The British Composers Thread

[Luke]

...and those Variations, particularly, look fascinating.

[Roasted Swan]

...and those Variations, particularly, look fascinating.

The Variations are the stand-out work in every way.  The Elegie - which includes an organ part and was written In Memoriam of CHH Parry is not so good.  The West Country Suite is a bit dissapointing - basically a folk song suite for strings.  But the execution looks rushed/more slap-dash than other scores.  I wondered if Reed wrote this for one of the student/amateur groups he was involved with.  Curiously the cover of the score says the suite is "for strings, piano and percussion ad. lib."  On the manuscript there is no provision at all for a piano part (I wondered if it was meant to be a strengthening/double part as used in all the light orchestra ensembles of the time) and althogh Reed marks a stave for the bass it does not contain a single note.  But there is percussion so this is definitely not a string quartet manque score - it needs a bass.  So for the sake of makling it work I've written a new bass part - which is the biggest "editorial" thing I've had to do across the scores.

Of the shorter works - they are all actually rather effective - the scherzo has echoes of EE's Introduction and Allegro and the Vale of Clwyd is a real gem - a very lush but brief treatment of a folksong (much more interesting/detailed than any of the "West Country" movements)  Compare the writing of the manuscript between those two scores to see what I mean.....

[Irons]

I've spent the last few weeks working on editing more string orchestra scores from the original manuscripts held in London's Royal College of Music by W H Reed - Elgar's friend and advisor on all things violin.

The major/most interesting is quite a big work - roughly 21 minutes in playing length - called Variations Caracteristiques (sur un Thème Originale).  This is a theme, 8 variations and a Finale that Reed completed - according to the date he wrote on the score - on September 12th 1910.  Now here is an interesting couple of things; Reed bumped into Elgar in May 1910 and that sparked the close friendship that endured for the rest of the older composer's life.  Also Reed's LSO gave the first performance of RVW's "Tallis Fantasia" in Gloucester Cathedral literally a week before he completed this set of Variations.  There is a use of big dynamically contrasted large and solo string groups at the end of the variations that seems to echo effects in the Tallis?  Also the opening of the work and the shape/style of the 1st and 2nd variations has a distinct similarity to the same variations in EE's Enigma.......  but overall a genuinely interesting, well-crafted work that deserves to be heard and better known........

The same Reed manuscripts are mentioned at the end of this article -

http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.com/2023/07/william-henry-reed-string-quartets.html

[Roasted Swan]

The same Reed manuscripts are mentioned at the end of this article -

http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.com/2023/07/william-henry-reed-string-quartets.html

Except for the minor detail that John France says the Reed archive is at the Royal Academy which it is not - its the Royal College of Music that hold his work.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Of course, famously among the audience at the premiere of the Tallis Fantasia were two young friends - Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney - who roamed the streets of Gloucester together after the concert, dumbstruck at what they'd just heard. In the second half of the concert Howells sat next to RVW and shared his score as they listened to Gerontius.

Which score did Howells show VW?

PD

[Roasted Swan]

Which score did Howells show VW?

PD

I think that means they shared/following RVW's copy of Gerontius

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I think that means they shared/following RVW's copy of Gerontius

Oh, of course! lol

PD

[Symphonic Addict]

Someone had mentioned these two string quartets already methinks and I endorse the good impressions he offered. The slow movements from both quartets were the highlights IMO, thoroughly sublime and contemplative, above all the one of Bainton's String Quartet in A major. A very nice discovery.

[Irons]

Someone had mentioned these two string quartets already methinks and I endorse the good impressions he offered. The slow movements from both quartets were the highlights IMO, thoroughly sublime and contemplative, above all the one of Bainton's String Quartet in A major. A very nice discovery.

I think that may be me. A CD that that has given much pleasure. Icing on the cake, cost only £2 in a Dutton sale.

[Symphonic Addict]

I think that may be me. A CD that that has given much pleasure. Icing on the cake, cost only £2 in a Dutton sale.

Ah, yes, it was you. I just checked this thread on previous pages. A real bargain for such lovely music!

[Roasted Swan]

So I was listening to this CD earlier;



based on these old mono Decca LP's



All of the performances are very good - energetic, well-chosen tempi, pretty good recordings given their age - plenty of detail if a bit raw.

But it did make me wonder why Boult, given that he could deliver good Arnold and Walton didn't record a lot more of either composer.  Add into the mix Bax, who Boult also avoided in the recording studio at least and I found myself wondering if Boult didn't engage with those composers as people rather than not liking the music they wrote.  All 3 were pretty imfamous womanisers so perhaps just too much for the staid Boult?

[calyptorhynchus]

But it did make me wonder why Boult, given that he could deliver good Arnold and Walton didn't record a lot more of either composer.  Add into the mix Bax, who Boult also avoided in the recording studio at least and I found myself wondering if Boult didn't engage with those composers as people rather than not liking the music they wrote.  All 3 were pretty imfamous womanisers so perhaps just too much for the staid Boult?

Perhaps he just didn't like their music :-)

[Irons]

I think an element of truth in both theories. Boult was judgmental "Somehow I used to find him absolutely repulsive both as a man and a musician, and his treatment of people I knew - Willie Reed and Geoffrey Toye particularly - so absolutely beastly that his complete neglect of me didn't seem to matter a bit". Tell us what you think Adrian! Not difficult to guess who is on the receiving end.

I find Bax/Boult interesting. He programmed the tone poems many times in concerts, indeed conducting the first British performance of The Garden of Fand. He also recorded a superb set for Lyrita. However, 7th Symphony premiere aside, performances of the others are notable for their absence. I am convinced I read somewhere that he didn't like Bax's symphonies.   

[vandermolen]

I think an element of truth in both theories. Boult was judgmental "Somehow I used to find him absolutely repulsive both as a man and a musician, and his treatment of people I knew - Willie Reed and Geoffrey Toye particularly - so absolutely beastly that his complete neglect of me didn't seem to matter a bit". Tell us what you think Adrian! Not difficult to guess who is on the receiving end.

I find Bax/Boult interesting. He programmed the tone poems many times in concerts, indeed conducting the first British performance of The Garden of Fand. He also recorded a superb set for Lyrita. However, 7th Symphony premiere aside, performances of the others are notable for their absence. I am convinced I read somewhere that he didn't like Bax's symphonies.   

Who is Boult talking about Lol?

[Roasted Swan]

Who is Boult talking about Lol?

Pretty sure its Beecham....

[vandermolen]

Pretty sure its Beecham....

Thanks

[Irons]

Pretty sure its Beecham....

[Roasted Swan]

I'm continuing my gentle ramble through the byeways of British String Orhcestra music.  In the main I'm doing this by reconstructing scores from sets of parts or vice versa - parts from scores.  Quite often when music was considered "Light" it was not published with a full score showing every part.  Instead there would often be a "Piano Conductor" which is pretty much what it sounds like - a keyboard reduction of the complete score down to two staves with sometimes a third (usually treble) stave cueing in additional parts. 

First up was the "Rivers of Devon" Suite by Ernest Markham-Lee.  Unusually for the music I'm researching this has been recorded in recent years on this enjoyable disc;



Acually the whole disc is rather charming.  Nothing of any great significance but for me the Markham-Lee is the highlight.  A kind of 4 movement mini-symphony with the 'slow movement' "No.3 Torridge - Dusk Deepening Between the Hills" is the highlight.  Anyway I managed to get hold of photocopies of the parts (there was no score of any kind apparently!) from the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra library.

The other two reconstructed works are real rarities;

Pastoral Dance by Norman Demuth and

The Haunted Place by David Moule-Evans.

Both are completely forgotten composers but perhaps undeservedly so.  I see from Wiki regarding Demuth;
"His orchestral piece Selsey Rhapsody was one of his first compositions to be noticed. It was first performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult in 1925"  The same article lists 7(!) symphonies mainly written in the 1930's.  He taught at the RAM and was an expert on French music in particular - I have his Roussel biography.  This Pastoral Dance was published for school/amateur groups and is very short - less than 1 minute but its rather beautifully crafted - easy to play but musically appealing.

I had never heard of Moule-Evans and to be honest "The Haunted Place" (written for the Reginald Jacques orchestra in 1949) is a bit disappointing - rather aimless in form and harmony.  It might be one of those works that "comes alive" in performance - on the page and limited by my simple computer midi playback its a bit turgid.....

All-wise Wiki says the following about Moule-Evans;

As a composer Moule-Evans has been largely forgotten today, but during his lifetime he achieved a measure of success. His Concerto for String Orchestra won the Carnegie British Music award in 1928.[4] The Dance Suite, scored for full orchestra with piano, five percussion players and timpani, was completed in December 1930 and received its first performance at a Royal College of Music Patrons' Fund Concert in March, 1931.[5] He was one of several composer contributors (alongside Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Cole, Julian Gardiner and John Tilehurst) to the 1938 Dorking pageant play England's Pleasant Land, written by E.M. Forster.[6]

His Symphony in G (1944) was the controversial £1,000 prizewinner of the Australian International Jubilee Symphony Competition of 1951[7] with The Musical Times and others claiming that the runner up, a symphony by Robert Hughes, was "definitely superior".[8] (Malcolm Sargent revived the work in the UK for a Royal Festival Hall performance by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1952, but to mixed reviews, the Musical Times dismissing it as "conventional, banal and boring").[9][10]

The orchestral poem September Dusk was premiered at the BBC Proms on 25 August 1945.[11] Moule-Evans mostly wrote in a popular, straightforward "light music" style, although the composer Michael Hurd has commented that his later chamber works, including the Violin Sonata in F-sharp minor (1956)[12] and the Piano Sonata (1966) are more adventurous in style.[1] The only music currently available in recorded form are the soundtracks to a series of British Council documentary films commissioned by Muir Mathieson, including Health of a Nation and London 1942.[13]

[calyptorhynchus]

Interesting release by Naxos slated for 27 October.

[Maestro267]

I wonder why it only has the Adagio of the 2nd Sonata. Is that all that is finished of the work?