tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7807018700599489326.post1549415629147467718..comments2024-03-24T07:52:17.996+00:00Comments on British Classical Music: The Land of Lost Content: Sir Alexander Mackenzie in Sussex: November 1908John Francehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11661182422946581010noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7807018700599489326.post-41225012459828025262008-11-04T09:08:00.000+00:002008-11-04T09:08:00.000+00:00Oops - I meant Alexander Goehr; Walter the conduct...Oops - I meant Alexander Goehr; Walter the conductor was his old man. <BR/><BR/>Can you do a piece on Havergal Brian one of these days?<BR/><BR/>Thanks!<BR/><BR/>Alanchoirguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07313697441289027914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7807018700599489326.post-15604624040308309922008-11-03T09:03:00.000+00:002008-11-03T09:03:00.000+00:00Dear Alan,Thnak you for your very kind words. They...Dear Alan,<BR/><BR/>Thnak you for your very kind words. They are indeed encouraging! I am glad to hear that you are buying the Alwyn Symphones! They are superb works. Fortunatley there are now three cycles available. <BR/>Hope the weather is nice in Canada.<BR/>JJohn Francehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11661182422946581010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7807018700599489326.post-91976602544850647192008-11-03T08:56:00.000+00:002008-11-03T08:56:00.000+00:00Dear John FranceThis is not primarily a comment on...Dear John France<BR/><BR/>This is not primarily a comment on your piece about Sir Alexander Mackenzie, but the time has come to let you know how much I appreciate visiting your blog from time to time. When I do drop by I read each post back to the first one read on my previous visit. Always entertaining and informative, and sometimes surprising!<BR/><BR/>Surprises? Well I left the UK in 1968 and have resided on the west coast of Canada ever since. I was at school in Cheltenham during the 1950's and because of annual attendance at the then Cheltenham Festival of Contemporary Music I had a somewhat skewed idea of what British 20th century music was all about! My recollection of Harrison Birtwistle (other than his programme portrait, wherein he had the appearance of a slightly nervous pigeon peeking out from an enormous polo neck sweater) is that his music was uniformly "ungrateful." I have not to this day come across anything of his that I might listen to that would cast him in a more favourable light (have not heard anything, period.) The much praised operas sound totally scary! Peter Maxwell Davis, although at the time the choirmaster & music director at Cirencester Grammar School, seemed to be fiercely atonal, dodecaphonic and/or aleatoric. Now I do have a CD of his that includes Orkney Wedding & Sunrise. I have no way of knowing when his output became more or less "Musical." Even Richard Rodney Bennett presented some difficulties to a teenage ear! Walter Goehr was much like the unpalatable H.B. There were many more whose names have passed beyond my ken and from whom I imagine the world has not heard much.<BR/><BR/>Your surveys of what else was happening in British music in those days, and later, is where the surprises live - clearly not all serious and seriously appreciated composers did not abandon melody and/or intelligible structure.<BR/><BR/>Music I liked - ANY Malcolm Arnold, William Walton, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, some Tippett and Britten and much more. I am currently expanding my taste in English music by following the rule that if it is British, Orchestral and put out by Naxos, I'll buy it. In that wise I am getting the symphonies of William Alwyn into my collection, and much else. This is a new habit, adopted since I began reading your Blog.<BR/><BR/>To finally respond to the post - earlier this year on the Cdn Broadcasting Corporation' FM network I have heard and enjoyed a Piano Concerto by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Bless his cotton socks as my Granny used to say - I wish I could hear more of him, oh, and Bliss, and Bax, and Moeran and Boughton....<BR/><BR/>Regards<BR/><BR/>Alan Ryderchoirguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07313697441289027914noreply@blogger.com