 |
| by Arthur Rackham |
I was delighted to hear for the
first time Herbert Howell’s Puck’s Minuet
from the Two Pieces for Small Orchestra, op.20 which has recently been released
by Dutton Epoch. (CDLX 7317)
The CD also includes a realisation of Howell’s Cello Concerto. I have wanted to
hear the Minuet ever since purchasing
the Lyrita
recording of the Sir Adrian Boult conducting Merry Eye which is the second of the two pieces.
Puck’s Minuet was completed in November 1919 as a commission for
the amateur Gloucester Orchestral Society conducted by Sir Herbert Brewer, who
was organist of the Cathedral. The work is dedicated to his (Brewer's) daughter, Eileen
Brewer.
Paul Spicer has noted that
Howells wrote the entire piece, in full score, in a three-hour ‘sitting’ at
Reading Station whilst waiting on his train to Gloucester. However, in a diary
entry quoted in Palmer (Herbert Howells:
A Centenary Celebration, 1995) Howells states that it was ‘composed in a
public reading-room, in 1917!’ The ‘Reading/reading’ words may have caused
confusion or false memory.
Christopher Palmer notes the
work’s popularity just after the end of the Great War. He tells how the manuscript reposed in the
offices of the publisher Messrs Goodwin and Tabb. Seemingly it was published
before it was first heard. Sir Hamilton Harty ‘chanced upon
it’ and decided to take it up, hence its popularity. The work received its
first performance at the Queen’s Hall, London on 4 March 1919 with Harty
conducting elements of the London Symphony Orchestra. The work was given an
immediate encore. Two days later it was
performed in Gloucester by the Gloucester Orchestral Society
Puck’s Minuet has an unusual scoring – two flutes, two clarinets,
bass clarinet, timpani, percussion, piano, three solo violins and strings. Palmer notes that this was ‘determined by the
constitution of Brewer’s orchestra’. Yet
Howells manages to use these forces to create ‘subtly individual coloration’
resulting in a work that displays ‘freshness and piquancy.’
The composer was unable to attend
due to ill health, but eagerly awaited the reviews of the concert. He wrote ‘I
had ‘Puck’ in mind all day, thinking of how it would fare at the Queen’s Hall where
Hamilton Harty would be playing it tonight with the London Symphony Orchestra,
at Miss Murray Lambert’s recital (violin). To know its fate meant waiting till
tomorrow morning.’ However, his wait was not to be disappointed: ‘And on this
first day of Lent I learnt from the Daily Telegraph and the Times and all the
other press, how the little Puck had so delighted the people gathered at the
Queen’s Hall that it had to be repeated immediately…a most unusual occurrence…And
the critics always follow the crowd. So I had a headline in the Times, and all
the lesser fry were gracious.’
The work was heard at Bournemouth
four times and at the ‘Proms’ on eight occasions.
I will post some reviews of the
concert and early recordings of Puck’s Minuet on subsequent posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment