The next meeting takes place on Monday 16 October at 7:30 and will be a presentation by Alan Forshaw on the topic ‘works by pupils of famous composers’. Should be interesting. Usual place the Guides Centre with easy parking to the rear. £3 for non-members.
Tag: Salisbury
Schubert Centenary Competition
Finishing the Unfinished
It is well-known that Franz Schubert did not finish his eighth symphony, Number 8 in D Minor. What is less well-known that there was a competition launched in 1928 inviting composers to compose the final movements from the surviving notes. The competition was proposed by the British arm of the Columbia Phonograph company after the bankruptcy of the American parent. 1927 was the centenary of Beethoven’s death and the company released electrical copies of all nine symphonies which were a commercial success. What to do next? Well 1928 was the centenary of Schubert’s death and so a competition to complete the Unfinished was proposed. A prize of over £100,000 in today’s money was to be awarded.
Cue outrage from the musical world and cries of ‘sacrilege’. The original theme of the competition was dropped and in its place a competition for new works where composers were required to:
[provide] compositions, apart from faultless formal structure, must be marked by the predominance of a vigorous melodic content, and the number of instruments employed must not substantially exceed the measure established by the classical orchestras of time.
Last night’s presentation about this subject was by Robin Lim who had clearly done a deal of research to unearth the background and to find some of the music composed for this competition.
The first piece was by Felix Weingartner and was his Symphony No 6 from which we heard the allegro. This incorporated some of the known fragments but could not be considered for the competition as he was invited to sit on the judging panel.
Next we heard two movements in symphonic form by Frank Merrick from Bristol, best known in his day as a pianist.
After that was a piece called Pax Vobiscum by john St Anthony Johnson born circa 1874 and about whom little is known.
Finally before the break we heard the 3rd movement from Hans Gal’s Symphony No 1. Gal lived in Edinburgh and was interned as an enemy alien during WWII.
The evening ended by listening to some of the prize winners. The judging panel was extraordinary and included Ravel, Respighi, de Falla, Szymanowski and Thomas Beecham. Third prize went to a piece by Czeslaw Marek (who’s music we have heard in an earlier evening of the Society). We heard an extract from his symphonia. This is a composer who we should hear more of as he only rarely appears on concert programmes.
Second prize went to Franz Schmidt and we heard the scherzo from his 3rd Symphony. This composer does still sometimes still feature in concert programmes – indeed he was performed in the 2015 Proms – but is not well known.
The winner? This was by the composer Kurt Atterberg and we heard the finale to his 6th Symphony.
The story did not end there though. Ernest Newman writing in the Sunday Times that;
Atterberg may have looked down the list of judges and slyly made up his mind that he would put ins a bit of something that would appeal to each of them in turn – a bit of Scheherazade for the Russian Glazunov, a bit of Cockaigne for Mr Tovey, a bit of the New World Symphony for Mr Damrosch, and bit of Petrushka for the modernist Alfan and bit of Granados for Salazar … but I wonder if there may not be another explanation … Atterberg is not merely a composer. He is a musical critic … suppose he looked round with a cynical smile that was all the world knows all critics wear and decided to pull the world’s leg?
The story was picked up by other newspapers and stories with headlines such as “£2000 Symphony hoax” and “Joke of Swedish Composer” soon appeared. Columbia sought to recoup the prize money but it was too late — Atterberg had spent it on a new Ford car.
A fascinating insight into a period of musical history which has been all but forgotten.
Peter Curbishley
I am grateful for the notes provided by Robin Lim in writing this piece.
Next meeting 16 October
Music of Schubert
NB the programme says 4 October which is incorrect – it is tonight 2nd.
The title of the next meeting is Music from the Schubert Centenary International Composers’ contest of 1928. It will be presented by Robin Lim and starts at 7:30 in the usual place on Monday 2 October. Visitors are welcome and there is a modest fee of £3 to cover our expenses. The evening will start with a brief agm.
[If you saw the piece in last week’s Salisbury Journal, that referred to the previous meeting on Busoni but the item was held over]
New Season
New season programme ready
The new season kicks off on 18 September with a presentation on Busoni by Christopher Guild. Busoni was a musician of great renown at the beginning of the last century but today has been largely forgotten. He was a pianist, teacher, composer and conductor. The presentation by Christopher should enlighten us to this Italian composer’s talents.
The full programme will be available on this site soon and hard copies will be available at the Oxfam Music Room, the Collector’s Room in Endless Street, and at the Tourism Information Office in Fish Row.
We look forward to seeing you for the new season.
Member’s evening
The next meeting takes place on Monday 8th of May and will be a member’s evening. If you have a particular piece you like or want to hear played then liaise with Anthony Powell. Usual place usual time.
Delius
The works of Frederick Delius
The works of Frederick Delius were the subject of the Society’s evening on April 24th and we were delighted to welcome Martin Lee-Browne, the ex-president of the Delius Society. This was an informed presentation – not just because Martin knew a great deal about this composer – but because of the family connections he has with him. His grandfather was a good friend to Delius and also taught Sir Thomas Beecham the famous conductor. It was Beecham who did so much to promote the composer.
Delius’s father was a wool merchant and wanted his son to go into the business which he did for about 2 years. His heart was not in it so he then persuaded his father to help set him up in the orange plantation business in Florida which he did for a couple of years. He then gave that up and moved to Danville in Virginia.
He studied music in Leipzig in 1886 but was unimpressed with the teaching there which he found old fashioned and apparently, they were not too impressed with him. He met and became friends with the Norwegian Composer Edvard Grieg and persuaded him to come to England to meet his father. Norway was a big influence on his work and the Song of the High Hills is based on his time there. Beecham described this as one of the composer’s major works.
His father was so impressed that his son knew someone as famous as Grieg that he continued funding his musical activities for another year. This he spent living in Montparnasse in Paris. He struggled to make a living there as a composer. By 1899 he had managed to get only 20 songs published.
He returned to England and self-funded a concert of his own works which had mixed success but began to get him recognised as a serious composer. Gradually his pieces entered the repertoire. Martin played several of his works – including some early compositions which one would not at first sight have realised were by him – as well as selections from his more famous and familiar works. These included Brigg Fair, the single movement Violin Concerto and Sea Drift, the latter strongly influenced by Walt Whitman.
Martin also brought along some memorabilia included a score annotated in the margin by Percy Grainger. In 1910 his health seriously declined and he was only able to compose with the aid of Eric Fenby who wrote the music to Delius’s direction. He lived for most of his life in Grez-sur-Loing in France and he is buried with his wife in Limpsfield in Surrey.
Next meeting
Frederick Delius
Our next meeting on Monday 24th April celebrates the music of the English composer Frederick Delius. We are pleased to welcome Martin Lee-Browne to the Society who is from the Delius Society and will be coming down from the Midlands to speak to us and play some of his works.
Normal start at 7.30 and details of where we are can be found at the top of the page. It is £3 for non-members. Parking is easy and the room is accessible for people with disabilities. We look forward to seeing you.
Anton Bruckner
For some, Anton Bruckner (pictured) was one of the great symphonists to come out of the nineteenth century. Nowadays, his works are performed around the world and are a regular feature of the repertoire. There are many recordings of the nine numbered symphonies. But for a long time, his reputation languished and there was a major effort to recognise his genius in the 1960’s.
At the last meeting of the Society, Terry Barfoot gave an illustrated history of the composer and played four movements from 4 different symphonies to illustrate his work. Bruckner was born in Ansfelden in Austria in 1824, the son of a school teacher. He himself became a school teacher. He was an organist of prodigious ability and toured Europe mostly playing improvisations. Little of this survives. He was the first to play the organ at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
One can hear the influence of the organ in his music. As Terry put it:
[…] the sound-world of the organ in the resonant acoustic of a great cathedral is relevant in his symphonies, as of course it is in his religious works. From Wagner he derived his long time-spans, his weighty brass writing and expressive string textures, while another recurring was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and especially its opening […]
He was clearly a late developer as a composer and Terry made the point that had he died at the same age as Schubert (31) he would today be completely unknown.
He was deeply religious and trained as a musician at the monastery church at Sankt Florian a place he was to return to throughout his life especially when he was depressed. He was also organist in Linz.
Like so many composers – indeed artists generally – he was not appreciated fully in his lifetime. The famous critic Eduard Hanslick gave him a hard time and his time with the Vienna Philharmonic was not a success.
Terry put together a programme to illustrate his range and development as a composer. Bruckner is something of a challenge in the context of a Society evening as the expansiveness of his music does not lend itself to short extracts! He played the following:
- Motet: Locus Iste
- Symphony No. 8 first movement
- Symphony No. 6 second movement
- Symphony No. 4 third movement
- Symphony No. 7 fourth movement
Together with photographs of locations around Austria where Bruckner lived or worked this was an interesting and illuminating evening. We were grateful to Terry Barfoot for putting it together.
Peter Curbishley
Terry runs Arts in Residence
Note: the next meeting is not for 3 weeks because of Easter
Next meeting: Bruckner
Presentation by Terry Barfoot on Anton Bruckner
The Society is delighted to welcome the well known writer on music Terry Barfoot who is going to do an audio visual presentation on the music of Anton Bruckner. He was arguably one of the greatest symphonists of the nineteenth century and his symphonies are now rarely out of the repertoire. They are large in scale however and so presenting them to the Society has been a challenge.
Usual place and usual time.
Terry runs Arts in Residence which are residential weekends with a musical theme.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Society will be on Monday 20 March starting at 7:30 as usual and will a presentation 
by Ed Tinline on the development of woodwind. He will be playing a selection of pieces including wind soloists and also ensemble playing.
The committee will be meeting immediately prior to the main session. If members reading this have any points they would like the committee to consider, or you might be interested in presenting or co-presenting a session, please let one of the members know.
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 