A British Composer Poll

[Scarpia]

I think it depends how you classify 'folky stuff', because I would say that Tallis fantasy and the 5th symphony contain plenty of folksong-related stuff (and there's that tune in the 6th, too, which might as well be a folksong). But these rather timeless folksong-like lines are of a different order to the sort of jaunty folksong found in the Folk Song Suite, which I too could happily live without.

Well, I don't include pieces in my dislike which simply include folk-like melodies that are subsequently subjected to symphonic development.   That is something that turns up in the music of nearly all significant composers (landler's in Mahler, occasional echos of country dances in the minuets and trios of Mozart, or in the scherzi of Bruckner).  But "In Fen Country," "Dives and Lazarus," Norfolk Rhapsody, Fantasia on Greensleeves, that stuff bores me to tears.

[71 dB]

This is precisely why I recommended the Tallis Fantasia.

Okay! Thanks. 

[Luke]

You're exactly right, and I wanted to say something similar myself, though in this particular instance, the notion that the Tallis is folk-influenced might well have put 71dB off, and I was worried that he'd be misled by that, because there's nothing jaunty and folksy about it.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that Elgar said sometime, somewhere, to somebody: 'I am folk music' or some such. Not that I ever knew what he meant by it.

I think the overwhelming beauty and strength....and depth, if that word is safe to use today (I don't use it often, I think my quota is still fairly full)....of the Tallis Fantasia, over and above the note-by-note ravishingness of it all, lies in the juxtaposition of two worlds, and two types of exisiting in relation to those worlds. There is the church, with the history, the humanity, the complexity that come with it, and there is the open field, the open sky. There is homophonic quasi-choral writing, false-related chords expressing doubt and duality and what it is to be human, and there are free-flowing, rhythmically unfettered, modal, polyphonic lines, as natural and as timeless as the birds in the trees, but carrying the inflections of the most ancient folksong at their core. No value judgement is implied between the two, either, to my ear. To me, the point in the score where the first gives way to the second is one of the simplest and most moving things in VW's music. As I said on the VW thread, wow, 2 years ago now, one of the most impressive things about him as a composer is that he understand the potency and the associative complexity of musical gestures and types, of intervals, melodic motions, rhythms free and fixed, homophony v polyphony, the modes in their various types, and he was able to weave stunningly direct and powerful music from them, using them as ways to articulate form as a more traditional symphonist would use key and motive. 

[Luke]

Well, I done include pieces in my dislike which simply include folk-like melodies that are subsequently subjected to symphonic development.   That is something that turns up in the music of nearly all significant composers (landler's in Mahler, occasional echos of country dances in the minuets and trios of Mozart, or in the scherzi of Bruckner).  But "In Fen Country," "Dives and Lazarus," Norfolk Rhapsody, Fantasia on Greensleeves, that stuff bores me to tears.

No, precisely. You're speaking for me, there, too. Well, the Greensleeves one is OK - short and sweet, and the tune is pretty imperishable. But it's not one I seek out...

[karlhenning]

No, precisely. You're speaking for me, there, too. Well, the Greensleeves one is OK - short and sweet, and the tune is pretty imperishable. But it's not one I seek out...

Yes, in itself all right . . . not Vaughan Williams's fault that that little bit is practically all that certain radio stations will play of his.

[Elgarian]

I think the overwhelming beauty and strength....and depth, if that word is safe to use today (I don't use it often, I think my quota is still fairly full)....of the Tallis Fantasia, over and above the note-by-note ravishingness of it all, lies in the juxtaposition of two worlds, and two types of exisiting in relation to those worlds. There is the church, with the history, the humanity, the complexity that come with it, and there is the open field, the open sky. There is homophonic quasi-choral writing, false-related chords expressing doubt and duality and what it is to be human, and there are free-flowing, rhythmically unfettered, modal, polyphonic lines, as natural and as timeless as the birds in the trees, but carrying the inflections of the most ancient folksong at their core. No value judgement is implied between the two, either, to my ear. To me, the point in the score where the first gives way to the second is one of the simplest and most moving things in VW's music. As I said on the VW thread, wow, 2 years ago now, one of the most impressive things about him as a composer is that he understand the potency and the associative complexity of musical gestures and types, of intervals, melodic motions, rhythms free and fixed, homophony v polyphony, the modes in their various types, and he was able to weave stunningly direct and powerful music from them, using them as ways to articulate form as a more traditional symphonist would use key and motive.

Wonderful. I couldn't have written that, but I wish I could. There are a few bits there that I don't properly understand, but the parts I do understand match my experience perfectly. That dialogue between what we might call Modern, on the one hand, and what we might call Ancient, on the other, coupled with his ability to present it so clearly in such a deeply felt way, is what elevates him to greatness in my view. I can't talk about it in specifically musical terms, as you can - but all my instincts tell me we're talking about the same thing.

I think the reason why I always mentally link this with Elgar's Intro&Allegro must lie here. Musically they're very different of course, but Elgar spoke of hearing the main theme emanating from a Welsh chapel, and 'stole' it, in a sense. So the Intro&Allegro carries the same kind of dialogue between Ancient and Modern; the music may be different in the two cases, but the expression of humanity is the same.

Afterthought
I said Ancient and Modern, but they're only imperfect approximations. I could equally well have used Timeless and Momentary, or some other complementing pair of not-quite-adequate expressions, but none of them match up to the more accurate descriptions that you've given.

[drogulus]

I think the overwhelming beauty and strength....and depth, if that word is safe to use today (I don't use it often, I think my quota is still fairly full)....of the Tallis Fantasia, over and above the note-by-note ravishingness of it all, lies in the juxtaposition of two worlds, and two types of exisiting in relation to those worlds. There is the church, with the history, the humanity, the complexity that come with it, and there is the open field, the open sky. There is homophonic quasi-choral writing, false-related chords expressing doubt and duality and what it is to be human, and there are free-flowing, rhythmically unfettered, modal, polyphonic lines, as natural and as timeless as the birds in the trees, but carrying the inflections of the most ancient folksong at their core. No value judgement is implied between the two, either, to my ear. To me, the point in the score where the first gives way to the second is one of the simplest and most moving things in VW's music. As I said on the VW thread, wow, 2 years ago now, one of the most impressive things about him as a composer is that he understand the potency and the associative complexity of musical gestures and types, of intervals, melodic motions, rhythms free and fixed, homophony v polyphony, the modes in their various types, and he was able to weave stunningly direct and powerful music from them, using them as ways to articulate form as a more traditional symphonist would use key and motive. 

     VW was the most astute musical psychologist I know of. This is probably related to his multimodal technique. I don't know if this is deliberate or inadvertent, a by-product of what is for the listener a path with fewer signposts. Emotion vs. architecture would be an oversimplification but it points the right way. Musical architects portray emotion, too. Yet it isn't quite the same as the unsettling way VW's music seems to be driven purely by feeling. The pervasive disorientation of his methods works to the music's advantage. Though not, to be sure, for those who just don't buy it. I'm sure there will always be listeners who hear VW as meandering and unstructured.

[knight66]

The Tallis Fantasia was written as a commission for the Three Choirs Festival. This is an annual event that circulates round the Gothic cathedrals in three cities, Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester. The first performance of the Tallis Fantasia was given in Gloucester Cathedral; a building with a difficult acoustic, it can reduce Bach to mush with its reverberation.

The VW is written for orchestra, sub orchestra and quartet. Originally the sub-orchestra was divided physically from the body of players. I have heard the piece in Gloucester cathedral, but all the players remained in the body of the orchestra. It was a magical sound. Gloucester claims that VW wrote the piece with the acoustic and the spaces of the cathedral in mind.

I would like to hear it there in its intended layout. There would be a clearer antiphonal effect, surely one of the main aims of the piece and echoing the spatial sounds of the Tallis when sung in a cathedral quire, as well as the resonances that Luke expresses and Elgarian reinforces.

It may only last about a quarter of an hour, but it is one of those pieces that takes you into another place. The recorded performances I have are no doubt finer than the performance I heard live, but to hear it in a vast space...and to be gazing at that architecture, was very special.





Mike

Edit: Here is a Youtube performance filmed in the cathedral, Andrew Davis conducting. The division of the orchestra into tis three parts has been followed...now all I need is surround sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkMIgMYf6go&feature=related

[karlhenning]

The Tallis Fantasia was written as a commission for the Three Choirs Festival. This is an annual event that circulates round the Gothic cathedrals in three cities, Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester. The first performance of the Tallis Fantasia was given in Gloucester Cathedral; a building with a difficult acoustic, it can reduce Bach to mush with its reverberation.

The VW is written for orchestra, sub orchestra and quartet. Originally the sub-orchestra was divided physically from the body of players. I have heard the piece in Gloucester cathedral, but all the players remained in the body of the orchestra. It was a magical sound. Gloucester claims that VW wrote the piece with the acoustic and the spaces of the cathedral in mind.

I would like to hear it there in its intended layout. There would be a clearer antiphonal effect, surely one of the main aims of the piece and echoing the spatial sounds of the Tallis when sung in a cathedral quire, as well as the resonances that Luke expresses and Elgarian reinforces.

It may only last about a quarter of an hour, but it is one of those pieces that takes you into another place. . . .

Yes; like (for instance) the Stravinsky Symphonies of wind instruments, a 'minor' work which has a footprint out of proportion to its duration.

Here is the youtube embedded:

http://www.youtube.com/v/YkMIgMYf6go

[karlhenning]

I've gone ahead and pulled the trigger on the four-disc Walton Centenary Box. The Symphonies in particular I need to get to know better.

[bwv 1080]

Ferneyhough or Christopher Fox

[Dax]

Cornelius Cardew and John White

[False_Dmitry]

Cornelius Cardew and John White

Yes, there are dozens of major composers missing from the poll.

Harrison Birtwistle
PMD
Dominic Muldowney
William Cornyshe
Stephen Storace
Charles Dibdin
Judith Weir
Michael Tippett

etc etc etc

[DavidRoss]

Yes, there are dozens of major composers missing from the poll.

Harrison Birtwistle
PMD
Dominic Muldowney
William Cornyshe
Stephen Storace
Charles Dibdin
Judith Weir
Michael Tippett

etc etc etc

Major composers?  Don't you think that's stretching it a bit?  Or can't you remember back to the days when fast food sodas came in small, medium, and large instead of large, jumbo, and humongous? 

[False_Dmitry]

Major composers?  Don't you think that's stretching it a bit?  Or can't you remember back to the days when fast food sodas came in small, medium, and large instead of large, jumbo, and humongous? 

Tippett, BIrtwistle and PMD are at least as "major" as Dunstable.  (Considering most of Dunstable's work was burnt in the "Reformation").   If your work is peformed at the ROH like Birtwistle, many would consider that the sign of a major composer.

Or do you think the "major" composers only lived in the C19th?

[DavidRoss]

Tippett, BIrtwistle and PMD are at least as "major" as Dunstable.  (Considering most of Dunstable's work was burnt in the "Reformation").   If your work is peformed at the ROH like Birtwistle, many would consider that the sign of a major composer.

Or do you think the "major" composers only lived in the C19th?

No. 

[Klaatu]

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that Elgar said sometime, somewhere, to somebody: 'I am folk music' or some such. Not that I ever knew what he meant by it.

He did indeed say this, in answer to a question by his friend Troyte Griffith, who asked him "What do you think about this folk music?" Elgar answered: "I don't think about it at all - I am folk music!"

I'm pretty sure I understand his meaning: that he knew his music had become - or was in the process of becoming - part of the English national consciousness. Not just because of our "alternative National Anthem", Land of Hope and Glory, but because Elgar's musical idiom has become intrinsically linked with "Englishness".

For example, any British TV series which deals with English history, the English landscape, or the English way of life often has a cod-Elgar piece as its soundtrack. One that immediately pops into my mind is the old sitcom To The Manor Born, whose theme music was a pseudo-Pomp & Circumstance Big Tune!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

For example, any British TV series which deals with English history, the English landscape, or the English way of life often has a cod-Elgar piece as its soundtrack. One that immediately pops into my mind is the old sitcom To The Manor Born, whose theme music was a pseudo-Pomp & Circumstance Big Tune!

"Cod-Elgar piece" is very good!... The tune that pops into my head immediately is the one for Yes (Prime) Minister.

[Mirror Image]

Looking back on my vote, I voted for RVW simply by default, because he is my to-go-to British composer, but I should have checked "other," because I love Rubbra and Alwyn almost equally now.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

It's funny that this poll almost entirely leaves out the Golden Age of English Musick (16th-17th centuries). Where are Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Dowland etc.? There was actually a period when English music was foremost in Europe. That was it.