Search the texts books relating to Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903-89) and you will find virtually nothing about his delightful Overture in B flat. Even the major study of the composer’s music by Peter Dickinson (1988/2003) does not mention it.
In 2017 the Lennox Berkeley Society posted a link to a YouTube (see end of essay) recording originally made on 25 April 1983
from Radio 3. It was part of Matinee
Musicale broadcast at 14.05. The
Ulster Orchestra was conducted by Marcus Dodds. Other works in this programme
included Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Ilych
Tchaikovsky’s March and Waltz form the Nutcracker
Suite, Edward Elgar’s Canto Popolare (In Moonlight), Karl-Heinz Koper’s Musik zur Unterhaltung (Music for
Entertainment) and concluded with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor.
These last two numbers seem to have disappeared from the repertoire, although
there is a recording of the Ballade. (ARGO 436 401-2, 1993)
The year 1959 was an interesting
one for Lennox Berkeley. On 11 February he conducted the premiere of his
Concerto for piano and double string orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. The
soloist was Colin Horsley. The premiere of Berkeley’s Symphony No.2 was given
at Birmingham Town Hall with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Andrzej Panufnik on 24 February. Other first performances that
year included the Five Poems of W.H.
Auden completed the previous year and the Sonatina for two pianos.
The Overture in B flat was
commissioned by the BBC for the Light Music Festival of 1959. The work was
dedicated to Vilem and Peggy Tausky. In that year there were only four BBC
commissions: the present Overture, Alun Hoddinott’s Nocturne and Dance for harp
and orchestra, Gordon Jacob’s Overture: Fun
Fare, Andrzej Panufnik’s Polonia, a suite of Polish Dances, and Cecil Armstrong Gibbs Suite of
Traditional Songs. All five works have disappeared into oblivion. We are lucky
to have the 1983 radio recording of the Berkeley and the CPO recording of Polonia.
Berkeley began work on his
Overture in B flat during April 1959. According to the ‘chronology’ (Craggs,
2000) it was completed on 1 June, after which the composer went on a tour of
Italy, visiting Rome and Assisi. The overture is scored for 2 each flutes,
oboe, clarinet and bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani,
percussion, harp and strings.
The premiere performance was given
at the Royal Festival Hall on 4 July 1959 with the BBC Concert Orchestra
conducted by Vilem Tausky. It was the fifth concert in the Light Music Festival
Series, sponsored by the BBC and the London County Council.
This was a rather strange
concert. The Radio Times (26 June
1959) billed it ‘A Commonwealth Programme’ with a tribute to the USA. There
were three new works presented. Berkeley’s Overture, Gordon Jacob’s Fun Fare Overture and two movements from
‘Spike’ Hughes’ Serenade. Two more
movements of this latter work were subsequently produced. Other pieces included a Suite from George
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess conducted
by William Byrd, and a variety of music played on a Multi-Colourtone Electronic
Instrument by William Davies. There were some movements from Hubert Clifford’s Cowes Suite, conducted by the composer.
This was introduced to the audience by Uffa Fox, (1898-1972) the yachtsman and
boat builder. The harmonica player Tommy
Reilly presented ‘Marching and Waltzing’ with the orchestra. Arthur Sullivan’s ‘March
of the Peers’ was played by the military band and trumpeters. The concert
concluded with a Grand Finale of Songs of the British Isles.
Lennox Berkeley’s Overture in B flat can be heard on You Tube.
Lennox Berkeley’s Overture in B flat can be heard on You Tube.
Bibliography:
Craggs, Stewart R., Lennox Berkeley: A Source Book (Ashgate,
Aldershot, 2000)
Dickinson, Peter, The Music of Lennox Berkeley (The
Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1988/2003
The reviews of this concert will be featured in my next post.
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