Lost Works No.2: G.W.L Marshall-Hall's Symphony in Eb

G.W.L. Marshall-Hall (1862-1915) is a name that is now little known in the United Kingdom. Yet his provenance is second to none. He was born in London and studied with Parry and Stanford. Soon assuming a place of importance in the musical life of London, he wrote a number of significant works which reached a degree of popularity. In 1892 he emigrated to Australia to become Professor of Music at the University of Melbourne. He was a ‘character’ – Bohemian would have been the contemporary epithet - and had a colourful career. He was sacked from the...

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David Dubery: Observations- Seventeen Songs and a String Quartet

A brief thumbnail sketch of the composer may be of interest to listeners who have not come across his music before. David Dubery was born in Durban in South Africa. In 1961 he came to live in the United Kingdom in his mother’s hometown of Manchester. From a very young age Dubery composed music but studied formally at the Northern School of Music in Manchester between 1963 and 1971. He studied piano with Eileen Chadwick and Kendall Taylor. Dubery’s...

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Lost Works No.1: Felix White’s Overture Shylock

Felix White’s Overture, Shylock showed ‘great promise,’ according to ‘X’ writing in the socialist New Age Journal. He further pointed out that the composer was only 23 years old and this perhaps explained his tendency to ‘…wallow in psychological analysis.’ I must confess I cannot imagine this discipline rigorously applied to the composition of a Concert Overture! The orchestration was excellent and resulted in some delightful scoring. ‘X’ considered that the construction of the Overture was ‘puzzling’ and he lamented the fact that a ‘programme’...

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Elgar & Sawyers Violin Sonatas on Nimbus Alliance

There are currently some 24 recordings of the Elgar Violin Sonata in E minor listed in the Arkiv catalogues. When these include such ‘big’ names as Nigel Kennedy, Hugh Bean, Tasmin Little and Lydia Mordkovitch, it has to be a special new release that would prompt me to purchase yet another version of this great, late chamber work. What the Steinberg Duo have done is to match an excellent new performance of this Sonata with two impressive examples...

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Sir Edward Elgar Introduction and Allegro – Sir Adrian Boult 1937 Recording

Sir Adrian BoultMy introduction to the music of Sir Edward Elgar was some 43 years ago when I was still at school. In those days the music department record library consisted of a good selection of vinyl 33rpm and old 78rpm records. Amongst the latter, was the 1937 recording of an Introduction and Allegro for Strings played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. This two-record set also included the haunting Sospiri. I remember...

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English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Conclusion

ConclusionI have considered three works in this paper. They are representative of the genre of music which could (and often is, identified) as ‘pastoral’ music.  Ivor Gurney’s A Gloucester Rhapsody is sunshine all the way. In spite of considerable suffering during the Great War, Gurney has written an optimistic work that furthers the ‘myth’ of an unspoilt pre-industrial revolution English countryside with Yeoman stock. It is a work that is purely descriptive of the landscape and the perceived, inherently good people that lived there.Gerald...

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English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part Four

Ralph Vaughan WilliamsVaughan Williams: Pastoral SymphonyOn face value, there are few works to beat Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘Pastoral’ Symphony as an example of the eponymous genre. (I have eschewed discussing the ever popular, chart topping, Lark Ascending.) The Symphony was begun shortly after RVWs return from France and was completed in 1921. From the opening bars to the dying pages of the wordless soprano solo in the epilogue, it appears to epitomise...

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English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part Three

Ivor GurneyIvor Gurney: The Gloucestershire RhapsodyIvor Gurney was a casualty of the war just like so many others: in his case he was gassed, as well as receiving a shoulder wound. In March 1918 Gurney had a serious breakdown which was misdiagnosed, and subsequently treated, as ‘shell-shock.’ Nowadays he would have been recognised as bi-polar. Gurney was both poet and composer. Unfortunately, there is a persistent rumour that bedevils virtually...

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English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part Two

Pre-Great War Pastoral MusicThis essay is not a history of British pastoral music. However, the genre existed for a number prior to the Great War. If we hold to Ted Perkins three point definition of pastoral music it is necessary to exclude a number of pieces seemingly fit the bill. Works like Edward German’s delightful opera ‘Merrie England’ and Luard Selby’s Village Suite are more ‘bucolic’ than pastoral.  John Blackwood McEwan’s Grey Galloway is a tone-poem more in akin to Liszt than a piece of pastoral music alluding to a landscape. ...

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English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part One

IntroductionHerbert HowellsChosen Hill, with its views over the Vale of Severn toward the Forest of Dean and the Black Mountains, now unbearably close to the M5, acts as a kind of nodal point for a number of British composers. Four in particular demand our attention. Herbert Howells, whose Piano Quartet is dedicated to a fellow Gloucestershire composer with the inscription ‘To the Hill of Chosen and Ivor Gurney who knows it". Then there was Gerald...

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