The British Composers Thread

[relm1]

I like James MacMillan's 4th and 5th symphonies and A Christmas Oratorio.
He was born in 1959 however!

There is a major difference between the sound of English composers born before 1932 and after.  The bulk of this thread is based on those born before.  I'm very curious. 

[calyptorhynchus]

This is NOT a Hurwitz-bashing post but I am intrigued by his oft-repeated position that Arthur Sullivan is "Britain's Greatest Composer".

Hurwitz definitely isn't the greatest US music critic.

[Roasted Swan]

There is a major difference between the sound of English composers born before 1932 and after.  The bulk of this thread is based on those born before.  I'm very curious. 

teachers!

[vandermolen]

Macfarren's "Robin Hood", "She Stoops to Conquer", "St John the Baptist" and the overture "Romeo and Juliet" are splendid: get the scores (his symphonies are total crap, but the Violin Concerto is OK, it's in the Fitzwilliam). How on Dog's Earth can a "Renaissance" have begun with the RVW "Tallis"? It's sui generis even though Howells had an orgasm over it. The slow movements of Stanford's Piano Concerto No.1 and 6th Symphony are as gorgeous as it gets...

OK thanks. I can't read music so I won't be getting the scores ( ). I'll try Stanford's 6th Symphony, although if that's the one dedicated in memory of the artist G F Watts (a genuinely great figure IMO) I found it rather disappointing. I think that the 'English Musical Renaissance' AFAIK involved casting off the Germanic influence of Brahms, for example. Stanford's music, whilst not without originality, shows the influence of Brahms, as does some early VW like 'Toward the Unknown Region' - in that sense the Tallis Fantasia is a much more original work, looking back to English composers of the historical 'Renaissance'; period like Tallis (obviously) and Byrd, so 'Renaissance' does not seem an inappropriate expression to me. On a different note (no pun intended) the Bostock Dyson etc CD arrived and I shall look forward to exploring that.

[Irons]

When do you date the "Renaissance" from? Sullivan's "The Tempest" (1861-62), Parry's "Prometheus Unbound" (1880), Elgar's "Enigma Variations" (1899), Vaughan Williams' "Tallis Fantasia" (1910)? The term itself is a complete and utter nonsensical academic concept since throughout the nineteenth century Potter, Bennett, Macfarren, Loder, Wallace, Balfe, Mackenzie, Parry, Goring Thomas, Cowen, Stanford and many others produced some wonderful stuff. That it wasn't allowed to enter the repertoire isn't their fault, there was just too much competition and characteristic British indifference...

My favourite book on music by a long chalk is Frank Howes The English Musical Renaissance. Howes does not set a date as there isn't one, it is a process. I found this at random from "The Thesis" section of his book -

A further test of the validity of the renaissance is the number of singing birds in the nest, the quality of their song and their apparent ability to breed. 

 

[vandermolen]

I think we can claim Dobrinka Tabakova as our own.  She certainly lives here - I've seen her around the concert scene quite a few times - and she seems pretty well dug into the musical establishment.  So British by adoption if not by birth (an increasingly meaningless distinction. )

These are good:

 

I agree - two fine CDs

[Albion]

the Bostock Dyson etc CD arrived and I shall look forward to exploring that.

I think it will be spinning in your CD player for some time. It's probably the best of the original ClassicO series in terms of repertoire variety (although it's inclusion in a "British Symphonic" collection was baffling) and excellence of performance (Bostock, the RLPO and Chorus are on top form). The original release sounds just fine if you crank up the volume, I don't know if it's been re-mastered for Griffin...

[Albion]

My favourite book on music by a long chalk is Frank Howes The English Musical Renaissance. Howes does not set a date as there isn't one, it is a process. I found this at random from "The Thesis" section of his book -

A further test of the validity of the renaissance is the number of singing birds in the nest, the quality of their song and their apparent ability to breed. 

 

Howes is OK but his background led him that to favour the RCM school over the RAM school which means that Bantock, Bowen, Holbrooke and Bax, etc. are given pretty short shrift, pretty unfairly I think. Apart from Scholes' "The Mirror of Music", Temperley's "The Romantic Age", Brown's "The Symphonic Repertoire IIIB, Caldwell's "The Oxford History of English Music" and Schaarwachter's "Two Centuries of British Symphonism", there's a lot of good stuff available online:

GENERAL

Nineteenth-century English oratorio festivals: chronicling the monumental in music
Christine Andrews (PhD, Oxford, 2009)

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bdeff62f-fead-42a7-9724-5c79d5c2cdf9/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=602730710.pdf&type_of_work=Thesis (read-only)

Art music in British public discourse during the First World War
Jane Angell (PhD, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2014)
https://core.ac.uk/display/28905289?source=3 (download)

War, impression, sound, and memory: British music and the First World War
Jeremy Dibble (German Historical Institute London bulletin, 37(1), 2015, pp.43-56)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42128835?recSetID= (download)

INDIVIDUAL MUSICIANS

"The man who writes tunes": an assessment of the work of Eric Coates (1886-1957) and his role within the field of British light music
Michael J. Payne (PhD, Durham, 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2501/ (download)

The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912): a critical and analytical study
Catherine Carr (PhD, Durham, 2005)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2964/ (download)

Michael Costa, England's first conductor: the revolution in musical performance in England 1830-80
John Goulden (PhD, Durham, 2012)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5924/ (download)

The music of Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935): a critical study
Christopher J. Parker (PhD, Durham 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1834/ (download)

The life and work of (George John) Learmont Drysdale (1866-1909)
Moira Harris (PhD, Glasgow, 2006)

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/75110/ (download)

Elgar as post-Wagnerian: a study of Elgar's assimilation of Wagner's music and methodology
Laura Α. Meadows (PhD, Durham, 2008)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2297/ (download)

Hamilton Harty's Ode to a Nightingale: a confluence of Wagner and Elgar
Jeremy Dibble (Journal of the Society of Musicology in Ireland, XI, 2016, pp.57-81)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42129559?source=3 (download)

The operas of Gustav Holst
Natalie Artemas-Polak (PhD, Surrey, 2006)

https://core.ac.uk/display/131230466?recSetID= (download)

The music of Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): a critical study
Alasdair Jamieson (PhD, Durham, 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2456/ (download)

The music of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935): a critical study
Duncan James Barker (PhD, Durham, 1999)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1441/ (download)

The music of Johannes Brahms in late nineteenth and early twentieth century England and an assessment of his reception and influence on the chamber and orchestral works of Charles Hubert Hastings Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford
Edward Luke Anderton Woodhouse (PhD, Durham, 2012)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7336/ (download)

Sir Hubert Parry: an intellectual portrait
Nugunn Wattanapat (PhD, Durham, 2016)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12010/ (download)

The choral music of Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and the press c.1875-1925
Peter John Smith (MMus, Durham, 2008)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2542/ (download)

From child prodigy to conservative professor?: reception issues of Charles Villiers Stanford
Adele Commins (Maynooth Musicology, 2008)
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/297027986.pdf (download)

Charles Villiers Stanford's experiences with and contributions to the solo piano repertoire
Adele Commins (Maynooth Musicology, 2009)

https://core.ac.uk/display/297028042?source=3 (download)

An Irishman in an English musical garden: perceptions of Stanford's piano music
Adele Commins (2012)

https://core.ac.uk/display/35316312?source=3 (download)

The symphonies of Charles Villiers Stanford: constructing a national identity?
Jonathan White (PhD, Oxford, 2014)

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6d16fac7-bb70-4ba9-bf0e-17c0a9f26ce5/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=THESIS01&type_of_work=Thesis (read-only)

Context, form and style in Sterndale Bennett's piano concertos
Jeremy Dibble (Nineteenth-century music review, 13 (2), 2016, pp.195-219)

https://core.ac.uk/display/76969695?recSetID= (download)

"A source of innocent merriment in an object all sublime': a critical appraisal of the choral works of Sir Arthur Sullivan
Geoffrey Paul Anderson (MMus, Durham, 2016)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42123267?source=2 (download)

Sir Arthur Sullivan, the 1898 Leeds Festival and beyond
Anne Stanyon (PhD, Leeds, 2017)

https://core.ac.uk/display/157800801?source=2 (download)

Style in the music of Arthur Sullivan: an investigation
Martyn Paul Lambert Strachan (PhD, Open University, 2017)

https://core.ac.uk/display/161865855?source=2 (download)

Arthur Sullivan conducts: a re-evaluation of a ruined reputation
Anne Stanyon [n.d.]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4zvygvgjrryunr3/Arthur_Sullivan_conducts_-_a_re-evaluation_of_a_ruined_reputation.docx/file

Sad dregs or new directions: Sir Arthur Sullivan's final decade
Anne Stanyon [n.d.]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/p9q0mxyuj2wnaf1/Sad_dregs_or_new_directions_-_Sir_Arthur_Sullivan%25E2%2580%2599s_final_decade.pdf/file

BOOKS ON BRITISH MUSIC

Individual musicians

William Alexander Barrett - Balfe: his life and work (1882)

https://archive.org/details/balfehislifework00barr/page/n3/mode/2up

Howard Orsmond Anderton - Granville Bantock (1915)

https://archive.org/details/granvillebantock00andeiala/page/n7/mode/2up

John Francis Barnett - Musical reminiscences (1906)

https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesimp00barniala/page/n3/mode/2up

William Charles Berwick Sayers - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, musician: his life and letters (1915)

https://archive.org/details/samuelcoleridget00saye/page/n7/mode/2up

Frederic Cowen - My art and my friends (1913)

https://archive.org/details/myartmyfriends00coweiala/page/n7/mode/2up

Robert J. Buckley - Sir Edward Elgar (1905)

https://archive.org/details/siredwardelgar00buck/page/n9/mode/2up

John Fielder Porte - Sir Edward Elgar (1921)

https://archive.org/details/siredwardelgar00portiala/page/n11/mode/2up

William H. Grattan Flood - John Field of Dublin: inventor of the nocturne (1920)

https://archive.org/details/johnfieldofdubli00floorich/page/n5/mode/2up

George Lowe - Josef Holbrooke and his work (1920)

https://archive.org/details/josefholbrookehi00loweiala/page/n9/mode/2up

Henry Charles Banister - George Alexander Macfarren: his life, works and influence (1891)

https://archive.org/details/georgealexanderm00bani/page/n9/mode/2up

Arthur Eaglefield Hull - Cyril Scott: composer, poet and philosopher (1919)

https://archive.org/details/cyrilscottcompos00hulluoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Ethel Smyth - Impressions that remained: memoirs, volume 1 (1919)

https://archive.org/details/impressionsthatr01smytuoft/page/n9/mode/2up

Ethel Smyth - Impressions that remained: memoirs, volume 2 (1919)

https://archive.org/details/impressionsthatr02smytuoft/page/n9/mode/2up

John Fielder Porte - Sir Charles V. Stanford (1921)

https://archive.org/details/sircharlesvstanf00port/page/n7/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Interludes: records and reflections (1922)

https://archive.org/details/interludesrecord00staniala/page/n7/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Pages from an unwritten diary (1914)

https://archive.org/details/pagesfromunwritt00stan/page/n9/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Studies and memories (1908)

https://archive.org/details/studiesmemories00staniala/page/n5/mode/2up

James Robert Sterndale Bennett - The life of William Sterndale Bennett (1907)

https://archive.org/details/lifeofwilliamste00benniala/page/n7/mode/2up

Francois Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman - Gilbert and Sullivan and their operas (1914)

https://archive.org/details/gilbertandsulli00bridgoog/page/n7/mode/2up

George E. Dunn - A Gilbert and Sullivan dictionary (1937)

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.28813/page/n9/mode/2up

Benjamin William Findon - Sir Arthur Sullivan: his life and music (1904)

https://archive.org/details/sirarthursulliva00findrich/page/n7/mode/2up

Benjamin William Findon - Sir Arthur Sullivan and his operas (chapters 8, Savoy successes and 12, Sullivan as conductor revised, 1908)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924022443786/page/n7/mode/2up

Arthur Lawrence - Sir Arthur Sullivan: life story, letters, and reminiscences (1899)

https://archive.org/details/sirarthursulliva00lawruoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Henry Augustine Simcoe - Sullivan v. critic, or practice v. theory: a study in press phenomena (1906)

https://ia800203.us.archive.org/2/items/sullivanvcritic00simcgoog/sullivanvcritic00simcgoog.pdf

Frank Howes - The dramatic works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1937)

https://archive.org/details/dramaticworksofr002298mbp/page/n5/mode/2up

Frank Howes - The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1954)

https://archive.org/details/musicofralphvaug000664mbp/page/n7/mode/2up

Frank Howes - The music of William Walton, volumes 1 and 2 (1947)

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.166019/page/n5/mode/2up

BOOKS ON BRITISH MUSIC

General

Joseph Bennett - Forty years of music, 1865-1905 (1908)

https://archive.org/details/fortyyearsofmusi00bennrich/page/n7/mode/2up

William Boosey - Fifty years of music (1931)

https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofmusi002543mbp/page/n7/mode/2up

James Duff Brown and Stephen Samuel Stratton - British musical biography (1897)

https://archive.org/details/britishmusicalb00stragoog/page/n3/mode/2up

Percy C. Buck, John H. Mee and F. C. Woods - Ten years of university music in Oxford, 1884-1894 (1894)

https://archive.org/details/tenyearsofuniver00oxfouoft/page/n5/mode/2up

Frederick Corder - A history of the Royal Academy of Music, 1822-1922 (1922)

https://archive.org/details/543272001/mode/2up

Henry Davey - History of English music (second edition, 1921)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924021797109/page/n7/mode/2up

Henry Davison - Music during the Victorian era, from Mendelssohn to Wagner (1912)

https://archive.org/details/musicduringvicto00davi/page/n5/mode/2up

Henry George Farmer - Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band: its origin, history and progress (1904)

https://archive.org/details/memoirsofroyalar00farm/page/n5/mode/2up

Cecil Forsyth - Music and nationalism: a study of English opera (1911)

https://archive.org/details/musicnationalism00forsuoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Myles Birket Foster - History of the Philharmonic Society of London, 1813-1912 (1912)

https://archive.org/details/historyofphilhar00fost/page/n5/mode/2up

John Alexander Fuller Maitland - English music in the XIXth century (1902)

https://archive.org/details/englishmusicinxi00full/page/n7/mode/2up

John Hollingshead - Gaiety chronicles (1898)

https://archive.org/details/gaietychronicles00holluoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Hermann Klein - Thirty years of musical life in London, 1870-1900 (1903)

https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsofmus00klei/page/n9/mode/2up

Robin Humphrey Legge - Annals of the Norfolk & Norwich triennial music festivals, 1824-1893 (1896)

https://archive.org/details/annalsofnorfolkn00legg/page/n7/mode/2up

Harold Simpson - A century of ballads, 1810-1910: their composers and singers (1910)

https://archive.org/details/centuryofballads00simprich/page/n7/mode/2up

William Spark - Musical memories (1888)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924022169274/page/n9/mode/2up

Ernest Walker - A history of music in England (1907)

https://archive.org/details/historyofmusicin00walk/page/n1/mode/2up

Charles Willeby - Masters of English music (1894)

https://archive.org/details/mastersofenglish00will_0/page/n9/mode/2up

 

[Roasted Swan]

Howes is OK but his background led him that to favour the RCM school over the RAM school which means that Bantock, Bowen, Holbrooke and Bax, etc. are given pretty short shrift, pretty unfairly I think. Apart from Scholes' "The Mirror of Music", Temperley's "The Romantic Age", Brown's "The Symphonic Repertoire IIIB, Caldwell's "The Oxford History of English Music" and Schaarwachter's "Two Centuries of British Symphonism", there's a lot of good stuff available online:

GENERAL

Nineteenth-century English oratorio festivals: chronicling the monumental in music
Christine Andrews (PhD, Oxford, 2009)

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bdeff62f-fead-42a7-9724-5c79d5c2cdf9/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=602730710.pdf&type_of_work=Thesis (read-only)

Art music in British public discourse during the First World War
Jane Angell (PhD, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2014)
https://core.ac.uk/display/28905289?source=3 (download)

War, impression, sound, and memory: British music and the First World War
Jeremy Dibble (German Historical Institute London bulletin, 37(1), 2015, pp.43-56)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42128835?recSetID= (download)

INDIVIDUAL MUSICIANS

"The man who writes tunes": an assessment of the work of Eric Coates (1886-1957) and his role within the field of British light music
Michael J. Payne (PhD, Durham, 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2501/ (download)

The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912): a critical and analytical study
Catherine Carr (PhD, Durham, 2005)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2964/ (download)

Michael Costa, England's first conductor: the revolution in musical performance in England 1830-80
John Goulden (PhD, Durham, 2012)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5924/ (download)

The music of Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935): a critical study
Christopher J. Parker (PhD, Durham 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1834/ (download)

The life and work of (George John) Learmont Drysdale (1866-1909)
Moira Harris (PhD, Glasgow, 2006)

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/75110/ (download)

Elgar as post-Wagnerian: a study of Elgar's assimilation of Wagner's music and methodology
Laura Α. Meadows (PhD, Durham, 2008)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2297/ (download)

Hamilton Harty's Ode to a Nightingale: a confluence of Wagner and Elgar
Jeremy Dibble (Journal of the Society of Musicology in Ireland, XI, 2016, pp.57-81)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42129559?source=3 (download)

The operas of Gustav Holst
Natalie Artemas-Polak (PhD, Surrey, 2006)

https://core.ac.uk/display/131230466?recSetID= (download)

The music of Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): a critical study
Alasdair Jamieson (PhD, Durham, 2007)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2456/ (download)

The music of Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935): a critical study
Duncan James Barker (PhD, Durham, 1999)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1441/ (download)

The music of Johannes Brahms in late nineteenth and early twentieth century England and an assessment of his reception and influence on the chamber and orchestral works of Charles Hubert Hastings Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford
Edward Luke Anderton Woodhouse (PhD, Durham, 2012)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7336/ (download)

Sir Hubert Parry: an intellectual portrait
Nugunn Wattanapat (PhD, Durham, 2016)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12010/ (download)

The choral music of Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and the press c.1875-1925
Peter John Smith (MMus, Durham, 2008)

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2542/ (download)

From child prodigy to conservative professor?: reception issues of Charles Villiers Stanford
Adele Commins (Maynooth Musicology, 2008)
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/297027986.pdf (download)

Charles Villiers Stanford's experiences with and contributions to the solo piano repertoire
Adele Commins (Maynooth Musicology, 2009)

https://core.ac.uk/display/297028042?source=3 (download)

An Irishman in an English musical garden: perceptions of Stanford's piano music
Adele Commins (2012)

https://core.ac.uk/display/35316312?source=3 (download)

The symphonies of Charles Villiers Stanford: constructing a national identity?
Jonathan White (PhD, Oxford, 2014)

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6d16fac7-bb70-4ba9-bf0e-17c0a9f26ce5/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=THESIS01&type_of_work=Thesis (read-only)

Context, form and style in Sterndale Bennett's piano concertos
Jeremy Dibble (Nineteenth-century music review, 13 (2), 2016, pp.195-219)

https://core.ac.uk/display/76969695?recSetID= (download)

"A source of innocent merriment in an object all sublime': a critical appraisal of the choral works of Sir Arthur Sullivan
Geoffrey Paul Anderson (MMus, Durham, 2016)

https://core.ac.uk/display/42123267?source=2 (download)

Sir Arthur Sullivan, the 1898 Leeds Festival and beyond
Anne Stanyon (PhD, Leeds, 2017)

https://core.ac.uk/display/157800801?source=2 (download)

Style in the music of Arthur Sullivan: an investigation
Martyn Paul Lambert Strachan (PhD, Open University, 2017)

https://core.ac.uk/display/161865855?source=2 (download)

Arthur Sullivan conducts: a re-evaluation of a ruined reputation
Anne Stanyon [n.d.]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4zvygvgjrryunr3/Arthur_Sullivan_conducts_-_a_re-evaluation_of_a_ruined_reputation.docx/file

Sad dregs or new directions: Sir Arthur Sullivan's final decade
Anne Stanyon [n.d.]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/p9q0mxyuj2wnaf1/Sad_dregs_or_new_directions_-_Sir_Arthur_Sullivan%25E2%2580%2599s_final_decade.pdf/file

BOOKS ON BRITISH MUSIC

Individual musicians

William Alexander Barrett - Balfe: his life and work (1882)

https://archive.org/details/balfehislifework00barr/page/n3/mode/2up

Howard Orsmond Anderton - Granville Bantock (1915)

https://archive.org/details/granvillebantock00andeiala/page/n7/mode/2up

John Francis Barnett - Musical reminiscences (1906)

https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesimp00barniala/page/n3/mode/2up

William Charles Berwick Sayers - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, musician: his life and letters (1915)

https://archive.org/details/samuelcoleridget00saye/page/n7/mode/2up

Frederic Cowen - My art and my friends (1913)

https://archive.org/details/myartmyfriends00coweiala/page/n7/mode/2up

Robert J. Buckley - Sir Edward Elgar (1905)

https://archive.org/details/siredwardelgar00buck/page/n9/mode/2up

John Fielder Porte - Sir Edward Elgar (1921)

https://archive.org/details/siredwardelgar00portiala/page/n11/mode/2up

William H. Grattan Flood - John Field of Dublin: inventor of the nocturne (1920)

https://archive.org/details/johnfieldofdubli00floorich/page/n5/mode/2up

George Lowe - Josef Holbrooke and his work (1920)

https://archive.org/details/josefholbrookehi00loweiala/page/n9/mode/2up

Henry Charles Banister - George Alexander Macfarren: his life, works and influence (1891)

https://archive.org/details/georgealexanderm00bani/page/n9/mode/2up

Arthur Eaglefield Hull - Cyril Scott: composer, poet and philosopher (1919)

https://archive.org/details/cyrilscottcompos00hulluoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Ethel Smyth - Impressions that remained: memoirs, volume 1 (1919)

https://archive.org/details/impressionsthatr01smytuoft/page/n9/mode/2up

Ethel Smyth - Impressions that remained: memoirs, volume 2 (1919)

https://archive.org/details/impressionsthatr02smytuoft/page/n9/mode/2up

John Fielder Porte - Sir Charles V. Stanford (1921)

https://archive.org/details/sircharlesvstanf00port/page/n7/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Interludes: records and reflections (1922)

https://archive.org/details/interludesrecord00staniala/page/n7/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Pages from an unwritten diary (1914)

https://archive.org/details/pagesfromunwritt00stan/page/n9/mode/2up

Charles Villiers Stanford - Studies and memories (1908)

https://archive.org/details/studiesmemories00staniala/page/n5/mode/2up

James Robert Sterndale Bennett - The life of William Sterndale Bennett (1907)

https://archive.org/details/lifeofwilliamste00benniala/page/n7/mode/2up

Francois Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman - Gilbert and Sullivan and their operas (1914)

https://archive.org/details/gilbertandsulli00bridgoog/page/n7/mode/2up

George E. Dunn - A Gilbert and Sullivan dictionary (1937)

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.28813/page/n9/mode/2up

Benjamin William Findon - Sir Arthur Sullivan: his life and music (1904)

https://archive.org/details/sirarthursulliva00findrich/page/n7/mode/2up

Benjamin William Findon - Sir Arthur Sullivan and his operas (chapters 8, Savoy successes and 12, Sullivan as conductor revised, 1908)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924022443786/page/n7/mode/2up

Arthur Lawrence - Sir Arthur Sullivan: life story, letters, and reminiscences (1899)

https://archive.org/details/sirarthursulliva00lawruoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Henry Augustine Simcoe - Sullivan v. critic, or practice v. theory: a study in press phenomena (1906)

https://ia800203.us.archive.org/2/items/sullivanvcritic00simcgoog/sullivanvcritic00simcgoog.pdf

Frank Howes - The dramatic works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1937)

https://archive.org/details/dramaticworksofr002298mbp/page/n5/mode/2up

Frank Howes - The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1954)

https://archive.org/details/musicofralphvaug000664mbp/page/n7/mode/2up

Frank Howes - The music of William Walton, volumes 1 and 2 (1947)

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.166019/page/n5/mode/2up

BOOKS ON BRITISH MUSIC

General

Joseph Bennett - Forty years of music, 1865-1905 (1908)

https://archive.org/details/fortyyearsofmusi00bennrich/page/n7/mode/2up

William Boosey - Fifty years of music (1931)

https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofmusi002543mbp/page/n7/mode/2up

James Duff Brown and Stephen Samuel Stratton - British musical biography (1897)

https://archive.org/details/britishmusicalb00stragoog/page/n3/mode/2up

Percy C. Buck, John H. Mee and F. C. Woods - Ten years of university music in Oxford, 1884-1894 (1894)

https://archive.org/details/tenyearsofuniver00oxfouoft/page/n5/mode/2up

Frederick Corder - A history of the Royal Academy of Music, 1822-1922 (1922)

https://archive.org/details/543272001/mode/2up

Henry Davey - History of English music (second edition, 1921)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924021797109/page/n7/mode/2up

Henry Davison - Music during the Victorian era, from Mendelssohn to Wagner (1912)

https://archive.org/details/musicduringvicto00davi/page/n5/mode/2up

Henry George Farmer - Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band: its origin, history and progress (1904)

https://archive.org/details/memoirsofroyalar00farm/page/n5/mode/2up

Cecil Forsyth - Music and nationalism: a study of English opera (1911)

https://archive.org/details/musicnationalism00forsuoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Myles Birket Foster - History of the Philharmonic Society of London, 1813-1912 (1912)

https://archive.org/details/historyofphilhar00fost/page/n5/mode/2up

John Alexander Fuller Maitland - English music in the XIXth century (1902)

https://archive.org/details/englishmusicinxi00full/page/n7/mode/2up

John Hollingshead - Gaiety chronicles (1898)

https://archive.org/details/gaietychronicles00holluoft/page/n7/mode/2up

Hermann Klein - Thirty years of musical life in London, 1870-1900 (1903)

https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsofmus00klei/page/n9/mode/2up

Robin Humphrey Legge - Annals of the Norfolk & Norwich triennial music festivals, 1824-1893 (1896)

https://archive.org/details/annalsofnorfolkn00legg/page/n7/mode/2up

Harold Simpson - A century of ballads, 1810-1910: their composers and singers (1910)

https://archive.org/details/centuryofballads00simprich/page/n7/mode/2up

William Spark - Musical memories (1888)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924022169274/page/n9/mode/2up

Ernest Walker - A history of music in England (1907)

https://archive.org/details/historyofmusicin00walk/page/n1/mode/2up

Charles Willeby - Masters of English music (1894)

https://archive.org/details/mastersofenglish00will_0/page/n9/mode/2up

 

that's this afternoon's reading sorted then......

[Albion]

that's this afternoon's reading sorted then......

    

[Christo]

And just to completely destroy my own argument the greatest of all British composers was the one who attended no conservatory anywhere - Elgar....

Happy that you destroy your argument twice - with the wrong choice of a composer.

[vandermolen]

I think it will be spinning in your CD player for some time. It's probably the best of the original ClassicO series in terms of repertoire variety (although it's inclusion in a "British Symphonic" collection was baffling) and excellence of performance (Bostock, the RLPO and Chorus are on top form). The original release sounds just fine if you crank up the volume, I don't know if it's been re-mastered for Griffin...

I've been enjoying 'The Blacksmiths' and HB's Psalm 23 this morning and look forward to exploring the other pieces. In answer to your question, yes, the CD has been remastered by Paul Arden-Taylor who has done excellent work for Alto.

[Irons]

that's this afternoon's reading sorted then......

That is funny.

[Roasted Swan]

Happy that you destroy your argument twice - with the wrong choice of a composer.

Not much point putting that comment without a counter suggestion!

[Christo]

Not much point putting that comment without a counter suggestion!

See left.

[Albion]

See left.

Ditto. On other forums I have avatars of Cipriani Potter, Frederic Cowen, Joseph Holbrooke and Granville Bantock: the straight-jacket has been ordered and the little white van arrives shortly to cart me off for the injection. Both Elgar and RVW are genius writ large, but there is just so much to enjoy out there. As I mentioned, the RAM school generally gets little credit. Peter Pirie generally pisses all over it in "The English Musical Renaissance: Twentieth Century British Composers & Their Works", St. Martin's Press (1980), largely blaming the composition tutor Frederick Corder. Very little of Corder's music has survived (but the overture "Prospero" on Hyperion is very entertaining) since his daughter Dolly saw fit to destroy his manuscripts, and those of her brother Paul (including the intriguingly titled "Dross", a music drama without words ), following the latter's death in 1942. Bax's Symphony No.4 is dedicated to Paul. Frederick Corder gave his pupils free rein with the most modern scores at the time (especially Wagner, Liszt and Debussy) and just told them to come up with something, which they invariably did. Meanwhile, over at the RCM, Stanford was busy crippling John Ireland into insecurity...

[kyjo]

These are composers (and a disc) that have been mentioned and praised fairly often on this forum;



and rightly so - they are a pair of excellent works quite beautifully performed and recorded.  But this morning while I was listening to Hadley's "The Trees so high" I was struck by a particular thought.  This is a symphony in all but name with a choral + soloist last movement; has there ever been such a substantial work - its runs well over 30 minutes - that is in effect derived from folksong.  I'm not talking about any number of dance suites or rhapsodies (lovely though they might be) but an extended work that dives deep beyond a simple orchestral version of attractive folk tunes.  Delius' Brigg Fair goes part the way but is half the length.  None of the usual suspects/big name British composers based a big work on a single melody/mood like this - perhaps Delius' Appalachia is as close as it gets but the variation form there makes the overall effect more objective whereas this Hadley work is powerfully expressive......

I revisited the Hadley recently and it is indeed a beautiful work. The central section of the scherzo features a really wonderful tune, in my view the highlight of the score.

[Roy Bland]

On Cello

https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/29215/Colle_umd_0117E_22569.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

[Luke]

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
Delius
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.

[Irons]

On Cello

https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/29215/Colle_umd_0117E_22569.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Many thanks for this. Dovetails nicely with recent discussions on this thread.