George Dyson: Voluntary in D major for organ.

Best remembered for his grand choral canvases, Sir George Dyson’s modest output for the organ reveals a composer of remarkable poise and practical talent.

George Dyson was born on 28 May 1883 in Halifax, Yorkshire, into a family where music was part of daily life. In 1900 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying composition under Charles Villiers Stanford, and four years later he secured the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which allowed him to travel through Italy, Austria, and Germany and encounter leading composers such as Richard Strauss. His early professional life combined practical musicianship and teaching: he served first as an assistant organist and later as director of music at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, before moving into school posts at Marlborough College. During the First World War he served as a grenadier officer and became known for writing a widely circulated training manual on grenade warfare, though he was eventually invalided home suffering from shell shock. In the interwar years Dyson established himself as a distinguished schoolmaster and lecturer, holding influential positions at Rugby, Wellington, and Winchester. His administrative gifts were recognised in 1938 when he became Director of the Royal College of Music - the first former student to do so - where he introduced significant financial and organisational reforms. He steered the institution through the upheavals of the Second World War, preserving both its stability and its academic standards.

As a composer, Dyson worked in a firmly late‑Romantic idiom shaped by the legacy of Parry and Stanford. Among his most notable works are The Canterbury Pilgrims, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Symphony in G. He died in Winchester on 28 September 1964, leaving behind a body of music that fell into neglect for a time but has since enjoyed a welcome revival.

Though his organ output is modest, it is finely made: six late works, including a Prelude and Postlude, the Fantasia, and Ground Bass, and twelve Psalm‑tune variations in three books, alongside an unpublished youthful Sonata. These reveal Dyson’s characteristic clarity, warmth, and contrapuntal poise, offering organists repertoire that is approachable yet rewarding.

The Voluntary in D was written for An Album of Praise, published by Oxford University Press in 1958. This included works by Gordon Jacob, Flor Peeters, Peter Hurford, Norman Gilbert, and Healey Willan. Paul Spicer, in his study of the composer, has said they were “designed as organ voluntary repertoire for the average organist.” However, none of them are a cinch.

Ideally, the present Voluntary was written for a large organ with at least three manuals with pedals and was designed as a recessional voluntary for a cathedral or large parish church.

This is a powerful, dynamic piece that is more rhapsodic than strictly formal. It develops from a fanfare motive played on the Great organ at the start. Ostensibly composed in D major, the work moves through a series of modulations in the contrasting sections often including changes between manuals. The piece concludes with a loud ‘largamente’ chorale-like succession of chords.

Apart from the suggestion of which of the three manuals ought to be used, Dyson gives no indication of his preferred registration. Although the score does not call for reed stops, they would certainly be effective.

Despite the rhapsodic nature of the Voluntary, there is no sense that it is sprawling or lacking in compositional discipline. Stylistically, it shows little evidence of Dyson’s ‘pastoral’ style which he used sparingly. Rather, it is largely tonal, lyrical, and grounded in the English choral‑cathedral tradition.

Listen to Daniel Cook playing George Dyson’s Voluntary in D on YouTube, here. The piece is played on the magnificent organ in St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. This was included on “The Complete Organ Works of George Dyson” (Priory PRCD 1136, 2014).

Anthony Hedges: Scenes from the Humber (1981)

On the evening of Friday, 17 July, the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra gave the first performance of Anthony Hedges’s Scenes from the Humber at Hull City Hall. It was conducted by Günther Herbig. At this time, Hedges was lecturer at the University of Hull’s music department. The work had been commissioned by the BBC to mark the official opening of the Humber Bridge, connecting the then South and North Humberside, or more traditionally, Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. The bridge had been commissioned for traffic on 24 June 1981 but was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 July. Other music commemorating the opening of the bridge included the now forgotten Humber Bridge Suite by David Newstone and Stephen Burnby, and Hedges’s A Humberside Cantata, setting a poem by Philip Larkin, completed in 1976 in confident anticipation that the bridge would open that year. It was eventually premiered on 11 April 1981 by the Hull Choral Union.

Scenes from the Humber is a short, fifteen-minute suite in four movements. It is written in a “light” style. The overall impact is of a well-written work that is evocative and distinctive.

In his programme note, Anthony Hedges explained that “Each of the four movements draws its inspiration from a particular aspect of the river” He then gave brief notes:-

Petuaria Patrol. Petuaria was the Roman name for Brough, some ten miles to the west of Hull. It was the main crossing point on the north bank of the Humber for the Roman legions, and a Roman settlement. This march-like movement begins quietly, as from a distance, gradually increases in intensity, (as the cohorts pass by), and recedes again into the distance.

Spurn Point Elegy. Spurn Point is the desolate and shifting spit of land at the mouth of the Humber, its mysterious and windswept terrain provides a sanctuary for seabirds.

“Lincoln Castle” Intermezzo. The ‘Lincoln Castle’ was the last of the paddle steamers to serve as a Humber ferry and now lies beached in the shadow of the Bridge, converted into a restaurant. Although built in the 1940’s, its design and atmosphere belonged to an earlier part of the century, and this is reflected in the chuggy and slightly jazzy mood of the music. The ship’s siren before departure was a very distinctive sound. [‘Lincoln Castle’ was scrapped in 2010]

Humber Keel Hornpipe. The Humber Keels were flat-bottomed sailing barges that plied up and down the Humber in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their annual regatta was an important feature of life on the river, and an oil painting of the first of these regattas showing Humber Keels scudding down the river, provided the starting point for this movement.

Other works heard at the celebration concert included Tchaikovsky’s Overture: Romeo and Juliet, Schubert’s Symphony No.5 and the ‘Prelude’ and ‘Liebestod’ from Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Günther Herbig conducted the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra.

The critic Douglas Bowen reporting on the concert (Hull Daily Mail, 20 July 1981) stated that Hedges’s Scenes “captured the heart and imagination of a vociferously appreciative audience.” He remarks on the “characteristic craftsmanship and resource” deployed by the composer. This “readily engaging suite is not without humour, illustrated by the chuggy jazz Intermezzo and the tongue in cheek fugal writing in the hornpipe.” Bowen considered that the most “effective movement is the Elegy, where economical and sensitive use of solo woodwind and muted strings creates a most chilling and desolate atmosphere.”

Turning to the remainder of the concert, he thought that some of the music was an “odd choice for such a national and prestigious occasion.”  However, despite a “lack-lustre account” of the Schubert Symphony, the other works “had special excitement when everything springs from genuine musical feeling.” Overall, the “splendidly precise but flexible orchestra…eloquently revealed the spirit of the music with a wealth of opulent and often incandescent sound.”

Scenes from the Humber became one of Anthony Hedges most popular works. It has received two recordings. The first was issued on LP in 1981 by the Meridian Records label, E77047. Hedges’s A Humberside Cantata and his Kingston Suite were also included. The Humberside Sinfonia was conducted by the composer with the Hull Choral Union conducted by Alan Spedding. The second recording was released in 1997 on the Marco Polo label, 8.223886. This CD included his Four Breton Sketches, Heigham Sound: Overture, Four Miniature Dances, and the Kingston Sketches. The RTÉ Sinfonietta was conducted by the composer. The CD was reissued in 2022 on 8.574324, with different artwork.

The Meridian edition of Scenes from the Humber has been uploaded to YouTube here

The Crown of Life: Choral Music by Leighton, Clarke, Holst and Darke

The introduction to the liner notes for this latest disc from the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford explains that it continues the choir’s exploration of overlooked treasures of the twentieth century English choral repertoire. It follows on from That Sweet City (reviewed, here) released in 2024 which featured Kenneth Leighton’s early cantata Veris Gratia and RVW’s An Oxford Elegy.

The heart of this new album is the world premiere recording of Leighton’s Missa Christi: Festival Mass completed in the year of his death. The work had was by Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis to celebrate its sesquicentennial anniversary. It travels in a trajectory from the “anguished opening” of the Kyrie to the “serene coda” of the Agnus Dei. These two movements bookend the exuberant Gloria and the Sanctus with its bell-like rejoicing and triumphant Hosanna and the introspective Benedictus. This Mass blends his characteristic contemporary sharpness with the gentler, more rounded character of older styles.

Two short anthems by Leighton are included. The penitential Drop, drop, slow tears dating from 1961 is a perennial favourite. It was originally the final chorus from the Cantata Crucifixus pro nobis. A Hymn to the Trinity (1973) is a glorious “paean” to the doctrine’s ultimate radiance: lots of syncopation and vocal fanfares.

The bulk of the disc explores composers who studied with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music (RCM). A notable, lovely exception is the first recording of Imogen Holst’s Out of your sleep arise and wake (1968) based on an anonymous fifteenth-century carol.

The first of four pieces by Gustav Holst is the haunting miniature This have I done for my true love, op.34, no.1 (1916). It was dedicated to the ‘Red Vicar’ of Thaxted, Conrad Noel. Holst did not set much Anglican Liturgy: there is a Festival Te Deum and the present Nunc Dimittis. This latter was probably written at the behest of Richard Terry, Master of Music, at Westminster Cathedral. Holst set the Latin text from the Office of Compline rather than the one from the Book of Common Prayer. It was forgotten for many years until published by his daughter Imogen, in 1979. The Ave Maria, for eight-part women’s voices dates from 1900, and was dedicated to Holst’s mother. It is a splendid example of the creation of stillness and rapt contemplation. The final Holst number is a setting of Psalm 148, Lord, who hast made us for thine own. Based on the hymn tune ‘Lasst uns erfreun’ from the Geistliche Kirchengesänge (1623), this powerful anthem begins with an unaccompanied statement of the tune and builds up into a great song of praise celebrating the psalm’s exuberant call for all creation to join in thanksgiving.

Rebecca Clarke’s beautiful Ave Maria (1937) reflects her study of Palestrina’s counterpoint. Scored for three-part women’s chorus this short work was not published until 1998, some nineteen years after Clarke’s death.

On 16 April 1920 Rebecca Clarke confided to her diary: “Didn't do a blessed thing all day but sit and compose. Suddenly quite thrilled over a setting for another Psalm - He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. Wrote like mad all day…” This challenging setting of Psalm 91 was not published until 2003. Marin Jacobson (The Choral Journal, April 2016) explained that the structure of the anthem plays a significant role in developing the exposition of the text, which portrays God as one who shelters, protects, and rescues followers from evil. The use of SATB choir and SATB soloists “displays the greatest variety of textures…and [a] complex sound tapestry.”

The lovely unaccompanied anthem O brother man (1935) by Harold Darke sets words by the American Quaker poet and abolitionist J.G. Whittier. This call to universal brotherhood where love becomes true worship, healing humanity and bringing lasting peace was dedicated to fellow colleague at the RCM, William Harris. Written in the middle of the First World War, Harold Darke’s motet Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (1916) sets a catena of verses from the New Testament epistles of James and 1 Corinthians. These focus on themes of temptation and endurance. Dedicated “to the members of the Choir at St. James's Paddington,” this five‑minute meditation well reflects early twentieth‑century English sacred style. With the late Be strong and of good courage (1964) Darke turned to the Biblical books of Joshua and Kings. Created for the Jubilee of the Diocese of Chelmsford, this is an inspiring festive anthem that balances quieter moments with “stirring organ and choral fanfares.”

The booklet gives an essay length discussion of the music, the complete texts and translations and résumés of the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and their director Owen Rees. Dates of each piece in the track listing would have been helpful. There are no details about the two Organ Scholars Rudyard Cook and Arthur Barton who both make a splendid contribution to the success of this album.

This thoughtful programme, handsomely performed, restores neglected twentieth‑century choral music to vivid life, balancing major new discoveries with smaller gems and reaffirming the choir’s gift for revealing the depth and variety of England’s sacred repertoire.

Track Listing:
Kenneth Leighton (1929-88)
A Hymn to the Trinity (1973)
Harold Darke (1888-1976)
O brother man (1935)
Kenneth Leighton
Missa Christi: Festival Mass (1988)
Drop, drop, slow tears (1961)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
This have I done for my true love (1916)
Nunc Dimittis (1915)
Imogen Holst (1907-84)
Out of your sleep arise and wake (1968)
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Ave Maria (1937)
Harold Darke
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (1916)
Gustav Holst
Ave Maria (1900)
Rebecca Clarke
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High (1920/1)
Harold Darke
Be strong and of good courage (1964)
Gustav Holst
Lord, who hast made us for thine own (1912)
Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford/Owen Rees; Rudyard Cook (organ); Arthur Barton (organ)
rec. 7-9 December 2024, Chapel of Merton College, Oxford.
Signum Classics SIGCD 979

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

Introducing Patrick Hadley’s The Trees So High (1931) Part II

The Trees so High was completed during 1931. This was shortly after Hadley had withdrawn his application for a lectureship at Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne. He was concerned that this position would limit his time for writing music.

It is well known that the composer and conductor Constant Lambert (1905-51) had a low opinion of folk song as the basis for symphonic music. Anecdotally, he once stated that he considered that “the whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder.” William Mann (Sleeve Notes Lyrita SRCS 106, 1979) suggests that this comment may originally have been directed at Delius’s Brigg Fair. Eric Wetherell (1997, p.27) ponders that “It may not be too fanciful to assume that as an admiring pupil of Vaughan Williams, Paddy may have wanted to attempt something that his friend [Lambert] believed to be impossible” - a folk-symphony.

The completed score was dated “Heacham February 28,1931” and it was published by Oxford University Press the following year. The piece lasts for about 35 minutes.

The words of The Trees were taken from the Oxford Book of Ballads, edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch (1910). Hadley makes many changes and cuts to the text. Some of these alterations derive from the version of the song printed (alongside the tune) by Cecil J. Sharp and Charles L. Marson in their Songs of Somerset (c.1900, p.30f)

The ballad, The Trees so High, tells of a young man who was forced into marriage, aged only sixteen years of age. By seventeen he was a father, and he was dead and buried the following year. The narrator of the text would appear to be the lad’s wife, despite Hadley’s use of a baritone soloist.

The Trees so High is effectively a choral symphony. It has been likened in over-arching form at least, to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony (1822-24) and Mendelssohn’s Lobegesang (1840), in that the voices do not appear until the final movement. Furthermore, Strommen (2015, p.160) notes that The Trees is scored for a large orchestra, large mixed chorus, and baritone soloist “redolent of Delius’ s Sea Drift.”

In a detailed note to the vocal score, Hadley explains:

“This work…has four linked movements of which the first three are purely orchestral. They may be said to resemble three independent brooks which flow into one stream at the beginning of the last movement.”

The four movements are: I. Adagio ma non troppo, II. Andante tranquillo, III. Vivace and IV. Adagio.

Hadley continues with details about the formal parameters of The Trees:

“The first three movements are mainly constructed on the conventional symphonic plan, but with recurring thematic material, particularly those parts which are derived from phrases in the original air. The moods and ideas underlying the work arose out of this ballad and it tune, while the Introduction itself (of which the themes are structural to the entire work) owes its conception to the impression left upon the mind of the general shape and outline of those very trees “so high” which loom up all around in the imagined landscape amid which this simple country tragedy is set.”

The entire symphonic ballad could owe a considerable formal debt to Delius’s Brigg Fair (1907). This English Rhapsody was inspired by an old Lincolnshire folk song. Percy Grainger had discovered the tune and brought it to Delius’s attention. It can be analysed in more than a few ways, but a good rule of thumb would be to see it as a loose series of variations, on the folk tune. It does not always depend on the “found” song but is often athematic. Like The Trees, Brigg Fair is divided into four sections.

In 1976, Christopher Palmer’s monograph Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan was published. This major study explored Delius’s own compositions in the context of other works being written in America, Scandinavia, Germany, France, and England. This wide-ranging review extended from music by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin to Peter Warlock and C.W. Orr. Palmer’s overview (p.181f) of Hadley notes that he was “profoundly influenced by Delius’s musical outlook…”  Palmer considers that The Trees so High and The Hills exemplify Hadley’s choral works. Sadly, they have “been allowed to fall into oblivion”: Both feature music that fuses “the free-ranging, folk song-oriented lyricism of Vaughan Williams…with a spirit of a more Delian nature-mysticism.” The result in each case is “original Patrick Hadley.”

Palmer continues, “Folk song colours the melodic countenance of [The Trees] yet the guiding force is Delius, the moving spirit rather than the letter.”  Despite it being inspired by a folk song, the:

“…real protagonist is nature - the shadows of high trees and high hills loom large over the proceedings, and the wonder of Hadley’s music is that it is constantly able to convey constant visual suggestiveness of these phenomena, these all-embracing backdrops, even when no specific allusion is being made to them…The generative force of The Trees…is profoundly Delian.”

In an earlier essay, considering Delius, RVW and folk song as stimuli, Palmer had suggested that “Hadley somehow contrives to reconcile these often-conflicting influences into something refreshingly strong and distinctive; the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.” (Palmer, 1973, p.1107)

Campbell (2015, p.163) makes important contrasts and comparisons between Delius and Hadley. He considers that the “choral writing in The Trees is more varied in texture and vocal orchestration than in Delius.” Examples adduced include frequent division of the choir into more than four parts. On page 30 of the vocal score, to the words “To let the lovely ladies know/They may not touch and taste,” he expands the choir to S.S.A.T.T.B.B, the only moment he does this in the entire work. Also remarked is Hadley’s “more contrapuntal” vocal writing, “with frequent shifts between imitative and homophonic textures.” Another Delian characteristic can be found on page 30 of the vocal score: at the “moment of greatest intensity the chorus sings an unaccompanied passage before orchestra rejoins for the soft conclusion.” Similar events occur in Appalachia, Sea Drift and The Song of the High Hills. Campbell notes that two other examples of Delius’s impact are a few very high notes for sopranos and, in the coda, Hadley calling for the chorus to sing a chain of wordless “Ahs,” with the tenors and basses being required to go into head voice. (Think Koanga).

Finally, another similarity to Delius was Hadley’s suggestion in the score that “I have imagined the chorus seated throughout, and the soloist, if acoustic conditions allow, standing behind the orchestra but apart from the chorus, without an air of formality of apparent consciousness of his…own importance.” Delius called for a seated chorus in The Song of the High Hills and for a “discrete” soloist in his Appalachia.

The premiere performance of The Trees so High was given at a Cambridge University Musical Society concert on 10 June 1932, conducted by the composer. It was well-received by contemporary critics. Frank Howes (Monthly Musical Record, July 1932, cited Wetherall, 1997, p.29) wrote:

“The atmosphere is consistent throughout, and the work is equally beautiful in its larger outlines as in its smallest detail. It succeeds in being at once well organised and spontaneous. More than this, it is an important work beyond its intrinsic merits, great as they are, for it reveals a composer, hitherto known only for a few songs and small pieces, handling bigger music with such a sure touch.”

Recording

Two recordings of Patrick Hadley’s The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor have been made. The first was for the remarkable Lyrita record label and dates from 1975. Eighteen years later, Chandos issued a new edition. See the discography below for details.

Conclusion

Sadly, then as now, Hadley’s work is rarely heard, “not through any lack of intrinsic merit but because…it failed to receive the right kind of promotion at the time when the musical climate was most favourable.” (Palmer, 1976, p.181). Since these comments, a considerable proportion of his catalogue has been recorded, if not often heard in the concert hall or on the wireless.

One explanation for the failure of Hadley’s music to become popular is that sometimes “he lacks the warm-hearted expansive gestures of a Vaughan Williams on the one hand, and the luxuriant subjectivity of a Delius on the other.” His style tends towards “austerity of texture, rather than lushness, understatement and a species of tough-fibred introspection rather than passionate self-revelation or assertiveness.” (Palmer, 1974, p.152).

Nonetheless, Patrick Hadley’s exemplars are never too far away in The Trees and other works. Not a complete ‘Delius-ite,’ his music is infused by the elder composer’s reflective nature mysticism as well as quite a few obvious technical fingerprints.

Discography

1. Hadley, Patrick, The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor, Thomas Allen (baritone), Guildford Philharmonic Choir and New Philharmonia Orchestra/Vernon Handley with Finzi, Gerald, Intimations of Immortality: Ode for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra, Ian Partridge (tenor), Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/Vernon Handley, Lyrita SRCD.238, 2007. Originally released on SRCS.106, 1979 (Hadley) and SRCS.75, 1975 (Finzi).
2. Hadley, Patrick, The Trees so High: Symphonic Ballad in A minor, with Sainton, Philip, The Island, David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus/Mattias Bamert, Chandos CHAN 9181, 1993.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to MusicWeb International where the biographical details of Patrick Hadley were first published during 2000.

With thanks to the Delius Society Journal Autumn 2023, No.174: 19-28 where this essay was first published.

Concluded

Introducing Patrick Hadley’s The Trees So High (1931) Part I

In his thesis, Jonathan Daniel Strommen Campbell (2015, p.9) suggests that the impact of Delius on the music of Patrick Hadley “is more often in his themes of nature mysticism and the nostalgic love of the landscape of Britain. But there are concrete, musical examples of Delius’s influence….”

In 1931, Hadley completed his first important essay, the Symphonic Ballad in A minor: The Trees So High. Despite not being either a pastiche or a parody of Delius, it exhibits several fundamental characteristics of the elder man.

This essay is not an analytical study, but an attempt to characterise various responses that include references to the music of Fred. Delius. I include a brief biography of Patrick Hadley, as well as an overview of his catalogue.

The Composer

Patrick (“Paddy”) Arthur Sheldon Hadley was born in Cambridge on 5 March 1899. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke College. His mother, Edith Jane, was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Foster, Chaplain to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Dublin.

Patrick studied initially at St Ronan's Preparatory School at West Worthing and then at Winchester College. The First World War interrupted his education. He enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He managed to survive unscathed until the last weeks of the war when he received an injury that resulted in his right leg being amputated below the knee. This had a profound effect on his confidence. It led him to drink more than was wise; alcohol functioned as relief for the considerable pain he was constantly in.

After the War, Hadley went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was fortunate to study with both Charles Wood and the sadly undervalued English composer, Cyril Rootham. He was awarded Mus.B. in 1922, and an MA in 1925. Hadley then went to the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London. Here he came under the influence of Ralph Vaughan Williams for composition and Adrian Boult and Malcolm Sargent for conducting. He won the Sullivan prize in 1924, at that time the princely sum of £5 (about £250 now). His contemporaries at the RCM included Constant Lambert and Gordon Jacob.

Hadley became a member of the RCM staff in 1925 and taught composition. He became acquainted with Delius (see below), E.J. Moeran, Sir Arnold Bax, William Walton, Alan Rawsthorne and Herbert Howells. In fact, his friends were a litany of all that was best in English Music at that time.

In 1938 he was offered a Fellowship of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridgeshire and a position as lecturer at Cambridge University. A great deal of his time was spent administrating the music faculty. However, there was still time available for composition.

During the Second World War, Hadley deputised for Boris Ord (who was on active service) as conductor and director of the Cambridge University Music Society. There he introduced numerous works, including Delius' Appalachia and The Song of the High Hills. He was keen to promote a wide range of music - including the formation of a Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Hadley was elected to the Chair of Music at Cambridge University in 1946. He retained this post until his retirement in 1962. Several of the students he taught have gone on to remarkable things: choirmaster and academic, Philip Ledger, conductor, choirmaster and organist, David Lumsden and the musicologist, Peter le Huray. In 1962 he retired to his house at Heacham. He wished to pursue his interest in folk song collection. Latterly he struggled with throat cancer, and this caused many of his activities to be suspended. Patrick Hadley died on 17 December 1973: he was 74 years old.

The Music

Patrick Hadley’s catalogue of published music is small. His best-known pieces are the anthems My Beloved Spake (1936) for choir and organ (or orchestra), and I sing of a Maiden (1936). His large-scale works include the present The Trees So High, (1931), and the cantata setting Keats’s La Belle Dame sans Merci, (1935). Hadley’s magnum opus is The Hills (1944), featuring his own text for soprano, tenor, baritone, choir, and orchestra. Other significant achievements include the incidental music for Sophocles’ Antigone (1939), One Morning in Spring: sketch for small orchestra (1942) and the cantata Fen and Flood (1955). In 2019, the early unpublished tone poem Kinder Scout (1923) was released on the Chandos label. One of his major tasks were arrangements made for the Caius Chorus. These extended from Verdi's Stabat Mater to Waltzing Matilda. As Eric Wetherell explains (1997, p.171), the list of these is “inevitably incomplete. [Hadley] dashed them off and later discarded them.”

Patrick Hadley absorbed a number of influences. He was a confirmed “Wagnerite” coupled with an appreciation of Debussy and Ravel. The impact of the latter is often heard in his orchestration and “harmonic colouring” (Wetherell, 1997, p.51). It is hardly surprising that his composition teacher at the RCM, Vaughan Williams, had a bearing on his style. Nevertheless, Hadley never fully subscribed to the folk song revival. His works were never simply “fantasias” on folk tunes, played again, louder. He often used the musical characteristics of folk song but developed them with subtlety and originality. Hadley’s compositions are typically lyrical in sound and rarely rely on angular melodies or sharp dissonances for effect. Modernist techniques derived from Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School and their post-War successors, find no place in his achievement. 

Another crucial influence on Hadley was the landscape, especially the Fen Country, the Peak District, and parts of Ireland. Nature mysticism was a characteristic he shared with Delius.

Hadley and Delius

Eric Wetherell (1997, p.25f) explains that Hadley first met “the composer whose music always meant so much to him” at the Delius Festival in London held during October 1929. Delius was on one of his rare trips to England. He was staying in the Langham Hotel, Langham Place. Composer and impresario, Balfour Gardiner took Hadley to the hotel to meet him. Wetherell explains that the following spring, during the Easter Break, he contrived to visit Delius at Grez-sur-Loing, once again in the company of Balfour Gardiner. Eric Fenby (1936, 1981, p.92f) recorded that “it was decided that we should bottle the white wine, so Balfour Gardiner with boyish enthusiasm, sat on a log pouring out the wine…whilst Hadley corked [the bottles] with a machine, and I wired them.” And then there was “a dangerous escapade involving the removal of an unsightly branch overhanging the river.” (Wetherell, 1997, p.25)

Hadley’s chief service to Delius was his recovery of the full score holograph and orchestral parts of Koanga. It had been taken to London during 1914 and was subsequently mislaid. That said, there seem to be various versions of this story, involving other people. Giving Hadley the benefit of the doubt, it was found by him in 1930. He explains in a letter to William Randall:

There is not much to tell about my running to earth the score of Koanga. I had been staying at Grez where I managed to elicit all the remembered data about when & where it was last seen et cetera. I forget most of the details, but I do remember putting two & two together and putting the chances fairly high that it might be amongst the extensive stock of the Goodwin & Tabb Hire Library. I happened to be in constant touch with this Firm & its personnel, so on return to London I hastened to 34 Percy Street W.C.1, their then premises, and expatiated the situation. They wouldn't let me search in person, but they put 2 or 3 men onto it who laid their hands on it after a weekend's hunt. I post-hasted over by that night's boat and delivered it the following mid-day. (Letter from Hadley to William Randel, 24 December 1962, cited Randel, 1971, p.153).

 

Wetherell elaborates the story by explaining that Hadley in fact made two trips to Grez, the first with the parts and a second two weeks later with the full score. (Wetherell, 1997, p.26).

On 23 April 1930, Jelka Delius wrote to Percy Grainger: “We had an amusing visit from Balfour and Patrick Hadley, the young composer, whom we liked very much.” She recounted to Grainger the story of the recovery of the Koanga score but suggested that Peter Warlock had found the parts and that May Harrison had brought over the score when she visited Grez to play through the Violin Sonata in the presence of Delius. (Carley, 1988, p.365). It is a mystery that may never be fully resolved.

Finally, Balfour Gardiner and Hadley were due to visit the Delius household again in the spring of 1932: this had to be abandoned because of an outbreak of influenza at Grez.  

Bibliography:

1. Campbell, Jonathan Daniel Strommen, The Choral Music of Frederick Delius (1862-1934) And its Influence on the Choral Music of Early Twentieth-Century British Composers: A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, Fargo, North Dakota, 2015.
2. Carley, Lionel, Delius: A Life in Letters, 1909-1934, Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1988.
3. Fenby, Eric, Delius as I Knew Him, Dover Edition, London, 1936, 1981.
4. Palmer, Christopher, “Patrick Hadley: A Note on the church music,” Musical Times, November 1973.
5. Palmer, Christopher, “Patrick Hadley: The Man and His Music,” Music & Letters, April 1974.
6. Palmer, Christopher, Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan, Duckworth, London, 1976.
7. Randel, William, “‘Koanga’ and its Libretto,” Music & Letters, April 1971.
8. Wetherell, Eric, Paddy: The Life and the Music of Patrick Hadley, Thames Publishing, London, 1997.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to MusicWeb International where the biographical details of Patrick Hadley were first published during 2000.

With thanks to the Delius Society Journal Autumn 2023, No.174: 19-28 where this essay was first published.

To be continued…

A Happy Easter

To All Readers and Followers of

'The Land of Lost Content'

 

Easter Week

See the land, her Easter keeping,

Rises as her Maker rose.

Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,

Burst at last from winter snows.

Earth with heaven above rejoices;

Fields and gardens hail the spring;

Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,

While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted

Powers to those sweet birds unknown,

Use the craft by God implanted;

Use the reason, not your own.

Here, while heaven and earth rejoice,

Each his Easter tribute brings–

Work of fingers, song of voices,

Like the birds who build and sing.

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was a Victorian clergyman, novelist, and social reformer whose restless energy informed both his writing and his public life. Born in 1819, he combined a preacher’s moral urgency with a storyteller’s instinct, producing works such as The Water-Babies and Westward Ho! that blended adventure with ethical reflection. Kingsley championed sanitary reform, workers’ rights, and educational access, believing Christianity demanded practical action. His prose often carried a bracing, outdoor vitality, shaped by his love of nature and science. While some of his prejudices reflect the limitations of his time, his commitment to social improvement and imaginative engagement left a distinctive mark on nineteenth-century culture. He died in 1875, aged 55 years.

Kingsley’s poem Easter Week connects Christian resurrection imagery with the natural renewal of spring, presenting the landscape itself as a liturgical participant whose awakening mirrors Christ’s rising. In its closing exhortation, the poem shifts from observation to moral appeal. It urges humans, who are endowed with reason and creative agency, to offer their own “Easter tribute” through purposeful, harmonious work that echoes the instinctive artistry of the birds.

Note on Vocabulary: A "shaugh" is a traditional term for a thicket or a small cluster of trees, derived from the Old English sceaga.

 

Bach: Inventions and Sinfonias played by Yuan Sheng

Like countless hopeful pianists stuck somewhere around Grade 5¾, I have battled my way through the complex counterpoint of a few of J.S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias. The “conventional wisdom” or the “word on the street” among tyros, is that the Inventions are “easier” or “less daunting” to play than the Sinfonias. In fact, only a handful of the former are within the gift of the determined amateur. And even then, there is an enormous difference between simply plonking out the notes and giving a calculated performance that fully respects Bach’s genius.

The fifteen two-part Inventions and the fifteen three-part Sinfonias were written for JSB’s son Wilhelm Friedemann between 1720 and 1723. They were originally titled Praeambulum and Fantasias, respectively. Bach later revised them into a unified cycle arranged in ascending keys. The famous Bach scholar Spitta explains, "The form of the Sinfonias in their barest outline is founded on that of the Italian instrumental trio, as settled by Corelli and diligently cultivated by Albinoni, Vivaldi, and many others: it had also become widely known throughout Germany." Whereas, in his view the Inventions “have a remote resemblance to the form of the Italian [Da Capo form] aria.” Bach stated that his overall ambition was to “show a plain way to lovers of the clavier to play clearly and well in two and three parts, and to attain above all to a cantabile manner of playing."

I remember reading in the introduction to an edition of Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias that I once owned, that playing them well is not simply a matter of technical skill. The greatest challenge lies in the way Bach writes several independent parts at once. Each line needs to speak clearly, like people talking together rather than merging into a vague wash of sound. The rhythm must carry the music forward with steady momentum, but it should never sound mechanical: players must avoid the “sewing-machine effect.” The music needs room to breathe. In terms of touch, Bach’s style often calls for notes to be played with a light separation rather than smoothly joined, though legato is used when the phrase demands it. Ornamentation – those pesky trills, mordants and turns woven into the melody - must be added with historical accuracy, precision, and taste, becoming part of the expressive fabric rather than mere decoration. Above all, each Invention and Sinfonia has its own mood and personality: there is a danger that they all begin to sound alike. A successful performance makes the music feel alive and integrated. In this way, the player moves beyond mere execution of notes to discover the deeper structure and dramatic power that make these pieces such enduring treasures.

Yuan Sheng’s performance satisfies these criteria. His playing is characterised by a restrained, clear, and nuanced approach - a style that critics see as reflecting his training under the celebrated Bach specialist, Rosalyn Tureck. Sheng uses the modern piano's tonal palette and mechanical articulation without compromising the integrity of the Baroque style.

As added value on this disc, Sheng has included embellished versions of seven selected Inventions and Sinfonias. These are likely to be based on historical variants found in 18th-century manuscripts specifically those by Bach’s student Heinrich Gerber.

Yuan Sheng was born in Beijing where he began piano lessons with his mother at the age of five. He went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music before continuing his training at the Manhattan School of Music, where he completed both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Sheng has won prizes at international competitions in Marsala, Erice, Jaén, and Havana. In 2004, he received the Artist International’s Rubinstein Memorial Award, debuting at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Since then, he has performed worldwide, collaborating with leading orchestras and conductors. At present he teaches at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, his alma mater.

The liner notes, by Raymond Erickson, provide a major essay on the Inventions and Sinfonias from a historical and analytical perspective. They conclude by reminding the listener that they should not be viewed simply as instructional pieces but as music deserving a more prominent place on the concert stage than they presently enjoy.

Track Listing:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Inventions BWV 772-786 (1720-23)
Sinfonias BWV 787-801 (1720-23)
Inventions/Sinfonias BWV772a; 789; 790;793;795;797;799 (Embellished versions).
Yuan Sheng (piano)
rec. 12-13 August 2023, Beijing Film Academy Recording Studio, Beijing, China.
Piano Classics PCL10327

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.