Jottings on Great British Music reaching their Centenary Part 1

British Music celebrating their Centenaries this year have had mixed fortunes. It is fair to say that only a small number of them have achieved lasting popularity. The most long-lived piece is William Walton’s early masterpiece Façade which was given a private premiere in the Sitwell family's London home on 24 January 1922. The public first heard the work the following year. It has received many performances during the past century, as well as several recordings. There are currently five listed in the Archiv CD catalogue. I may be having further thoughts about this work over the coming year.

Many thanks to Eric Gilder and his indispensable Dictionary of Composers and their Music. I have presented this list in alphabetical (by surname) order rather than chronological (by composer’s age). Please note that 1922 may be the date the work was composed, completed or received its first performance.

1. Arnold Bax: The Happy Forest, symphonic poem (composed 1914, orchestrated 1922, fp.1923); Symphony No.1 
2. Frank Bridge: Sir Roger de Coverley, for string quartet or orchestra
3. Eric Coates: Joyous Youth, suite; The Merrymakers: Miniature Overture
4. Frederick Delius: Requiem first performance, 1922, written1913-16.
5. Roberto Gerhard: Seven Haiku, for voice and five instruments
6. Gustav Holst: Fugal Overture, op.40, no.1
7. Herbert Howells: Sine Nomine-A Phantasy for two voices, chorus and orchestra; Procession, for orchestra
8. E.J. Moeran: Rhapsody No 1 in F major for orchestra; Three Fancies, for piano
9. William Walton: Façade-An Entertainment, for reciter and chamber ensemble (Private first performance)
10. Peter Warlock: Serenade for Frederick Delius, for orchestra

The Happy Forest is the one of the least known of Arnold Bax’s tone poems. Certainly, it has not received the attention of Tintagel, November Woods or The Garden of Fand. Originally a piano piece written during 1914, it was later orchestrated with the full score completed in 1922.

Bax wrote that “this short work was originally intended as a musical illustration of an early and highly capricious prose poem by the late Herbert Farjeon, dramatic critic and review writer…One point I would make. In this forest humanity takes no place amongst the phantasmagoria of nature. Dryads, sylphs, fauns and satyrs abound – perhaps the goat foot god may himself be there but no man or woman.” 

The tone poem is formally presented as a scherzo and trio. There have been five recordings of this work made between 1969 and 2011. The first performance was on 3 July 1923, at the Queen’s Hall. The concert was in aid of the funds for the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children). The Goossens Orchestra was conducted by Eugene Goossens.

Bax's Symphony No.1 was premiered at the Queen's Hall, London on 2 December 1922. Albert Coates conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. More about this later in the year, God willing. 

Frank Bridge’s delightful transcription of John Playford’s Christmas dance, Sir Roger de Coverley, for string quartet, string or full orchestra is often included in CD anthologies of English music. The work was premiered on 21 October 1922 at a Queen’s Hall Promenade Concert, conducted by the composer. The piece is as popular now as it was a century ago.  It has also been arranged for  brass and concert band.

Eric Coates’s Joyous Youth Suite is less well known than his London and Three Elizabeth Suites. Anecdotally, Coates and his wife had been evicted out of their flat by a ‘battle-axe’ of a landlady. They were lucky to find alternative accommodation with his in-laws in St John’s Wood. After a period of being unsettled, Coates was able to write this happy music. He writes in his autobiography, “Two orchestral works were the result of the charming sitting room which looked down onto the wide road with its abundance of trees where the birds sang all day: a suite Joyous Youth and an overture...”

Although begun in 1922, The Merrymakers: Miniature Overture was not completed until the following year. It represents the composer’s arrival at his mature style. Despite having hints of Edward German and Edward Elgar, it is mostly pure Coates. A little unusually for this composer, it is conceived in sonata form, although Michael Payne has described this a being ‘loose.’ Coates was to write much orchestral music but there was never to be another overture. Both works exude happiness, security and well-being. They remain secure in the repertoire for as long as the musical public enjoy well written light music.

Frederick Delius’s Requiem is one of his least popular pieces. Like the Mass of Life (1904), it expressed his atheistic view of life. The work has remained in relative obscurity for a century. This is reflected in the fact that there are only three recordings in the composer’s discography. The text is derived not from the Catholic Liturgy but is paraphrase of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as lines from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The Requiem raised a considerable controversy at the time. Some critics perceived the words as being an attack on Christianity. It was also seen as denying any possibility of an after-life. This was not a popular notion with people who has lost loved ones during the First World War and hoped their spirit lived on. Perhaps Delius should have avoided using the loaded title Requiem? There are many lovely moments in this work. It can be listened to in our time without getting upset about its philosophical underpinnings. We must not forget that it was dedicated “To the memory of all young Artists fallen in the war.” Its relevance is summed up by Jon Strommen Campbell in his study of Delius’s choral music (The Choral Music of Frederick Delius (1862-1934) and its influence on the choral music of early Twentieth-Century British composers, 2015): “…the theme of natural renewal – of humankind’s intimate relationship to nature and the environment – are important themes for the twenty-first century, and indeed may resonate well with a modern audience. In this sense, Requiem is a surprisingly progressive and forward-looking piece.” Requiem was a victim of the social and religious politics of Edwardian England in a Britain howling from the pain and devastation of World War I. It needs to be re-evaluated for our own day.

Roberto Gerhard’s Seven Haiku, for voice and five instruments clings on in the repertoire. It was published by Boosey & Hawkes in its revised version in 1958. In 1994 it was included on a Harmoni Mundi CD. I was unable to find any references to a recent live performance. The Sept Haiku reflect the influences of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg. Currently, the composer was seeking to establish his own modernist voice. Strangely, this work was written before he met Schoenberg, but clearly, he had heard the elder composer’s Pierrot Lunaire. Critically, there is a resemblance to Igor Stravinsky’s Three Japanese Lyrics written ten years earlier. M.E. Perry (‘Un Català Mundial’: The early works of Roberto Gerhard, Proceedings of the 1st International Roberto Gerhard Conference) has written that “Direct contrasts occur between the vocal and instrumental sections consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and piano, the instrumental portions framing the text as well as musically embodying the haiku.” I can only find two recordings of this evocative work in the catalogues.

To be concluded…