The school journal, The
Framlingham had announced that H.R.H. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone,
who was Visitor to the College “has graciously consented to open the new
Assembly Hall on Friday, June 26th, 1964.” This event was part of the school’s
Centenary Celebrations held over the period 26-28 June. To remind readers, Princess Alice was the
last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria. She was born in Windsor Castle on 25
February 1883, and died 97 years later at Kensington Palace on 3 January 1981. The
significance of this must be recalled. The College was dedicated to Prince
Albert, the Prince Consort, when it opened in 1864.
The day’s events included the
Centenary Service, a Dramatic Retrospect and the Concert. The review in The
Framlingham, suggested that “it was not too fulsome praise to affirm that
the three presentations represent a trilogy of triumph for all concerned” and
especially for Mr Cox, the musical director, “who inevitably bore the heaviest
burden.”
The Concert, naturally enough, began with the National Anthem, in the arrangement by Benjamin Britten. This had been premiered at the 1962 Leeds Festival. The concert proper opened with Britten’s Psalm 150, op.67, which was also composed in 1962. This was followed by Carl Maria von Weber’s Concertino in E flat for Clarinet and Orchestra, op.26. The soloist was S.P. Llewellyn. The work, before the interval, was Doreen Carwithen’s Suffolk Suite, which as the programme noted, was “written at the invitation of the College, especially for this concert.”
After the break, G. M. Coomber
was the soloist in the first movement of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A
minor. Purcell’s Suite in D major
followed, possibly in an orchestral arrangement? The first movement of J.S.
Bach’s Violin Concerto in A BWV 1041 was then given, with the soloist K. Holmes.
Camille Saint-Saens’s The Carnival of the Animals was played with the
two pianos played by G. M. Coomber and S.G. Coles. This long concert concluded
with Malcolm Arnold’s rarely heard, and still professionally unrecorded Toy
Symphony. The Framlingham College Orchestra and Choral Society was directed
by Deryck Cox, the school’s Director of Music.
The Framlingham reviewer
considered that “the highlight was undoubtably the first performance of a new
work specially commissioned for the occasion, the Suffolk Suite by
Doreen Carwithen…” He adds that this “is a tone poem of varied facets of
Suffolk life of which…the most attractive was the second movement, a seascape
of Orfordness, with the sun playing on the bright water and the sails filling
the fitful breeze. But the whole work made joyful listening, yet not without
its moments of pastoral melancholy. How well it was orchestrated, and how well
the orchestra gave its inaugural performance.”
The school magazine reports that an LP record of the Centenary Events was made, priced 45/- (£2.25). That is about £45 with inflation! I wonder if any have survived?
Princess Alice displayed “vivacious
energy that seemed to contradict those…reference books, which ungallantly give
her octogenarian status, she spent nearly twelve hours at the school; meeting,
talking, inspecting, appraising; only briefly resting and all the time
charming. Her Royal Highness was supported by the Earl of Stradbroke, who was
Lord Lieutenant of the County and President of the College Corporation.”
Interestingly, the following
month (July), Doreen Carwithen and her husband, the composer William Alwyn
acted as adjudicators for the end of term musical competition. This included
categories for piano, organ, senior instrumental, essay and composition. The
Framlingham reported that “Everyone who took part in the competitions
should value and act upon their well informed and constructive criticisms.” Winners
of each category included instrumentalists who had performed at the Centenary
Concert. G M Coomber won first prize for
playing Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie, Rheinberger’s second prize
for Fugue from the Organ Sonata No. 3 and the composition prize with his Sonata
in A minor for organ. S G Coles was equally talented, coming first in the organ
category with the opening movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata No.2 in C
minor, second in the Senior Instrumental section with Eric Coates Saxo
Rhapsody and first in the Composition category with a movement from a
Clarinet Sonata. I wonder what happened to these two students and their works?
With many thanks to the staff at Framlingham College, Suffolk for their assistance in locating relevant details from The Framlingham.
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