Tag: Wiltshire

The Case for the Unfinished

The Case for the Unfinished was the title of last nights presentation from Tony Powell.  One might be forgiven for thinking this was about Schubert’s unfinished symphony but in fact it was about other composer’s unfinished works of which of course there are plenty.  Attempts to add another movement to Schubert’s work have not been successful and indeed it is possible that what is left is indeed finished.

Tony instead started with a Night on a Bare Mountain by Mussorgsky.  The final movement was changed by Rimsky Korsakov and this was played first.  Then we heard the original version which was entirely different and a complete contrast.  The point here was that finishing another composer’s work may be acceptable if it is in the spirit of the original.

Mozart
Two evenings devoted to this composer

Another famous unfinished work is the Requiem by Mozart and this was being feverishly composed as he was dying.  It was famously finished by his pupil and sometime collaborator Süssmayr.  There are many arguments about who wrote what bit of the work but nevertheless, there is sufficient of Mozart in the piece to make it a great work of art.  The difference here is that the work was intended to be finished and Mozart was dictating ideas until his actual death.  With Schubert on the other hand, we do not know of his intentions.

Bruckner’s ninth is usually played in its incomplete form but again, a lot of material was left – indeed a substantial number of sketches and completed elements – to enable an attempt to be made to create a final movement.  We heard Sir Simon Rattle conducting a performance and he was quoted as saying that there was ‘more Bruckner in the final movement than there was of Mozart in the Requiem.’  It certainly sounded authentic although there were references to the 5th now and again.

It was a surprise to some present that Puccini did not finish Turandot but the opera was left 15 minutes or so short at his death. It was finished by Franco Alfano yet it is recognisably in the master’s hand.

After a long fallow period following the Great War, Elgar started work on his 3rd Symphony which he did not finish by the time of his death in 1934.  From the surviving material the BBC asked Anthony Payne to finish it and he worked on the project for many years.  The first performance was in 1998 conducted by Andrew Davies.  The usual attribution is to both Elgar and Payne.  We heard part of the 1st movement and most of the 2nd.

Finally, Mahler and the unfinished 10th.  Mahler left a lot of notes and a ‘short score’ that is, not a fully orchestrated version.  Mahler had discovered that his wife had been unfaithful and this added to the turmoil in his life.  Initially his widow resisted attempts to finish and fully orchestrate the score but later relented.   There were several attempts and many statements by musicians saying it shouldn’t be done.  Deryck Cooke worked on the score and this was first performed in 1964.  Alma Mahler had changed her mind once she had seen the finished work and heard a performance.  We listened to one movement which was extremely ‘Mahler like’ in its sound and development.

This was a most interesting evening and shed light on the difficulties and problems of trying to finish another composer’s work.  Composition is a highly individual activity and however many notes and sketches are left, what would have ultimately been produced can never be recreated.  But if the attempts are honest to the original composer’s style and intentions, a worthwhile result can be achieved.

The group next meets on 5 February 2018.

The ‘Scottish Orpheus’

The music of James Oswald, described as the ‘Scottish Orpheus’

James Oswald was born in the little town of Crail, Fife and started life as a dancing master in Dunfermline.  He spent time in Edinburgh and

James Oswald. Pic: Spartacus-educational

then went to London and started to compose music based on Scottish tunes then the rage in the 1740’s.  He set up shop near St Martin’s Churchyard and this became a meeting place for expatriate Scots.  He developed his links with the English aristocracy and was appointed Chamber Composer by George III.

We were delighted to welcome Jeremy Barlow to the meeting, an authority on this period of music.  Jeremy is one of the most versatile musicians on the British early music scene, with a career encompassing writing, lecturing, and performing.  After studying at Trinity College Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music, London, his first job was as flutist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

But what characterises Scottish music and makes it so recognisable?  The basic reason is that it is based on the pentatonic scale not the normal 7 note scale we are used to.  It also has a base accompaniment which is a chord which only changes one note at a time as the melody progresses.  The third feature is something called the ‘Scotch Snap’, a short accented note before a longer note.  These combine to give Scottish music its particular sound.

Image result for jeremy barlow musician
Jeremy Barlow

As an introduction, Jeremy played the Birthday Ode for Queen Mary composed in 1692 by Henry Purcell.  This uses a Scottish tune in the base line.  We also heard contemporary examples by William McGibbon; Francesco Geminiani and Alexander Erskine, Earl of Kelly.  The main part of the evening was music by Oswald which included Airs for the Seasons, the curiously named Dust Cart Cantata and the Divertimento No. 8 for English guitar.  Jeremy Barlow directed the Broadside Band in Airs for all the Seasons, Oswald’s finest work.

Oswald became particularly friendly with John Robinson-Lytton the owner of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire.  After Robinson-Lytton died he married his widow and moved into Knebworth, he had surely come a long way.

An interesting evening concerning the work of a composer few would be familiar with.

I am indebted to the notes provided by Jeremy in writing this piece

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting 13 November which is a members’ evening so please let Tony Powell know what your choice is.

 

 

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

Image result for busoniThe 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.

 

Delius

The works of Frederick Delius
Delius. Delius Society

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 Lee-Browne. Picture: Salisbury RMS

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.

 

 

 

 

Anton Bruckner

Picture: Wikipedia

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.

View of the organ, RFH. Picture: Peter Curbishley

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