The Younger English Composers: IV. Alan Rawsthorne by Constant Lambert

This extended pen portrait of the 33-year-old composer Alan Rawsthorne (1905-71) was written by the composer, conductor, critic and author, Constant Lambert. It was published in the long defunct Monthly Musical Record in September 1938.  This was one of a series of articles by several authors about The Younger English Composers. It gives a perceptive overview of Rawsthorne’s achievement in the pre-war years. At this time, he had already produced two or three masterpieces, including the Viola Sonata and the Concerto for clarinet and strings. The essay was written before the completion of his first major orchestral work, the Symphonic Studies. This powerful composition was completed in 1938 but was not premiered until the following year. It is possible that Lambert would have been aware of progress on this work.

I have included a few contextual notes and have made a few minor edits to the syntax.

"DESTINED by his father for the law, he, however . . .” How many biographies of composers start off in this way! One can almost take the phrase as read. But in the case of Alan Rawsthorne, it is important not to take the phrase, or its equivalent, as read. It is important to realize that, in his own words, "I did not start to study music professionally until the age of 20, having been dissuaded from doing so by arguments that are, unfortunately, perfectly sound." He started by studying dentistry (an occupation he no longer pursues, even as a hobby) and then proceeded to study the no less exacting art of architecture. It was not until 1926 that he eventually entered the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied piano, cello and composition. Like Walton he hails from Lancashire and he belongs to the same generation, having been born in 1905. But at the period when Walton was already internationally known, Rawsthorne was still wasting his time over molars and blueprints; and thus, as a composer he does not belong to the frivolous, aesthetic '20's, but to the earnest and slightly forbidding '30's. He is to be classed not with Walton or myself but with such composers as Benjamin Britten and Elizabeth Maconchy.

I know there are some who object to such arbitrary divisions, and it would naturally be absurd to pretend that the world suddenly changed at midnight, December 31, 1929. But anyone who has lived as an artist through the two periods must realize that they are as sharply differentiated as the '90's and the Edwardian epoch. The difference from the social and political point of view has been wittily pointed out by Geoffrey Gorer in his admirable book 'Nobody talks Politics'. [1]

From the purely artistic point of view the difference is one not only of attitude but of colour. The bright tints of Edith Sitwell's 'Bucolic Comedies' [2] or Christopher Wood's early paintings [3] are not to be found in the 30’s. The poets of today are sombre in texture even when they are being most light-hearted. The artists of the '20's were colourful even at their most serious. For example, no work could be more essentially serious in approach than Walton's viola concerto, but the slow sections are rich and sensuous in colouring while the scherzo is gaily coloured, witty and genuinely care-free. I am not denying wit to the 1930's, but it is of a wryer order. Compare for example the valse in 'Façade' with the valse in Britten's' Variations for strings '. [4] Or - what brings the difference home even more sharply - compare the care-free scherzo of Walton's viola concerto with the 'Presto con malizia' of his symphony. [5]

If I have emphasized to such an extent the difference between the '20's and the '30's it is because I consider Rawsthorne to be in many ways the most typical of the composers of the '30's, in this country at any rate. Perhaps in the long run it was fortunate for him that he made a comparatively late start. It meant that he walked straight into his period and did not have to adjust himself suddenly to an unsympathetic spiritual background. (I do not mean that an artist should be a deliberate weathercock, but he must inevitably by the nature of his temperament be influenced either positively or negatively by the Zeitgeist.) For this reason, his works are remarkably consistent in approach. He has naturally matured during the last few years, but his technique has undergone no sudden alteration.

The only thing which Rawsthorne shares with the '20's is a freedom from any of the traditional English influences. There is not a trace of folksong in his work, still less of Anglo-Irish nostalgia or Chester-Belloc [6] heartiness. Such few influences as his music suggests are mainly Central European - Berg, Hindemith or Bartok - and he is sufficiently in sympathy with Hindemith's Gebrauchsmusik [7] attitude to allow the occasion to dictate his medium. But it would be a great mistake to class Rawsthorne with the automatic music-machines of the Hindemith school. The outstanding feature of his music is his gift of sustained rhapsodical melodic invention, of which a particularly happy example is to be found in the' Notturno' of the Theme and variations for two violins which was chosen for this year's International Festival of Contemporary Music.[8] Another example which comes to mind is the deeply expressive aria in the clarinet concerto. [9] Rawsthorne in fact is primarily a melodist. By which I do not mean that he is primarily a writer of tunes, as was Tchaikovsky. One should distinguish between the melodic faculty which casts itself into symmetrical forms which are the equivalent of lyric poetry and the melodic faculty which casts itself into freer rhythms which are more the equivalent of a supple and flowing prose. Rawsthorne's melodic faculty is of the latter order, and the aria of the clarinet concerto may be described as a logical arabesque.

The same freedom is to be observed in the rhythmic layout of his sonatina for flute, oboe and piano.[10] Here there is no feeling of the two-bar phrase as in Debussy, still less of the deliberate distortion of the two-bar phrase as in Stravinsky. The opening with its alternating bars of three, four, five and six quavers may recall Stravinsky, but in appearance only. Stravinsky juggles with the bar-line only to make us the more conscious of its existence. In Rawsthorne's sonatina the bar-line is only there for practical convenience. It has no more aesthetic reality than in the music of Dowland. The Sonatina, though charming, is a small-scale work and not to be compared, for musical and emotional interest, with the sonata for viola and piano (1937), which in my opinion is his most important work so far. [11] The introduction has a fine rhapsodical sweep, the succeeding Allegro and Scherzo have a thoroughly convincing intellectual energy (as opposed to the merely athletic energy of so much contemporary music), which is well contrasted with the sombre imagination of the slow movement. Where the work disappoints, to my mind, is in the final Rondo, which is pleasing and well-made but lacking in the intellectual fire of the rest of the work. It seems rather too easy a get-away from the problems posed earlier on.

Generally speaking, Rawsthorne's finales are a little disappointing. They are well turned out, but one is rather conscious of their being turned out—one does not feel that they have an inevitable impulse. This does not matter so much in the sonatina and the clarinet concerto, which are essentially in sonatina style, but it matters more in the viola sonata which shows a genuine and all too rare feeling for sonata style. Rawsthorne in his slow movements is to be congratulated on having found so early in life a melodic style which is personal and expressive and free from all hint of pastiche. But I do not feel that he has yet found a perfect fusion between the subjective and objective sides of his nature—between the rhapsodical slow movements and the toccata-like finales. Perhaps this is a little too much to expect from a composer who has only been before the public for four or five years. But I have no doubt that when he achieves this fusion, he will prove to be one of the most powerful and interesting personalities in modern English music.

It is a pity that the viola sonata is as yet unpublished. [12] At present the student of Rawsthorne's work can only obtain the Variations for two violins, which is published by the Oxford University Press and recorded by Decca, and the Concertante No. 2 for violin and piano, which is published by the Cecilian Press and dedicated to his wife, Jessie Hinchliffe, the well-known violinist.[13] The Concertante is a compact and interesting work and forms a very good introduction to Rawsthorne's general style.

List of Works [14]
1932: String quartet (Macnaghten-Lemare concerts) [15]
1934: Concertante for piano and violin.
1935: Quartet for oboe and strings [ No.1]; The Enemy Speaks, for voice and orchestra (words by C. Day Lewis).
1936: Sonatina for flute, oboe and piano; Chamber overture (Macnaghten-Lemare concerts).
1937: Concerto for clarinet and strings (Macnaghten-Lemare concerts)
Chamber cantata for harpsichord, strings and voice (Hallis concerts) [16] Sonata for viola and piano (B.B.C.); Three French nursery songs.
1938: Theme and variations for two violins (I.S.C.M. Festival, 1938) [17].
Constant Lambert: Monthly Musical Record September 1938

Notes:

[1] British anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer’s novel Nobody talks Politics written in 1936. It was a satire on UK Politics in the 1930’s as seen through the eyes of a young man woken from a ten-year trance.      

[2] Edith Sitwell’s poetry collection Bucolic Comedies was completed in 1923 and was published by Duckworth in 1927. The Times literary critic wrote that “These ... [were] written with a highly individual use of language still unsurpassed for its peculiar, inimitable artifice. Far from being trivial, these early poems by one ‘a little outside life’ should now find a greater acceptance in an era more concerned with Sitwell’s concepts than her own age, earning her the deserved and secure reputation for which she herself so earnestly but recklessly fought.”

[3] Christopher “Kit” Wood (1901-30) was a Liverpool-born artist. His tragically short life ended with suicide. Wood provided designs for Constant Lambert’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, and for several productions of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. His artwork specialises in harbour scenes, figure painting and landscapes.

[4] Refers to William Walton’s Façade - An Entertainment (1922-23) for reciter and instrumental ensemble, and Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, op. 10, completed in 1937.

[5] William Walton’s Viola Concerto was completed in 1929. The Symphony No.1, one of the great examples of the genre in British music, was premiered without the final movement in 1934 and in its entirety the following year. The 'Presto con malizia' section (2^nd Movement) of the Symphony reflects Walton’s emotions as his relationship with Baroness Imma von Doernberg broke down. She had taken up with the “fashionable” Hungarian émigré doctor Tibor Csato.

[6] “Chester-Belloc” was a phrase devised by George Bernard Shaw to denote a strain of social development theory espoused by the Roman Catholic writers G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.

[7] “Gebrauchsmusik” is “Utility music”. The term applied in the 1920s “to works by Hindemith, Weill, Krenek, and others …which were directed to some social or educational purpose instead of being ‘art for art's sake”. (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, online)

[8] Theme and variations for two violins was completed in 1937. It was dedicated to Kathleen Washbourne and Jessie Hinchliffe (the composer’s wife). It was premiered by the dedicatees on the 7 January 1938 at the Wigmore Hall, London. The I.S.C.M. (International Society for Contemporary Music) performance was on 18 June 1938 at the Grotrian Hall, London.  It was later recorded and released on Decca, K884-5 in 1938.

[9] Rawsthorne completed his Concerto for clarinet and strings in 1936. This was composed for Frederick ‘Jack’ Thurston. The premiere was at the Mercury Theatre on 22 February 1937. Played by Thurston and the Iris Lemare Orchestra conducted by Iris Lemare. This is a well-balanced piece that displays the skill and technique of both composer and soloist to great effect. The concerto is written in four movements. It is not long, yet it encompasses a wide range of emotion, mood and rhetoric. The clarinet is more of an obligato part with the orchestra being of almost equal importance. The sound world is gently dissonant with moments of lyrical magic.

[10] The Sonatina for flute, oboe and piano was premiered in 1936, but remained unpublished until 1968. There is currently only a single recording available of this accomplished piece.

[11] Based on the perspective of Rawsthorne’s pre-war music, this is a fair assessment. It seems unaccountable that the Viola Sonata has never gained a foothold in the violist’s repertoire.

[12] Rawsthorne’s Viola Sonata was published by Oxford University Press in 1955. It has subsequently been recorded at least twice.

[13] Jessie Hinchliffe (1908-89), who was a fellow Royal Manchester College of Music student, was married to Alan Rawsthorne in 1934. They were divorced in 1954.

[14] This Works List represents only a fraction of the music that Alan Rawsthorne had composed by 1938.

[15] The Macnaghten-Lemare Concerts were “founded in December 1931, by three students: Iris Lemare (conductor), Elisabeth Luytens (composer) and Anne Macnaghten (violinist), with the principal aim of promoting contemporary English composers of all schools by presenting concerts in which their music was prominent. During the first six years - at a time when broadcasting and recording were in their infancy and television was unknown - works by thirty young composers were presented. Prominent among them were Benjamin Britten, Arnold Cooke, Gerald Finzi, Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy, Alan Rawsthorne and Michael Tippett. At first the series had no name, but in 1933 they were called the 'Macnaghten-Lemare Concerts and during 1934-37 they were organised solely by Iris Lemare and called 'The Lemare Concerts'. The name 'Macnaghten' was adopted some years later as a general title for the entire series. From Alan Rawsthorne and the Macnaghten Concerts, MusicWeb International, link here.

[16] Adolph Hallis (1896-1987) was a South African born pianist, composer and teacher. In 1936 he promoted the Hallis Concerts which were predominantly chamber music. Members of the Hallis Concert committee included Sophie Wyss, Alan Rawsthorne himself, Christian Darnton and Benjamin Britten. Several innovative concerts were promoted in London during the period 1936–1939. Each event showcased both new and early music. Hallis gave the premiere performance of Alan Rawsthorne’s Piano Concerto No.1 on 14 March 1939.

[17] The 1938 I.S.C.M. Festival 1938 was held in London between 17 and 24 June 1938.