Whilst researching my post about
John Ireland’s A Downland Suite for brass band, I came across a
remarkable article printed in the Daily Telegraph (6 September 1932). This was
written by their music critic Herbert Hughes. [1]:
John Ireland’s Test
Piece
Saturday, Oct.1, is the day of
days for the British bandsman. After months of hard practice, thousands of
musicians from the collieries and workshops of the Midlands and the North will
come to the Crystal Palace to compete with others from Wales and the South.
One hundred and eighty-six bands
have entered, and many of them will come long distances by specially chartered
charabancs to be present at the great festival. This year the coveted
championship is to be won on the playing of a test piece composed by John
Ireland. It is called A Downland Suite, a thing that has been inspired
by the Saxon encampments on the Sussex Downs, and what by implication they mean
to the life of modern England.
Yesterday I was privileged to go
through the score with the composer himself – one of the shyest, most
self-deprecating individuals I know. He played the work as best he could – for
of course it is scored for the full panoply of brass and percussion – on the
piano, explaining the various themes as he went along.
A New Departure
It is in four movements: Prelude,
Elegy, Minuet, and Rondo. The distinguished composer had not before tried his
hand at work in this medium. [2] It was a new experience, but, following in the
recent footsteps of Bantock, Holst and Elgar, [3] Ireland has put himself whole-heartedly
into it.
It was, he admitted almost shyly,
a commission. And his problem was to adapt his own natural idiom to the unusual
(to him) problems of the brass band. I feel sure he has succeeded.
The Prelude is a very vigorous,
militant movement, in hearing which you may think of our plumed Roman
conquerors. [4] The Elegy has a characteristic tune of the meditative kind, of
which the composer makes dramatic use in the last movement. The Minuet is
classical in manner, simple in essence, and the finale, the Rondo is distinctly
exhilarating.
I came away from his Chelsea
studio [5] feeling that John Ireland, so far from being middle-aged, is at
heart one of the youngest of our composers, and today at the top of his form.
Those exuberant virtuosi in the North will have some fun with this new work.
Herbert Hughes The Daily
Telegraph Tuesday, 6 September 1932 (with minor edits)
Notes:
[1] Belfast-born Herbert Hughes
(1882–1937) was a composer, musicologist and collector of Irish folksong.
Between 1911 and 1932 he was music critic to the Daily Telegraph. Hughes
is now best recalled for his arrangement of the song ‘I know where I am going’
made famous by Kathleen Ferrier.
[2] John Ireland was to compose
one further piece for brass band: The Comedy Overture (1934).
[3] Herbert Hughes would have
been thinking about Edward Elgar’s Severn Suite written in 1930. This
work was later transcribed for full orchestra. In 1928 Gustav Holst had
composed his Moorland Suite for brass band. A transcription of this work
have been made for military band. Granville Bantock wrote many works for the
genre. I think that Herbert Hughes will be referring here about the Oriental
Rhapsody composed in 1930 for that years Open Brass Band Championships.
Most of the remaining examples were composed during the Second World War.
[4] I am not sure to what extent A
Downland Suite evokes history in this manner. I have always seen it as being inspired
by the landscape, not a musical picture of it. The ‘Elegy’ is deeply reflective
and may well reflect a personal relationship rather than a place or historical
event.
[5] John Ireland’s house, The Studio was at
14A Gunter Grove in Chelsea. He bought this property in 1915 and stayed there
for 40 years.
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