November 2025
Tonight’s programme (Monday, 17th) features the work of Gordon Jacob another of those composers who despite a prolific output, largely remains in the shadows. He composed over 900 works and was a significant figure in the music world.
Presented by Geoff Orgram, it starts at 7:30 as usual. If you have never been before and want to give it a try, then your visit will be free. You can see details of our other evenings on this site.
November 2025
Members’ evenings always bring surprises. It is an opportunity for them to bring for the delectation of others, something that appeals to them or they have discovered recently. They are always eclectic and never with any kind of theme unlike say, a concert where the organisers try to focus on a composer say. Which sort of makes such evenings a strength because no one of knows what the others are going to bring. It is if you will, a kind of musical tapas the only difference being it’s all brought to you and you don’t have to chose.
But enough, what did we hear you ask? We started with Brahm’s second cello sonata in F, a kind of introduction to the evening. Following was a surprise and that was a quartet for saxophones by Jean Francaix (in French) where you will read he had an illustrious career and was encouraged by Ravel. The saxophone does not get much of an airing in classical music – a pity for such versatile family of instruments.
Well, we then had an addition to our evenings in the form of a DVD and a recording of Begin the Beguine performed by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. This Cole Porter song did not get much attention until Artie Shaw recorded a few years later on the B side of a record whereupon it shot to fame and was a huge success for him. Shaw met Porter and words were exchanged apparently because Porter rather resented his success with the number. The film performance was great to see with amazing dancing to go with the music.
We were introduced to the music of Lassana Diabaté a musician from Guinea in Africa in a performance of Sunjata’s Time for string quartet, a quite unusual piece.
Something more traditional but meaningful for the presenter was the third movement from Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major K 370. The concerto (for that effectively what it is) is significant as one of his first major works having left Salzburg in 1781 and started to make his mark in Vienna.
Next was a leap to the American composer Philip Glass and the third movement of his Violin Concerto composed in 1987 and is typical of this composer with its repeated themes and modulation.
Film music doesn’t always get the attention it deserves with three examples from the Italian Job, Once Upon the Time in the West and Where Eagles Dare. It is a creation of the twentieth century with the invention of the cinema and eventually the ‘talkies. Composers have to match the music to the action although in some cases the film is edited around the music.
A wonderful film of a Chaconne from Partita No 2 BWV 1004 followed performed by Nathan Milstein. Although of some vintage, it was outstanding and a reminder of his greatness as a performer. We remarked on how young the audience was when the camera panned back. Would such a performance today attract such an audience …?
We finished with extracts from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s best know work Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Born in London of West African descent he was nicknamed the ‘African Mahler’ in America but has nowadays largely disappeared. He died young aged 37 and was encouraged in his brief career by Elgar among others.
An enjoyable and informative evening. Eclectic or what?
Next meeting on Monday 17 November.
October 2025
Our next meeting will be at 7.30pm on Monday 3rd November 2025.
It will commence with a short Annual General Meeting followed by our Members’ Evening. For this Robin now has almost sufficient pieces for what should be a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Any last minute ideas for possible inclusion if there is time to Robin please.
Following this on 17th November we will have a presentation entitled: “Seventh Son” An appreciation of the work of Gordon Jacob. Written and presented by Geoff Ogram
On 1st December at our final session before Christmas, David Davies will present some Classical Music Signature Tunes. To help him prepare for this, David has asked me to forward the following to members:
“The meeting on December 1 is entitled ‘Are you sitting comfortably? These words began Listen with Mother at 1.45 every weekday on the BBC Light Programme from January 1950 and on into the 60s. And every programme ended with the Berceuse from Faure’s Le Jardin de Dolly suite for piano duet. The words and the tune are still remembered fondly by a whole generation.
“But what else in radio and television (including adverts) has used classical music as a signature tune? We shall have a not-too-serious discussion on this topic, and I would appreciate your letting me know your suggestions.
You can email me at davidracheld@gmail.com
Thank you. David Davies“
We hope you will be able to join us at these sessions.
October 2025
Frederick Delius is well known English composer born of German parents in Yorkshire. He showed early promise and clearly had an eventful life. He was not actually christened Frederick but Fritz. He father was a successful wool merchant but Delius resisted going into that line of business and opted to manage an orange grove in Florida as you do.
He returned some years later and spent much of his early life in Paris. He received a formal musical training in Leipzig. His talent was spotted by Greig.
The presentation was by Alan Doel, a member of our Society, who gave us a lot of background to his life and compositions. Delius was key in the revival of English music and listening to an evening of his compositions, there was a powerful sense of the languid landscape that seemed to emerge, a kind of tonal colouring. This was particularly true of the first, and one of his best known pieces, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. Another piece which captured that quality was In a Summer Garden.
He was somewhat overlooked as a composer until he was taken up by Sir Thomas Beecham who premiered some of his works. It’s interesting to note that his early success was in Germany. His time in America and the influence of negro music showed through with compositions like Appalachia of which we heard the final part. Another piece with American associations was the Florida Suite.
It was an interesting evening and we learnt a lot more about this English composer who’s works do not appear that regularly in concert programmes. Other works included Sea Drift, the Cello Concerto and an extract from the opera Irmelin first performed in Germany. The audience expressed its appreciation for the work Alan had put into preparing the presentation.
Alan set us some homework which was to listen to The Song of the High Hills conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
The next meeting on 3 November will be preceded by a brief AGM followed by a members’ evening. If you have a piece, lasting less than 10 minutes ideally, which means something to you or you would like others to hear, please let Robin Lim know robert.lim@virginmedia.com.
Peter Curbishley
October 2025
Tonight’s meeting (20 October) is on the work of Frederick Delius. Entitled Landscapes of Heart and Mind Alan Doel will explore the works of this English composer who did much to raise the profile of British composers.
Starts at 7:30 as usual at the rear of the Guide’s Centre in St Ann’s Street with free parking at rear. If it’s your first visit it’s free.
October 2025
This week’s meeting of the Society was an exploration of the work of
Hovhaness a composer probably unknown to many. The presenter was Peter Horwood who had done a lot of research to illuminate his works and music. Peter kindly gave us his notes and these are presented below.
Hovhaness was an extremely prolific composer and addition to symphonies composed 10 operas, 3 oratorios, a great mass of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental pieces – 434 opus numbers plus a considerable number of unnumbered compositions. There is well over 500 known pieces. A man of considerable energy he was also married 6 times! The first extract was:
Symphony 22 Op 236 ‘City of Light’ 1st movement excerpt
That excerpt from Symphony 22, ‘City of Light’ demonstrates some key features of Hovhaness’s mature style – a luminous (maybe even numinous (spiritual) tone/quality, long breathed melodies, block chords, modal harmony, and exotic sounds (bells, percussion effects in clusters etc).
Written in 1971, this symphony is one of no less than 67!
Certainly, the music appeared to flow unceasingly from him. Inevitably with such a large output there are variations in quality, but the best, as I hope you will hear is fully worthy of our attention and appreciation.
John Cage, a friend and longtime advocate of the composer said his music was like ‘inward singing’, ‘his melodies are often long and arching, clear and consonant, generally modal and run the gamut from western diatonicism to rhythmically complex Indian Ragas – with many cultural variations woven in. Echoes of Renaissance choral polyphony and Baroque instrumental part writing course through much of his music.’
This alchemy/mix of Western and Eastern, Ancient and modern, produces a very individual and recognisable voice. Sometimes one particular influence may take precedent, let’s hear a couple of examples, firstly two bagatelles for string quartet:
Bagatelles for string quartet Op 30 1, 2
Now lets hear a short piano piece called
Piano piece mystic flute –
This piece was a favourite of the composer Rachmaninov who used it as an encore when he was on tour.
I think you will agree that there is a distinct middle or far eastern sound to these pieces.
Born in 1911 in Massachusetts to a Scottish mother and Armenian father the composer showed amazingly precocious talent, from the age of 4!
As a boy, he acquired a love of mountains through long walks and apparent metaphysical experiences in the hills of New England. Such landscapes were the frequent subjects of his paintings and drawings. Mountains always remained important to him, determining the locales in which he chose to live, such as Lucerne in Switzerland and Seattle on the Pacific Coast, and would prove to be a lifelong inspiration
Hovhaness explained ‘Mountains are symbols of man’s attempt to know God. They are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual worlds.’
This not an unusual conception. Mountains have figured prominently in many spiritual and religious situations.
Studied piano and then composition at The New England Conservatory, with amongst others Frederick Converse, a noted but relatively conservative composer.
In the 1930’s gained a basic living through teaching and performing. He also composed prolifically throughout this decade. In 1935, prompted by his great love of the music of Sibelius, Hovhaness and his then-pregnant first wife (artist Martha Mott) visited Finland to meet Sibelius. A friendship was struck up, and the Finnish master later became godfather to their child, a daughter, who in homage was named Jean Christina.
Surviving examples of work from this stime include the Mystic Flute piece just heard and this following piece, Song of The Sea:
Song of the Sea – part 1
This is relatively conventional, but Hovhaness was due to radically change his style. He was strongly affected by meeting Uday Shankar (Ravi’s brother) and North Indian musician Vishnu Shirali when they performed in Boston in 1936, a time when Indian music was scarcely known in the West.
In 1942, Hovhaness won a scholarship at Tanglewood to study in Bohuslav Martinu’s Master Class. This period turned sour when he also came into contact with Bernstein, Copland and their impressionable circle in the composition class. Already something of an outcast amongst this clique (not being Jewish, homosexual, or Paris-trained), he left this situation immediately
At this artistic crisis point, Hovhaness found strength from friendships with two Boston artists, Hyman Bloom (who later on became rather famous) and Hermon di Giovanno. In 1943 di Giovanno, a Greek painter and mystic, supposedly guided Hovhaness into the ancient worlds of Greece, Egypt, Armenia and India. Hovhaness described di Giovanno as the “spiritual teacher who opened the gate to the spiritual dimension”. He was a pivotal influence in that he encouraged Hovhaness to seek out his paternal Armenian heritage and be true to himself in his pursuits.
In addition, during 1940’s Hovhaness sustained his living by being appointed organist at St James’s Armenian Church in Waterstone, Massachusetts.
This 1940’s were looked upon as his ‘Armenian period’ where he found authenticity and spiritual inspiration and Hovhaness destroyed most of his earlier music in order to make a ‘fresh start’.
This change of direction is exemplified in the 1944 concerto for piano and strings, Lousadzak (means ‘Coming of Light’) where the soloist’s part is an exquisitely filigreed giant melody, monophonic throughout, which imitates Armenian and Turkish stringed instruments. In this seminal work Hovhaness introduced his aleatory technique, initially called ‘spirit murmur’. Here, performers individually repeats a designated melodic phrase over and over without synchronicity to the rest of that section’s players. The invention of this so-called ad libitum technique has mistakenly been attributed to Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, because some 17 years later he first employed it in his 1961 orchestral work Jeux Venitiens.
This piece was premiered at the composers memorable New York debut and marked a step change in his standing.
Piano concerto ‘Lousadzak’ (1944) excerpt
Composer and newspaper critic Lou Harrison recalled it thus:
“’I remember the premiere of that work in Town Hall, and the enormous excitement that Alan’s sudden appearance in New York produced. The intermission that followed [Lousadzak] was the closest I’ve ever been to one of those renowned artistic riots. In the lobby, the Chromaticists and the Americanists were carrying on at high decibels. What had touched it off of course, was that here came a man from Boston whose obviously beautiful and fine music had nothing to do with either camp, and was in fact its own very wonderful thing to begin with. My guest John Cage and I were very excited, and I dashed off to the lamented Herald Tribune and wrote a rave review while John went back to the Green Room to meet Alan”.
Lou Harrison had moved to New York to be employed as music critic and his association with John Cage, Virgil Thomson and now Alan Hovhaness, formed a lifelong connection and mutual support.
At first sight what seems an unlikely combination of individuals to befriend each other made sense in that there was a mutual attraction to seek alternative musical formats and cultures, rather than follow western ‘conventional modernism’.
Composer writer and teacher Lou Harrison was a cultural polymath, who worked across a number of areas, not just music. His own music combines serial and aleatory procedures, used quarter tones, emulates ancient polyphony and gamelan rhythms, – using extraordinary devices for producing unusual sounds. As well as a leading reviewer and writer he had an intense interest in eastern music, especially Balinese gamelan music. This is reflected in this next piece:
LOU HARRISON – Concerto in Slendro
Slendro refers to an Indonesian five tone mode with no semitones.
During the 1950’s and 60’s Hovhaness was awarded a series of Rockefeller and Fullbright scholarships to travel and study Indian, Korean and Japanese music. The composer wrote and conducted pieces in these countries and undertook study in Korean Ah-ak (ancient court music), Japanese Bunraku and Gagaku (traditional ceremonial music) and also music applied to Noh theatre)
This period of study and related composition is known as his oriental period.
Hovhaness composed for a wide range of instrumental and vocal forces so let’s now hear an example of a cantata, written in 1968 for soloists, choir and orchestra. We will hear the introductory section – (lyrics)
Lady of Light – cantata – Op 227 – ‘Great is the Power of Love’
Hovhaness, along with his chosen colleagues, was always looking to expand his compositional tonal palette, or means of expression. It is difficult in any epoch to accredit change or innovation to any specific person or events; things happen through the chemistry of interaction and creative association. This next piano piece uses innovative performance techniques, realised at the time that John Cage was working in a similar vein.
Pastorale No. 1 for piano
In 1966/67, Hovhaness had been Composer in Residence with the Seattle Symphony. In the early 1970s Hovhaness moved permanently to Seattle, Washington. His recent links with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra had unwittingly brought about a love affair with the landscape: “I like the mountains very much. I don’t have to go to Switzerland, I expect to stay here.”
Also, in the early 1970s, the music itself was in demand for live performance. The 1975 Hovhaness royalty statement from publisher C.F. Peters Corp. was 17 pages long. Nearly all of his 240 compositions had sold that year, from 1 copy of the Accordion Concerto to 5,620 copies of the 4-page choral piece From the Ends of the Earth. Let’s now hear that piece:
From the end of the Earth – choral
We have previously mentioned the composers use of ‘long breathed’ or giant melodies. Commissioned in 1967 by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the tone poem Fra Angelico portrays the work of the Italian artist who painted in an Eastern spirit, of celestial musicians descending heaven to earth, accompanied by celestial trumpets.
Fra Angelico – excerpt
John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912. From an early age he showed and particular interest in dance and percussive music, as well as developing techniques to alter the tone and character of instruments ‘prepared piano’. From the 1940’s lived in New York where he pursued his interests in composition and music by chance –originating the first ‘musical happening’, random performance by throwing coin etc and developing aleatory techniques. Also, like Hovhaness he had an intense interest in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism. He met Lou Harrison when he was organising concert events in the San Francisco Bay area. Having much in common in their search for new sounds and unusual musical formats, especially for potential percussion instruments they spent much time rummaging the junk yards and import stores for brake drums, dustbin lids, flower pots etc!
This is a piece that they jointly composed for percussion quartet, each writing two parts.
LOU HARRISON/JOHN CAGE – Double music
Hovhaness, from his youthful enthusiasm of studying Bach, probably more fugues than any other western 20th century composer. We will hear and example of a double fugue taken from perhaps his most famous work, Symphony no.2, ‘Mysterious Mountain’ , played here by one of Hovhaness’s fervent advocates, Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1958.
Symphony 2 ‘Mysterious Mountain’ 2nd movement – double fugue
From the 1970s (and thereafter) the composer retreated from overtly oriental/Eastern sounding devices. If anything, Hovhaness veered towards a more Western neo-romantic approach, but still within the realms of rhapsodic melody and mystical expression. Noteworthy is the expansion of harmony from purely modal (as in the 1960s) to fully chromatic, including whole-tone and diminished chords
We will conclude this presentation with two works that represent the mature or final style statements of the respective composers.
We have noted that John Cage was a close friend and lifelong advocate of Alan Hovhaness. From their initial meeting each composer took a number of creative routes before finally establishing a mature style. We will hear a work from John Cage that is part of his ‘number’ works completed in the last two years of his life. These works have been described as ‘products of a profound and brilliantly imaginative musical mind.’ 42 was composed in 1990 for a High School choir in Oregon (the text is built on letters of that state) in the style of a harmony textbook, one can visualise the whole notes on four staves.
JOHN CAGE – 42 Choral
In May 1981, Henry Hinrichsen, president of C.F. Peters, approached Hovhaness with a one-off commission for a symphony on the theme of Mount St. Helens, the famous volcano that had erupted in 1980. Both the Seattle Symphony and the San Jose Symphony wanted to give the work’s premiere, which was eventually decided by the composer on the flip of a coin.
Between 1980 and 1989 Hovhaness penned some 80 works, including almost 20 symphonies. 1986 alone witnessed the creation of six symphonies.
Symphony is somewhat misleading term as these are not classically structured, goal orientated works, as a lot of contemporary symphonies, but rather a series of movements, almost baroque in nature, that together express a collective feeling or impression.
We will hear the finale that describes a volcanic eruption and concludes with a song of awe to creation.
Symphony No. 50 ‘Mount St Helens’ op 360 – Finale
Copyright©Peter Horwood 2025
I hope you will agree this is a serious piece of work on this composer and the Society was grateful to Peter for bringing this largely unknown composer to our attention.
PC
October 2025
Tomorrow, 6 October is the date of our next meeting and it an exploration of
the world of Alan Hovhaness an American. A prolific composer with around 67 symphonies to his name, there will clearly be lots to chose from.
We meet at 7:30 as usual and finish at 10:00. Programmes are available in the Library and in the Tourist Information Centre.
September 2025
The new starts on Monday 22nd at 7:30 with a presentation called intriguingly Murder, Mishap and Misfortune by Alan Forshaw. Alan’s presentations are always good value and show a deep knowledge of the subject and will no doubt contain some surprises.
The full programme is available and copies can be picked up in the Library (immediately to the right when you go in), the Tourist Information Centre in Fish Row or a pdf can be seen via this link.
If you want to try us out then the first visit is free and full season’s membership (14 evenings) for a mere £25.
Look forward to seeing you.
Peter Curbishley
August 2025
We are delighted to attach the programme for the forthcoming season starting on Monday 22 September at 7:30. You can see there is lots to interest with presentations of more familiar composers together with the less well-known. The strange but amazing music of Eric Satie has an outing and also Delius, a composer we have not featured for many years.
There are evenings on American music as well as from Iberia. Indeed, there is considerable variety in the programme. There are two members’ evenings where members bring along one or two of their favourites. The evenings are open to all we should add.
The Society is keen to explore some of the hidden corners of the repertoire, including pieces seldom heard in the concert hall.
The programmes have been printed and if you like a paper version, they will shortly (next week) be in the Library and in the Tourism Information Centre. If you want to give us a try your first visit is free.
PC
May 2025
This was the last evening of the current season and we were delighted to welcome Michael Jones who enlightened us about the life and work of this somewhat forgotten English composer. Michael is an accomplished musician in his own right with a number of recordings to his name as well as his special interest in Bainton (pictured). He is developing a website which should be completed soon.
Well, you might not recognise the name but you will recognise one of his pieces And I Saw a New Heaven which was performed at Grenfell Tower memorial and at the Hillsborough memorial. First some history. His father was a Congregational minister who later moved with his family to Coventry. His musical abilities at the piano were noticed early and he made his first public appearance as solo pianist age 9, and at 16 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study piano with Franklin Taylor and theory with Walford Davies. In 1899 he won a Scholarship to study composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and thus became one of the rising generation of British composers destined to contribute extensively to the English Musical Renaissance.
In 1901 he was appointed piano professor to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conservatory of Music, and after over thirty years of service emigrated to Australia to take up the Directorship of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. I should add at this point that the above biography was accompanied with photos, images of his original scores and programmes which amply displayed Michael’s erudition and scholarship. Many items were not the sort of thing you could turn up with a quick Google* search.
He composed pieces in most of the main genres. We heard for example, a tone poem Pompilia; part of The Blessed Damozel; a lovely song Slow, Slow Fresh Fount; and part of a ‘cello sonata.
To demonstrate his diversity we also heard extracts from his second Symphony, an early and most accomplished Fugue, a Viola Sonata and a movement from a String Quartet. Michael finished with a second extract from Prometheus.
This surely has to be a composer who deserves more attention. It is strange how some composers – and most artists I suppose – seem to drift out of fashion and then suddenly their time comes again. We shall see.
We were most grateful for Michael’s presentation delivered with a great deal of enthusiasm and as I say, erudition. His photos illustrated life at the beginning of the last Century.
This was the last evening of the current season and it has been another successful year. We have been pleased to welcome some new faces. A feature has been several evenings exploring the works of composers whose work – like that of Bainton – have been overlooked or who have gone out of fashion. We’ve had music from Scotland, Wales and England as well as Poland and France.
Peter Howard, our chair, thanked all those who have come and supported us during the year and promised next year’s programme will be just as good. We start again in September. A printed programme will be in Salisbury and Amesbury libraries in September and in the Tourism Information Office as well as here on line.
If you want to widen your interest in music keep and eye out here and on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you.
Peter Curbishley
*other search engines available
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 