Granville Bantock: ‘Hebridean Symphony’ at Edinburgh, 1930

I am doing research into early performances of Granville Bantock’s superb Hebridean Symphony which was first heard at Glasgow on 1 February 1916. There was a later performance at Edinburgh on 6 November 1930. The Reid Symphony Orchestra gave their ‘second concert’ of the season under the baton of Professor Donald Francis Tovey.  It was part of the University of Edinburgh’s Sixty-Eighth Session of Reid Orchestral Concerts.  It was certainly an event I would love to have attended.  I located a review in 7 November 1930 edition of The Scotsman.

Music which was written by Scotsmen or was inspired by things Scottish was a prominent feature of the evening. Dr J.B. McEwen’s now forgotten ‘Prelude for Orchestra’ was performed before Bantock’s seascape. The reviewer felt that in spite of an ‘occasional roughness’ both works were ‘well played.’  The Prelude is a ‘dreamy mystical composition, which has no ‘programme’ and which needs none.

Other works in the programme included the rarely heard ‘Faust Overture’ by Richard Wagner which dates from 1839/40 and was intended as the first movement of a Faust Symphony. It was never completed; however the music was revised in 1844 and again in 1855. He incorporated ideas from his sketches for the planned movements.  This work can be heard on YouTube

Unfortunately there was little emphasis in the review about Bantock’s Hebridean Symphony. It notes that the thematic basis of this work was derived from Mrs. Kennedy-Fraser’s ‘invaluable collection of folk-music.  He writes that ‘of ‘programme’ in the sense of plot or of story, there is none…’  The intention of the work was clear. ‘More detailed in outline and colouring, it might be taken to represent the splendour of the Celtic past, as [McEwen’s] Prelude reflects the sense of mystery.’

Brahms Symphony No.1 occupied the entire second half of the concert. The Scotsman’s reviewer noted that it was a ‘broad and clear interpretation, in which everything fell into place.’  

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Granville Bantok: An Anecdote by Josef Holbrooke

Josef Holbrooke’s controversial, eccentric but ultimately essential study of Contemporary British Composers (1925) is crammed full of interesting opinion, stories and anecdotes. Holbrooke knew virtually everyone that mattered in the musical world even if he was not always on the best of terms with people. The present short anecdote is presented as a good example of his story-telling. To understand the references to Bantock’s Hebridean Symphony, two things need to be borne in mind. Firstly,this work is programme music: the first half depicting the moods of the sea in the Hebrides and the second being a musical description of a remembered pirate attack on the islanders.  Secondly, there is a long passage for the solo trumpet play playing a high F – it is the most dramatic moment in the symphony – but also the most demanding.  It is one of the most thrilling moments in British music. At the conclusion of this battle the music become once again poetically descriptive of the sea and landscape, however the trumpet call can still be heard.

The whole of Bantock’s ‘Hebridean’ Symphony can be found on YouTube, but the ‘offending’ trumpet piece can be heard halfway through the third movement.

‘Many stories are told and known of Granville Bantock's waggery and sense of fun. The well known one of the chess friend he left playing one night while he went upstairs for a cigar, but went to bed instead and left the player to fall downstairs, and get out of the house in any old way he could, is easily beaten by the perfervid joy with which I heard of the principal trumpet player, who, in Liverpool at a rehearsal of the composer's Hebridean Symphony, was not playing. On my inquiry, and my loud praise of the player of the extremely persistent trumpet call in this symphony (sometimes, insistently, I think, for two hundred bars on a high F !), I was told that Valk, the usual man, was no longer a trumpet player.

"Why?" I inquired in amazement.

"Oh, you see," said the leader, "he played in the first rehearsal of this symphony, and as a result he is now a viola player. His lip and jaw are now strained beyond repair: he will never play the trumpet again”.

“Indeed," said my informant, "I have had to give this man extra pay, otherwise he would not take the job on. We have, as a result of this, had an ultimatum by all local trumpeters - who, when engaged, ask what the programme contains, before they sign on for it. A very heavy premium is wanted now for playing in this work by trumpet players! "

On my inquiry of my friend Bantock as to why the trumpet was so strident even after the orchestra had died down, he explained to me that the fight had gone "round the corner"!’

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Sir Granville Bantock: Overture to a Greek Tragedy: Oedipus at Colonus

Sir Granville Bantock perhaps suffers from a surfeit of composition. His ‘works list’ in an earlier edition of Groves extends to some 10 pages of close written text. As one critic says about the composer- “he suffers from post-Wagnerian elephantitis and lack of self criticism.” Whether this is a fair analysis is for others to decide. I personally feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume and intellectual reach of Bantock’s music: I know I will never find the time nor the inclination to do justice to more than a fraction. Yet there are plenty of works that just demand the listeners attention.

The composer had a taste for the exotic –or perhaps it is fairer to say the pseudo-exotic. His devotion to the ‘Orient’ for example is derived through the works of Fitzgerald and Southey. His ‘Scottish’ phase resulted in a now unheard opera The Seal Woman with libretto written by Margery Kennedy Fraser. Of course, all British music enthusiasts know the fine Hebridean Symphony. Then there was a flirtation with Dante, Browning, Shelley and a host of others. Last but not least there was his deep interest in the Greek tragedians, including Sophocles.

The present ‘overture’ was written in 1911 and was published in 1912. It is hardly a mere overture – but is in fact a major tone poem. Now a brief look at Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus reveals a somewhat formless play that lacks a major plot. However the passing of the king is of great and sublime beauty. The Overture is really a meditation on this passing and the blessing of the site of his death. Much as I like Sophocles, I cannot help feeling that I would rather listen to this great music ‘absolutely’ than have images of Anthony Quayle and Juliet Stevenson from the 1986 TV performance of the play floating round my mind…

The reviewer in the Musical Times gives a fair account of the work's premiere at the Worcester Three Choirs Festival in 1911.

"A new 'Overture to a Greek Tragedy,' by Granville Bantock, was a very important novelty. The tragedy shadowed in the overture is stated to be that of Oedipus at Colonos (Sophocles), but no detailed clue to the music was afforded by the composer. The work as music is generally ominous, austere and, as befits its theme,suggestive of fearful and solemn thoughts. The climaxes are so full of strenuous sound, that it is difficult, at least for ordinary listeners, to resolve them into music; but one feels that they represent a mood.Probably their keenness was over-accentuated at Worcester by the acoustic properties of the small hall. Orchestration of this powerful kind demands a more appropriate arena. The themes are undoubtedly striking, and they are employed with skill. The Coda is a fine one, and the whole work exhibits a consistency of style and treatment that binds it into a unity.Doubtless it will be heard at many of our coming orchestral concerts." The Musical Times 1 October 1911.

Surely the last sentence was over-optimistic for our times. At least this work is available on two CDs Lyrita SRCD269 and Hyperion CDA67395 and the boxed set of Bantock's music Hyperion CDS4481-6

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Granville Bantock: The Witch of Atlas

The Witch of Atlas (Tone Poem No.5) has been one of my favourite Granville Bantock tone poems – since first hearing it on Hyperion. I recently found this review of the work’s full-score in the Musical Times and feel that it is well worth quoting. It is hard to imagine how such a wonderfully beautiful work can be virtually ignored by the world of classical music.

The Witch of Atlas was first performed at Worcester during the Three Choirs Festival in 10 September 1902.

The work can be heard on YouTube.

“Mr. Bantock is one of the most industrious of composers. His facility seems remarkable even in these days of technique run riot. The work under notice is programme music of the most pronounced type, the full score which lies before us containing long quotations from Shelley's poem. The music must consequently be judged as programme music pure and simple, and no other standard should be applied.

It is essentially one of those modern works in which beautiful orchestration ‘per se’ must be regarded as a valuable asset. It is here carried to such a pitch of perfection, the orchestral colour is so beautiful in itself and so successful in its suggestion of poetical ideas, that it can be enjoyed on its own account and defended as an end in itself, instead of merely a means to an end.

Shelley’s poem presents a composer with a 'programme' after Mr. Bantock's own heart. Such lines as-

'Tis said she first was changed into a vapour,

And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,

Round the red West when the sun dies in it...

...call for, and at the hands of our composer receive, very delicate and fanciful treatment. Sustained pp chords for trumpets, trombones, and tuba (all muted), soft harp arpeggios, persistent, fluttering little string figures pp above gently-sustained melodic phrases for oboe, horn, solo violin, and solo viola, produce a piece of exquisite colour and poetic suggestiveness. In great contrast to this delicate conception stands the Marziale con anima illustrating

the words:-

And then she called out of the hollow turrets

Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

The armies of her ministering spirits--

In mighty legions, million after million.

Here the composer produces sonorous effects, such as Liszt and Tschaikovsky loved. We have the same reiteration and sequential treatment of one-bar phrases, the same rushing chromatic scale passages in tutti strings, or tutti wood-wind, the same rhythmical energy which may mean a great deal or nothing at all, according to the listener's views on programme music. Fortunately Mr. Bantock is not without a keenly-developed sense of beauty, and though in this symphonic poem his colour-sense is more markedly in evidence than that of thematic beauty, we do not mean to imply that the work is all colour, et praeterea nihil [and nothing more]. A long-drawn melody of considerable beauty is developed at some length in the section describing how Old Silenus is 'teased' by Driope and Faunus to 'sing them something new,' and how they

...found the lady lone,

Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

Then again, at the words (we must use the terms generally applicable to a choral work) ‘For she was beautiful: her beauty made the bright world dim,' etc., we meet with much that charms and interests, both melodically and harmonically, apart from all considerations of orchestral colour. Taken as a whole the work is a notable effort in a direction towards which modern music seems to trend, and conductors who appreciate a poetic and convincing musical interpretation of a beautiful poem, and a masterpiece of orchestral scoring, may be recommended to give Mr. Bantock's work a hearing.'

The Musical Times 1 February 1904 (with minor edits)

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Granville Bantock: Hebridean Symphony

Bantock wrote a number of works inspired by Scotland, the land of his patrimony. Most of these works are of a programmatic nature. Many have a Celtic twilight feel to them. Some are inspired by the redoubtable folk-song collector Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser. These works include, the Seal-Woman- a two act opera, the Celtic Symphony, The Sea Reivers, Cuchullan's Lament, Three Scottish Scenes, Coronach, Macbeth Overture and a number of songs and choral works.

The Hebridean Symphony was composed in 1915 and was first given in Glasgow under the composer's baton in 1916. It was eventually to be one of the works published by the Carnegie Trust in a sumptuous edition. The CD sleeve-notes gives the keynote to this piece, 'a work of brooding mystery and impetuous drama.' The notes go on to describe this work as having 'power, breadth of conception and imagination…'

The symphony is in one continuous movement, however Naxos has subdivided it into four tracks that well reflect its natural subdivisions. The work can be listened to purely as abstract music, however an appreciation of the landscape, the sights and sounds of the Highlands will lend some colour to the experience. Bantock himself actually embarked upon a walking tour of the Highlands and Islands before beginning this work.

The first movement, or more correctly first section, begins in the mists of the Celtic west. We are led to understand a kind of Garden of Fand - the Blessed Isles of the West. Bantock makes use of Gaelic folksong, either as themes or as the basis of themes throughout this work. The orchestration of this first section is wonderfully transparent, being a cross between Wagner, Bax, Rimsky-Korsakov and perhaps even Fred. Delius. Yet somehow the imposition of the folk song 'The Seagull of the Land under Waves' tends to spoil this evocative seascape not because it is a poor tune, but somehow it seems as if he has made room for it, for its own sake. There is a gradual Tristanesque build up which then just as typically subsides. As a tone poem this is fine stuff.

The second section, 'Con moto' takes the place of the traditional scherzo. This is storm music par excellence; one of the great seascapes of which there are many fine examples in musical literature. Not over the top, but just perfect. The third section is supposed to represent the arrival of marauders to despoil the islands. The clans are called to their duty by one of the most effective pieces of brass scoring in the literature. Once again folk tunes are used with some effect - most specially the 'Pibroch of Donnail Dhu'.

The symphony ends with a song of victory, before the islands are left to their eternal rest. Bantock recaps many of the themes he has used throughout the symphony.

Bantock's Hebridean Symphony is recorded on Naxos 8555473 and Hyperion 66450

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