The Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier: New Edition

The Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier, edited by Christopher Fifield (revised and enlarged edition)The Boydell Press, Suffolk, soft covers, 489 pagesISBN 9781843830917 £14:99I had only just opened the parcel containing my copy of this book on Christmas Day when it was immediately pressed into service. I was writing an article about Sir Arthur Bliss’ fine scena for contralto and orchestra, The Enchantress: I needed to find out what Kathleen...

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The Annotated Programme: Two Humorous Anecdotes.

Most listeners will have read programme notes for music that they are listening to at the opera, the concert hall and the recital room. However, not all notes are helpful. Sometimes too little is said, at other times the pages read like a chapter from a doctoral thesis using a technical analytical tool.  Percy A. Scholes, in his compendium of writing from the Musical Times, The Mirror of music 1844-1944 has given a few excellent examples of bad, if not dire programme notes. I give to here with not footnotes and no apologies.Beethoven’s Sonata...

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George Macfarren: Come Away, Death

When I first started listening to British Music I believed the conventional wisdom that the Victorian era was a ‘Land without Music’. The first glimmer of hope had come with Elgar’s Enigma Variations – or was it Parry’s Prometheus Unbound? And some of my contemporaries went further: there had been no decent British music written between the death of Purcell and Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes – or whatever particular work was in fashion. One...

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Francis Edward Bache (1833-1858) was a pupil of Willam Sterndale Bennett. These two composers have very different biographies but were similar in their music and in the reception accorded to it. Common wisdom suggests that Sterndale Bennett’s compositional career peaked early on and a life spent teaching music did not allow him to repeat his youthful triumphs. Bache on the other hand quite simply showed great promise and then died early – from tuberculosis....

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Arnold Bax on E.J. Moeran Part II

Moeran's life may be said to have been divided into two clearly cut parts. During his first thirty or so years, he was an Englishman and a diligent collector of East Anglian folk-tunes, [1] whilst for the remainder of his days he was almost exclusively Irish. It was, I would say, about twenty years ago that his consciousness of his Celtic heredity was suddenly aroused. His father (‘a very nice old man’, according to his son) originally came from Cork. (By the way, the Irish nearly always pronounce the name Moeran as Morawn, with the accent on the...

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Arnold Bax on E.J. Moeran Part I

This is an excellent appreciation of E.J. Moeran written by fellow composer Arnold Bax. I present t in two parts. Moeran had died suddenly in Kenmare, Ireland on 1 December 1950, most likely from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was aged 55.  It must have been in the summer of 1919 that I was invited to an evening party somewhere in Kensington or Chelsea: I forget which. These localities always seemed to me, a North Londoner at the time, so remote and foreign that whenever I emerged from the Underground at High Street or Sloane Square I half-expected...

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John Holliday: Punchinello.

This is one of my favourite pieces of light music. I have always had a soft spot for Mr. Punch and his antics in the seaside Punch & Judy show. Although I accept that much of it would probably be regarded as politically incorrect by the liberal elite, it has given pleasure to many children of all ages. Punchinello was regarded as a forerunner of Mr. Punch.  Originally, he was a clown from Italian burlesque or puppet shows. John Cottam Holliday...

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Spike Hughes, Edward Elgar and Venice

Spike Hughes was an all round musician. He is perhaps best remembered (where remembered at all) for his jazz recordings. However, his ‘serious’ music was influenced more by the Second Viennese School and Egon Wellesz rather than the ‘pastoral ruminations’ of the English Musical Renaissance. I present a short extract from the first part of his entertaining autobiography, Opening Bars. It is interesting to come across someone who is not an Elgar enthusiast. I do not agree with all that he says however, it makes a good antidote to some of the more...

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Frederick Delius: A Dance Rhapsody – An Analytical Note

I was delighted to find this short programme note of Delius’s Dance Rhapsody. Further to my postings about Thomas Beecham’s performance of this work in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester it is worthwhile to post it here.This work was first performed at the Hereford Festival of 1909, having been written the previous year. It is scored for a large modern orchestra, including a heckelphone.  It opens with a short ‘Introduction’ (Lento), in which the cor anglais, bass-oboe (or heckelphone), and horn fore shadow some of the subjects to come. The...

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The Golden Age of Light Music: Holidays for Strings

The Golden Age of Light Music: Holidays for StringsGuild Light Music GLCD5189ADD [79:08] The mood of this excellent disc is summed up in its title and the nostalgic picture on the CD cover. It is one of the sad features of life that so many lidos have disappeared from our seaside towns. The present picture is from a London & North Eastern Railway poster advertising Clacton-on-Sea Butlin’s Holiday Camp. Alas, this camp closed in 1983 and...

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Alun Hoddinott: Two Welsh Nursery Tunes

Alun Hoddinott is reasonably well represented in the CD catalogues; however there are still plenty of works that have not yet been recorded.  Every so often a new work appears on disc which demands our attention. Recently, Dutton Epoch has released the sixth volume of their ‘British Light Music Premieres’ including music by Philip Lane, Anthony Hedged, Carey Blyton Richard Addinsell and others. In amongst these somewhat variable works are Hoddinott’s Two Welsh Nursery Tunes. This work was composed in 1959 and is dedicated to the composer’s...

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Thirty Five Years of Gilbert & Sullivan: Henry A. Lytton.

I came across this short essay by the D’Oly Carte singer and actor Henry A. Lytton (1865-1936). It had been published in October 1925 under editorship of Percy Pitt [1].  It is a good personal insight into life with D’Oly Carte and also his relationship with W.S.  Gilbert. I have included a few footnotes and have made some slight edits to the text. Thirty Five years is a long time to have played the same parts, and I am sometimes asked...

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