The British Composers Thread

[Roasted Swan]

As described on my composer's thread yesterday - my return to GMG after about six years away - I am currently in the latter stages of writing a book which is to be published next year. It's subject is hard to define in a few words, but concerns composers and place - composers' relationships with particularly important locations and the ways in which the land, the sea, the air, the essence of a place has been absorbed or experienced by various composers and transmuted into their music.

The book is a mixture of: music history/biography sections; autobiographical writing which concerns my own changing relationship to music; and travel writing, as I pursue each of my subjects to its source. Mostly for practical reasons I have limited myself to music connected with Britain, and I spent the last year travelling the country to the locations I am concerned with. Last week I made my final journey - a week in Scotland, and a flit to Wales. The rest is writing it up and drawing conclusions.

Obviously I'm posting this on this thread because in writing this book I have visited so many of the important locations to the composers that get discussed here and on certain of the individual composer threads. Composers I have traced, some multiple times, include - in no particular order:

Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Holst
Bax
Ireland
Birtwistle
Maxwell Davies
Mendelssohn
Sterndale Bennett
Parry
Foulds
Rubbra
Hadley
Moeran
Weir
Dillon
Tippett
Britten
Howells
Gurney
Brian
Finzi
Lutyens
Julius Harrison
William Baines
Gavin Bryars
David Bedford
and also a small smattering of non-classical artists - John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Julian Cope.

Now that is a book I would really like to read - I hope you have a publisher interested.  Some names in the list instantly jump out regarding specific pieces/locations but others are more intriguing/less obvious.  We'll just have to buy the book to find out!!

[Roasted Swan]

See left.

Fair enough - but when you look at the forum on a phone (well my phone anyway!) you don't see the avatar unless you click on the poster's name.

[vandermolen]

As described on my composer's thread yesterday - my return to GMG after about six years away - I am currently in the latter stages of writing a book which is to be published next year. It's subject is hard to define in a few words, but concerns composers and place - composers' relationships with particularly important locations and the ways in which the land, the sea, the air, the essence of a place has been absorbed or experienced by various composers and transmuted into their music.

The book is a mixture of: music history/biography sections; autobiographical writing which concerns my own changing relationship to music; and travel writing, as I pursue each of my subjects to its source. Mostly for practical reasons I have limited myself to music connected with Britain, and I spent the last year travelling the country to the locations I am concerned with. Last week I made my final journey - a week in Scotland, and a flit to Wales. The rest is writing it up and drawing conclusions.

Obviously I'm posting this on this thread because in writing this book I have visited so many of the important locations to the composers that get discussed here and on certain of the individual composer threads. Composers I have traced, some multiple times, include - in no particular order:

Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Holst
Bax
Ireland
Birtwistle
Maxwell Davies
Mendelssohn
Sterndale Bennett
Parry
Foulds
Rubbra
Hadley
Moeran
Weir
Dillon
Tippett
Britten
Howells
Gurney
Brian
Finzi
Lutyens
Julius Harrison
William Baines
Gavin Bryars
David Bedford
and also a small smattering of non-classical artists - John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Julian Cope.

Welcome back! I assume that you know this book:

[Luke]

Yes I do. My slant is a little different to that one for a few reasons.

1) Because I'm both quite an obsessive but also don't mind a bit of informed speculation, I venture down quite
a few rabbit holes to get to insights that haven't necessarily been arrived at before. There are a few discoveries here, of one sort and another, and a bit of myth-busting, too.

2) My net is cast wider than that book, and covers some lesser-known and more contemporary pieces.

3) What I am doing is looking at different ways in which places have influenced composers - that doesn't just mean composers who weere inspired by a particular location (Elgar on the Malvern Hills; Britten at Aldeburgh etc, although it includes all of that), but e.g. that something happened in a particular place that affected their subsequent way of working

4) The autobiographical/travel writing element is different in itself but also puts me - a wannabe composer at the fag end of one great tradition - in a kind of dialogue with these great predecessors. A composer's eye view of questions of inspiration and its sources, if you like

[Luke]

Now that is a book I would really like to read - I hope you have a publisher interested.  Some names in the list instantly jump out regarding specific pieces/locations but others are more intriguing/less obvious.  We'll just have to buy the book to find out!!

Yes, I do have a publisher, so all going well the book should appear next year. And you're right, he probably won't want too many spoilers!

[vandermolen]

Yes I do. My slant is a little different to that one for a few reasons.

1) Because I'm both quite an obsessive but also don't mind a bit of informed speculation, I venture down quite
a few rabbit holes to get to insights that haven't necessarily been arrived at before. There are a few discoveries here, of one sort and another, and a bit of myth-busting, too.

2) My net is cast wider than that book, and covers some lesser-known and more contemporary pieces.

3) What I am doing is looking at different ways in which places have influenced composers - that doesn't just mean composers who weere inspired by a particular location (Elgar on the Malvern Hills; Britten at Aldeburgh etc, although it includes all of that), but e.g. that something happened in a particular place that affected their subsequent way of working

4) The autobiographical/travel writing element is different in itself but also puts me - a wannabe composer at the fag end of one great tradition - in a kind of dialogue with these great predecessors. A composer's eye view of questions of inspiration and its sources, if you like

Most interesting! Thanks for the explanation.

[relm1]

As described on my composer's thread yesterday - my return to GMG after about six years away - I am currently in the latter stages of writing a book which is to be published next year. It's subject is hard to define in a few words, but concerns composers and place - composers' relationships with particularly important locations and the ways in which the land, the sea, the air, the essence of a place has been absorbed or experienced by various composers and transmuted into their music.

The book is a mixture of: music history/biography sections; autobiographical writing which concerns my own changing relationship to music; and travel writing, as I pursue each of my subjects to its source. Mostly for practical reasons I have limited myself to music connected with Britain, and I spent the last year travelling the country to the locations I am concerned with. Last week I made my final journey - a week in Scotland, and a flit to Wales. The rest is writing it up and drawing conclusions.

Obviously I'm posting this on this thread because in writing this book I have visited so many of the important locations to the composers that get discussed here and on certain of the individual composer threads. Composers I have traced, some multiple times, include - in no particular order:

Elgar
Vaughan Williams
Holst
Bax
Ireland
Birtwistle
Maxwell Davies
Mendelssohn
Sterndale Bennett
Parry
Foulds
Rubbra
Hadley
Moeran
Weir
Dillon
Tippett
Britten
Howells
Gurney
Brian
Finzi
Lutyens
Julius Harrison
William Baines
Gavin Bryars
David Bedford
and also a small smattering of non-classical artists - John Lennon, Paul MacCartney, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Julian Cope.

Why not either of the Butterworths?  Arthur Butterworth was quite inspired by the moors which he had to explain to me what that was.  Also, Derek Bourgeois Symphony no. 6 "Cotswold Symphony".

[Roasted Swan]

Why not either of the Butterworths?  Arthur Butterworth was quite inspired by the moors which he had to explain to me what that was.  Also, Derek Bourgeois Symphony no. 6 "Cotswold Symphony".

Any "list"/collection such as this will have ommissions that you or I might have included.  As far as George Butterworth is concerned if you mean "Shropshire" as a location that's a bit of a red herring I think.

[Luke]

Well yes, on both counts.

Firstly, there are countless omissions. There is no way I could cover all the many thousands of 'geographically themed' pieces of music, it would be a pointless and thankless task and not what I intended to do. I went where I felt I needed to go and that is all; someone else would have gone somewhere else and I do not present my choices as anything other than personal.

I do actually write about George Butterworth at points, especially in connection with RVW, but as was just pointed out, the perceived Butterworth-Shropshire connection is really to the Housman poems he sets rather than to the places themselves (and Housman himself didn't actually go to most of these places, either). Similarly, many people said to me, 'when are you going to Wenlock Edge?' mostly on the strength of Vaughan Williams' song cycle, but the place is mentioned in the first line of Housman's poem and never again: it's got the prominence it has because it became the title of the work, and if the second line of the poem had been the first we'd all know about RVW's song cycle The Wrekin instead. In fact, because they are places of such iconic significance, I did go both to Wenlock Edge and Bredon Hill, but probably the only composer who drew directly from the latter was Julius Harrison, whose house had a view of it. Anyway, for this reason Butterworth doesn't get a section to himself. Now, if his piano piece Firle Beacon hadn't been lost, perhaps he would have got one ...

Arthur Butterworth probably wrote more such music than most - there are many examples - and as such I do mention him in the book. But, as I said, I had to be selective, and there were other pieces/composers which I felt a more urgent need to write about. So he doesn't get more than a deserved mention.

[Cato]

Yes I do. My slant is a little different to that one for a few reasons.

1) ...I venture down quite
a few rabbit holes...

3) What I am doing is looking at different ways in which places have influenced composers - that doesn't just mean composers who were inspired by a particular location (Elgar on the Malvern Hills; Britten at Aldeburgh etc, although it includes all of that), but e.g. that something happened in a particular place that affected their subsequent way of working...

1 - I love Rabbit Holes!   

3- That aspect sounds most intriguing!

One can speculate (easily?) on the general effect of one's place of birth on a composer e.g. the New-England, Yankee, post-bellum atmosphere on Charles Ives.

But a specific event at a specific place affecting the composer's method of composition thereafter!

Tell me more!

I can think of events with a limited influence, e.g. Mahler in New York City seeing and hearing the funeral procession for a heroic fireman. 

So your theme here is most intriguing!

[Luke]

Well, what struck me was the number of ways in which a place can exert an influence on a composer beyond the obvious 'inspiration from being in a beautiful place.'

We have, for example, instances of the following:

Reminiscences of personal trauma/joy/moment of significance - a very common one
Deep lifelong identification with a particular place
Immersion in the atmosphere of a place during childhood affecting one's general musical outlook in maturity
Specific childhood experiences ditto
Seeing ghosts
Sensing divine or spiritual presences
Hearing unexplained music
Communion with the deep past
A place representing family/security/happiness
The reflected influence of a place never personally visited but in which a life-changing event occurred

for a start.

[relm1]

Well yes, on both counts.

Firstly, there are countless omissions. There is no way I could cover all the many thousands of 'geographically themed' pieces of music, it would be a pointless and thankless task and not what I intended to do. I went where I felt I needed to go and that is all; someone else would have gone somewhere else and I do not present my choices as anything other than personal.

I do actually write about George Butterworth at points, especially in connection with RVW, but as was just pointed out, the perceived Butterworth-Shropshire connection is really to the Housman poems he sets rather than to the places themselves (and Housman himself didn't actually go to most of these places, either). Similarly, many people said to me, 'when are you going to Wenlock Edge?' mostly on the strength of Vaughan Williams' song cycle, but the place is mentioned in the first line of Housman's poem and never again: it's got the prominence it has because it became the title of the work, and if the second line of the poem had been the first we'd all know about RVW's song cycle The Wrekin instead. In fact, because they are places of such iconic significance, I did go both to Wenlock Edge and Bredon Hill, but probably the only composer who drew directly from the latter was Julius Harrison, whose house had a view of it. Anyway, for this reason Butterworth doesn't get a section to himself. Now, if his piano piece Firle Beacon hadn't been lost, perhaps he would have got one ...

Arthur Butterworth probably wrote more such music than most - there are many examples - and as such I do mention him in the book. But, as I said, I had to be selective, and there were other pieces/composers which I felt a more urgent need to write about. So he doesn't get more than a deserved mention.

So you are focused on major composers rather than neglected composers who have clearly made the landscape and cityscape an important part of their inspiration?  Why not some mention of significant contributions by composers inspired by English locations who deserve to be better known?  I get that this is somewhat subjective but I'm not asking for a deep exploration, at least a mention.

[Luke]

Well, as I told you already, both Butterworths are mentioned. Exactly as you asked for.

But I don't have a focus on any particular 'ranking' of composer, nor on any particular time period or style. My list includes what I think is quite a variety - did you look at it or just see that Arthur Butterworth wasn't on it but Elgar was and decide that I was ignoring minor figures?

My guiding rule was simply to go in search of what I myself find interesting or revealing and furthermore one of my guiding principles was not just to perpetuate and repeat the myths which have accrued among the more famous pieces but to try to get to the truth, which includes researching in sources others haven't explored but which also includes going to the relevant places and seeing for myself how things might have occurred. That sort of clarifying is only possible when there's a myth to be clarified.

[Luke]

Just edited my original post because I had forgotten to include Delius in the list. Sorry he's a well-known figure.

[Roasted Swan]

So you are focused on major composers rather than neglected composers who have clearly made the landscape and cityscape an important part of their inspiration?  Why not some mention of significant contributions by composers inspired by English locations who deserve to be better known?  I get that this is somewhat subjective but I'm not asking for a deep exploration, at least a mention.

Wait until the book comes out, buy it, read it - THEN start passing judgements.  Give the guy a break - it sounds great to me.

[relm1]

Wait until the book comes out, buy it, read it - THEN start passing judgements.  Give the guy a break - it sounds great to me.

Forgive me for suggesting a few interesting composers missing from his list.

[Luke]

Believe me, I am aware of them, and plenty more. I make it clear in the book that I am not attempting to cover everything. But there has to be a limit - apart from anything else, there is a word limit, which I am already way over! 

[Roasted Swan]

Forgive me for suggesting a few interesting composers missing from his list.

you are forgiven.

[vandermolen]

Been enjoying this this evening:

[Luke]

Agreed, that's a great disc.