The Younger English Composers: Walter Leigh by Roger Wimbush (Part II)

The second part of Roger Wimbush’s essay on Walter Leigh includes a Work’s List. This is not complete. To my knowledge, a definitive catalogue of his music has not been published.  It was published in The Monthly Musical Record (Jun3 1938 p.138-142).

IF REPERTORY IS THE FINEST TRAINING FOR THE STAGE, it can also be invaluable to the composer. A play a week means hard work for everybody, and Leigh found himself commissioned to furnish incidental music to Greek plays, Shakespeare, and the rest. [1] All this time his interest in the amateur was growing, and an important result was The Pride of the Regiment [2] the libretto again by Clinton-Baddeley. This was given at Cambridge in 1932, and in the West End at St. Martin's Theatre, where it had the bad luck to encounter a heat wave which killed nearly every play in London. In the meantime, a further piece for amateur orchestra had won a prize offered by the Danish publishers Hansen. [3] One of those interested in The Pride of the Regiment was Miss Rita John, [4] an actress who had inherited a fortune and had gone into management. She took upon herself the office of patron and was responsible for one of the greatest first-nights in the history of the London stage, when Jolly Roger [5] was mounted at the Savoy Theatre, with George Robey [6] raising both eyebrows at Equity. Such was the public interest that the first Saturday night broke all records for the house, and for some weeks Jolly Roger looked like making money. Gavin Gordon and Percy Heming [7] were giving the performances of their lives, and Mr. Leigh showed himself to be a man who knew the theatre as thoroughly as Purcell and Sullivan. Yet in six months the opera was withdrawn, and Miss John decided to stage a revue called Yours Sincerely. This flopped badly, the money dried up, and the stage temporarily lost a team who should never have been allowed to go. it is a sad truth that all recent productions of comic opera in London have failed; but that does not mean that a repertory season would fail, and it would be interesting to know what support there would be for an Opéra Comique in London.

After the end of' Jolly Roger Leigh once more looked about him. Sound-films were giving themselves airs and beginning to be important. The Post Office had organized their own film unit, and Leigh went into films. First came a cartoon Pett and Pott (directed by Cavalcanti) [8] and then in 1934 came Song of Ceylon, a propaganda film for tea, which was hailed in the press and given a season at the Curzon and later at the Polytechnic. [9] This film was important because the music was more than incidental; it had to fit and was used largely for creating atmosphere and psychological effects. Other jobs about this time—and it is not improper to think of these things as jobs—were a trio for three pianos performed at a luncheon given by Messrs. Challen [10] to celebrate their success in the ballot for instruments used at the B.B.C., the music for A Masque of Neptune (B.B.C.) and work for the Camargo Society, the organization which did so much to put ballet on its feet. Then in 1935 came Charlemagne, a B.B.C. adaptation of a French film.

Three years earlier, in 1932, a Sonatina for viola and piano was performed at the ISCM [International Society for Contemporary Music] Festival in Vienna, and in 1935 came the Trio for flute, oboe and piano, a work that is often broadcast. This was the year of George V's Silver Jubilee, and to commemorate the event the B.B.C. commissioned two works, one of which was Leigh's Jubilee Overture, now called Agincourt. The following year brought a commission of which the composer is justly proud. He was asked to write the music for the Greek Play Society's production of The Frogs at Cambridge. The music for these triennial productions bears the names of many of our most distinguished composers, a notable example being Vaughan-Williams's music to The Wasps before the War. Here again Leigh showed an unerring instinct for the theatre, as Londoners had an opportunity of judging when the entire production was transferred to the Chiswick Empire. A Concertino for harpsichord and strings appeared in 1937, which brings us to 1938 and Nine Sharp, the brilliant little revue now happily settled at the Little Theatre. [11] Here the music is subsidiary, but it provides another instance of the composer's adaptability to his medium.

It would be wrong to assume that Mr. Leigh does not want to write a great deal of music for its own sake. He is an artist with his own ideas, but he is also an artist who has to make a living, and while every artist has ideas, it is not everybody who can sell his work. It is not extravagant to say that Leigh resembles Liszt in his versatility, although his spirit would probably rebel at every other Lisztian principle. One day the symphonies and the operas will come, [12] but those who are impatient (as I am) can hasten the day by helping to create the necessary demand. We must never forget that Haydn wrote symphonies because it was his job to do so. He was always writing symphonies, and that is why he sometimes wrote masterpieces.

List Of Works

[Note that this List of Works provided by Roger Wimbush is a selection of music from Walter Leigh’s catalogue. There were several other pieces composed after this article was published.]

1929. String quartet.

Three pieces for amateur orchestra (Hug & Co., Zurich). 1930. Three movements for string quartet (Hansen, Copenhagen). Sonatina for viola and piano (I.S.C.M. Festival, 1932).

1931. Aladdin (book published by French).

Suite for amateur orchestra (Hansen).

1932. The Pride of the Regiment (Boosey & Hawkes).

Interlude (Camargo Society).

Trio for three pianos (Challen).

Masque of Neptune (B.B.C.).

1933. Jolly Roger (Boosey & Hawkes).

Music to Bastos the Bold (Embassy Theatre).

1934. Pett and Pott (G.P.O.).

Song of Ceylon (Tea Propaganda Board of Ceylon).

1935. Charlemagne (B.B.C.).

Agincourt Overture (available in O.U.P. Library).

Trio for flute, oboe, piano (Lemare concerts).

1936. The Frogs (O.U.P.).

Concertino for harpsichord and strings (Vieweg, Berlin).

1937. Music for The Silent Knight (St. James's Theatre).

1938. Nine Sharp.

In addition, Mr. Leigh has written numerous numbers for revues, a suite for A Midsummer Night's Dream (published by Vieweg of Berlin), and several songs, piano pieces and miscellaneous chamber works.

Notes:
[1] Walter Leigh’s incidental music included the radio play Charlemagne (1935), The Frogs (1936) and A Midsummer’s Night Dream (1936).

[2] The Pride of the Regiment or Cashiered for His Country (1932) was a comic operetta with the libretto by Scobie Mackenzie and V.C. Clinton-Baddeley. It was described in the Daily Telegraph (30 June, p.34) as “a sort of burlesque monodrama” set during the Crimean War. It poked fun at “imaginary generals and Prime Ministers…”  The Telegraph (7 July 1932, p.8) reports that “the music [by Leigh] is almost on a par with the text – but not quite…” The composer who was deemed a “champion of modernity” at the recent International Society for Contemporary Music in Vienna, “showed himself…as the upholder of a very old order.”

[3] This was the Suite for amateur orchestra published by Hansen in 1931.

[4] Rita John (fl.1930s) “was an actor turned theatrical producer of musical theatre active in London in the 1930s, establishing the company Rita John Productions to carry out her business. Little surviving information can be found – it seems likely she was working with a stage name, which makes finding further information very difficult.” (Sarah Whitfield Blog, accessed 17 September 2021).

[5] The libretto for Jolly Roger was once again by Scobie Mackenzie and V.C. Clinton-Baddeley (1900-70). The first performance was on 13 February 1933 at the Opera House in Manchester, and it subsequently played at the Savoy Theatre in the West End.  A contemporary review in The Play Pictorial (April 1933, p.54) noted that “Mr Leigh’s music [is] tuneful and scholarly… [and] has caught something of Sullivan’s spirit and mingled it with his own creative gift…”

[6] George Robey (1869-1954) was an English music-hall comedian known for many years as “the prime minister of mirth.”

[7] Gavin Gordon (1901-1970) was a Scottish composer, singer and actor.  His best-known composition was the Hogarthian ballet The Rake's Progress produced at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 1935.  Percy Heming (1883-1956) was an English operatic baritone singer and actor. He was well-known for his comic parts and lighter operas.

[8] Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti (1897-1982) was a Brazilian-born film director and producer. He was often credited on screen with the single name Cavalcanti. He directed documentaries, especially for the GPO film unit, as well a feature films, including Went the Day Well, Champagne Charlie and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. His best-known documentary is probably Night Mail, with music by Benjamin Britten and an iconic text by W.H. Auden.

[9] The Curzon Cinema is at 38 Curzon Street, Mayfair subsequently rebuilt on the 1960s. The Polytechnic opened as a theatre in 1848 and became famous after it featured the first motion picture shown in the United Kingdom.  It is located at 307 Regent Street and now trades as the Regent Street Cinema.

[10] Walter Leigh wrote his Music for Three Pianos in less than a week. The Challen Lunch was held on 27 September 1932. This event celebrated the adoption British pianos at Broadcasting House. Thirteen makes had been evaluated including foreign and British motes.

[11] The Little Theatre was situated in what is now John Adam Street. It opened in 1910. The theatre was bombed in 1917 during the First World War and was rebuilt. It was damaged again by bombs in 1941 and was finally demolished in 1949.

[12] Walter Leigh died in action during the Siege of Tobruk, Libya on the 12 June 1942. So, his last concert work was probably Eclogue for solo piano (1940). Or perhaps music for a Revue. The operas and symphonies never materialised.