Three Overtures for E.N.S.A. – Bax, Moeran, and Rawsthorne

The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British military personnel and war workers during World War II. Operating as part of the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes, ENSA organized concerts, variety shows, and performances across military bases and factories. Notable entertainers included Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers, and Mantovani, who all participated in ENSA’s earliest concerts. Despite challenges due to its vast coverage area, ENSA played a crucial role in boosting morale during wartime. Some ENSA members, like actors Terry Thomas, Tommy Cooper, Joyce Grenfell, and Kenneth Connor, went on to successful entertainment careers.

Walter Legge (1906-79), an influential recording executive, writing in an extensive article for the Hinrichsen's Year Book 1944 (p.175) described ENSA’s achievement in presenting classical music to civilian workers and the forces. He explained that “I have found that in building programmes for these concerts much of the success of the whole evening depends on the choice of the first work; These audiences like first of all, to hear the maximum splendour and brilliance of the orchestral sound. The best pieces we have yet found are [Berlioz’s] Carnaval Romain, [his] Hungarian March from the Damnation of Faust, [Wagner’s] Meistersinger Overture, [Borodin’s] Prince Igor Overture and Chabrier’s España. British music is unfortunately poor in works of this type. Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture and Ireland's London Overture are both rather long for the purpose and Elgar's adherence to Sonata form in his Overture perplexes the direct-minded audiences even more than it pleases those with an academic approach.”

To remedy this, he explained “so that these concerts may begin with British works I have invited Sir Arnold Bax, Arthur Bliss, E. J. Moeran, Alan Rawsthorne and [Ralph] Vaughan Williams to write works of anything from six to nine minutes in length, particularly designed to open these concerts. The Bax work called Work in Progress is already complete and will have its first performance in February [1944]. The Bliss and Moeran works are well on the way and have their first performances in the same month. ENSA is not only building audiences of the future - it is helping to add to the repertoire of British music.”

Sadly, only Moeran's Overture for a Masque, Rawsthorne's Street Corner and Bax’s Work in Progress were finished. Subsequent posts will investigate these three works.