Mist on the Moors: The Piano Music of Reginald Redman

Thirteen years have flown since I evaluated the British Music Society’s British Composer Profiles for MusicWeb International. I remember choosing, at random, the entry for Reginald Redman, a composer I had never previously encountered. I discovered that he had written a piano concerto, a cello concerto, three operas, two ballets, a substantial body of orchestral music, incidental scores, and chamber works. His numerous vocal works drew on West Country themes, alongside humorous songs, Chinese settings, carols, and anthems. He wrote piano pieces and arrangements for small ensembles. It struck me then, that this volume functioned as a kind of “Book of Dreams,” inviting readers to turn its pages and imagine the unheard. I ended my review by wondering what Redman’s music might sound like. I suggested that one day someone would be inspired to find out.

Fortunately, Duncan Honeybourne has come to the rescue with this delightful album of piano miniatures by this forgotten composer. Sadly, there is precious little information about Reginald Redman on the internet or in reference books. The above-mentioned volume manages a single paragraph, and there is no mention whatsoever in Grove Music Online. Philip Scowcroft of this parish came to the rescue with a page long discussion, here. I am also beholden to the liner notes written by the pianist.

Synthesising these texts provides a brief but essential biography. Reginald “Rex” Redman (1892–1972) was one of the BBC’s most accomplished regional conductor‑composers. Trained at the Guildhall School, he joined the Western Region of the BBC founding the West Country Studio Orchestra and West Country Singers. Though small and confined to light repertoire, the orchestra flourished under Redman and successors John Bath and Frank Cantell. As noted above, Redman was a prolific composer: his light orchestral music which included picturesque titles like Marston Court, From a Moorish Village, Pan’s Garden, West Country Suite, and Away on the Hills were especially admired.

This is not an album designed for a continuous sitting. Most of the tracks are short, averaging two or three minutes, the longest being the Three Preludes lasting for more than a quarter of an hour. They tend to blur. Select a title that appeals and enjoy.

The recital opens with the impressionistic Mist on the Moors evoking the landscape of Bodmin or Dartmoor. I am not sure what the mysterious Cornish Legend is referring to. There are so many to choose from. But surely it is a secret well kept. There is a sense of the tricksy about the Arabesque, with its improvisatory freedom. Honeybourne notes that La Nuit seems to be “alternating touches of Chinese music with that of church music”! The Lyric Piece may nod towards Edvard Grieg: it is a charming little number. Once again Redman looks to Asia with his perfumed The Mystic Garden. It is a thoughtful nocturne. The Graceful Dance is just what it says on the tin: slightly Baroque in tone. Hardly a lullaby, the Cradle Song is more complex in mood and technique than its title suggests. A fantastic seascape is created with On the Cornish Coast, which has all the stormy drama of Greville Cooke’s Cormorant Crag. One of the best pieces on this disc. The Great God Pan is evoked in his quieter mood in The Lonely Faun although he becomes a little more playful in the central episode. Once again Gossamer lives up to its title – delicate and ethereal.

Three of these miniatures appeal to children of whatever age! The Lullaby for a Kitten is deliciously sentimental. This is followed by Deep in the Woods which is more about a “Famous Five” adventure rather than a psychodrama. And finally, Children at Play, is pure salon music that conjures games, chases, and hide-and-seek.

In Changing Moods is fun. Moving between whimsy and reflection it is well-wrought with lovely tunes and subtle harmonies. Both In a Gondola and Venetian Barcarolle provide an enchanting picture of ‘La Serenissima.’ They should be played as a “set.”

Reginald Redman’s Song of the Fountain is not as elaborate as Ravel’s Jeux d'eau or Franz Liszt’s Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este: it is more of a little water-feature in a Home Counties garden. The short Humoreske is a piece of two parts: vivacious in its opening and closing and with a lyrical trio section. It is not necessarily ‘humorous’ in the modern sense, but touched with wit, grace, and a gentle eccentricity.

The most substantial work in this disc is the Three Preludes dating from 1918. Honeybourne explains that they remained in manuscript in the Redman Archive at the University of Bristol until he discovered them in 2024. Clearly influenced by the then-contemporary French school and, possibly, Cyril Scott, they are each accompanied by a “descriptive French title and verse…” The first, which makes intensive use of the whole tone scale, evokes the Wind through the Reeds by a “quiet little lake, at night.” The reeds are clearly talking to each other. The second imagines In the Glade of the Will-o’-the-Wisps, once again, using synthetic scales: it has a decidedly impressionistic feel. The final Prelude creates the mood of The Desert at Dawn. Beginning lugubriously, it conjures “Light Streams forth in a supreme ripple – and it is day.” There is no indication where the texts were garnered. The entire cycle is a gem, which demands acceptance into the repertoire.

The final tracks present two discrete versions of the Welsh folksong Ar Hyd y Nos – All Through the Night. The liner notes explain that prior to 1936 the West Country Studio Orchestra served both Welsh and West Country audiences. The first iteration, which is undated, was conceived as a signature tune for the station. Characteristically democratic, Redman wove together two melodies - All Through the Night and the old West Country tune, Admiral Benbow. Aged seventy-eight, Redman decided to revisit his earlier effort, adding a brief Prelude and Postlude. It is a touching nod to his long-standing affection for Wales and the West.

It should be noted that those who choose to download or stream can access additional tracks including At the Opera (1935) and In Amberley Vale (1925)

British pianist Duncan Honeybourne is noted for his deep sympathy with British and Irish repertoire and his championship of neglected music. He has explored a wide range of “forgotten” composers including Greville Cooke, Geoff Cummings-Knight, Archy Rosenthal, and William Baines.

This new disc gives long‑neglected Reginald Redman a toehold in the recorded legacy. These miniatures, by turns atmospheric, whimsical, and deeply felt are played with characteristic warmth, sincerity, and imagination.

Track Listing:

Reginald Redman (1892-1972)
Mist on the Moors (1926)
A Cornish Legend (1922)
Arabesque (1923)
La Nuit (1924)
Lyric Piece (1924)
The Mystic Garden (1924)
Graceful Dance (1924)
Cradle Song (1924)
On the Cornish Coast (1924)
The Lonely Faun (1926)
Gossamer (1922)
Lullaby for a Kitten (n.d.)
Deep in the Woods (n.d.)
Children at Play (1924)
In Changing Moods (1924)
In a Gondola (1924)
Venetian Barcarolle (1924)
Prelude I Vent à travers les Roseaux (Wind through the Reeds) (1918)
Prelude II Dans la Clairière des Esprits Follets (In the Glade of the Will-o’-the-Wisps) (1918)
Prelude III Le D sert au Point du Jour (The Desert at Dawn) (1918)
Song of the Fountain (1924)
Humoreske (1927)
All Through the Night (earlier version) (n.d.) All Through the Night (later version) (1970)

Duncan Honeybourne (piano)
rec. 24 September 2025, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Heritage HTGCD 121

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

Frank Bridge: An Appreciation of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford

How does a musical revolutionary remember a traditionalist? In July 1924, a few months after the death of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, his former pupil Frank Bridge offered a surprising answer.

On the death of the elder composer on 29 March 1924, many tributes were written about him. A selection by his former pupils were included in the journal Music & Letters (July 1924). These included words by Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Dyson, Ivor Gurney, Herbert Howells, and Frank Bridge.

Frank Bridge (1879-1941) was a pivotal figure in early 20th-century British music, bridging the gap between Victorian tradition and modernism. A competent violist and conductor, his deep understanding of string instruments infused his chamber music, such as the evocative piano trios and string quartets. While his early works like the orchestral The Sea radiated late-Romantic warmth, the distress of World War I pushed him toward a more radical, expressionistic style. He became the link between Victorian/Edwardian tradition and the modernism of his own pupil, Benjamin Britten.

In 1899, Frank Bridge had entered the Royal College of Music on a scholarship, where he fell under the rigorous tutelage of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Stanford, a titan of British pedagogy, emphasised structural integrity and Brahmsian discipline. While Bridge eventually moved toward a more radical, modernist language, his time with Stanford provided the solid technical foundation - particularly in counterpoint and orchestration - that defined his early mastery. Their relationship was a classic blend of traditional craftsmanship meeting an evolving, innovative spirit. In his tribute, Bridge reflected on the "bruising" but vital lessons he received:

"THAT from tuition grounded with staunch belief upon the classics so many composition pupils should have achieved distinction on self-willed paths, is a noteworthy testimony to the soundness of his training and guidance. An extraordinary versatility and interest in all forms of musical art enabled him to solve their problems with facility and shrewd insight. He possessed a continuous inspiration of technical resources with which lie administered first-aid. His firm insistence that we should not embark on an orchestral score which required so-called " extra " instruments may perhaps have been a relic of his own youthful student days abroad. It was undoubtedly a deep-rooted conviction, and his own works prove how unconcerned he was with the mere exploitation of instrumental technique. On one occasion a song with orchestra evoked a severe lecture, and although I recall feeling rather bruised, the experience of its public performance made me realise the truth of his criticism."

Music & Letters July 1924, p.195f

Robert Farnon: Holiday Flight

I was always envious of my aunt who had flown out to Mallorca (or as we called it then Majorca) in the late 1950s with her girlfriend. Although tourism had begun in the 1920s and 1930s, it was not until the post-Second World War era that mass British holidaymaking began there. Back then, boarding a Vickers Viscount or a de Havilland Comet was a sophisticated ritual, involving Sunday best suits and the hum of turboprops. Greater prosperity and cheaper air travel made Mallorca a mainstream destination, with visitors enjoying the sun, beaches, and easy-going life. And then, of course, there was the cheap booze.

Robert Farnon’s miniature Holiday Flight epitomises this social shift. It was composed around 1958 during the post-war golden age of British light music. It reflects the optimism and glamour of commercial air travel during this period. Enthusiastically, it presents flying as adventurous, novel, and stylish. It is a quintessential example of light orchestral writing that distils Farnon’s melodic appeal and cinematic sweep into a small, evocative piece that functions like a musical postcard, capturing mood and imagery with effortless clarity.

Although there is some musical onomatopoeia in this piece, it is more a celebration of the possibility of air travel rather than a actual description. Farnon avoids the literal roar of engines, choosing instead to replicate the feeling of soaring above a layer of stratocumulus clouds. It opens mid-flight rather than taking off or landing. The mood is buoyant and propulsive, with sweeping strings, but sometimes pizzicato, smart woodwind figures and muted brass. Yet in the concluding bars there is a definite sense that the plane is landing, with all the pleasure of a sun-soaked holiday lying ahead.

My only memento of my aunt’s holiday is a small drum with a picture of a toreador on it, a pair of castanets and a pack of Spanish stamps (these last sadly long disappeared.) These mementos were (for me) the exotic spoils of a new era, brought back from a world that felt impossibly far from 1950s Glasgow. It would be some fifty years later that I would arrive at Palma, Mallorca, on board a cruise ship.

Listen to Robert Farnon’s Holiday Flight on YouTube, here. The composer is conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

 

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Rise, Heart

I was introduced to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs through the legendary recording by John Shirley-Quirk, with the King’s College Choir and English Chamber Orchestra under David Willcocks (HMV ASD 2458). This has been my go-to version since the early 1970s, and I suspect that will not change. It successfully captures the grand scale of the work’s premiere at Worcester Cathedral on 14 September 1911, though RVW noted the chorus was ad lib.

Whilst there have been arrangements for wind ensemble and for solo piano accompaniment, this new Albion disc features the c.1925 arrangement for baritone, piano and string quintet. This is ideally suited for small ensembles, church performances, or intimate recitals.

Bearing in mind that RVW was not a “man of faith” in the traditional sense, but a self-described “cheerful agnostic,” the ethos of Five Mystical Songs is best understood as a spiritual journey. But it is important to add that he was deeply sympathetic to Christian liturgy, theology, and devotional language. The “cycle” becomes the point where three trajectories meet: the world of personal faith, George Herbert’s luminous poetry, and the composer’s instinctive English musical pastoralism. This is not a conventional song cycle but a bit like a private devotional journal set to music. Herbert’s poetry here feels less mystical than numinous, with an emphasis on human tenderness, vulnerability, and wonder. It is Christianity seen through the lens of the English countryside, where the sacred and the pastoral breathe the same air.

Roderick Williams, the Sacconi Quartet, Levi Andreassen, double bass, and pianist William Vann bring a warmth and instrumental colour that far exceeds the piano-only edition. It is a beautiful, deeply felt account.

In 1905 RVW published two settings of poems by Christina Rossetti. The melancholic When I am Dead, My Dearest considers an acceptance of death’s calm, inviting remembrance or forgetting, both without sorrow. Equally melancholic both in words and music is Dreamland where the poet has chosen a twilight journey into eternal rest, beyond sorrow or waking. Both have been recorded on Albion Records (ALBCD002) but this is the first recording with “a male protagonist.” They are both heartbreakingly lovely.

The liner notes explain that all eighty-one of Vaughan Williams folksongs have been issued on the Albion label (ALBCD042-45). For the present disc Roderick Williams has chosen eight of these and arranged them for string quartet. I think that they would make an effective song cycle, although there is no obvious connecting theme. The singer expresses the hope that these will provide a strong introduction to RVW’s folksongs.

Willow-Wood is a cantata based on four poems from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet sequence The House of Life. It was composed in 1903, around the same time as his famous Silent Noon. The cantata was premiered at the St James’s Hall, London on 12 March of that year, by J. Campbell McInnes, baritone, and Evlyn Howard-Jones, piano.

In Rossetti’s poems, the ‘Wood’ is an imaginary landscape where Love and Loss meet. Contemporary critics felt the songs themselves were seen as “turbulent, shadowy, and melancholy.” Some suggested that the cantata needed an orchestra, as “its complexities and its breadth seem to demand an orchestral medium.”   The composer duly orchestrated it for a performance in 1909, adding a wordless female chorus. RVW himself was not happy with the final iteration, scrawling in his copy of the vocal score, “first (and last) performance…complete flop.” 

The programme notes pose the question: Does the cantata tell a story? It concludes that Willow-Wood is “a song of love and grief, love lost and love remembered. Poetry stands precedent over narrative and finds further expression in music.”

Whether this challenging work will ever become ‘popular’ is arguable. I find it just a touch too melancholy. That said, Roderick Williams champions its wide ranging and demanding vocal part with conviction.

The booklet text has been compiled by John Francis and provides clear information about the songs. The texts are printed. Resumes of the performers have been included. The booklet is beautifully illustrated, and the cover features a detail from the Ralph Vaughan Williams memorial window at All Saints, Down Ampney.

This is a deeply moving exploration of Vaughan Williams’ more intimate side, where Roderick Williams brings a rare, human warmth to both the well-loved Herbert settings and the shadowy rarities of Rossetti.

Contents
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Five Mystical Songs (1911) (arranged by Vaughan Williams for baritone, piano and string quintet): Easter; I Got Me Flowers; Love Bade Me Welcome; The Call; Antiphon.
Songs for voice and piano: When I am Dead, My Dearest (1903); Dreamland (1905)
Folk Song arrangements (Vaughan Williams’s piano accompaniments adapted
for string quartet by Roderick Williams): Captain Grant; The Saucy Bold Robber; She’s Like the Swallow; Proud Nancy; Barbara Ellen; The Brewer; O Who is That That Raps at My Window; Harry the Tailor
Willow-Wood (1903, revised 1909) for baritone and piano.
Roderick Williams (baritone); Sacconi Quartet, Levi Andreassen (double bass), William Vann (piano)
rec. 16-18 July 2025, St George’s Headstone, London 

Albion Records ALBCD 070

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

Percy Whitlock: Holiday Suite (1939)

Percy Whitlock’s Holiday Suite (1939) is one of my favourite pieces of ‘light music.’ The titles of its three movements express the sentiment that surrounds the thoughts of a holiday by the sea in England (or Scotland, Wales, and Ulster.) It is an epitome of much that has passed into history as people head to Benidorm and Tenerife. However, days at Bournemouth, Morecambe and Swanage will always be with us. And if people enjoy the simpler pleasures of a British seaside holiday, this suite will serve as a reminder of what is precious in our psyche. This may be strong words for a slight work – but this is what ‘light’ music is about – approachability. 

A friend of mine who does not claim to understand or appreciate the complexities of Bartok String Quartets or the transcendental piano studies of Franz Liszt finds this Holiday Suite full of evocative images. And these are images of her holidays too. Memories of her girlhood at Scarborough and Bridlington are evoked in these three movements. And who is to say that Max Jaffa (The Spa, Scarborough) is not as important to aesthetic enjoyment as Yehudi Menuhin or Nigel Kennedy? Certainly, not these gentlemen! 

Three movements and one enigma. The suite opens with a fine Waltz: ‘In the Ballroom.’ This is in the spirit of so many similar pieces by Eric Coates – a fine English Dance. We feel that at times it is a restrained movement. Is it a tea dance? But then the orchestra breaks out into a fine sweep, which along with the saxophones leads back into a typical lilting swing. Then a short codetta and off into the next eight! I can so easily see a pre-war audience moving gracefully around the ballroom. The ‘Ballroom’ in the title is the one behind the Bournemouth Pavilion Concert Hall.

The second is a delightful polka that manages to incorporate the good old English tune ‘Cherry Ripe.’ This had been done already by Frank Bridge in one of his string orchestra pieces and by Eric Coates in his London Suite. Whitlock would have known both these works. It is the composer’s delightful sense of humour that gave this movement its back to front title – ‘Spade and Bucket’ Polka. It is a well-written miniature, which certainly evokes thoughts of major excavations on the beach!

The last movement is entitled quite simply, ‘Civic March.’ Yet there is an enigma here. The Performing Rights Society has this listed as the ‘Picnic March.’ The score and the parts all have the current title of ‘Civic March.’ I spoke with the Whitlock expert Malcolm Riley about this discrepancy, and he is of the opinion that the official title links it in nicely to the ‘municipal’ – the ballroom and the Pavilion belonging to the town council. I have listened to this march a number of times and I am unable to imagine processions of councillors and the newly made Mayor and civil dignitaries and their partners.

Personally? I’m not buying it. The music is too bright and breezy. There is an open-air quality to this tune. It is easier to imagine the Famous Five and Timmy the dog, off on a picnic with their ginger beer and jam sandwiches: it fits in with the idea of ‘being at the seaside.’ The last thing I would want to do as a child is watch old fogeys dressed up in outdated clothes shamble along the High Street! Nevertheless, I will defer, for scholarships sake and concede that this last movement is a bright and carefree ‘civic’ march. Humph.

Listen to Whitlock’s Holiday Suite on YouTube, here.  The RTÉ Concert Orchestra Conductor: Gavin Sutherland and it appears on Marco Polo 8.225162.

Repost from 1 November 2008 with edits and new link.

 

Reflections : Piano Quartets by Johannes Brahms and Hans Gál

Werther was the tragic hero of Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) who became a crucial figure in German cultural lore. He was a gifted and sensitive young man who was consumed by an impossible love for Charlotte. This anguish made him into a symbol of the of Sturm und Drang spirit and serves as a warning about what can happen when feelings run wild.

Speaking about his Piano Quartet No.3 in C minor, op.60, Brahms told his publisher Simrock, that the score should feature a picture of a man with a pistol pointed at his head, referencing Goethe’s book. This would have signalled the present quartet's themes of unrequited love and despair. Simrock did not take him up on this suggestion.

When Brahms began initial sketches for his three piano quartets in 1855, he was deeply in love with Clara Schumann, wife of Robert, who at that time was institutionalised in an insane asylum. Instead of Werther’s pistol shots, the writing of this music was a catharsis for his mental turmoil. Shortly after Robert’s death in 1856, he found another distraction, this time with Agathe von Siebold. The quartet was put to one side, remaining in a drawer for nearly twenty years (there was some revision) before emerging in 1875.

The opening movement begins starkly before the strings introduce a ‘sighing’ motif often associated with Clara, setting the tone for a narrative of tension and release throughout this Allegro non troppo. An appealing second theme in E‑flat major offers warmth, yet the movement never fully escapes its C‑minor gravity. An angry and intense Scherzo Allegro follows; instead of a formal trio, Brahms inserts a brief, unsettled episode. The Andante, the emotional heart, begins with a beautiful long cello melody that offers a measure of consolation. It is thought to be a “farewell to Clara,” and is tenderly played here. The Finale is a turbulent Allegro comodo, its agitated figures driven forward until they finally gain a hard‑won, unsentimental C‑major close. Any performance must recognise the sense of tragedy that overshadows this Piano Quartet. I feel that Confringo Klavierquartett get this mood exactly right.

Hans Gál was an Austrian‑British composer, teacher and scholar who was forced to flee from Austria in 1938. He rebuilt his career in Britain, producing symphonies, chamber works, and operas defined by a rare blend of elegance and contrapuntal wit.

The Piano Quartet in A major was written in 1926 for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm during the First World War. The piano writing is so complex it successfully creates the illusion of two hands. Certainly, Wittgenstein’s left hand had its work cut out. At a time when composers were experimenting with various forms of modernism, Gál uses what might be regarded as old-fashioned tonal clarity.

Unfolding across four well balanced movements, the Quartet is defined by appealing melodies and formal balance. The opening Vivace ma non troppo nods unapologetically to Brahms. It is optimistic, but occasionally melancholy, presenting contrasting themes and a vivid development. A buoyant Scherzo, Presto e leggiero possesses a will o’ the wisp fleetingness. Central to this Quartet is the poignant, introspective Adagio, dolce ed espressivo using expansive tunes supported by a subtle accompaniment. The Quartet concludes with a mercurial Molto vivace which is Bartókian in its rhythmic bite. The middle section is brooding, before an exhilarating and witty build up to the final pages.

There have been at least two other recordings of Hans Gál’s Piano Quartet in A major (CPO 555 276-2),  reviewed here, here, and here. The other is Left Hand Legacy Vol.1: Chamber Music Written for Paul Wittgenstein (COBRA0087) reviewed, here.

Confringo Klavierquartett was formed by musicians from Germany, Serbia, and South Korea during their studies in Berlin and Hanover. The Quartet shares a strong interest in Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary repertoire. They have earned significant recognition, including the 2024 Hans Gál Prize and a German Music Competition scholarship.

The liner notes by Florian Gierring give a good introduction to the two important works featured on this disc. Biographical details of the ensemble are included. The booklet is printed in English and German.

This is a splendid debut performance by Confringo Klavierquartett. Both Quartets are performed with enthusiasm and self-assurance. They reflect Brahms’s darker shadows and Gál’s intricate, lyrical wit.

Track Listing:
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
Piano Quartet No.3 in C minor, op.60 (1855-75)
Hans Gál (1890-1987)
Piano Quartet in A major (1926)
Confringo Klavierquartett: Eun Che Kim (violin), Philipp Sussmann (viola), Irena Josifoska (cello), Viktor Soos (piano).
rec. 18-20 April 2025, SWR Studio Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Reflections Genuin GEN26954

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

John Addison and Three Men in a Boat (1956)

One of my favourite films from “back in the day” is Three Men in a Boat, made seventy years ago this year. This realisation of Jerome K. Jerome’s Thames travelogue remains a timeless observation of human fallibility. This “comedy of errors” unfolds against the idyllic scenery of the river, which provides a golden-hued backdrop to the trio’s misadventures. Several elements combine to make this film a masterpiece: the performance by the three stars, the sophisticated, yet jaunty score by composer John Addison and the evocative riverside setting. It stands as a tribute to the British art at carrying on regardless.

The English writer Jerome K. Jerome was born in Walsall, West Midlands on 2 May 1859. Where remembered today, it is for his engaging conversational style that bridged Victorian sensibilities and a more modern, lightly ironic wit. Despite never again achieving the runaway success of Three Men in a Boat, he continued to write until his death in 1927. His output included plays, short stories, essays, and non-fiction as well as Three Men on a Bummel, the sequel to the present title.

The ‘technicolor’ film adaption was directed by English film maker Ken Annakin, with the screenplay developed by Hubert Gregg and Vernon Harris. The three eponymous stars were the suave Laurence Harvey as George, the moustachioed Jimmy Edwards playing Harris and David Tomlinson, who was later to play Mr Banks in Mary  Poppins, as Jerome “J.” Supporting cast included Shirley Eaton (some eight years before her appearance as a Bond Girl in Goldfinger), Jill Ireland, Robertson Hare, and Esme Cannon.

The plot is simple: three Victorian gentlemen, convinced they are suffering from various psychosomatic illnesses brought on by "overwork," decide that a rowing trip up the River Thames is the only cure. Accompanied by their sceptical fox terrier, Montmorency, they set off on a journey that is about relaxation but quickly descends into a series of alluring disasters.

The film delights in everyday incompetence: simple tasks become epic trials, tempers fray beneath Victorian politeness, and Montmorency observes it all with silent disdain. The entire movie celebrates the river’s quirks and reminds us that holidays go awry - and those mishaps become the memories we cherish most.

Sadly, the critic of The Monthly Film Bulletin was unimpressed: he wrote that "Jimmy Edwards and David Tomlinson should have been ideally cast in Jerome's delightful comedy. Unfortunately, the curious adaptation and clumsy handling have effectively destroyed most of the charm and humour of the original book. The slapstick is crude and uninventive.”

John Addison (1920–1998) was a prolific British composer recalled for his versatile, approachable style across film and concert hall. After serving in the 23rd Hussars during WWII, he studied at the Royal College of Music, later returning as a Professor of Composition.

He gained fame as the "Angry Young Man’s Composer," scoring classics like John Osborne’s play The Entertainer. His diverse portfolio includes the Oscar-winning Tom Jones (1963), the iconic TV series Murder, She Wrote theme and military epics such as Reach for the Sky. Of significant importance are his concert works which include the ballet score Carte Blanche, a Trumpet Concerto, and a Partita for string orchestra. Addison’s music, whether for the recital room or for the screen, is always approachable and well-crafted.

The score for the 1956 Three Men in a Boat fuses his Addison’s conservatory polish with a distinctly British lightness. Rather than the grand orchestral sweep typical of 1950s adventure or romantic films, he writes with chamber-like clarity, letting cheerful woodwinds propel the trio’s mishaps while serene pastoral strings evoke the Thames. His mock‑heroic brass elevates trivial triumphs into comic spectacle, perfectly matching the story’s Victorian self‑importance. Avoiding cartoonish literalism, Addison offers a witty, sophisticated commentary on the action. The score reveals his mastery of “light” music, crafted with the same rigour as his concert works.

Watch the opening and closing credits of Three Men in a Boat on YouTube, here.

 

Karajan Conducts Gustav Holst and Richard Strauss

This new release from Gramola couples two important orchestral works of the 20th century. The recordings date from the time when Herbert von Karajan was making his ‘Golden Era’ recordings, with the Wiener Philharmoniker, in the early 1960s. Originally issued on the Decca label under the auspices of celebrated producers John Culshaw (Holst) and Erik Smith (Strauss) they have withstood the test of time. The quality of sound of both is outstanding, bearing in mind that they are now two-thirds of a century old.

Straight away, the listener will be struck by the menacing opening of Mars, brutal and insistent; the Vienna brass producing a disturbing ‘snarl’ throughout. My touchstone in The Planets is Venus, and here Karajan creates a suitably numinous account which stresses its serenity. Mercury is often described as “quicksilver,” an adjective entirely appropriate here. One contemporary reviewer felt that the celesta was slightly out of tune with the orchestra. Maybe. It remains a sparkling performance.

Like other critics I wondered how Karajan would approach the quintessentially English sound of Jupiter. In fact, he provides a broad sweep in the “trio” section, whilst avoiding any hint of sentimentality. The lead up to that ‘big tune’ is a riot of sound.

Saturn is a remorseless march, dark and lugubrious relieved only by occasional flashes of light. The anvils at the climax are particularly effective. One commentator perfectly summed up the movement by explaining that the Bringer of Old Age, “is a creaky giant, wheezy and weary, but still an eminent presence when roused.”  Uranus gets a “rollicking” performance: the brass fanfare at the beginning is genuinely scary. In Neptune, Karajan creates pure mystery. The wordless female voices (the Vienna State Opera Chorus) sustain a perfectly eerie mood as they fade away into a haunting and desolate silence.

I first came to this masterpiece through Steinberg and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon: this was the LP that lived in the school music-room library. Nowadays, I would favour a British conductor when listening to The Planets. This may be Mark Elder and the Hallé on Hyperion (with Colin Matthews’s Pluto, which some listeners still resist), or Adrian Boult’s 1979 EMI recording.

So why turn to Karajan? For me, his performance of The Planets treats the whole suite as one vast, surging arc of cinematic colour and momentum, the movements flowing into each other with a scale and inevitability that few conductors manage.

I do not normally define “best” when it comes to musicians, but I accept that Herbert von Karajan was one of the last century’s great interpreters of Richard Strauss. Karajan made him sound big, beautiful, thrilling, and moving. He controlled the orchestra, so everything felt smooth, powerful, and perfectly timed. It is the kind of playing that sweeps people along even if they do not know a note of Strauss.

An understanding of the poem by Alexander Ritter is not essential to appreciating the symphonic poem Death and Transfiguration, composed in 1889. In fact, Ritter wrote the text after the score was complete. The basic idea is that of a “lonely and ailing” man fighting against his inevitable death, while recalling incidents from his past life. There is no suggestion that Strauss had any specific individual in mind. More likely he was reflecting about the “eternal suffering” of humanity. The work is divided into four sections: The sick man on his deathbed, The battle between life and death, The moment of death and, finally, Transfiguration. Most people will sympathise with at least part of the “programme” – certainly as they grow older. But it is possible to hear this as absolute music: a purely musical drama without reference to any programme, whose strength lies in its thematic transformation, orchestral colour, and long‑spanned architecture.

Karajan’s account presents two sides of the piece. There is a “shattering intensity” inherent in the struggle between life and death, but also a gentler, more sensitive side in the childhood memories and the apotheosis. Surely the interpretation of these closing bars is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Whether or not Karajan's 1960 recording with the Wiener Philharmoniker is a “definitive” version of Death and Transfiguration is not something I wish to comment on. I should also note that I have not heard his 1983 recording with the Berlin Philharmoniker. There are dozens of other recordings: Reiner, Böhm, Kempe, and Krauss among them. An exploration of all these is a full-time occupation.

This CD is a true classic, capturing a legendary conductor and orchestra at the height of their powers; if you want to hear these two epic masterworks played with maximum drama and rich, golden sound, this is the recording to own. All this is perfectly preserved by this early stereo recording.

Track Listing:
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
The Planets, op.32 (1914-16)
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung) (1889)
Wiener Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan
rec. September 1961 (Holst); June 1960 (Strauss) Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria
Gramola 92008

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

William Alwyn: Twelve Preludes for Piano (1958)

The first thing to consider is whether it is right that these twelve preludes should be played as a cycle or whether they can be excerpted. We need only think of Rachmaninov or perhaps Scriabin to see that recitalists often pick several 'preludes' from the various sets these composers wrote. The same could be said of Bach and Chopin. It is, perhaps, with the two books of Preludes written by Debussy that we have to compare William Alwyn's works. Although not exclusively so, with the exception of one or two encore pieces such as the 'Girl with Flaxen Hair' recitals and CDs tend to present Book 1 or Book 2 in their entirety.

I think that, although the Preludes by Alwyn are mostly individually self-sufficient, they are served best by being played together. Yet in some ways this is strange; there is no obvious thematic thread running through these pieces. In fact, the very opposite is the case. Alwyn decided to use very short note groups as the basis of these pieces. These are closely related to key centres and all the preludes have an allocated key signature. Yet he invented a new note group for each of the dozen pieces. In spite of this diversity, it is best to take these dozen preludes at a sitting. Each number is roughly two minutes long, the entire works lasting just under half an hour.

The first prelude is quiet and reflective and is economical in its use of material. It is played very quietly with just a little frisson in the middle section. There is a strange hardness of tone in some of the repeated notes - quite a disturbing element within what is a seemingly untroubled mood. The piece ends as quietly as it began.

The second opens dramatically - as implied in the instruction 'Allegro drammatico.' There is much repeated figuration here giving the impression of turbulence. After an impressive flourish the music dies down and collapses. There are quiet, slow repeated chords and a simplification of the texture. This is a strange piece really, with the two sections rather unbalanced.

The next prelude, a 'Molto Semplice' presents music of seeming innocence. It is truly lovely music that is perfectly balanced in all its parts. Yet, hidden in the innocence there is a touch of melancholy.

The fourth prelude is a study - William Alwyn stated it was composed to display rapid finger technique. There is at times a jazzy feeling here - or is it perhaps even boogie-woogie? The second section is much quieter and is rhythmically blurred with much use being made of the pedal. The melody is given in octaves towards the conclusion and is followed by a quicksilver coda. An exceptionally fine piece technically.

The New Zealand pianist Richard Farrell was the dedicatee of the fifth prelude. In fact, it was composed just a few days after his death in a motorcycle accident. This is a lovely piece that has much depth and feeling to it. In some ways it appears almost too simple: it is not until after a couple of hearings that its subtleties begin to become evident. There are some clever modulations and not a few bittersweet harmonic clashes. The latter part of the prelude makes use of impressive chordal writing that adds drama. However, in strange contradistinction some of the writing is almost reminiscent of café piano style. The overall impression is of balance and near perfection.

The sixth prelude is another study. It is written to display rapid chords in progression. It certainly comes as quite a contrast to the preceding elegy. It is rhythmically strong sounding rather like Scriabin or perhaps even Rachmaninov in places but is none the worse for that. It is one of the best of these preludes. The piece closes with a good coda and a false ending which gives the listener a little jolt.

The seventh prelude is played quietly and sounds like distant bells. It is meditative and has all the appearance of a very straightforward piece. This simplicity is misleading. It is a difficult piece to play well. Here are more than just hints of Debussy's 'underwater cathedral' in these pages. There is a slight crescendo in the middle section before the work closes as it began.

William Alwyn states that the eighth prelude is 'pastoral' in character. This is an overstatement - with little to justify this description. The tempo marking is 'grazioso et delicato,' however even is unjustified. There are several felicitous touches in this prelude, but the overall impression is that the composer has lost the plot a bit. Some of this music is a little makeweight.

The ninth prelude also suffers from a lack of formal principle. It is as if the composer has lost his concentration. The opening of the piece is 'elusive' and becomes a touch monotonous during the first section. Once again there are hints of Debussy here. Suddenly the character changes and the prelude ends with glissando like scales. A very unbalanced piece.

The tenth prelude is an ‘Allegretto leggiero:’ once again this is a study in delicacy of touch. It is a pleasing number that is extremely difficult to keep under control and to maintain a consistency of touch. However, some of this prelude is anything but delicate - there is some intensity here that requires firm playing. The piece finishes quietly.

The penultimate prelude is composed on three notes - Db, Eb and F. This is the ultimate in musical economy. Yet with this limited material Alwyn creates a misty magical atmosphere. This is an extremely beautiful piece even if it is short.

The final piece, an ‘Allegro’ brings the cycle to a triumphant close. It opens with a toccata-like figuration that continues, under various guises to permeate the work. Much of the sound of this prelude reminds the listener of water - from mere ripples to crashing waves. The 'big' tune is given in the bass with the toccata theme in the treble clef. There are memories here of Alwyn’s Magic Island Prelude and perhaps the Third Symphony. A big powerful build up is followed by a sudden diminuendo. An enigmatic coda followed by a huge display of chords brings the work to a conclusion.

Although there are a few weak points where the composer seems to have lost his way, the vast majority of these preludes are superb in their form, their melodic and harmonic structure and their relationship to each other. These Twelve Preludes must be taken at a sitting. Although they are not thematically related there is a unity about them that only becomes obvious when they are heard together. It is possible to hear the “horns of elf land” in these pieces.

This cycle of Preludes will never become truly popular; they are very subtle and sophisticated (in a positive way). Yet they deserve to be listened to, played and studied. They are one of the finest achievements in the literature of the second half of twentieth century piano music. They are as good as any work that was produced for the piano in the 1950s and much better than most.

George Dyson: Voluntary in D major for organ.

Best remembered for his grand choral canvases, Sir George Dyson’s modest output for the organ reveals a composer of remarkable poise and practical talent.

George Dyson was born on 28 May 1883 in Halifax, Yorkshire, into a family where music was part of daily life. In 1900 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying composition under Charles Villiers Stanford, and four years later he secured the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which allowed him to travel through Italy, Austria, and Germany and encounter leading composers such as Richard Strauss. His early professional life combined practical musicianship and teaching: he served first as an assistant organist and later as director of music at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, before moving into school posts at Marlborough College. During the First World War he served as a grenadier officer and became known for writing a widely circulated training manual on grenade warfare, though he was eventually invalided home suffering from shell shock. In the interwar years Dyson established himself as a distinguished schoolmaster and lecturer, holding influential positions at Rugby, Wellington, and Winchester. His administrative gifts were recognised in 1938 when he became Director of the Royal College of Music - the first former student to do so - where he introduced significant financial and organisational reforms. He steered the institution through the upheavals of the Second World War, preserving both its stability and its academic standards.

As a composer, Dyson worked in a firmly late‑Romantic idiom shaped by the legacy of Parry and Stanford. Among his most notable works are The Canterbury Pilgrims, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Symphony in G. He died in Winchester on 28 September 1964, leaving behind a body of music that fell into neglect for a time but has since enjoyed a welcome revival.

Though his organ output is modest, it is finely made: six late works, including a Prelude and Postlude, the Fantasia, and Ground Bass, and twelve Psalm‑tune variations in three books, alongside an unpublished youthful Sonata. These reveal Dyson’s characteristic clarity, warmth, and contrapuntal poise, offering organists repertoire that is approachable yet rewarding.

The Voluntary in D was written for An Album of Praise, published by Oxford University Press in 1958. This included works by Gordon Jacob, Flor Peeters, Peter Hurford, Norman Gilbert, and Healey Willan. Paul Spicer, in his study of the composer, has said they were “designed as organ voluntary repertoire for the average organist.” However, none of them are a cinch.

Ideally, the present Voluntary was written for a large organ with at least three manuals with pedals and was designed as a recessional voluntary for a cathedral or large parish church.

This is a powerful, dynamic piece that is more rhapsodic than strictly formal. It develops from a fanfare motive played on the Great organ at the start. Ostensibly composed in D major, the work moves through a series of modulations in the contrasting sections often including changes between manuals. The piece concludes with a loud ‘largamente’ chorale-like succession of chords.

Apart from the suggestion of which of the three manuals ought to be used, Dyson gives no indication of his preferred registration. Although the score does not call for reed stops, they would certainly be effective.

Despite the rhapsodic nature of the Voluntary, there is no sense that it is sprawling or lacking in compositional discipline. Stylistically, it shows little evidence of Dyson’s ‘pastoral’ style which he used sparingly. Rather, it is largely tonal, lyrical, and grounded in the English choral‑cathedral tradition.

Listen to Daniel Cook playing George Dyson’s Voluntary in D on YouTube, here. The piece is played on the magnificent organ in St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. This was included on “The Complete Organ Works of George Dyson” (Priory PRCD 1136, 2014).

Anthony Hedges: Scenes from the Humber (1981)

On the evening of Friday, 17 July, the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra gave the first performance of Anthony Hedges’s Scenes from the Humber at Hull City Hall. It was conducted by Günther Herbig. At this time, Hedges was lecturer at the University of Hull’s music department. The work had been commissioned by the BBC to mark the official opening of the Humber Bridge, connecting the then South and North Humberside, or more traditionally, Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. The bridge had been commissioned for traffic on 24 June 1981 but was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 July. Other music commemorating the opening of the bridge included the now forgotten Humber Bridge Suite by David Newstone and Stephen Burnby, and Hedges’s A Humberside Cantata, setting a poem by Philip Larkin, completed in 1976 in confident anticipation that the bridge would open that year. It was eventually premiered on 11 April 1981 by the Hull Choral Union.

Scenes from the Humber is a short, fifteen-minute suite in four movements. It is written in a “light” style. The overall impact is of a well-written work that is evocative and distinctive.

In his programme note, Anthony Hedges explained that “Each of the four movements draws its inspiration from a particular aspect of the river” He then gave brief notes:-

Petuaria Patrol. Petuaria was the Roman name for Brough, some ten miles to the west of Hull. It was the main crossing point on the north bank of the Humber for the Roman legions, and a Roman settlement. This march-like movement begins quietly, as from a distance, gradually increases in intensity, (as the cohorts pass by), and recedes again into the distance.

Spurn Point Elegy. Spurn Point is the desolate and shifting spit of land at the mouth of the Humber, its mysterious and windswept terrain provides a sanctuary for seabirds.

“Lincoln Castle” Intermezzo. The ‘Lincoln Castle’ was the last of the paddle steamers to serve as a Humber ferry and now lies beached in the shadow of the Bridge, converted into a restaurant. Although built in the 1940’s, its design and atmosphere belonged to an earlier part of the century, and this is reflected in the chuggy and slightly jazzy mood of the music. The ship’s siren before departure was a very distinctive sound. [‘Lincoln Castle’ was scrapped in 2010]

Humber Keel Hornpipe. The Humber Keels were flat-bottomed sailing barges that plied up and down the Humber in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their annual regatta was an important feature of life on the river, and an oil painting of the first of these regattas showing Humber Keels scudding down the river, provided the starting point for this movement.

Other works heard at the celebration concert included Tchaikovsky’s Overture: Romeo and Juliet, Schubert’s Symphony No.5 and the ‘Prelude’ and ‘Liebestod’ from Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Günther Herbig conducted the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra.

The critic Douglas Bowen reporting on the concert (Hull Daily Mail, 20 July 1981) stated that Hedges’s Scenes “captured the heart and imagination of a vociferously appreciative audience.” He remarks on the “characteristic craftsmanship and resource” deployed by the composer. This “readily engaging suite is not without humour, illustrated by the chuggy jazz Intermezzo and the tongue in cheek fugal writing in the hornpipe.” Bowen considered that the most “effective movement is the Elegy, where economical and sensitive use of solo woodwind and muted strings creates a most chilling and desolate atmosphere.”

Turning to the remainder of the concert, he thought that some of the music was an “odd choice for such a national and prestigious occasion.”  However, despite a “lack-lustre account” of the Schubert Symphony, the other works “had special excitement when everything springs from genuine musical feeling.” Overall, the “splendidly precise but flexible orchestra…eloquently revealed the spirit of the music with a wealth of opulent and often incandescent sound.”

Scenes from the Humber became one of Anthony Hedges most popular works. It has received two recordings. The first was issued on LP in 1981 by the Meridian Records label, E77047. Hedges’s A Humberside Cantata and his Kingston Suite were also included. The Humberside Sinfonia was conducted by the composer with the Hull Choral Union conducted by Alan Spedding. The second recording was released in 1997 on the Marco Polo label, 8.223886. This CD included his Four Breton Sketches, Heigham Sound: Overture, Four Miniature Dances, and the Kingston Sketches. The RTÉ Sinfonietta was conducted by the composer. The CD was reissued in 2022 on 8.574324, with different artwork.

The Meridian edition of Scenes from the Humber has been uploaded to YouTube here

The Crown of Life: Choral Music by Leighton, Clarke, Holst and Darke

The introduction to the liner notes for this latest disc from the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford explains that it continues the choir’s exploration of overlooked treasures of the twentieth century English choral repertoire. It follows on from That Sweet City (reviewed, here) released in 2024 which featured Kenneth Leighton’s early cantata Veris Gratia and RVW’s An Oxford Elegy.

The heart of this new album is the world premiere recording of Leighton’s Missa Christi: Festival Mass completed in the year of his death. The work had was by Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis to celebrate its sesquicentennial anniversary. It travels in a trajectory from the “anguished opening” of the Kyrie to the “serene coda” of the Agnus Dei. These two movements bookend the exuberant Gloria and the Sanctus with its bell-like rejoicing and triumphant Hosanna and the introspective Benedictus. This Mass blends his characteristic contemporary sharpness with the gentler, more rounded character of older styles.

Two short anthems by Leighton are included. The penitential Drop, drop, slow tears dating from 1961 is a perennial favourite. It was originally the final chorus from the Cantata Crucifixus pro nobis. A Hymn to the Trinity (1973) is a glorious “paean” to the doctrine’s ultimate radiance: lots of syncopation and vocal fanfares.

The bulk of the disc explores composers who studied with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music (RCM). A notable, lovely exception is the first recording of Imogen Holst’s Out of your sleep arise and wake (1968) based on an anonymous fifteenth-century carol.

The first of four pieces by Gustav Holst is the haunting miniature This have I done for my true love, op.34, no.1 (1916). It was dedicated to the ‘Red Vicar’ of Thaxted, Conrad Noel. Holst did not set much Anglican Liturgy: there is a Festival Te Deum and the present Nunc Dimittis. This latter was probably written at the behest of Richard Terry, Master of Music, at Westminster Cathedral. Holst set the Latin text from the Office of Compline rather than the one from the Book of Common Prayer. It was forgotten for many years until published by his daughter Imogen, in 1979. The Ave Maria, for eight-part women’s voices dates from 1900, and was dedicated to Holst’s mother. It is a splendid example of the creation of stillness and rapt contemplation. The final Holst number is a setting of Psalm 148, Lord, who hast made us for thine own. Based on the hymn tune ‘Lasst uns erfreun’ from the Geistliche Kirchengesänge (1623), this powerful anthem begins with an unaccompanied statement of the tune and builds up into a great song of praise celebrating the psalm’s exuberant call for all creation to join in thanksgiving.

Rebecca Clarke’s beautiful Ave Maria (1937) reflects her study of Palestrina’s counterpoint. Scored for three-part women’s chorus this short work was not published until 1998, some nineteen years after Clarke’s death.

On 16 April 1920 Rebecca Clarke confided to her diary: “Didn't do a blessed thing all day but sit and compose. Suddenly quite thrilled over a setting for another Psalm - He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. Wrote like mad all day…” This challenging setting of Psalm 91 was not published until 2003. Marin Jacobson (The Choral Journal, April 2016) explained that the structure of the anthem plays a significant role in developing the exposition of the text, which portrays God as one who shelters, protects, and rescues followers from evil. The use of SATB choir and SATB soloists “displays the greatest variety of textures…and [a] complex sound tapestry.”

The lovely unaccompanied anthem O brother man (1935) by Harold Darke sets words by the American Quaker poet and abolitionist J.G. Whittier. This call to universal brotherhood where love becomes true worship, healing humanity and bringing lasting peace was dedicated to fellow colleague at the RCM, William Harris. Written in the middle of the First World War, Harold Darke’s motet Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (1916) sets a catena of verses from the New Testament epistles of James and 1 Corinthians. These focus on themes of temptation and endurance. Dedicated “to the members of the Choir at St. James's Paddington,” this five‑minute meditation well reflects early twentieth‑century English sacred style. With the late Be strong and of good courage (1964) Darke turned to the Biblical books of Joshua and Kings. Created for the Jubilee of the Diocese of Chelmsford, this is an inspiring festive anthem that balances quieter moments with “stirring organ and choral fanfares.”

The booklet gives an essay length discussion of the music, the complete texts and translations and résumés of the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and their director Owen Rees. Dates of each piece in the track listing would have been helpful. There are no details about the two Organ Scholars Rudyard Cook and Arthur Barton who both make a splendid contribution to the success of this album.

This thoughtful programme, handsomely performed, restores neglected twentieth‑century choral music to vivid life, balancing major new discoveries with smaller gems and reaffirming the choir’s gift for revealing the depth and variety of England’s sacred repertoire.

Track Listing:
Kenneth Leighton (1929-88)
A Hymn to the Trinity (1973)
Harold Darke (1888-1976)
O brother man (1935)
Kenneth Leighton
Missa Christi: Festival Mass (1988)
Drop, drop, slow tears (1961)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
This have I done for my true love (1916)
Nunc Dimittis (1915)
Imogen Holst (1907-84)
Out of your sleep arise and wake (1968)
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Ave Maria (1937)
Harold Darke
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (1916)
Gustav Holst
Ave Maria (1900)
Rebecca Clarke
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High (1920/1)
Harold Darke
Be strong and of good courage (1964)
Gustav Holst
Lord, who hast made us for thine own (1912)
Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford/Owen Rees; Rudyard Cook (organ); Arthur Barton (organ)
rec. 7-9 December 2024, Chapel of Merton College, Oxford.
Signum Classics SIGCD 979

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

Introducing Patrick Hadley’s The Trees So High (1931) Part II

The Trees so High was completed during 1931. This was shortly after Hadley had withdrawn his application for a lectureship at Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne. He was concerned that this position would limit his time for writing music.

It is well known that the composer and conductor Constant Lambert (1905-51) had a low opinion of folk song as the basis for symphonic music. Anecdotally, he once stated that he considered that “the whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder.” William Mann (Sleeve Notes Lyrita SRCS 106, 1979) suggests that this comment may originally have been directed at Delius’s Brigg Fair. Eric Wetherell (1997, p.27) ponders that “It may not be too fanciful to assume that as an admiring pupil of Vaughan Williams, Paddy may have wanted to attempt something that his friend [Lambert] believed to be impossible” - a folk-symphony.

The completed score was dated “Heacham February 28,1931” and it was published by Oxford University Press the following year. The piece lasts for about 35 minutes.

The words of The Trees were taken from the Oxford Book of Ballads, edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch (1910). Hadley makes many changes and cuts to the text. Some of these alterations derive from the version of the song printed (alongside the tune) by Cecil J. Sharp and Charles L. Marson in their Songs of Somerset (c.1900, p.30f)

The ballad, The Trees so High, tells of a young man who was forced into marriage, aged only sixteen years of age. By seventeen he was a father, and he was dead and buried the following year. The narrator of the text would appear to be the lad’s wife, despite Hadley’s use of a baritone soloist.

The Trees so High is effectively a choral symphony. It has been likened in over-arching form at least, to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony (1822-24) and Mendelssohn’s Lobegesang (1840), in that the voices do not appear until the final movement. Furthermore, Strommen (2015, p.160) notes that The Trees is scored for a large orchestra, large mixed chorus, and baritone soloist “redolent of Delius’ s Sea Drift.”

In a detailed note to the vocal score, Hadley explains:

“This work…has four linked movements of which the first three are purely orchestral. They may be said to resemble three independent brooks which flow into one stream at the beginning of the last movement.”

The four movements are: I. Adagio ma non troppo, II. Andante tranquillo, III. Vivace and IV. Adagio.

Hadley continues with details about the formal parameters of The Trees:

“The first three movements are mainly constructed on the conventional symphonic plan, but with recurring thematic material, particularly those parts which are derived from phrases in the original air. The moods and ideas underlying the work arose out of this ballad and it tune, while the Introduction itself (of which the themes are structural to the entire work) owes its conception to the impression left upon the mind of the general shape and outline of those very trees “so high” which loom up all around in the imagined landscape amid which this simple country tragedy is set.”

The entire symphonic ballad could owe a considerable formal debt to Delius’s Brigg Fair (1907). This English Rhapsody was inspired by an old Lincolnshire folk song. Percy Grainger had discovered the tune and brought it to Delius’s attention. It can be analysed in more than a few ways, but a good rule of thumb would be to see it as a loose series of variations, on the folk tune. It does not always depend on the “found” song but is often athematic. Like The Trees, Brigg Fair is divided into four sections.

In 1976, Christopher Palmer’s monograph Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan was published. This major study explored Delius’s own compositions in the context of other works being written in America, Scandinavia, Germany, France, and England. This wide-ranging review extended from music by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin to Peter Warlock and C.W. Orr. Palmer’s overview (p.181f) of Hadley notes that he was “profoundly influenced by Delius’s musical outlook…”  Palmer considers that The Trees so High and The Hills exemplify Hadley’s choral works. Sadly, they have “been allowed to fall into oblivion”: Both feature music that fuses “the free-ranging, folk song-oriented lyricism of Vaughan Williams…with a spirit of a more Delian nature-mysticism.” The result in each case is “original Patrick Hadley.”

Palmer continues, “Folk song colours the melodic countenance of [The Trees] yet the guiding force is Delius, the moving spirit rather than the letter.”  Despite it being inspired by a folk song, the:

“…real protagonist is nature - the shadows of high trees and high hills loom large over the proceedings, and the wonder of Hadley’s music is that it is constantly able to convey constant visual suggestiveness of these phenomena, these all-embracing backdrops, even when no specific allusion is being made to them…The generative force of The Trees…is profoundly Delian.”

In an earlier essay, considering Delius, RVW and folk song as stimuli, Palmer had suggested that “Hadley somehow contrives to reconcile these often-conflicting influences into something refreshingly strong and distinctive; the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.” (Palmer, 1973, p.1107)

Campbell (2015, p.163) makes important contrasts and comparisons between Delius and Hadley. He considers that the “choral writing in The Trees is more varied in texture and vocal orchestration than in Delius.” Examples adduced include frequent division of the choir into more than four parts. On page 30 of the vocal score, to the words “To let the lovely ladies know/They may not touch and taste,” he expands the choir to S.S.A.T.T.B.B, the only moment he does this in the entire work. Also remarked is Hadley’s “more contrapuntal” vocal writing, “with frequent shifts between imitative and homophonic textures.” Another Delian characteristic can be found on page 30 of the vocal score: at the “moment of greatest intensity the chorus sings an unaccompanied passage before orchestra rejoins for the soft conclusion.” Similar events occur in Appalachia, Sea Drift and The Song of the High Hills. Campbell notes that two other examples of Delius’s impact are a few very high notes for sopranos and, in the coda, Hadley calling for the chorus to sing a chain of wordless “Ahs,” with the tenors and basses being required to go into head voice. (Think Koanga).

Finally, another similarity to Delius was Hadley’s suggestion in the score that “I have imagined the chorus seated throughout, and the soloist, if acoustic conditions allow, standing behind the orchestra but apart from the chorus, without an air of formality of apparent consciousness of his…own importance.” Delius called for a seated chorus in The Song of the High Hills and for a “discrete” soloist in his Appalachia.

The premiere performance of The Trees so High was given at a Cambridge University Musical Society concert on 10 June 1932, conducted by the composer. It was well-received by contemporary critics. Frank Howes (Monthly Musical Record, July 1932, cited Wetherall, 1997, p.29) wrote:

“The atmosphere is consistent throughout, and the work is equally beautiful in its larger outlines as in its smallest detail. It succeeds in being at once well organised and spontaneous. More than this, it is an important work beyond its intrinsic merits, great as they are, for it reveals a composer, hitherto known only for a few songs and small pieces, handling bigger music with such a sure touch.”

Recording

Two recordings of Patrick Hadley’s The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor have been made. The first was for the remarkable Lyrita record label and dates from 1975. Eighteen years later, Chandos issued a new edition. See the discography below for details.

Conclusion

Sadly, then as now, Hadley’s work is rarely heard, “not through any lack of intrinsic merit but because…it failed to receive the right kind of promotion at the time when the musical climate was most favourable.” (Palmer, 1976, p.181). Since these comments, a considerable proportion of his catalogue has been recorded, if not often heard in the concert hall or on the wireless.

One explanation for the failure of Hadley’s music to become popular is that sometimes “he lacks the warm-hearted expansive gestures of a Vaughan Williams on the one hand, and the luxuriant subjectivity of a Delius on the other.” His style tends towards “austerity of texture, rather than lushness, understatement and a species of tough-fibred introspection rather than passionate self-revelation or assertiveness.” (Palmer, 1974, p.152).

Nonetheless, Patrick Hadley’s exemplars are never too far away in The Trees and other works. Not a complete ‘Delius-ite,’ his music is infused by the elder composer’s reflective nature mysticism as well as quite a few obvious technical fingerprints.

Discography

1. Hadley, Patrick, The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor, Thomas Allen (baritone), Guildford Philharmonic Choir and New Philharmonia Orchestra/Vernon Handley with Finzi, Gerald, Intimations of Immortality: Ode for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, Ian Partridge (tenor), Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/Vernon Handley, Lyrita SRCD.238, 2007. Originally released on SRCS.106, 1979 (Hadley) and SRCS.75, 1975 (Finzi).
2. Hadley, Patrick, The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor, with Sainton, Philip, The Island, David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus/Mattias Bamert, Chandos CHAN 9181, 1993.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to MusicWeb International where the biographical details of Patrick Hadley were first published during 2000.

With thanks to the Delius Society Journal Autumn 2023, No.174: 19-28 where this essay was first published.

Concluded

Introducing Patrick Hadley’s The Trees So High (1931) Part I

In his thesis, Jonathan Daniel Strommen Campbell (2015, p.9) suggests that the impact of Delius on the music of Patrick Hadley “is more often in his themes of nature mysticism and the nostalgic love of the landscape of Britain. But there are concrete, musical examples of Delius’s influence….”

In 1931, Hadley completed his first important essay, the Symphonic Ballad in A minor: The Trees So High. Despite not being either a pastiche or a parody of Delius, it exhibits several fundamental characteristics of the elder man.

This essay is not an analytical study, but an attempt to characterise various responses that include references to the music of Fred. Delius. I include a brief biography of Patrick Hadley, as well as an overview of his catalogue.

The Composer

Patrick (“Paddy”) Arthur Sheldon Hadley was born in Cambridge on 5 March 1899. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke College. His mother, Edith Jane, was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Foster, Chaplain to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Dublin.

Patrick studied initially at St Ronan's Preparatory School at West Worthing and then at Winchester College. The First World War interrupted his education. He enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He managed to survive unscathed until the last weeks of the war when he received an injury that resulted in his right leg being amputated below the knee. This had a profound effect on his confidence. It led him to drink more than was wise; alcohol functioned as relief for the considerable pain he was constantly in.

After the War, Hadley went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was fortunate to study with both Charles Wood and the sadly undervalued English composer, Cyril Rootham. He was awarded Mus.B. in 1922, and an MA in 1925. Hadley then went to the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London. Here he came under the influence of Ralph Vaughan Williams for composition and Adrian Boult and Malcolm Sargent for conducting. He won the Sullivan prize in 1924, at that time the princely sum of £5 (about £250 now). His contemporaries at the RCM included Constant Lambert and Gordon Jacob.

Hadley became a member of the RCM staff in 1925 and taught composition. He became acquainted with Delius (see below), E.J. Moeran, Sir Arnold Bax, William Walton, Alan Rawsthorne and Herbert Howells. In fact, his friends were a litany of all that was best in English Music at that time.

In 1938 he was offered a Fellowship of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridgeshire and a position as lecturer at Cambridge University. A great deal of his time was spent administrating the music faculty. However, there was still time available for composition.

During the Second World War, Hadley deputised for Boris Ord (who was on active service) as conductor and director of the Cambridge University Music Society. There he introduced numerous works, including Delius' Appalachia and The Song of the High Hills. He was keen to promote a wide range of music - including the formation of a Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Hadley was elected to the Chair of Music at Cambridge University in 1946. He retained this post until his retirement in 1962. Several of the students he taught have gone on to remarkable things: choirmaster and academic, Philip Ledger, conductor, choirmaster and organist, David Lumsden and the musicologist, Peter le Huray. In 1962 he retired to his house at Heacham. He wished to pursue his interest in folk song collection. Latterly he struggled with throat cancer, and this caused many of his activities to be suspended. Patrick Hadley died on 17 December 1973: he was 74 years old.

The Music

Patrick Hadley’s catalogue of published music is small. His best-known pieces are the anthems My Beloved Spake (1936) for choir and organ (or orchestra), and I sing of a Maiden (1936). His large-scale works include the present The Trees So High, (1931), and the cantata setting Keats’s La Belle Dame sans Merci, (1935). Hadley’s magnum opus is The Hills (1944), featuring his own text for soprano, tenor, baritone, choir, and orchestra. Other significant achievements include the incidental music for Sophocles’ Antigone (1939), One Morning in Spring: sketch for small orchestra (1942) and the cantata Fen and Flood (1955). In 2019, the early unpublished tone poem Kinder Scout (1923) was released on the Chandos label. One of his major tasks were arrangements made for the Caius Chorus. These extended from Verdi's Stabat Mater to Waltzing Matilda. As Eric Wetherell explains (1997, p.171), the list of these is “inevitably incomplete. [Hadley] dashed them off and later discarded them.”

Patrick Hadley absorbed a number of influences. He was a confirmed “Wagnerite” coupled with an appreciation of Debussy and Ravel. The impact of the latter is often heard in his orchestration and “harmonic colouring” (Wetherell, 1997, p.51). It is hardly surprising that his composition teacher at the RCM, Vaughan Williams, had a bearing on his style. Nevertheless, Hadley never fully subscribed to the folk song revival. His works were never simply “fantasias” on folk tunes, played again, louder. He often used the musical characteristics of folk song but developed them with subtlety and originality. Hadley’s compositions are typically lyrical in sound and rarely rely on angular melodies or sharp dissonances for effect. Modernist techniques derived from Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School and their post-War successors, find no place in his achievement. 

Another crucial influence on Hadley was the landscape, especially the Fen Country, the Peak District, and parts of Ireland. Nature mysticism was a characteristic he shared with Delius.

Hadley and Delius

Eric Wetherell (1997, p.25f) explains that Hadley first met “the composer whose music always meant so much to him” at the Delius Festival in London held during October 1929. Delius was on one of his rare trips to England. He was staying in the Langham Hotel, Langham Place. Composer and impresario, Balfour Gardiner took Hadley to the hotel to meet him. Wetherell explains that the following spring, during the Easter Break, he contrived to visit Delius at Grez-sur-Loing, once again in the company of Balfour Gardiner. Eric Fenby (1936, 1981, p.92f) recorded that “it was decided that we should bottle the white wine, so Balfour Gardiner with boyish enthusiasm, sat on a log pouring out the wine…whilst Hadley corked [the bottles] with a machine, and I wired them.” And then there was “a dangerous escapade involving the removal of an unsightly branch overhanging the river.” (Wetherell, 1997, p.25)

Hadley’s chief service to Delius was his recovery of the full score holograph and orchestral parts of Koanga. It had been taken to London during 1914 and was subsequently mislaid. That said, there seem to be various versions of this story, involving other people. Giving Hadley the benefit of the doubt, it was found by him in 1930. He explains in a letter to William Randall:

There is not much to tell about my running to earth the score of Koanga. I had been staying at Grez where I managed to elicit all the remembered data about when & where it was last seen et cetera. I forget most of the details, but I do remember putting two & two together and putting the chances fairly high that it might be amongst the extensive stock of the Goodwin & Tabb Hire Library. I happened to be in constant touch with this Firm & its personnel, so on return to London I hastened to 34 Percy Street W.C.1, their then premises, and expatiated the situation. They wouldn't let me search in person, but they put 2 or 3 men onto it who laid their hands on it after a weekend's hunt. I post-hasted over by that night's boat and delivered it the following mid-day. (Letter from Hadley to William Randel, 24 December 1962, cited Randel, 1971, p.153).

 

Wetherell elaborates the story by explaining that Hadley in fact made two trips to Grez, the first with the parts and a second two weeks later with the full score. (Wetherell, 1997, p.26).

On 23 April 1930, Jelka Delius wrote to Percy Grainger: “We had an amusing visit from Balfour and Patrick Hadley, the young composer, whom we liked very much.” She recounted to Grainger the story of the recovery of the Koanga score but suggested that Peter Warlock had found the parts and that May Harrison had brought over the score when she visited Grez to play through the Violin Sonata in the presence of Delius. (Carley, 1988, p.365). It is a mystery that may never be fully resolved.

Finally, Balfour Gardiner and Hadley were due to visit the Delius household again in the spring of 1932: this had to be abandoned because of an outbreak of influenza at Grez.  

Bibliography:

1. Campbell, Jonathan Daniel Strommen, The Choral Music of Frederick Delius (1862-1934) And its Influence on the Choral Music of Early Twentieth-Century British Composers: A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, Fargo, North Dakota, 2015.
2. Carley, Lionel, Delius: A Life in Letters, 1909-1934, Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1988.
3. Fenby, Eric, Delius as I Knew Him, Dover Edition, London, 1936, 1981.
4. Palmer, Christopher, “Patrick Hadley: A Note on the church music,” Musical Times, November 1973.
5. Palmer, Christopher, “Patrick Hadley: The Man and His Music,” Music & Letters, April 1974.
6. Palmer, Christopher, Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan, Duckworth, London, 1976.
7. Randel, William, “‘Koanga’ and its Libretto,” Music & Letters, April 1971.
8. Wetherell, Eric, Paddy: The Life and the Music of Patrick Hadley, Thames Publishing, London, 1997.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to MusicWeb International where the biographical details of Patrick Hadley were first published during 2000.

With thanks to the Delius Society Journal Autumn 2023, No.174: 19-28 where this essay was first published.

To be continued…