Any inclusive study of post-Second World War music in Great
Britain must take into account a number of trajectories. These include, but are
not limited to, the phenomenon of Benjamin Britten, ‘conservatives’ like Robert
Simpson and Edmund Rubbra, ‘traditionalists’ such as Kenneth Leighton and Alun
Hoddinott, serialism, minimalism, light music, ‘pop’, progressive rock and the so-called
avant-garde or modernist music. The
present book is mainly concerned with the last of these styles, nevertheless,
the boundaries are fluid. David Bedford, for example, can sit in more than one
camp. Any debate has to recognise artistic development over time. What critic in
the 1960s would have imagined that Peter Maxwell Davies would become a major
symphonist or that John Tavener had moved into the realms of ‘diatonic tonalism’?
The main time frame explored in British Musical Modernism is from the ‘famous’ January 9 1956
concert presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London by the
Manchester Group (Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle and Goehr) to the
mid-nineteen-seventies. The era is well-summed up in Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise (2009) – ‘Music
exploded into a pandemonium of revolutions, counterrevolutions, theories,
polemics, alliances and party splits. The language of modern music was
reinvented on an almost yearly basis.’ Ross notes twelve-tone works, total
serialism, chance music, ‘neo-dada happenings’ and collages as some of the
contemporary techniques used.
British Musical Modernism ‘traverses a generation of composers in
[a] sequence of focussed interpretive readings of a selection of their key
works.’ Philip Rupprecht declares that the chapters are more akin to pen and
ink drawings rather than a ‘full-dress canvas in oils.’ In reality, he is being
modest. Into this progression of music, the author introduces detailed studies
of eleven composers and several of their compositions. Some of these have
become well-known to enthusiasts of this era: others have fallen by the
wayside. None has become popular in the wider classical music world: they are
rarely heard in the concert hall or on radio. The discussions of individual works in this
book are thorough and represent a major scholarly analysis that has not been
attempted before. The author recognises
that he has ‘[traced] one path through the British modernist scene after 1956.’
There are other journeys that can (and ought to) be developed through these two
vibrant decades.
Rupprecht argues that many British composers lagged
Continental developments in applying progressive procedures. Listeners and
concert-goers were given less opportunities to get to grips with modernism than
their European counterparts. On the other hand, it is important to recall
Jennifer Doctor’s contention (The BBC and
Ultra-modern Music 1922-36, 1999) that the schools of Webern and Schoenberg
were better represented in Britain during the middle part of the twentieth
century than had been hitherto suggested.
Musically, the period considered by British Musical Modernism has suffered relative neglect in academic
and popular deliberation. One important textbook, British Music Now, edited by Lewis Foreman (1975) covered this era,
but clearly was written close to the events. It still forms a good introduction
to the subject. The major historical volumes issued by Blackwell and Oxford
University Press outline the important players and artistic mores in more or
less detail. Grove’s provides further information on the composers and their
musical styles. Other information can be gleaned from the academic press, theses
and dissertations.
Much has been written about the Manchester Group. Maxwell
Davies has had the greatest attention: there are bibliographies, a source book,
surveys of music and biographies. As former Master of the Queen’s Music he has
become a popular figure with many listeners. Harrison
Birtwistle has a few books dedicated to his music, including Jonathan Cross’ recent
Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music (2014) and a collection of Studies
(2015). Relatively little has been written about
Alexander Goehr. There is the hard to find Sing
Ariel: Essays
and Thoughts for Alexander Goehr's Seventieth Birthday which was issued in 2003, and the thirty-five year old book by Bayan
Northcott, The Music of Alexander Goehr.
A vital text for historians of the
Manchester Group and their time is Finding the Key: Selected Writings of
Alexander Goehr which was published by Faber & Faber in 1998.
Many of the other contemporaries
discussed by Philip
Rupprecht have no formal studies in print. Especially lacking are definitive
biographies of David Bedford, Gordon Crosse and Thea Musgrave.
British Musical Modernism is a densely written book, with each
chapter being largely descriptive of a particular set of composers or specific style.
There is deliberately no attempt at following their careers beyond the
mid-seventies. The musical analyses range from Elisabeth Lutyens’ serial ‘Wittgenstein’
Motet (1953) to the Tim Souster’s ‘crossover’ World Music (1974/80) which ‘encapsulates the pop/avant-garde ‘collision’
he had sensed years before.’
Chapters include introductory material defining British
modernism, which is a decidedly tricky business. ‘Post-War motifs’ surveys the influence of the
‘internationalist ideal’ on British composers. Rupprecht suggests that an
iconic event was the first performance of Iain Hamilton’s Sinfonia for double
orchestra at the 1959 Edinburgh Festival. This generated reviews representing
it as ‘a flash point of chauvinist tensions between nationalist and
internationalist music.’ It was written to commemorate the bi-centenary of
Robert Burns’ birth. Something ‘kailyard’ akin to his earlier popular Scottish Dances (1956) was widely
anticipated, but Hamilton turned in an avant-garde piece that caused
consternation.
William Glock’s presence as controller of the BBC and his
enthusiasm for ‘modernist’ music is examined in considerable detail.
The Manchester Group (or School) is featured in Chapter 3. After
presenting concerts of music in Manchester and London in the mid-nineteen fifties,
Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle and Goehr went on to become leading avant-garde
composers in the United Kingdom. Their attempts to synthesise the serial-structuralist
music emerging from the
Continent, especially from Darmstadt, with more traditional British elements
were largely successful, if not immediately popular. Their further development in the nineteen-sixties
is observed in Chapter 5. Opinion has often focused on the break from tradition
that they created. However, Rupprecht stands the argument on its head and
examines the use made by these composers of English poetry and texts, the
rediscovery of Elizabethan models such as the First
Taverner Fantasia by Maxwell Davies and folk-traditions like Punch and Judy
developed into a ‘stark’ opera by Birtwistle and the same composer’s ‘Down by
the Greenwood Side’ utilising an old English ballad.
Chapter 4 examines an important cluster of ‘modernist’
composers who were active during the height of the Manchester Group. It analyses
music by Nicolas Maw, Richard Rodney Bennet, Thea Musgrave and Gordon Crosse,
each of whom were ‘responding to the post-Webern moment in 1950s modernism.’ The
sub-section, ‘In the Serial Workshop: Elegy, op.1’ which investigates Gordon
Crosse’s early piece is an excellent piece of scholarship. He is an important composer who has been
largely ignored by musical historians. Richard Rodney Bennett’s music is given
an overview as well as a detailed consideration of his Symphony No.1 (1965).
I was particularly interested by Chapter 7 – ‘Vernaculars:
Bedford and Souster as pop musicians.’ Rupprecht
investigates how both men progressed from being ‘well-versed in the British
modernist scene’ and having had ‘formal institutional training’ towards a
rapprochement with ‘pop, rock, American minimalism, electronic sounds and
non-European music.’ David Bedford is considered in over 30 pages of text,
making it one of the most extensive examinations of his music available. Works
examined are Whitefield Music (1967),
Two Poems for Chorus (1963) (called Two Choruses in the text), the Tentacles of the Dark Nebula (1968/9) and
one of my favourite pieces of avant-garde music, Twelve Hours of Sunset (1974).
This last piece pushes towards a perfect fusion of the ‘vernacular’ and
the ‘modernist’ approach to composition.
Fascinatingly, this chapter includes a comprehensive study of
Malcolm Arnold’s Fourth Symphony with its pop/Caribbean inspired ‘big’ tune and
Peter Maxwell Davies’ St. Thomas Wake with
the famous ‘foxtrot.’
The web-address of an extensive discography (.pdf) of compositions
cited in the text is included. It is a valuable document for both the listener
and historian of this period. The book has an impressive bibliography which
provides a huge compendium of sources. It ranges from contemporary criticism of
music to essays and articles by the composers and instrumentalists themselves,
to modern readings of this music. It is wide-ranging and includes the
theoretical writings of Pierre Boulez and Michael Nyman through to Bernard
Benoliel’s essay on ‘Mike Oldfield – with and without Bedford.’ There are
references to current politics, volumes of poetry and interviews with artists. Assessments
of music as diverse as The Beatles, Soft Machine, Cornelius Cardew and
Elisabeth Lutyens are cited. It would have been useful to have subdivided the
bibliography into sections – reviews, books, journal articles, websites and
academic theses and dissertations. There is a wide-ranging index providing
references to all the composers, performers and their musical works.
British Musical Modernism is printed on high-quality paper. I
found that the font is a little small for my eyes, especially with the
footnotes. There are a number of photographs (or figures) including images of musicians
and holographs of scores. Throughout the text there are many musical examples
in both full-score and piano reduction. These are clear and readable. It was a
wise decision to use footnotes rather than endnotes: for an academic book it is
not over burdened with them.
Philip Rupprecht’s webpage intimates that ‘…he specializes in music of the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries. His recent writings engage concepts of narrative in
opera, the circulation of stereotypes in the formation of national traditions
in music, and agency effects in instrumental music. He is the author of Britten's Musical Language (Cambridge,
2002). He co-edited Tonality 1900-1950:
Concept and Practice (2012); and edited Rethinking
Britten (2013).’ He is currently Associate Professor (Music Theory and
Musicology)’ at Duke University.
I implied above that this is primarily a scholarly book. The
majority of copies sold will end up in the libraries of universities and music
colleges. And this is as it should be. However, any private researcher who is
interested in the British avant-garde will also discover that this book is
essential.
There are three reasons for its success. Firstly, a huge arc
of musical history is investigated. It explores beyond the ‘Manchester Group,’ into
areas which have not been adequately studied. Secondly, the extensive bibliography
is an ideal place to commence any in-depth enquiry into this generation of
composers. And thirdly, the musical works analysed may be challenging, but they
are all important and significant contributions to the period. Philip Rupprecht’s
clever approach to this investigation combines technical details with reception
history which makes this book an impressive gateway into this complex,
sometimes off-putting, but always thought-provoking musical world.
Rupprecht is correct when he admits that British Musical Modernism concentrates on a ‘small gathering of
scores’ and that the book cannot ‘approach comprehensive coverage.’ He suggests
that any overview must either be
synoptic or ‘a shelf of book-length studies.’ This present volume is an essential
survey of a generation of British music that has been largely ignored. What
Rupprecht has begun, will hopefully be continued by others. I believe that this
book sets the baseline for all future research into the ‘avant-garde’ of
the post-Second World War era.
British
Musical Modernism: The Manchester Group and their Contemporaries
By
Philip Rupprecht
Music
since 1900 series
504pp,
published 2015
ISBN:
9780521844482
Cambridge
University Press
Price:
£84.99 (US$135.00)
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