English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part Three

Ivor Gurney

Ivor Gurney: The Gloucestershire Rhapsody

Ivor 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 all of Gurney’s post-war music. Many of his songs and chamber works have been declared unpublishable due largely to the incoherence of their formal construction. There are a number of pieces that have been recovered. In some cases they have only required minor editing. However, in the case of The Gloucestershire Rhapsody a virtual reconstruction was required.

Anecdotally, it was long regarded as one his most important compositions, in spite of it not being performed until 2010 at the Three Choirs Festival.

Philip Lancaster has described this work as ‘a great sweeping landscape which portrays the nobility of Gurney’s Gloucestershire’. This work does not wallow in a ‘clichéd rhapsodic lyricism’ but cleverly presents ‘unity in diversity’. In parts of the score, Gurney nods towards a musical medievalism which Lancaster suggests may represent an almost Virgilian Pastoralism.

The Gloucestershire Rhapsody is a long, wide ranging work that eschews pessimism or self-pity.  The march-like themes, which are ever present in this work, owe much to Elgar in their ‘Nobilmente’ sound. However. these are ‘Marches of the onset of the high-pomps of summer’ rather than reflecting the clash of empires.

It is surprising that a composer who was suffering so many personal problems and health issues could have written such an optimistic work. There is no darkness here. It may not be a masterpiece, but what it achieves is a glorious musical picture of Gloucestershire. It is ‘pastoral music’ at its best.  

Here Gurney is looking back before the First World War and is endeavouring to recapture a lost world-partially true partially imagined.  It is truly a view from Chosen Hill so beloved of the composer.

Gerald Finzi: Requiem de Camera

Gerald Finnzi

Much of Gerald Finzi’s music could be described as being ‘pastoral’ in its mood and sound. For example, the evocative Severn Rhapsodyis descriptive of a landscape beloved of the composer himself, Gurney and Herbert Howells.  It fulfils Perkins ‘pastoral’ criteria to a tee. When Finzi was seventeen years old he was studying with the composer Ernest Farrar. In 1918 Farrar, who had enlisted and was killed on the battlefield near Cambrai. Six years later Finzi began to compose his Requiem da Camera whilst living in the Cotswolds.

The work was dedicated to his teacher and was Finzi’s indictment of the war.  Philip Thomas has noted that in spite of the ‘elegiac stillness’ of much of the Requiem it is still a work of protest – it is ‘a desperate cry for certainty in a faithless world.’  I think that this description could serve as a good definition of the pastoral genre.

The opening section of the Requiem is a ‘prelude’ for orchestra which sets the melancholic mood of the piece. This is followed by John Masefield’s ‘blasted ‘pastoral’’ ‘August 1914’ which epitomises the ‘lost generation’ of artists, agriculturists and artisans that are so often alluded to in any discussion of this period.

The third movement was realised by Philip Thomas from a manuscript found in the Bodlean Library: it is a setting of Thomas Hardy’s magisterial war poem ‘Only a man harrowing clods’.  The final section of the work is a ‘Lament’ by the ‘Georgian’ poet William Wilfred Gibson which reflects on how the survivors of the war dealt with memories of what had happened.  Gibson, who had been a close friend of Rupert Brooke and the publisher Edward Marsh was a private in the trenches and thankfully survived the war.

Requiem da Camerais a perfect balance of introspection about the human cost of war, counterpoised with a musical depiction of a (for the composer) half-recalled landscape and society that had largely (but not quite) disappeared by the time the 1914-18 War began. This has remained as a ‘Land of Lost Content’ that composers, artists, poets and dreamers have long sought and are still seeking and will only ever find echoes.  

To be continued...

Read More

English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part Two

Pre-Great War Pastoral Music

This 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.  Many character pieces display rustic titles that were added by the publisher after the music was composed.

During the first three decades of the twentieth century many Rhapsodies were composed using folksongs and national tunes. These are often well-written and finely orchestrated but are usually just a pot-pourri of well-known melodies.

Much nearer to our definition are two important tone-poems by George Butterworth – On the Banks of Green Willow and his Rhapsody: A Shropshire Lad.  This latter is a melancholic work that reflects on the transience of life. It fulfils all of Perkin’s criteria in spite of its musical subject being a song written by the composer himself.  Both were composed before the Great War.

The Wartime Situation

Looking at British music composed during the 1914-18 War reveals two predominant responses to unfolding events:-

Firstly, there were ‘wartime’ works by Sir Edward Elgar (and others) which included Polonia, a rhapsody on popular and patriotic Polish tunes. There were also the recitations now deemed ephemeral, such as Le Drapeau Belge – The Belgian Flag and Une Voix dans le Desert– A Voice in the Desert. 

The second response to the shattering world events was ‘business as usual’. It is difficult to read any great war-torn trauma in contemporary works by Havergal Brian, Frederick Delius or Percy Grainger.

The musicologist Lewis Foreman has noted only one ‘war symphony’ dating from 1914-18 – Thomas Dunhill’s A minor.

One important exception is Herbert Howells. Better remembered today as a prolific composer of liturgical and organ music, his earlier output included many orchestral and chamber works. The ‘Elegy’ for viola and String Quartet and String Orchestra from 1917 and the 'The B's' Suite for full orchestra written in 1914 both contain heartfelt ‘elegiac’ music commemorating friends and colleagues who had fallen or were combatants. In particular Francis Purcell Warren who was reported missing at Mons in July 1916. Other musicians ‘remembered’ by Howells included Arthur Benjamin, an Australian, who became a prisoner of war, Arthur Bliss who was later wounded on the Western Front and Ivor ‘Bertie’ Gurney.

The Post War Situation.

Pastoralism was only one musical response to the social, political and artistic challenges to emerge from the war. On September 3 1912 Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces had been heard in London for the first time. As can be imagined, it drew considerable negative criticism.   It was a work that impressed Peter Warlock who felt that ‘one gets now and again a glimpse…of some weird, new country, and although one can only see it from a distance, there is a strange fascination in the idea of its further possibilities.’

In the United Kingdom there was a considerable diversity of musical expression. Elgar, Holst and Delius continued writing characteristic music until their deaths in 1934.   Bax was inspired by Eire and produced a series of evocative scores. John Ireland wrote urbane music that often evoked a kind of English impressionism: certainly they were given titles such as Amberley Wild Brooksand The Towing Path.

After the 1914-18 War, Frank Bridge developed ‘disturbing’ tendencies. Once a composer of powerful, romantic orchestral tone-poems and character pieces for piano, his musical language began to reflect Modernistic developments from the Continent including the music of Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Bridge did not entirely lose his post Brahmsian voice, but in works such as the Piano Sonata he was exploring radical new territory.

Arthur Bliss, who was later to become Master of the Queen’s Music is remembered for his sub-Elgarian Colour Symphony and his biting score to the film Things to Come.Yet in the immediate post-war years he was absorbing influences from Ravel, Stravinsky and Jazz.  His great ‘war’ work was Morning Heroes which was first heard in 1930 and dedicated to his brother Kennard, who had been killed in action.

William Walton was a North Country lad who fell in with the Sitwells and produced his early masterpiece Façade, which looked towards Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire for inspiration.  Yet his style soon changed and after adopting neo-classicism exemplified by Portsmouth Point and then Sibelius in his First Symphony. He is best remembered now for his sub-Elgarian marches.

Pastoral music was just one trajectory in the music being written in the post Great War years.

I want to look at three diverse works all of which are claimed by musicologists as belonging to the Pastoral School. They are all composed by men who would have known Chosen Hill with the view towards the Severn and the distant hills.  Two were composed by veterans of the conflict. 

To be continued...

Read More

English Pastoral Music: The View from Chosen Hill Part One

Introduction

Herbert Howells

Chosen 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 Finzi, born in London but who loved Gloucestershire and the Severn. Finzi was diagnosed with Hodgkinson's Disease in 1951. Five years later, he and Ralph Vaughan Williams went on a walking trip to Chosen Hill. They visited the local sexton’s cottage for tea. Unfortunately, there were children with chickenpox in the house. Finzi contracted the disease. Due to his weakened state it caused severe brain inflammation. So Chosen Hill was to be the death of Finzi.

And finally there is Ralph Vaughan Williams, also a Gloucestershire man born in Down Ampney who loved walking on Chosen Hill.   His music is often deemed to evoke various English landscapes.

All four composers have been condemned for writing ‘pastoral’ music.  

All four composers have been accused of writing ‘cow pat music’ or of ‘rolling in the mud’ or being ‘just a little too much like a cow looking over a gate’.

Yet ‘English Pastoral’ Music is popular.

It sells CDs and fills concert halls.

It gives the listener warm, cosy feelings about an England that used to exist – sometime in the past, just before our grandparents were born.

It presents an aural impression of an imagined ‘Golden Age’ or ‘Garden of Eden’.

Yet pastoral imagery in music can be tainted. The Fall of Humankind limits its effect.

Like the Shropshire Lad himself the pastoral image has been smutched with violence.

The Great War gouged a great scar in the largely fictional concept of a rural paradise.

What is Pastoral Music?

The musicologist Ted Perkins has suggested that there are at least three stylistic markers for this genre:

1) The use of folksong or modally inspired melody: this can include music from the Tudor era.

2) Impressionistic techniques beloved of Ravel & Debussy

3) A neo-classical, as opposed to sub-Wagnerian romantic, colouring.

To complicate matters further, Eric Saylor has recognised the concept of ‘soft’ pastoral and ‘hard’ pastoral that can be applied to literature and music.  

‘Soft Pastoral’ seeks to escapefrom the relative chaos of urban life to the rural idyll.  An example would be The Lark Ascending.

 ‘Hard’ Pastoral would attempt to ‘present an unsentimental view of nature and the countryside, free from escapist trappings.’   Examples include the novels of Thomas Hardy.

To be continued...

Read More

Kenneth Leighton: The Complete Organ Works Volume 1

I do not know the organ works of Kenneth Leighton (1929-88) (apart from the often-performed Paean) and have never heard ‘The Complete Organ Works’ played on the organ of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh by Dennis Townhill (PRCD326) which is the main competition to this new ‘download’ from Resonus.

The twentieth-century produced four major British composers contributing sizable catalogues of music for the organ:  Herbert Howells, William Mathias, Francis Jackson and Kenneth Leighton. Leighton’s organ music is not in the trajectory of Howells, in spite of there being some fingerprints of the elder composer in the pages of these scores. He has looked to Europe for inspiration rather than the organ lofts of English Cathedrals. Paul Hindemith would appear to have an important influence on Leighton’s sound-word: influences from Flor Peeters and Hendrik Andriessen have been remarked on.  

Leighton’s first major composition for organ was the ‘Prelude, Scherzo and Passacaglia’ Op.41 written in 1963. His last work was the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ which was composed in the year before his death.

The present collection opens with the thought-provoking Six Fantasies on Hymn Tunes, Op.46 and dates from 1975. These are not dry-as-dust ecclesiastical numbers designed to cover up the none-too-hushed conversations of congregations before the minister arrives in the pulpit, but are a fascinating and many-coloured exploration of these relatively four-square, popular hymn tunes. They are full of interest, inventiveness and imagination. 

Also using a hymn tune is the Martyrs: Dialogues on a Scottish Psalm-tune, Op. 73 which is written for organ duet. Interestingly (and mind bogglingly) both performers are required to play pedals in this piece!  It is divided up into three sections and is preceded by a statement of the original hymn-tune. The work proper opens with a dark meditation which builds to a ‘thunderous’ climax. The second section contrasts a double-fugue with toccata-like figuration. It concludes with a ‘gigue-like’ passage followed by a powerful restatement of the tune ‘Martyrs’.

The Improvisation in Memoriam Maurice de Sausmarez uses the familiar arch-structure favoured by Herbert Howells. The composer wrote that this deeply-introverted piece is conceived in ‘... a mood of mourning and protest symbolised in the conflict between lyrical counterpoint, and an ostinato (subject to variation) consisting of three chord clusters which persist throughout the piece. The clusters reach a climax of intensity in a chord containing all the notes of the chromatic scale’.

Kenneth Leighton’s largest achievement for solo organ is his Missa de Gloria (Dublin Festival Mass), Op. 82 which was written in 1980. It is considerably longer than his fine Organ Concerto written some years previously.  The work is divided into six sections which reflect the traditional divisions of the Mass – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. The finale is a toccata based on ‘Ite, missa est’ – ‘Go, the Mass has ended’. Leighton has made use of a plainchant melody derived from the ‘Proper’ for Easter Day in the 12^thcentury Sarum Liturgy in most of the sections of this work.  The composer claimed that it was he first of his work to be ‘almost entirely inspired’ by plainsong.

This is a huge, powerful work that sometimes haunts the same musical world as Messiaen’s earlier organ music.  

This is the first download that I have reviewed. Like the transition that many listeners made some 30 years ago from vinyl to CD, I have had my reservations about the media.  Yet progress is always inevitable.

The present download is available in four different formats – MP3, AAC, FLAC 16-bit and FLAC 24-bit. The latter requires a large amount of data storage with a single album requiring up to 1GB of memory.

One of my big issues with some ‘record’ companies is that the liner-notes are not available for download or cut and paste. Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos all have good access to these important documents on their webpages. Alas, a number of other producers do not provide these as part of the download: certainly, Amazon does not include them in purchases. So I was delighted to find that there is a set of freely available documentation available on the Resonus website as part of this download – including a well-produced ‘booklet/liner notes’ in .pdf format. There are also a number of photos of the artists, the advertising ‘flyer’ and a scan of the ‘cover.’ This allows the listener to evaluate the release before purchase.

Biographical notes are given on the organists Stephen Farr and James Butt. Farr is the main performer on this download and is currently organist at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge as well as having a busy concert career.

The music is performed on the Rieger Organ in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. This was installed in 1992 and is justly famous. The liner notes give the specification for this impressive three-manual instrument, however there is no history of its concept and construction – for example the effective reuse of two pedal stops from the old Willis organ (1940). All this kind of information would be of profound interest to organ-music enthusiasts.

I am grateful to be able to explore a new facet of Kenneth Leighton’s music. He is a composer that I have always been able to do business with: his balance of modernism and tradition is ideal. I thoroughly enjoyed this new download from Resonus and look forward to reviewing the second volume in this projected series.  

Track Listing:-

Six Fantasies on Hymn Tunes, Op. 72 (1975)

Martyrs: Dialogues on a Scottish Psalm-tune, Op. 73 (1976) for organ duet

Improvisation in Memoriam Maurice de Sausmarez (1969)

Missa de Gloria (Dublin Festival Mass), Op. 82 (1980)

Stephen Farr (organ) John Butt (organ)

RESONUS LIMITED RES10134 

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

Read More

Richard Addinsell: The Admirable Crichton

Richard Addinsell (1904-1977) is known universally for his magnificent parody of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 for the wartime film Dangerous Moonlight (1941) – the ‘Warsaw Concerto’. Addinsell was prolific in writing film music with an excess of 50 credits on the International Movie Database. Hits include Love on the Dole (1941) the comedy Blithe Spirit (1945), Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1951) and the Sea Devils (1953). However, one film for which he contributed some attractive music, but is not credited, is the social satire The Admirable Crichton (US Title: Paradise Lagoon) (1957).

Philip Lane has explained that there is a mystery about the production of the score for this film. Addinsell had accepted the contract for writing the music, however, after he had composed the dance music sequences, he ‘proceeded to walk away for reasons that are not clear.’ On face value, it would appear to have been an ideal project for a composer with his particular track record. The task was completed by Douglas Gamley who is duly credited in the film. Gamley (1924-1998) was an Australian composer and conductor who was twenty years younger than Addinsell, and is recalled for directing the music to The Little Prince (which won an Academy Award in 1974) and The Land that Time Forgot (1975)

The Admirable Crichton is presented as a comedy, but is intended to examine societal relationships at the turn of the century. A landed family on a sea voyage are wrecked on a desert island. It turns out that the butler, Crichton, (More) has a greater range of practical survival skills denied to his master. The roles are reversed and Crichton become Lord of the Desert Island. After a number of tribulations they are rescued by ship and return to England, where life continues as before.

The two dances which are recorded by Chandos on their retrospective of Addinsell’s film music are derived from scenes in the family mansion in England, the yacht which was wrecked and on the desert island.  The first dance is a Polka followed by a Galop. It is basically light-hearted and are parodies of music that would have been popular in the years before the story’s fictional setting. The second is an attractive ‘waltz sequence’ that explores a variety of nostalgic moods in its short space. It is a delight to listen to.  

The Admirable Crichton starred Kenneth More, Cecil Parker, Sally Ann Howes and Diane Cilento. It was based on the 1902 stage play by the Scottish author Sir James Barrie (1860-1937)

The music can be heard on Chandos CHAN 10046Audio samples can be heard on AMAZON. They are the tracks 16 & 17 of this CD

Read More

A Forgotten English Romantic: The Piano Music of Greville Cooke with works by Holst and Vaughan Williams

I have often related to anyone that would listen, that Greville Cooke’s ‘Cormorant Crag’ was a work I wanted to hear played by a fine pianist before I leave this world. I first came across the piece in an advert on the back of a now-forgotten piano album whilst sorting through a vast pile of music at David Hughes second-hand bookshop in Llandudno. It was sometime during 1972. I felt then, that this title was both evocative and picturesque. It was some dozen years later that I found a complete printing of the sheet music of ‘Cormorant Crag’ in the 1982 edition of the British Music Society Journal. It was presented as a part of an article on ‘Georgian Piano Music.’  Alas, it was well beyond my ‘sight-reading’ or even ‘working very hard at it’ skills on the piano. Yet, there was something about the figurations and patterns of the notes on paper and the layout and structure of the chords that convinced me that my earlier notions about this work were correct. I was able to ‘hear’ the music in my head. I deemed it to be in the same genre as music by Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Frank Bridge.  I had to hear it performed!

I was delighted when Duncan Honeybourne emailed me to explain that he was performing ‘Cormorant Crag’ at the 2014 English Music Festival. Other works by Cooke were to be included. Unfortunately, (?) I was on a Baltic Cruise on the day of his performance, but he assured me the CD was being issued at the same time. It was a dream come true. 42 years after first coming across this piece, I sat down and listened. I was not disappointed: it is everything I imagined- and much more. Cooke has written a masterpiece of the ‘genre’ that is as good as (or even better) than many of his ‘rivals.’  

Greville Cooke was born in 1894 and soon displayed an interest in music. Throughout his life, his musical activities were conducted alongside a career as a clergyman in the Church of England. He had good education at Hamilton House, Ealing before going up to the Royal Academy of Music. After studying with Tobias ‘Uncle Tobs’ Matthay, he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge as an organ scholar. Following a succession of qualifications he was ordained to the Anglican Priesthood in 1918. There is no record of any war service. In fact he seems to have been studying during the entire war. Cooke received his BA and B. Mus. in 1916.

After ordination he had ‘livings’ in Tavistock, Ealing, St Paul’s’ Cransley and Buxted. His final appointment, in 1955, was as a non-residential canon of Peterborough Cathedral. His incumbencies could not have been too stressful: he was concurrently a professor at the Royal Academy between 1925 and 1959 and was also in demand as an adjudicator at local music festivals.

Cooke’s musical catalogue inevitably included a number of anthems and hymns for ecclesiastical use: strangely no organ solos were written (as far as I can tell). On the secular side, he wrote songs, incidental music, a short Prelude for String Orchestra and a number of choral works. His main contribution is a small number of well-crafted piano works which maintain a subtle balance between being romantic and impressionistic.

Greville Cooke died in 1989 at a very convincing (and encouraging) 95 years old.

The present CD contains the majority of the piano music in Greville Cooke’s catalogue. This is complimented by works written by Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. I guess that Cooke’s piano works can be conveniently classified into two groups. Firstly ‘didactic music’ designed to give less-proficient players challenging and attractive pieces to play. The second group are the artistically and technically demanding works that are redolent of the landscape: these represent some of the finest examples of ‘nature’ evocations in the literature.   

The first piece of Cooke’s music that I actually heard was his haunting ‘High Marley Rest.’ This work was named after Tobias Matthay’s house in Surrey, High Marley, which has extensive views toward the English Channel. This residence became the focal point for much entertaining and musical endeavour by Matthay.   Honeybourne has quoted some words by Tennyson that sum up the mood of this impressionistic piece:

This red flower, which on our terrace here

Glows in the blue of fifty miles away

Green Sussex, fading into blue

With one grey glimpse of the sea.

‘Whispering Willows’ has a rather banal title which belies the musical quality of the piece. It was written for the composer-teacher-pianist York Bowen. This is music that cleverly paints a picture of a river, dappled trees and a warm day. The pianism is subtle and quite complex, yet never obscuring the basic simplicity of the mood.

I am not too sure about Cooke’s ‘Gothic Prelude’. Duncan Honeybourne considers it to be ‘…one of Greville Cooke’s most striking and original creations.’ He notes the ‘dark colour’ and the ‘torrential passion.’ There are some lyrical moments as well as a really ‘big tune’ that sounds as if it were written for a film. However, I find all a little over the top: a bit too relentless. Why Gothic? I am not sure. It is possible that Honeybourne is right in suggesting that it would ‘work’ as an orchestral piece; I feel that there is too much intensity and too wide a disparity of musical styles for it to be satisfying in such a short duration. I just need to hear it a few more times.

On the other hand In the Cathedral is very different, even introverted. It is very simply written with much imitation of themes and phrases: the climax is well contrived, without being overbearing. It is probably the least ‘romantic’ of Cooke’s works presented on this disc. There is a magic here that offers up an almost meditative feel that would not be out of place in a house of worship.

The ‘late’ Song Prelude (1955) is a little gem that wholly evokes the English countryside. It was subtitled ‘Harvest-tide Cransley, 1954’, which refers to the parish of Cooke’s incumbency at that time. This is an autumnal piece that is perfectly stated and ideally catches the mood of the season.  

The temper of Haldon Hills is also largely pastoral and reflective. Honeybourne notes the ‘rapt evocation of stillness’ that Cooke creates. The score is prefaced by a poem (included in full in the liner notes) written by the composer that defines the mood. There is nothing ‘out of place’ or ‘negative’ in these pages: just a contemplation of ‘the mists of gold and grey’ of Haldon Hills with their view towards the sea. It is a miniature masterpiece.

Meadowsweet is a little character-piece composed in a delightfully romantic style during the 1920s. It is reticent, largely self-explanatory and quite beautiful.

Reef’s End is another hugely impressive piece of impressionistic piano writing. It was composed in the early 1930s for the Matthay protégé Vivian Langrish. The material of this complex sound world is more chromatic than much of Cooke’s music and is piquantly dissonant in it powerful evocation of the scene. The technical devices that the composer uses to create the seascape are tried and tested – arpeggios, a wide range of dynamics, a shattering climax and chromatic figurations. Yet the piece is totally successful at creating a haunting, musical picture of some lonely, reef somewhere off the coast of the West Country…

I have noted Cormorant Crag above: this piece takes its title from a novel by George Manville Fenn written in 1895 and subtitled A Tale of Smuggling.  It was dedicated to Egerton Tidmarsh, who was another former pupil of Tobias Matthay.

Over the Hills – A Suite of Three Short Piano Pieces (1929) is a charming example of a short collection with less-experienced players in mind. This is not patronising music, but is a finely wrought set of musical pictures which capture the innocence of childhood (whatever age we are). The three pieces are well balanced with the thoughtful ‘So Fair a Field’ flanked by a dance-like, but just a little sad, ‘Skip-Step’ and a heart-achingly beautiful ‘Tree-Top Lullaby’ which opens the set. 

The Bargain Basement Suite (1936), is hardly in the same league as ‘Cormorant Crag’, nevertheless it is a fine set of ‘character-pieces’ that goes well beyond typical contributions by composers to this genre. There is a dry wit and a sense of fun about these seven short pieces that is wholly refreshing. Honeybourne suggests that we should not take these numbers ‘too seriously.’ I agree. The quality of the workmanship of each number is superb. Although this suite is not technically problematic, this is not simply ‘teaching music’: they deserve to be heard in its entirety, played by a professional pianist. Lookout for the Scottish flavoured ‘Genuine Reproduction.’

The final ‘suite’ by Greville Cooke presented on this CD is ‘Three Pieces’ dating from 1929. These, like Over the Hills, provide interesting and challenging material for the less-experienced player.  Duncan Honeybourne notes that the ‘transcendental complexities’ of Cooke’s more ‘virtuosic’ pieces is not present in these suites. This was a feature of a number of composers at this time. One need only think of the many suites and individual pieces by Alec Rowley, Felix Swinstead and Thomas Dunhill. Yet each of these composers also wrote works that are technically demanding and containing deeper thoughts than the music they are best remembered for.

Gustav Holst’s ‘Nocturne’ was a relatively late piece, which along with the ‘Jig’ was written for the composer’s daughter, Imogen.  There are precious few piano pieces by Holst, most of which are relatively minor works within the canon. However, the present haunting ‘Nocturne’ is a perfectly-written example of the composer’s art, which encompasses a wide variety of emotions in a short form.  The right hand figuration is supported by a ‘tune’ in perfect fifths. The middle section is agitated and has considerably more angst.  Other versions of this work available on CD are by Anthony Goldstone and John McCabe.

Ralph Vaughan Williams is not noted for his piano music.  The Little Piano Book was issued in 1934 and was originally entitled Six Teaching Pieces for Pianoforte.  This is clearly pedagogical material in which the composer addressed a number of technical issues including part-playing and ‘lively articulation and accentuation.’ This is not dry music: the quality of each piece belies its original title.  Honeybourne selects the beautiful ‘luminous’ ‘Nocturne’ for especial mention.  Yet, for me it is RVW’s approach to the ‘invention’ that catches the ear. These contrapuntal forms are hardly regular features in the composer’s music, yet he managed to imbue them with a magic that removes them from simply workaday teaching pieces.

This CD is superbly presented in every way. The liner notes, written by Duncan Honeybourne are excellent, informative and interesting. The standard of playing is of the highest order: the recording is outstanding. Even the title of the CD – ‘A Forgotten Romantic’ – lends enchantment to this project.

As for the music, Greville Cooke is everything I always imagined he would be. The best of his music (‘Cormorant Crag’, ‘High Marley Rest’, ‘Haldon Hills’ and ‘Reef’s End’) hold their own against any piano music composed around the same time and in similar genre. And this includes Ireland, Bridge and Baines. This CD deserves to be a success: in spite of this being a byway of British music there is so much to interest, entertain, and move in the pages of Greville Cooke’s piano works. And the RVW and Holst give ‘added value’ to this disc.

I would love to think that Duncan Honeybourne, who is a considerable champion for Cooke’s music, would turn his attention and skills to Harry Farjeon, Leo & Evangeline Livens, Thomas Dunhill, Alec Rowley…

Track Listings:

Greville COOKE (1894-1989)

‘Gothic Prelude’ (1952)

‘High Marley Rest’ (1933)

‘Whispering Willows’ (1952)

Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)

Nocturne (1930)

Greville COOKE

‘In the Cathedral’ (1929)

Over the Hills: A Suite of Three Short Pieces (1934) Tree-Top Lullaby; So Fair a Field; Skip-Step

Song Prelude (1955)

‘Cormorant Crag’ (1934)

Bargain Basement : A Suite of Seven Pieces (1936) Good Morning, Mr Harridge; Oddment (Superior Quality); Throw-Out (Greatly Reduced); Genuine Reproduction (Excellent Value); Cheap Line (Absolutely not to be repeated); Going for a Song (Yours for a tenor, fiver, 3d); Remnant (Only one left)

Ralph VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS (1872-1958)

A Little Piano Book(1934)

Valse Lente, Nocturne, Canon, Two-Part Invention in F, Two-Part Invention in E flat, Two-Part Invention in G

Greville COOKE

‘Haldon Hills’ (Devon) (1929)

‘Meadowsweet’ (1929)

Three Pieces (1929) A Sunny Morning; In the Park (Afternoon); An Evening Lullaby; Sundown (1953)

‘Reef's End’ (1934)

Duncan Honeybourne (piano)

EM RECORDS EMR CD022

Read More

Robert Farnon: Portrait of a Flirt

I find it almost impossible to believe that I have not written a post about Robert Farnon’s most popular work –Portrait of a Flirt. It was one of the first pieces of light music that struck me at a time when I was more concerned with Bach’s organ music and Wagner’s operas. (The first was Coronation Scot by Vivian Ellis.

Portrait of a Flirt appeared around 1947 and is really a compendium of rhythm and flappable orchestral manoeuvres. It is a deftly written piece that exudes vivacity, humour and romance.

According to the liner notes for the Marco Polo recording of this work, it had ‘humble’ origins. It was originally conceived as a piece of ‘mood music’ for the Chappell Library: like so many similar pieces it would have been used by film and documentary producers to give the ‘correct’ atmosphere to their work.

If ever a piece was able to musically portray a spirited lady who was also a little bit of a flirt, it is this. Basically in ternary form, the opening and closing section present a light hearted, slight mischievous disposition, whilst the slower middle section reveals a slightly more nocturnal mood that is more romantic that skittish.

Robert Farnon regularly performed this work on the BBC Home Service and Light Programme however, it was given a major fillip when it was recorded by David Rose (of The Stripper fame) on an MGM album.

There are a number of recordings of this work currently available, however, I do recommend the composer conducting on Naxos 8.110849. The piece is available on YouTube with the Farnon conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Read More