Ernest Markham Lee (1874-1956): Rivers of Devon Suite (1929)

Many years ago (6 June 2008), I wrote in this blog that I was curious to know what Ernest Markham Lee's Rivers of Devon Suite sounded like. Twelve years later, I have found out. At the end of 2019, The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra conducted by Major David B Hammond issued a CD entitled Palace Premieres (MPR CWSO01). This interesting disc included several works for string orchestra, including music by English composers Alec Rowley, Thomas Dunhill, Frederic Curzon and, amongst others, Markham Lee’s above-named suite. 

The composer clearly had a soft spot for the Devonshire landscape, despite being a Cambridgeshire man. Markham Lee is probably best known is his Moorland and Torland Suite for piano solo. Equally evocative is the West Country Suite. The present Rivers of Devon Suite was an original piano work published in 1929 and in the same year it was issued in its string orchestra arrangemnt.  The Suite was premiered by the Torquay Municipal Orchestra on 6 March 1934. The concert included music by Albert Ketèlbey, Montague Phillips and extracts from Wagner’s Lohengrin! The event was relayed live to the BBC.

The Rivers of Devon Suite is presented in four well-balanced movements: 1. Tamar: Stately ships ride out to sea, 2. Dart: Waters flash and leap, 3. Torridge: Dusk deepening between hills and 4. Lynn: Through the wild and woodland.  The mood of each river is perfectly captured. The Tamar is the great shipping river that divides Devon from Cornwall. Here we imagine fishing boats and warships. This is broadly played music, with just a hint of sadness (farewells?). The splendid evocation of the River Dart presents music that is gentle and amiable as befits this idyllic waterway. I think that the third movement ‘Torridge’ is the heart of the work, generating a considerably intensity of sound. The finale comments on the River Lynn which rises in the heights of Exmoor. It provides a charming conclusion to this Suite as the waters flow down to the lovely holiday resort of Lynmouth.

The liner notes suggest that the entire Suite would not have been out of place in film music. I can imagine it having been used in a British Transport film exploring the holiday delights of Devon, during the early 1950s. The workmanship of this lavish suite is superb. It fits into the long trajectory of English string music going back to Parry’s Lady Radnor’s Suite and continuing to the present. The music features lush harmonies and characteristic string writing, as well as some delightful melodies. One reviewer (Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International, 18 October 2020) has suggested that ‘the thickness of the writing finds this small group of strings under-powered.’ I tend to agree with him. Despite the excellent performance of this piece by the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra, one feels that the full string section of a major symphonic band would add power and strength to this piece. 

The Suite lasts for about 13 minutes and the score was published by Goodwin and Tabb in their ‘The English String Series.’

Finally, it is good that music by several of the so-called minor composers has been deemed worth of performance and recording. Let us hope that orchestras and recitalists begin to explore the some of these byways of English music. They can only make interesting and fascinating discoveries.

For details of the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra's CD see the Mike Purton Recordings Website.