str, 1916; Funeral March to Branwen, 1916

Vocal: Fierce Raged the Tempest (S. Thring), SATB, pf, 1911; The Refugee (F. von Schiller), SATB, pf, 1911; Sea Drift (W. Whitman), Mez, orch, 1911; Sweet and Low (A. Tennyson), SATB, 1911; Ave Maria, Mez, SSATB, str, 1912; A Cycle of Sea-Songs (C. Rossetti, W. Watson, C. Mackay, T. Campbell), Mez, orch, 1912; Love’s Music (P. Bourke Marston), S, orch, 1912; Mad Song (W. Blake), SATB, 1912; My luve is like a red, red rose (R. Burns), SATB, 1912; My Sorrow (E. Crawshay-Williams), S, orch, 1912; Y Fwyalchen (Welsh folksong), SSA, 1912; Jubilate Deo, SSATB, brass, org, 1913; Toward the Unknown Region (Whitman), Mez/T, orch, 1913; Choric Song (A. Tennyson), S, str, cel, 1914; My luve is like a red, red rose (Burns), S, T, pf, 1914; Pro Patria (Elidir Sais), cant., S, Bar, SATB, orch, 1915; Trugarha wrthyf, O Dduw [Be merciful unto me, O God], unison vv, org, ?1915; 2 Songs (Eos Gwalia), S, orch, 1916; 2 Songs for Little Children (anon., D. Ainslie), S, orch, 1917; 22 hymns, SATB, 1909–16; 85 songs, v, pf, 1910–18; transcrs. and arrs. of Welsh, Eng., Pyrenean and Russ. folksongs, v, pf, 1913–17

Chbr: Romance, vn, pf, 1911; Pf Trio, 1915

Pf: Sonata, 1910; Impromptu, 1910; Etude, 1911; Fantaisie, 1911; Mélodie, 1911; Minuet and Trio, 1911; Chromatic Fugue, 1911; Rhapsody, 1911; Causerie gracieuse de riens, 1911; Story Fantaisie, 1911; Fantaisie appassionata, 1912; Berceuse, 1912; Prelude, 1913; Prelude and Fugue in the Ancient Style, 1914; Preludes: Beti Bwt, Citi Cariadus, Glantaf, Little Eric, Nant-y-Ffrith, Talyllyn, Waiting for Eirlys, 1914–15; [reworking of 1911 pf work] BetiBwt as a Minuet and Trio, ?1915

MSS in GB-CDu, AB, private collections

Principal publishers: Anglo-French Music Co./OUP, Boosey, Chappell, Hughes & Son, Guild for the Promotion of Welsh Music (Swansea), Snell

BIBLIOGRAPHY


E. Crawshay-Williams: ‘Morfydd Owen’, Wales, iv (1958), 50–56

E. Crawshay-Williams: ‘The Tragedy of Morfydd’, Y Ddinas, xiii/6 (1959) 17–18

K.I. Jones: ‘The Enigma of Morfydd Owen’, Welsh Music, v/1 (1975–6), 8–21

R. Davies: Never So Pure a Sight: Morfydd Owen (1891–1918): a Life in Pictures (Llandysul, 1994)

R. Davies: A Refined and Beautiful Talent: Morfydd Owen (1891–1918) (diss., U. of Wales, Bangor, 1999)

RHIAN DAVIES




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