Cyril Scott: Pen Portrait by Watson Lyle, 1933 Part II

Cyril Scott had a profound interest in occultism, viewing it as a "synthesis of Science, Mysticism, Philosophy, Psychology and Religion, in their purest forms." This fascination developed after a period of agnosticism, leading him to Theosophy and eventually to an engagement with various occult concepts. He formally joined the Theosophical Society in 1914 and remained a member throughout his life.

Scott believed in a "supernormal" rather than supernatural reality, where spirit and matter are distinct aspects of the same fundamental truth. He also embraced concepts like Karma and reincarnation. His connections with clairvoyants, such as Robert King and Nelsa Chaplin, further deepened his explorations into the occult. Scott even claimed to be a channel for music from nature spirits and devas, experimenting with symbolic harmonies and scales to represent these entities. While his musical characteristics had begun to develop before his occult interests, his later works show a sophisticated attempt to translate mystical experiences and notions into musical form. Lyle Watson continued his chat:

"Do you," I asked, turning from the wide bay window of the delightful studio of his home in town," [1] with such a pleasant outlook as that, find it hard to concentrate upon work?" I indicated the terraces and lawns of the garden, bathed in the yellowing effulgence of the June afternoon. Sitting down facing him from the opposite end of a settee, I watched him puff away industriously at a favourite hookah pipe for a second or two before replying to me, his right arm easefully quiescent along the back of the settee, his left hand nervously pliant over the cane-encased, glass, rose-water reservoir of the pipe. His fingers tightened around it. Mobile lips and mouthpiece reluctantly severed companionship. From their citadel of his domed skull, his grey eyes gazed straightly into mine.

He said: "When there is the real urge to creative work, physical surroundings are not always of great importance. One does not notice them. There are influences near us far stronger than they. It is these influences that are important to the artist."

"Psychic influences?"

He inclined his head to my question, his hand again contemplatively engaged with the bowl of his pipe, its mouthpiece once more in intimate communion with his lips. For a little neither of us spoke; yet one became strangely aware of an ebb and flow of thought between us, so that I somehow felt no break in continuity of speech when he said: "It may sound odd, but until a few years ago I never had the least desire either to draw or paint. Then suddenly I found myself with a longing to do so. Perhaps you noticed the panel in the next room? Of course I don't profess to be a real painter, but I find occasionally working with colours very good for a tired brain." (I had noticed the Italian-looking landscape, but did not know whom it was by. It seemed incredible that anyone lacking years of study and tuition in graphic art could have produced it.)

Feeling however that this occurrence, evidence of yet a third facet of Scott's creativeness, though interesting in itself, threatened to lead away from the real purpose of our talk, I said, sitting down beside him again: "I suppose, as a pianist, you find the instrument rather helpful when composing?"

"But I don't consider myself a pianist," he said almost sharply. [2]

"Come, come! I have heard you play very well indeed," I answered, laughing, " and as I hear all kinds of pianists - good, bad and indifferent -e very concert season, I may claim to be some judge of what is, and what is not, good pianistic art. I have heard you play your own music delightfully."

"Ah! My own music." Smiling slightly as though found out in something, he went on: "But I am not a pianist within the general meaning of the term." "Still, how about the influence of the instrument when you compose?" I hope he forgave my tenacity.

"Sometimes I use it, and sometimes I do not. I have written quite a lot of music-chamber music without employing it at all. On the other hand, I may use it when composing piano works. It is useful for trying over things."

"As a sort of palette?"

"Yes. I do not find it cramps the imagination. In fact, I use a composer's piano."

"What's that?" I exclaimed. For indeed I had never heard of any special style of piano for composers.

"I'll show you it." Rising, with his easy, graceful manner, he moved across the carpet into the small room I had just left.

"This is the only composer's piano in existence, I believe. I invented it, and had it specially made. Look!" Seating himself before what looked rather like a plain, black wood dummy upright pianoforte without a keyboard, he raised part of the front which folded backwards forming a broad writing desk for music MS. paper and disclosing the keyboard of the pianoforte inside this plain case.

"There you are," he said. "Everything ready to hand to test by ear the colours' mixed on the palette!" "Splendid!" said I enthusiastically. "For the little composing I do nowadays, I manage irksomely upon the lid of the grand piano as desk, sprinkling ink freely as I jump about. But this"

"Saves time," observed Cyril Scott laconically, slowly closing the lid of his invention as he rose and went back in his reposeful way to the larger room, puffing again at his pipe with its bubbling little song of the rosewater in the glass reservoir.

Watson Lyle Modern Composers XII-CYRIL SCOTT The Bookman, November 1933, p.115ff

Notes

[1] Probably 37 Ladbroke Grove, Kensington and Chelsea.

[2] In the early years of the 20th century Scott “strove to carve out a career as a young concert virtuoso.” He retained the technical skills well into his final years.

Concluded.