Most of this
section of Brook’s pen-portrait needs little comment, however I have included a
few notes about the many compositions mentioned towards the end of the essay.
SOON after the outbreak of the Great War, Scott stayed for a little
while with Bernard Shaw and his wife at an hotel at Torquay.[1] He still
remembers that the great dramatist had just received an offer of five hundred
pounds to go to America and deliver a single lecture at the Carnegie Hall, but
had refused it because he couldn't see how the promoters could make such a
lecture pay, and he wouldn't have liked them to be out of pocket on his
account!
Scott volunteered for military service on several occasions but was
rejected as physically unfit, and had to be content with playing the piano at
concerts in aid of war charities. During the war years, he wrote several
anonymous books on occult philosophy as well as a great deal of music.
His opera The Alchemist was
written in 1918, [2] and as soon as Sir Thomas Beecham saw it he promised to
have it produced at Covent Garden, but for years it was dogged by bad luck,
Beecham went bankrupt before he could fulfil his promise, and then after all
arrangements had been made for its production at Wiesbaden, the opera house was
burnt to the ground just before the opening night. Eventually it was performed
at Essen on May 28th 1925.
In the autumn of 1920 Scott went to America to play his own works and
to lecture. His impressions of the United States are all recorded in My Years of Indiscretion, [3] and
therefore I do not propose to write at length on the subject here. He was very
surprised, for instance, to find that the people of New York never bothered to
draw the blinds of their bedroom windows when undressing at night, and from his
own room the prospect of no less than a hundred and sixty illuminated bedrooms
was disconcerting, to say the least.
He still recalls the sort of timetable that was worked out for him:
two days and two nights in a train, the recital or lecture to be given
immediately on arrival, and then another two days and nights of travelling! It
was on such a tour as this that he met a poetess who smoked strong black cigars
and read ‘shockers’ by the dozen.
The American love of music, he found, was sincere and deep-rooted.
They were prepared to pay handsomely for their music, and it was encouraging to
find successful business men spending their money not upon yachts or
racehorses, but in the endowment of symphony orchestras or opera. One of the
few annoyances he had to endure was the type of person who asked him what he
thought of Beethoven, or Bach, or some celebrity of the hour. Scott thinks that
such questions are foolish. What would a parson say, for instance, if someone
came up and asked him ‘What do you think of Moses?’
Of Scott's earlier works, I suppose ‘A Blackbird Song’ and ‘Daffodils’
[4] are still the most popular, but when people refer to him merely as the
composer of the ‘song about the blackbird’ he wishes that the blackbird were at
the bottom of the deepest ocean.
The best of the earlier works is undoubtedly ‘Sphinx’, [5] which I am told
was a favourite with Ravel. Other notable compositions are his ‘Lotus Land’,
[6] a richly oriental work which Kreisler later arranged for the violin, the
colourful collection of pieces entitled ‘Poems’ [7] and ‘Rainbow Trout’, [8]
and his brilliant Sonnet I, [9] a most original work in irregular rhythm. His
Chinese Songs, [10] by the way, provoked C. V. Stanford to a tirade of
indignation.
When a well-known singing professor heard Scott's setting of ‘An Old
Song Ended’ [11] he asked him how he could write such peculiar and discordant
harmonies to so simple and beautiful a lyric! Of his later works, his Two Songs
without words [12], and ‘Mist’ and ‘Rain’ [13] are particularly effective.
Scott's Ode to Great Men [14] was
performed at the Norwich Festival in 1936, but this impressive work for orator,
female chorus and orchestra fell short of expectations as far as reviving
interest in the composer's major works was concerned. His Piano Concerto [15]
has always been warmly received wherever it has been heard, yet he is amazed to
find that concert promoters of the present day still regard it as a work upon
which they might be involved in financial loss. For that reason, he doubts
whether the British composer gets a fair chance of being heard. The neglect, he
believes, is partly due to the commercialization of music.
Scott admits that the music of Beethoven makes little or no appeal to
him, and he feels that the work of many of the lesser-known Russian composers
compares favourably with that of Tchaikovsky. It is also his opinion that long
after the death of Queen Victoria, British music was asphyxiated by Victorian
propriety and correctitude. He readily admits that the BBC has done good work
in taking music to the masses, but he feels that in so doing it has ‘cheapened’
music, because people regard it now as something ‘on tap’ like the water in
their kitchens, and respect it accordingly.
Donald Brook, Composer’s Gallery (London, Rockcliff,
1944)
Notes:
[1] This was the Hydropathic Hotel (now the Headland Hotel) There is a
photo of Cyril Scott taken at this venue in 1915, in the London School of
Economics database of photographs.
[2] The Alchemist, the first
of Cyril Scott’s operas, was composed in 1917-18. However, it had to wait until
1925 before it was given its premiere in Essen.
[3] My Years of Indiscretion,
Mills & Boon, Ltd, London 1924, the first of Cyril Scott’s autobiographical
books.
[4] ‘A Blackbird’s Song’ was written in 1906 on a poem by Rosamund
Marriot Watson (1860-1911) and ‘Daffodils’ was a setting of a text by Ella
Erskine (?)
[5] ‘Sphinx’, op.63 is a piano piece composed around 1908. The mood of
the music is impressionistic.
[6] Lotus Land is probably Cyril Scott’s best known piano piece. This
exotic, impressionistic work was composed and published in 1905. It was
dedicated to the American composer and conductor Henry Hadley (1871-1937). The
work was premiered by fellow Frankfurt Group composer, Percy Grainger at the
Bechstein (now Wigmore) Hall on 15 November 1905. Other arrangements of this
work include one for two piano, four hands and the above mentioned
transcription by Fritz Kreisler for violin and piano (c.1922).
[7] ‘Poems’ is a collection of five piano pieces: ‘Poppies’, ‘Garden
of Soul Sympathy’, ‘Bells’, ‘Twilight of the Year’ and ‘Paradise-Birds’. Each
piece is prefaced by a short poem also written by the composer. They was published
in 1912.
[8] ‘Rainbow Trout’ (1916) is another piano piece that exploits exotic
chords and scales, creating a numinous image of a the fish swimming in clear
waters. It was possibly inspired by Claude Debussy’s ‘Poisson d’or.’
[9] The ‘Sonnet I’ was written in 1914 for violin and piano. It was
revised 42 years later in 1956.
[10] The composition history of Chinese Songs is a little complex.
Originally composed in 1906, these two songs were ‘Waiting’ and ‘A Picnic.’ The
Chinese lyrics were translated by the British diplomat and China specialist,
Herbert A. Giles (1835-1935). They were eventually incorporated into Songs of Old Cathay (1919). Eaglefield
Hull (Cyril Scott: Composer, Poet and
Philosopher, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd, 1918)
writes that ‘the oriental feeling in these two wonderful songlets is
delightfully reproduced. Whilst the first reaches the harmonic system as nearly
as possible with a twelve-note scale, the second wins my preference, being
filled with a delightful rattle of musical ‘chopsticks’.’
[11] ‘An Old Song Ended’ was published by Elkin in 1911. It is a
setting of words by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The song was dedicated to the soprano
Maggie Teyte (1888-1976). Who the singing professor was, I am not sure of.
[12] Two Songs without Words would appear to be two pieces for voice
and piano. The first is a ‘Pastorale’ dating from 1919 and the second is
‘Tranquillity’. Neither song has a text, but is ‘vocalised.’
[13] ‘Mist’ was composed around 1925, to a text by Marguerite E.
Barnsdale and ‘Rain’ was setting of words by Margaret Maitland Radford dated
1916.
[14] Scott's Ode to Great Men seems
to have disappeared from notice. This choral piece was composed for the Norwich
Music Festival and received its premiere there on 24 September 1936. It was a
setting of the apocryphal biblical book Ecclesiasticus (Chapter 44) and words
from Shelley. The setting was made for tenor/narrator, orchestra and women’s
chorus.
[15] Cyril Scott wrote several concerted works for piano and
orchestra. The one that Donald Brooks refers to is Piano Concerto No.1 in C
major which was composed in 1913-14 and was premiered at a British Music
Festival at the Queen’s Hall in London on 15 May 1915. Sir Thomas Beecham
conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Scott as soloist. It has been
recorded on Chandos CHAN 10376 and on Lyrita SRCD. 251.
In 1958 Scott completed his Piano Concerto No.2. This has been issued
on Lyrita SRCD. 251 and on Chandos CHAN 10211.
Another important work was ‘Early One Morning’, Poem for Piano and
Orchestra dating from 1931. They are recorded on Chandos CHAN 10376 and on
Lyrita SRCD. 251. There is Concertinos for two pianos and
orchestra, which was completed in 1931, as well as an uncompleted Concerto in
D, op.10, c.1900.