The British Composers Thread

Started by Mark, October 25, 2007, 12:26:56 PM

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Dundonnell

#180
Huge subject worth a a magazine article at least!

Boult was appointed principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930 when the orchestra was established on a full-time basis. He was 41 years old but had already built a very considerable reputation in the 1920s as the principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra but also as the champion of contemporary British music-especially Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. These were composers in whom Beecham had shown little real interest or sympathy.

Beecham was ten years older and already had a great reputation as a pre-war conductor and musical impresario of great genius. He had almost single-handedly established a flourishing operatic scene in Britain before the war. His sympathies in British music were more with composers like Delius and Bax(of whose somewhat 'liberal' lifestyles Boult disapproved). His outlook on music was however not exactly forward-looking regarding broadcast music and expressed open contempt for much of what the BBC was trying to do at the time.

Unlike Beecham, who almost entirely conducted composers for whose music he had sympathy, Boult regarded his duty at the BBC to conduct as much and as varied a programme as possible to the very best of his abilities. Thus Boult was to conduct Schoenberg, Mahler, Bartok with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

It is a strange paradox therefore that this upright, Edwardian gentleman, whom Beecham regarded as symbolical of the English musical establishment and as a member of an upper middle-class clique(presumably including VW!) should be so much more adventurous in his musical programming than the independently very wealthy Beecham! Beecham's antipathy to Boult was demonstrated by his total refusal to entertain any notion that Boult should conduct opera. Since Beecham appeared to have effectively controlled Covent Garden in this period Boult was barred from conducting there!

I acknowledge the huge contribution Beecham made to music in Britain for 60 years, in particular to opera before 1914. I recognise the debt which Delians owe to Beecham for his pioneering and wonderful interpretations of that composer's music. Beecham could inspire an orchestra to a magical performance in those composers/pieces he loved-Mozart, Berlioz, Franck, Sibelius etc.

I do believe however that Boult's legacy with the BBC and in recorded music will last longer, and, though, dinner with Sir Thomas might have been more amusing, I would much rather have known Sir Adrian :)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Great post, Colin! Yes, Boult was adventurous and a real professional, his range is greater than Beecham's. Whether Boult's legacy will be more enduring than Beecham's? Perhaps it's still too early to tell.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

drogulus



     Michael Kennedy, in his book about the Hallé Orchestra, says Barbirolli wouldn't let Beecham conduct in Manchester. It sounds like both personal and professional objections were involved.
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Kuhlau

#183
Quote from: Guido on September 21, 2008, 05:41:18 PM
Is anyone familiar with Rebecca Clarke's music? I just heard her Viola Sonata and I am just bowled over by the brilliance of this work. Utterly fantastic - by turns lyrical, passionate, vibrant and nostalgic this must surely rank amng the best viola sonatas out there... I have just seen that there is a cello verson too. Must get onto that and also the Rhapsody for cello and piano...

Morpheus for viola and piano is a beautiful celtic/impressionistic sounding lament. I also have heard the lovely Passacaglia on a an old English Theme for cello and piano.

I cannot recommend these piece enough - I love making discoveries like this!

For those interested, this is the CD to which Guido is referring:



FK

Dundonnell

Ah, Barbirolli...another magnificent conductor of British music :) (And not just British music, of course :))

The three 'B': Beecham, Boult and Barbirolli. Where are their equals today :(

Btw I shuld have added to my post above that Boult was, of course, a very fine interpreter of the Bax tone poems he recorded-whatever he thought of Bax as a man. I don't think however that I have ever heard Boult in Delius ;D

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Dundonnell on October 04, 2008, 03:20:54 PM
Ah, Barbirolli...another magnificent conductor of British music :) (And not just British music, of course :))

The three 'B': Beecham, Boult and Barbirolli. Where are their equals today :(

Btw I shuld have added to my post above that Boult was, of course, a very fine interpreter of the Bax tone poems he recorded-whatever he thought of Bax as a man. I don't think however that I have ever heard Boult in Delius ;D

Delius was Beecham's territory. If Boult disliked Beecham so much, perhaps he also disliked the English composer whose music Beecham loved so much... Just speculation, of course.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Kuhlau on October 04, 2008, 03:14:08 PM
For those interested, this is the CD to which Guido is referring:



FK

Thank you, Kuhlau, and welcome!
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Dundonnell

Quote from: Jezetha on October 04, 2008, 03:29:13 PM
Delius was Beecham's territory. If Boult disliked Beecham so much, perhaps he also disliked the English composer whose music Beecham loved so much... Just speculation, of course.

Just for the record.....Boult conducted the first performance of the Delius Violin Concerto in 1919 with Albert Sammons as soloist :)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Dundonnell on October 04, 2008, 03:43:57 PM
Just for the record.....Boult conducted the first performance of the Delius Violin Concerto in 1919 with Albert Sammons as soloist :)

Good man!

And now I am going to bed... Goodnight, Colin!
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Lilas Pastia

Very interesting stuff. Thanks, Colin (and Johan for prodding all that interesting stuff from him :D).

Personally I'm more a Boult than a Beecham man. Of course sonics may have something to contribute in this impression - Sir Adrian was fortunate in having both an 'Indian Summer' as a conductor and fiinding great orchestras and sound engineers to work with at the time. When it comes to the British repertoire I've always found Boult's music-making so utterly natural in phrasing, pacing and expression as to sound totally 'English': loath to "make an impression", but equally loath to be found anything less than commanding, 'in charge' and open to a work's inner sensitivity.

Barbirolli is something else: his range seems to have been just as wide as Boult's but more "éclaté". So the results were much less predictable, but more spectacular (both as successes or failures).

Dundonnell

I love the story Barbirolli used to tell of when his father reached Great Britain, having emigrated from Italy, and on arriving at the station in London was greeted by a newspaper billboard which read "ENGLAND COLLAPSES".

The horrified man was pondering whether he had better return to Italy as soon as possible before he was told that the horrific notice referred to the English cricket team's performance in a test match against Australia :)

Barbirolli was himself a huge cricket fan :)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

vandermolen

Very interesting discussion although I'm not too sure what happened to Dame Ethel in the process  ;D Barbirolli is perhaps my favourite of the three (Boult/Beecham/Barbirolli) for the warmth which he brings to so many recordings (EMI version of Vaughan Williams's Symphony No 5 for example) but Boult is unrivalled overall in Vaughan Williams I think and I have recently been listening to his wonderful Lyrita recording of Rubbra's 7th Symphony. I did not realise that Beecham was so unpleasant. His Sibelius Symphony No 4 is unrivalled in my view. Beecham was quite dismissive of Vaughan Williams's music, commenting after giving a (presumably rare) performance of A Pastoral Symphony "It's the city life for me". There are no recordings of Beecham conducting any Vaughan Williams symphony.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Kuhlau

Quote from: Jezetha on October 04, 2008, 03:30:08 PM
Thank you, Kuhlau, and welcome!

Thank you. :)

This really is an excellent CD of music - I can fully understand why Guido is so enthusiastic about it. Mind you, when you have players of the calibre of Dukes, Plane and particularly, Hope, on a recording, it couldn't be otherwise.

My only complaint about it is the recorded sound: good, but not superb. Perhaps a smidgen too close, and without the bloom that might show off these works to best effect. At least, that's how I remember it the last time I spun the disc.

FK

Dundonnell

Quote from: vandermolen on October 05, 2008, 12:25:53 AM
Very interesting discussion although I'm not too sure what happened to Dame Ethel in the process  ;D Barbirolli is perhaps my favourite of the three (Boult/Beecham/Barbirolli) for the warmth which he brings to so many recordings (EMI version of Vaughan Williams's Symphony No 5 for example) but Boult is unrivalled overall in Vaughan Williams I think and I have recently been listening to his wonderful Lyrita recording of Rubbra's 7th Symphony. I did not realise that Beecham was so unpleasant. His Sibelius Symphony No 4 is unrivalled in my view. Beecham was quite dismissive of Vaughan Williams's music, commenting after giving a (presumably rare) performance of A Pastoral Symphony "It's the city life for me". There are no recordings of Beecham conducting any Vaughan Williams symphony.

My apologies to Dame Ethel :)

Agree about her Concerto for violin and horn.

Her most interesting work might well be the Mass in D from 1891. Mark Morris wrote that the Mass is "...an advanced work in the British context of its time and the finest of all British 19th century choral works-big, richly textured, Germanic and late Romantic. In some ways it looks back to the grandeur of Berlioz, but the magnificent Credo, with its dramatic changes of mood, complex and often luminous interweaving of voices, and undercurrent of gigantic power, looks forwards to Mahler's Symphony No.8".

I have to say that this seems an over-estimation of the work :) It is perhaps that the EMI performance is under-powered-a bigger and better orchestra than the Orchestra of the Plymouth Music Series might have done the work more justice!

lukeottevanger

What? There could be a finer band than the Orchestra of PMS?  :o I'll take your word for it...  ;D

Mark G. Simon

Quote from: lukeottevanger on October 05, 2008, 08:58:21 AM
What? There could be a finer band than the Orchestra of PMS?  :o I'll take your word for it...  ;D

They all play on period instruments, you see.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Dundonnell

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on October 05, 2008, 01:15:48 PM
They all play on period instruments, you see.

You know I looked at this post last night for quite some time and thought to myself-"no they don't, surely.......?".

Looked at it again this morning and instantly........ :) :)

Mark G. Simon

There's also a sister organization, the PMS Consort, which specializes in early music, especially music in menstrual notation from manuscripts like the Ivrea Kotex.