Humphrey Searle: Concertante for piano, percussion and strings (1954) The British Premiere

The premiere British performance of Humphrey Searle’s Concertante for piano, percussion and strings (1954) was given at the Chelsea Town Hall on 28 October 1954. The entire concert consisted of contemporary music. The Goldsbrough Orchestra was conducted by Harry Samuel and the piano soloist was Benjamin Kaplin. 

The Times (29 October 1954, p.11) remined readers that Searle’s Concertante was written for young musicians “who wanted modern music that students would noy find unbearably difficult.”  The resulting single movement work was “tough and vigorous, immediately arresting with an effective piano part (much of it in octaves), and some especially intriguing gnat-like buzzings that look back to Bartok.”

Donald Mitchell (Musical Times December 1954, p.668) insisted that the performance “revealed the work as brisk and energetic in character – more so than with much of Mr. Searle’s music – compact in form, and original in many of its rhythms and sonorities.” Furthermore, the “modest resources and talents of the student performers for whom the Concertante was composed were judiciously served.”  Lastly, Mitchell raised the hope that the work “should be welcomed by conservatoires and academies as a practical and rewarding initiation into the language of a dodecaphonic [twelve-tone/serial] composer.”  According to Searle’s memoirs, the work was “played by students in many countries, even including those of the Royal College of Music; it was probably the first time that twelve-note music resounded within those hallowed halls.”

Other music heard at this event included Aaron Copland’s Quiet City, Arthur Honegger’s Symphony for Strings, Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade for strings and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.1. Another important British premiere was Francis Chagrin’s Bagatelles for strings. Donald Mitchell (op. cit.) considered that these were “less contemporary in idiom [than the Searle].” However, they were “competently written in a moody, romantic manner too cosmopolitan to define with accuracy; only in the [Bartokian third Bagatelle] did the prevailing sentiment of gentle melancholy give way to a more vigorous emotion.”  Sadly, Francis Chagrin’s Bagatelles have disappeared into oblivion.

Humphrey Searle’s Concertante can be heard on Lyrita SRCD 407. The piano soloist here is Simon Callaghan, and Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.