Adam Carse: Two Sketches for string orchestra (1921)

The North Country composer Adam Carse (Adam Von Ahnen Carse) is best recalled for his penchant for studying and collecting wind instruments. In 1947, he donated some 350 antique examples to the Horneman Museum in Forest Hill, London. Yet, he was also a considerable composer. His catalogue includes five symphonies, an orchestral Prelude on Byron’s Manfred, several works for string orchestra, as well as countless publications for young instrumentalists and pianists. He authored several books on the history of the orchestra. 

Carse was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 19 May 1878. After study at the Royal Academy of Music, with Frederick Corder, he gained the MacFarren Scholarship. He later became Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint at that institution, remaining in the post until his retirement in 1940. Adam Carse died on 2 November 1958.

The Two Sketches are contrasting in mood. However, the instrumental form is similar. In both pieces Carse makes use of individual players, groups of soloists and the full string band. The opening number, A Northern Song, has been likened to elements of Vaughan Williams’s Norfolk Rhapsody No.1. This atmospheric music is created by muted strings. An unidentified folk-like tune emerges from the misty background. This is melancholy music that muses on the lonely moors of Northumberland. The second piece, A Northern Dance is warmer in tone. It is almost a perpetuum mobile in the unremitting use of semiquavers. Carse introduces a delightful contrasting melody on the violas. Effective pizzicato adds to the sense of momentum, before the big tune is reprised. The piece end with an “ebullient conclusion.”

The premiere of Adam Carse’s Two Sketches for string orchestra was during a Promenade Concert on 4 September 1924. The New Queen’s Hall Orchestra was conducted by the composer for this number. It came in the second half of a long-winded and unstructured concert. The major works that evening were Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration, and Edvard Grieg’s ubiquitous Piano Concerto in A minor. Carse’s new pieces were sandwiched between Weber’s Euryanthe Overture and a whimsical song “Follow the Fairies” by Cecil Baumer.

Reviews the following morning were positive. The Times (5 September 1924, p.8) reckoned that following an unbalanced performance of Busoni’s Rondò arlecchinesco, op. 46, Carse’s Two Sketches meant that “the air was completely cleared.”  The critic points out that the music is based on Northumberland folk-music in which Mr Carse has managed to transmute his material into an artistic product, not just dishing it up, more or less raw, with some sort of accompaniment for sauce.” Finally, they felt that “the two pieces are closely knit in texture, and well-contrasted, and thoroughly deserved the applause with which they were received.”

In a syndicated review in the Aberdeen Press and Journal (05 September 1924, p.6) the critic remarked that “A Northern Song was strongly coloured with the prevailing note of melancholy and even gloom so characteristic of some parts of Northumberland, while the other, A Northern Dance, is full of healthy vitality.” Moreover, his Two Sketches “made a most excellent impression.”

There was a long review in the Manchester Guardian (8 September 1924, p.10). E.B. (probably Eric Blom) wrote that “Mr Adam Carse…is an agreeably unpretentious composer. These two pieces…are quite small music, but one feels that the composer is aware of the fact and does not mean to let them pose as anything big. They are like simple, kindly folk whom one admires for speaking just the sort of unaffected language one expects of them.” A touch patronising, but we get the point.

Adam Carse’s Two Sketches were released by Naxos on English String Miniatures, Volume 4 in 2002. David Lloyd-Jones conducted the Northern Sinfonia. Other works on this CD include Peter Hope’s Momentum Suite, Paul Lewis’s English Suite, Gustav Holst’s Moorside Suite and Ernest Tomlinson’s Graceful Dance.