Contents
April 2020 RC Sherriff - playwright
May 2020 Ethel Smythe - composer
June 2020 Herbert Howells - composer
July 2020 Alan Bush - composer
John Galsworthy - playwright
Aug 2020 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - composer
John Ireland - composer
May 2020 Ethel Smythe - composer
June 2020 Herbert Howells - composer
July 2020 Alan Bush - composer
John Galsworthy - playwright
Aug 2020 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor - composer
John Ireland - composer
Playwright: RC Sherriff (1896 - 1975)
NewSPAL trustee Carol Hall writes below about RC Sherriff whose name may be unfamiliar but some of whose work will be much more well known. He had a life-long Surrey connection and the SPAL collection contains a selection of his work. Read on!
Robert Cedric Sherriff (known personally as Bob, and to the literary world simply as R C) lived in Esher for most of his life. He was born in Hampton Wick, Middlesex, on 6 June 1896 and was educated at Kingston Grammar School, where he won several sports prizes.
He enlisted into the army in November 1915 with the Artists Rifles and by September 1917 had obtained a commission with the East Surrey Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. He served in France until he was wounded in action on 2 August 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres), and was sent back to England for treatment.
He never returned to active service in France, and remained with the 3rd and 12th Battalions, the East Surrey Regiment, in Britain until he was demobilised in early 1919. Sherriff’s ‘Officer’s Record of Service’ shows that he retained the rank of Second Lieutenant throughout his active service in France. Later, while on home service, he was promoted firstly to Lieutenant on 5 March 1918, and later to Captain on 8 January 1919. In 1919 Sherriff unsuccessfully applied for a permanent commission in the army, and he returned to working for his pre-war employers in insurance. He devoted his free time to sport, creative writing and amateur dramatics.
He wrote at least six plays on an amateur basis, often as a means to raise funds for local causes and organisations: A Hitch in the Proceedings (1921); The Woods of Meadowside (1922}; Profit & Loss (1923); Cornlow in the Downs (1923); The Feudal System (1925); and
Mr Birdie’s Finger (1926). Sherriff also acted in several of these early plays, as did his sister Beryl Sherriff. Sadly we do not have copies of these early plays in the SPAL collection.
Then, in 1928 Sherriff wrote Journey’s End, his most spectacular dramatic success, which was performed for just two nights at the Apollo Theatre in London. The play was set in the trenches in March 1918, and was based on his own experiences and comrades at the Western Front. It was well received, and the play transferred to the Savoy Theatre in January 1929. It soon proved to be a critical and commercial success. None of his later plays achieved the success of Journey’s End.
In the 1930’s Sherriff also began his career as a screenplay writer and wrote and co-wrote various film scripts, including The Invisible Man (1933), One More River (1934) and The Road Back (1937). His biggest success came in 1939 when he was nominated, along with Eric Maschwitz and Claudine West, for an Academy Award for writing the adapted screenplay for Goodbye, Mr Chips. This career continued in the 1940’s with That Hamilton Woman (1941), This Above All (1942) and the Academy Award winning Mrs Miniver (1942), for which he was an uncredited writer. In 1956 Sherriff was nominated for BAFTA Best British Screenplay Awards for The Dam Busters and also The Night My Number Came Up, both of which had been released in 1955.
In 1944 Sherriff resumed play writing. Many of these later plays were performed in the West End. We have a number of these plays (in sets) in the SPAL collection: Miss Mabel (1949); Home at Seven (1950); Long Sunset (1955); Telescope (1959); Shred of Evidence (1961); and White Carnation (1954). It would be an interesting project for a play-reading group to read all these plays! He also wrote a number of novels, and a memoir No Leading Lady (1968), which is available (for reference only) in the SPAL collection.
Sherriff never married, and remained devoted to his mother, with whom he lived, latterly at his Esher house ‘Rosebriars’. He died in Kingston Hospital on 13 September 1975.
Sherriff bequeathed his papers to the Governors of Kingston Grammar School, while his royalties were divided between the School and the Scouts Association. He also bequeathed his home to Elmbridge Borough Council as an arts venue. It was later sold, and the capital realized on its sale established the RC Sherriff Trust (formerly the Rosebriars Trust), which supports the arts within Elmbridge Borough.
There are three collections of Sherriff’s papers held at the Surrey History Centre, all of which are now fully catalogued and accessible thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and support from Surrey History Trust, Kingston Grammar School, The RC Sherriff Trust, and Curtis Brown Literary Agents.
See below for items by RC Sherriff in the SPAL collection available for hire:
NewSPAL trustee Carol Hall writes below about RC Sherriff whose name may be unfamiliar but some of whose work will be much more well known. He had a life-long Surrey connection and the SPAL collection contains a selection of his work. Read on!
Robert Cedric Sherriff (known personally as Bob, and to the literary world simply as R C) lived in Esher for most of his life. He was born in Hampton Wick, Middlesex, on 6 June 1896 and was educated at Kingston Grammar School, where he won several sports prizes.
He enlisted into the army in November 1915 with the Artists Rifles and by September 1917 had obtained a commission with the East Surrey Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. He served in France until he was wounded in action on 2 August 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres), and was sent back to England for treatment.
He never returned to active service in France, and remained with the 3rd and 12th Battalions, the East Surrey Regiment, in Britain until he was demobilised in early 1919. Sherriff’s ‘Officer’s Record of Service’ shows that he retained the rank of Second Lieutenant throughout his active service in France. Later, while on home service, he was promoted firstly to Lieutenant on 5 March 1918, and later to Captain on 8 January 1919. In 1919 Sherriff unsuccessfully applied for a permanent commission in the army, and he returned to working for his pre-war employers in insurance. He devoted his free time to sport, creative writing and amateur dramatics.
He wrote at least six plays on an amateur basis, often as a means to raise funds for local causes and organisations: A Hitch in the Proceedings (1921); The Woods of Meadowside (1922}; Profit & Loss (1923); Cornlow in the Downs (1923); The Feudal System (1925); and
Mr Birdie’s Finger (1926). Sherriff also acted in several of these early plays, as did his sister Beryl Sherriff. Sadly we do not have copies of these early plays in the SPAL collection.
Then, in 1928 Sherriff wrote Journey’s End, his most spectacular dramatic success, which was performed for just two nights at the Apollo Theatre in London. The play was set in the trenches in March 1918, and was based on his own experiences and comrades at the Western Front. It was well received, and the play transferred to the Savoy Theatre in January 1929. It soon proved to be a critical and commercial success. None of his later plays achieved the success of Journey’s End.
In the 1930’s Sherriff also began his career as a screenplay writer and wrote and co-wrote various film scripts, including The Invisible Man (1933), One More River (1934) and The Road Back (1937). His biggest success came in 1939 when he was nominated, along with Eric Maschwitz and Claudine West, for an Academy Award for writing the adapted screenplay for Goodbye, Mr Chips. This career continued in the 1940’s with That Hamilton Woman (1941), This Above All (1942) and the Academy Award winning Mrs Miniver (1942), for which he was an uncredited writer. In 1956 Sherriff was nominated for BAFTA Best British Screenplay Awards for The Dam Busters and also The Night My Number Came Up, both of which had been released in 1955.
In 1944 Sherriff resumed play writing. Many of these later plays were performed in the West End. We have a number of these plays (in sets) in the SPAL collection: Miss Mabel (1949); Home at Seven (1950); Long Sunset (1955); Telescope (1959); Shred of Evidence (1961); and White Carnation (1954). It would be an interesting project for a play-reading group to read all these plays! He also wrote a number of novels, and a memoir No Leading Lady (1968), which is available (for reference only) in the SPAL collection.
Sherriff never married, and remained devoted to his mother, with whom he lived, latterly at his Esher house ‘Rosebriars’. He died in Kingston Hospital on 13 September 1975.
Sherriff bequeathed his papers to the Governors of Kingston Grammar School, while his royalties were divided between the School and the Scouts Association. He also bequeathed his home to Elmbridge Borough Council as an arts venue. It was later sold, and the capital realized on its sale established the RC Sherriff Trust (formerly the Rosebriars Trust), which supports the arts within Elmbridge Borough.
There are three collections of Sherriff’s papers held at the Surrey History Centre, all of which are now fully catalogued and accessible thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and support from Surrey History Trust, Kingston Grammar School, The RC Sherriff Trust, and Curtis Brown Literary Agents.
See below for items by RC Sherriff in the SPAL collection available for hire:
Composer: Ethel Smythe (1858 - 1944)
“One of the most remarkable people of our time”
“She was one of the most remarkable people of our time, among men or women, and there are many of us alive today who cherish her memory, and we do so with admiration, respect and a great deal of love.” This was how Sir Thomas Beecham concluded his tribute to Dame Ethel in a broadcast on the BBC Home Service in April 1958 to mark her centenary.
Ethel Smyth was the fourth of eight children – six girls and two boys - born to Major General John Hall Smyth of the Royal Artillery and his wife Emma nee Struth. Her childhood was spent in Sidcup, near Woolwich where her father commanded the Artillery Depot having recently returned from India, and then Frimley near Farnborough from 1867 when her father, promoted to General, took command of the Artillery at Aldershot. It was at this time that Ethel discovered her aptitude for music and started composing – she says mainly psalm chants and hymns – and playing the piano and singing with her sister Mary. Their duets became a feature of home dinner parties. Her mother, who was musical, albeit untrained, encouraged her. When a new governess who had studied at Leipzig Conservatorium arrived and introduced her to classical music, Ethel aged 12 became determined that she would go to Leipzig to study there.
Harmony lessons with an army officer colleague of her father who also happened to be a composer introduced her to Wagner and she conceived a desire to have an opera produced in Germany before she was forty. Her father wanted her to ‘be presented’ and to marry but Edith was determined to study to be a composer.
Edith had begun to slip away to London on her own to attend concerts – she borrowed money from local tradesmen and told them to put the sum on the General’s account. This provoked a confrontation with her father and she said that she would have to go to London to hear music if she was not allowed to go to Leipzig. She embarked on a campaign of disobedience, refusing to go to church, refusing to sing at dinner parties and refusing to talk to anyone and her father finally relented. A family friend who recognised Ethel’s talent and wanted to encourage her produced a respectable aunt who would look after her and Ethel departed for Leipzig in July 1877.
Finding the teaching at the Conservatorium unsatisfactory Ethel started to take private lessons with Heinrich von Herzogenberg whose wife Elisabeth (known as Frau Lisl) was a former pupil and close musical confidant of Brahms. Through the von Herzogenbergs Ethel gained access to the highest levels of music society in Germany and was able to observe Brahms himself from close quarters.
The story of Ethel’s childhood and teenage years illustrates three characteristics that proved to be typical of her whole life: her defiance of convention in refusing to marry and choosing to be a composer, her ambition, moreover, to compose operas, the most expensive form she could have chosen rather than the piano pieces and songs that were the typical output of most female composers at the time, and her iron determination to have her own way.
Some miscellaneous Ethel Smyth facts
Further reading/listening
Copies of many of Ethel’s books are available for reference at the Surrey History Centre which also holds manuscript and printed copies of March of the Women. Alternatively, Ronald Crichton’s abridged selection from her writings with his informative introduction and a comprehensive list of compositions complied by Jory Bennett may be found online at the Internet Archive.
Spotify has many recordings of Ethel’s music. There is also a recording of the 1958 BBC programme, broadcast to mark her centenary, which begins with Sir Thomas Beecham’s extempore tribute and concludes with a number of anecdotes recalled by people who knew her well, including her niece.
There are also many recordings available on YouTube including a remarkable one of a radio broadcast, probably dating from 1935, in which Dame Ethel gives her not wholly complimentary recollections of Johannes Brahms.
The website www.ethelsmyth.org is dedicated to celebrating the life and achievements of Dame Ethel.
The SPAL collection holds a number of items relating to Ethel Smyth including scores, recordings of her music, and 3 books about her. Notable compositions include ‘The Wreckers’ and a Mass in D major. Smyth was heavily involved with the women’s suffrage movement (causing her to serve 2 months in Holloway prison). In 1911 she wrote ‘The March of the Women’, dedicated to Emmeline Pankhurst, which became the anthem of the Women’s Social and Political Union.
For a list of all Smyth resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below and to read the extended article written by Roger Miller please download the PDF file below.
“One of the most remarkable people of our time”
“She was one of the most remarkable people of our time, among men or women, and there are many of us alive today who cherish her memory, and we do so with admiration, respect and a great deal of love.” This was how Sir Thomas Beecham concluded his tribute to Dame Ethel in a broadcast on the BBC Home Service in April 1958 to mark her centenary.
Ethel Smyth was the fourth of eight children – six girls and two boys - born to Major General John Hall Smyth of the Royal Artillery and his wife Emma nee Struth. Her childhood was spent in Sidcup, near Woolwich where her father commanded the Artillery Depot having recently returned from India, and then Frimley near Farnborough from 1867 when her father, promoted to General, took command of the Artillery at Aldershot. It was at this time that Ethel discovered her aptitude for music and started composing – she says mainly psalm chants and hymns – and playing the piano and singing with her sister Mary. Their duets became a feature of home dinner parties. Her mother, who was musical, albeit untrained, encouraged her. When a new governess who had studied at Leipzig Conservatorium arrived and introduced her to classical music, Ethel aged 12 became determined that she would go to Leipzig to study there.
Harmony lessons with an army officer colleague of her father who also happened to be a composer introduced her to Wagner and she conceived a desire to have an opera produced in Germany before she was forty. Her father wanted her to ‘be presented’ and to marry but Edith was determined to study to be a composer.
Edith had begun to slip away to London on her own to attend concerts – she borrowed money from local tradesmen and told them to put the sum on the General’s account. This provoked a confrontation with her father and she said that she would have to go to London to hear music if she was not allowed to go to Leipzig. She embarked on a campaign of disobedience, refusing to go to church, refusing to sing at dinner parties and refusing to talk to anyone and her father finally relented. A family friend who recognised Ethel’s talent and wanted to encourage her produced a respectable aunt who would look after her and Ethel departed for Leipzig in July 1877.
Finding the teaching at the Conservatorium unsatisfactory Ethel started to take private lessons with Heinrich von Herzogenberg whose wife Elisabeth (known as Frau Lisl) was a former pupil and close musical confidant of Brahms. Through the von Herzogenbergs Ethel gained access to the highest levels of music society in Germany and was able to observe Brahms himself from close quarters.
The story of Ethel’s childhood and teenage years illustrates three characteristics that proved to be typical of her whole life: her defiance of convention in refusing to marry and choosing to be a composer, her ambition, moreover, to compose operas, the most expensive form she could have chosen rather than the piano pieces and songs that were the typical output of most female composers at the time, and her iron determination to have her own way.
Some miscellaneous Ethel Smyth facts
- Dame Ethel lived in Woking at a cottage she named ‘Coign’ near Woking Golf Course in Hook Heath from 1910 until her death. The cottage, now renamed, bears a blue plaque.
- Dame Ethel owned a succession of four Old English Sheepdogs, all called Pan. She wrote movingly about the illness and death of Pan IV, the one she had loved the most, who was clearly a very good dog indeed.
- Dame Ethel, in common with many men and women of her time whose politics were radical, was a keen cyclist. In his memoirs Sir Henry Wood recalled his first meeting with her. Sir Henry, also a cyclist, needed his bicycle to be repaired and was told by his maid that a man was waiting to see him in the drawing room. Walking into the room and assuming that the figure apparently wearing breeches with its back to him was the man who had come about the repair, he began to talk about his bicycle. The figure turned round and said: “Bicycle? I am Ethel Smyth!” The breeches were in fact the bloomers of Ethel’s ‘Rational Dress’, a fashion adopted by more daring women for cycling.
- Ethel worked as an assistant radiologist in a French military hospital in Vichy from 1915 to 1918.
- Dame Ethel’s penultimate composition in 1930 was a fanfare called ‘Hot Potatoes’ written in aid of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund and performed by Army Bandsmen from Kneller Hall.
- Dame Ethel’s March of the Women was performed in 1930 at the unveiling of a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in a version accompanied by the band of the suffragette’s main adversaries, the Metropolitan Police.
- Dame Ethel received the honorary degree of D. Mus from Durham University in 1901. Not many years previously the university’s position was that women were not eligible for degrees but might go through the exams and receive a certificate if they were successful. She claimed that she was made a Dame in 1922 after having come to the notice of Lord Riddell, a friend of Lloyd George, through her involvement in a dispute at Woking Golf Club between the male and female members about a short cut through the club house that involved the ladies passing the men’s dressing rooms. She received further honorary degrees from Oxford in 1926 (the first female recipient of an honorary doctorate in music from the university), St Andrews (1928) and Manchester (1930).
Further reading/listening
Copies of many of Ethel’s books are available for reference at the Surrey History Centre which also holds manuscript and printed copies of March of the Women. Alternatively, Ronald Crichton’s abridged selection from her writings with his informative introduction and a comprehensive list of compositions complied by Jory Bennett may be found online at the Internet Archive.
Spotify has many recordings of Ethel’s music. There is also a recording of the 1958 BBC programme, broadcast to mark her centenary, which begins with Sir Thomas Beecham’s extempore tribute and concludes with a number of anecdotes recalled by people who knew her well, including her niece.
There are also many recordings available on YouTube including a remarkable one of a radio broadcast, probably dating from 1935, in which Dame Ethel gives her not wholly complimentary recollections of Johannes Brahms.
The website www.ethelsmyth.org is dedicated to celebrating the life and achievements of Dame Ethel.
The SPAL collection holds a number of items relating to Ethel Smyth including scores, recordings of her music, and 3 books about her. Notable compositions include ‘The Wreckers’ and a Mass in D major. Smyth was heavily involved with the women’s suffrage movement (causing her to serve 2 months in Holloway prison). In 1911 she wrote ‘The March of the Women’, dedicated to Emmeline Pankhurst, which became the anthem of the Women’s Social and Political Union.
For a list of all Smyth resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below and to read the extended article written by Roger Miller please download the PDF file below.
| ethel_smyth_full_article_written_by_roger_miller_may_2020.pdf |
Composer: Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
The composer Herbert Howells was born, like Ralph Vaughan Williams, in Gloucestershire, where he was greatly influenced by the beautiful countryside of the region. Unlike Vaughan Williams, who was born into a distinguished family of wealth and privilege, and who spent his childhood in the grandeur of Leith Hill Place high in the Surrey hills, Howells was born into a poor family, the youngest of eight children. As a young man, he also had to suffer the indignity of his father going bankrupt, an event which brought shame on a family in a small provincial town.
His most formative musical experience was hearing the first performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis in Gloucester cathedral in 1910. He was deeply affected by the music and it was also there that he met Vaughan Williams for the first time. Later they would form a close and long-lasting friendship.
Unlike Vaughan Williams, who took years to find his own style, Howells matured early. He was a brilliant student at the Royal College of Music and he already had an assured technique by the time he was twenty. Like Vaughan Williams, he was influenced by Tudor polyphony, by folksong (largely, he said, for its use of the ancient modes), and by the beauties of the English countryside. He was always primarily a contrapuntal composer, weaving together his separate melodic lines with apparent ease.
Howells made his living as a teacher – mainly at the RCM, though he was also appointed as professor of music at London University - and he was therefore under no financial necessity to compose. He wrote music simply because he wanted to and he showed very little interest in promoting his own music.
Howells was brought up in the English cathedral tradition, beginning his career as an articled pupil to Herbert Brewer, the organist of Gloucester cathedral. He passed the difficult FRCO exam and was for a brief period assistant organist at Salisbury, where he lived in the delightful surroundings of the Cathedral Close. He was always inspired by the architecture of the great cathedrals and relished the sound of choral voices echoing in the great spaces. He was not a religious man but he turned to writing church music later in life and composed many fine pieces for the services of the Anglican church.
Howells was diagnosed with Graves’ disease at the age of 23 and given six months to live. He received a new experimental treatment, involving injections of radium for two years, and then went on to live until the ripe old age of ninety. His illness prevented him from being called up for service in the first world war and so he escaped the slaughter that was the cruel fate of so many of his contemporaries.
He suffered one great tragedy in his life – the death of his son Michael from spinal meningitis at the age of nine. Howells always felt a deep sense of loss. He said that there was never a day in the rest of his life when he did not think of Michael, and that the memory of Michael is present in much of his music. To assuage his grief, he wrote the work that is generally considered his masterpiece: the Hymnus Paradisi, a kind of requiem for Michael. Howells regarded it as a private piece and it lay unperformed for many years until Vaughan Williams urged Howells to have it performed. It is an intense and powerful work, for choir and large orchestra, displaying a wide range of emotions from deep sorrow and anger at loss, to acceptance, resignation and mourning.
Howells was closely involved with Vaughan Williams’ Leith Hill Musical Festival, based in Dorking. He served on the music committee for over forty years, adjudicated several times in the 1930s and 40s, and also presented the prizes to the winning choirs on three occasions. His music has often featured in the competitions and in the programmes of the festival concerts.
Howells wrote orchestral music (including two piano concertos), chamber music (notably the string quartet entitled In Gloucestershire), and a large amount of keyboard music (for organ, piano and clavichord). He also of course wrote a good deal of choral music; major works are the Hymnus Paradisi, the Missa sabrinensis, and the Motet on the death of President Kennedy. The library holds a wide selection of his choral works, several of his instrumental pieces, various CD recordings, and also some books on Howells and his music.
Written by Ian Codd
The composer Herbert Howells was born, like Ralph Vaughan Williams, in Gloucestershire, where he was greatly influenced by the beautiful countryside of the region. Unlike Vaughan Williams, who was born into a distinguished family of wealth and privilege, and who spent his childhood in the grandeur of Leith Hill Place high in the Surrey hills, Howells was born into a poor family, the youngest of eight children. As a young man, he also had to suffer the indignity of his father going bankrupt, an event which brought shame on a family in a small provincial town.
His most formative musical experience was hearing the first performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis in Gloucester cathedral in 1910. He was deeply affected by the music and it was also there that he met Vaughan Williams for the first time. Later they would form a close and long-lasting friendship.
Unlike Vaughan Williams, who took years to find his own style, Howells matured early. He was a brilliant student at the Royal College of Music and he already had an assured technique by the time he was twenty. Like Vaughan Williams, he was influenced by Tudor polyphony, by folksong (largely, he said, for its use of the ancient modes), and by the beauties of the English countryside. He was always primarily a contrapuntal composer, weaving together his separate melodic lines with apparent ease.
Howells made his living as a teacher – mainly at the RCM, though he was also appointed as professor of music at London University - and he was therefore under no financial necessity to compose. He wrote music simply because he wanted to and he showed very little interest in promoting his own music.
Howells was brought up in the English cathedral tradition, beginning his career as an articled pupil to Herbert Brewer, the organist of Gloucester cathedral. He passed the difficult FRCO exam and was for a brief period assistant organist at Salisbury, where he lived in the delightful surroundings of the Cathedral Close. He was always inspired by the architecture of the great cathedrals and relished the sound of choral voices echoing in the great spaces. He was not a religious man but he turned to writing church music later in life and composed many fine pieces for the services of the Anglican church.
Howells was diagnosed with Graves’ disease at the age of 23 and given six months to live. He received a new experimental treatment, involving injections of radium for two years, and then went on to live until the ripe old age of ninety. His illness prevented him from being called up for service in the first world war and so he escaped the slaughter that was the cruel fate of so many of his contemporaries.
He suffered one great tragedy in his life – the death of his son Michael from spinal meningitis at the age of nine. Howells always felt a deep sense of loss. He said that there was never a day in the rest of his life when he did not think of Michael, and that the memory of Michael is present in much of his music. To assuage his grief, he wrote the work that is generally considered his masterpiece: the Hymnus Paradisi, a kind of requiem for Michael. Howells regarded it as a private piece and it lay unperformed for many years until Vaughan Williams urged Howells to have it performed. It is an intense and powerful work, for choir and large orchestra, displaying a wide range of emotions from deep sorrow and anger at loss, to acceptance, resignation and mourning.
Howells was closely involved with Vaughan Williams’ Leith Hill Musical Festival, based in Dorking. He served on the music committee for over forty years, adjudicated several times in the 1930s and 40s, and also presented the prizes to the winning choirs on three occasions. His music has often featured in the competitions and in the programmes of the festival concerts.
Howells wrote orchestral music (including two piano concertos), chamber music (notably the string quartet entitled In Gloucestershire), and a large amount of keyboard music (for organ, piano and clavichord). He also of course wrote a good deal of choral music; major works are the Hymnus Paradisi, the Missa sabrinensis, and the Motet on the death of President Kennedy. The library holds a wide selection of his choral works, several of his instrumental pieces, various CD recordings, and also some books on Howells and his music.
Written by Ian Codd
Composer: Alan Bush (1900 - 1995)
The Winter Journey Op. 29 (1946) by Alan Bush
Cantata for soprano and baritone soli and mixed chorus, with accompaniment for string quintet and harp or pianoforte (NewSPAL holds a set of 21 copies of the vocal score.)
In his 1985 memoir Amiscellany, John Amis, writer, broadcaster, music administrator and observer from close quarters of musical life in Britain from the 1940s onwards, devoted a chapter to composers he considered his friends. Alongside Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett he included Alan Bush who he judged to be at his best the equal of those two composers. Of Bush’s works he singled out for praise ‘the quite haunting loveliness of the Christmas cantata The Winter Journey’. Bush is hardly known today partly because of what Amis delicately calls his political integrity, by which he meant Bush’s ardent support of communism during a period when that did nothing for a composer’s reputation, at least on the western side of the Iron Curtain.
Alan Bush was born in Dulwich, South London in 1900. He entered the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in 1918, studying organ, piano and composition there until 1922. He then studied piano further under Benno Moiseivitch and Mabel Lander[1] and from the mid 1920’s with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. From 1922 to 1927 he studied composition with John Ireland. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the RAM in 1925, a position he held until his retirement in 1978. In parallel with his duties at the RAM initially he continued his own studies in philosophy and musicology in Berlin, also performing there in piano and chamber music recitals. He returned to London in 1931 and that year married Nancy Head, sister of the singer and composer Michael Head.
He became involved in socialist choirs active in London and helped establish an umbrella organisation, the London Labour Choral Union. In 1936 he formed the Workers' Music Association which continues to this day. In 1934 Bush composed the music for a large theatrical pageant The Pageant of Labour held in the Crystal Palace, Sydenham to mark the centenary year of the trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. 1,700 performers were involved. He was assisted in conducting this by Michael Tippett, who was to acknowledge Bush as a significant musical influence. One of Bush’s most highly regarded compositions is his single movement string quartet Dialectic Op. 15 of 1929 which received its first performance in 1935 in the same concert that the original version of Tippett’s first quartet was also premiered. A fine 1947 recording of Dialectic by the Aeolian Quartet can be heard here.
In April 1939 Bush took a major role in organising a Festival of Music for the People which started with another large scale pageant with 600 performers, this time in the Royal Albert Hall. Bush wrote to a number of composers asking them for contributions, including Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams despite having reservations about who constituted ‘the People’ provided his Flourish for Brass Band to open the pageant. In addition to the pageant the wider festival included two concerts, one of which introduced Benjamin Britten’s short cantata Ballad of Heroes which set texts by Randall Swingler and W. H. Auden and was intended to honour British members of the International Brigade who had volunteered in the Spanish Civil War of 1937.
Bush, having joined the Independent Labour Party in 1924 and then the Labour Party in 1929, became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1935. Tippett joined the CPGB in the same year but resigned after a few months. Britten’s involvement on the margins of left-wing politics receded as Auden’s influence on him declined. Bush served as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps during WW2 and was based in London where he was able to continue to be active as a conductor and pianist, though his writing was limited.
On demobilisation in 1945 he started composing again and one of his first works was a short cantata The Winter Journey for soprano and baritone soloists, representing Mary and Joseph, mixed chorus and string quintet and harp (or piano) to a text by Swingler. It was the result of a commission by The Council for the Arts, Music and Drama in Northumberland and part of post-war efforts to renew the arts under the new Labour government. The organisers had staged a performance of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols in December 1945 and proposed to Bush that he should compose a Christmas cantata. The atheist composer was uneasy about writing a work with a religious dimension but accepted Swingler’s solution of stripping down the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem (here called just The City) to its essentials. After a slow introduction the first movement represents the busyness of the city and the lack of regard by the inhabitants for the couple and their unborn child. In the second movement the baritone soloist recounts in a long declamation the trials of the journey in a way that is reminiscent of T. S. Eliot’s 1927 poem The Journey of the Magi. The short choral third movement describes the sleepers in the city uneasily stirring, aware that something is about to happen without knowing what it is. The fourth movement for solo soprano – Mary’s Song – asks whether the citizens of the city will accept her child ‘And when my child shall stretch out arms to me, Which shadow shall I see along the floor, The cross of death, or blossoming tree?’. The fifth and last movement starts with a solemn chorale for unaccompanied semi-chorus saying that the couple’s journey has been in vain and then the main chorus joins in with the words ‘unless we make some place to lay the child’.
The story can be seen as an allegory for the long journey through six years of war and the question of what the post-war world will bring.
The first performance of the cantata was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in December 1946 from Alnwick Parish Church, Northumberland. There were further broadcast performances in 1948 and 1951, a televised performance in a programme about Alan Bush’s music introduced by John Amis on BBC 2 in 1970 and a broadcast in 1980 of a performance by the BBC Singers on what was by now Radio 3. A recording of this performance was repeated in a 1993 radio programme described in the Radio Times as follows: “John Amis introduces music by Alan Bush (born 22 December 1900) who, despite a career that has been crippled by his espousal of communism, should some day take his rightful place as one of the most distinguished composers of his time.” Alan Bush died in 1995 at the age of 94 and the BBC Singers performance was broadcast again in a programme paying tribute to him, again involving John Amis, on 22nd December of that year. There is no commercial recording of the cantata. The most recent live performance to be found is one by the BBC Singers in January 1986. Since then it appears to have completely dropped out of the repertoire but surely would merit an occasional revival when circumstances allow.
[1] Mabel Lander (1882-1955) taught many leading pianists quite a few of whom, probably unknown to her, turned out to be members of the Communist Party. Rather surprisingly she was also piano tutor to the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret!
In response to the above article, a NewSPAL supporter contacted us to share their story:
'I was so interested to read about Alan Bush. At the first Prom I ever attended, in Sept 1956, he conducted the first London performance of his Concert Suite for cello and orchestra. Florence Hooton was the soloist with the BBC SO.
Then in 1963 at the Dartington Summer School of Music I sang in the choir when we performed "The Winter Journey". The soloists were Hazel Schmid and Joseph Ward, and the Dartington String Quartet played, with Terence Weil (cello) and Margaret Beeston (harp). Bernard Keeffe conducted.
In that programme we also sang three movements from Byrd's four-part mass. Alan Bush kept turning up to rehearsals so we had to rehearse his piece (which was difficult) and therefore didn't have time to learn the whole of the Byrd!
I've attended the Summer School many, many times and Alan Bush was sometimes there so I did meet him. He was certainly a very talented and interesting man.'
Thank you to Juliet Chaplin for allowing us to share your story.
Updated 18/08/20
Further reading/viewing/listening
For a list of all Bush resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below. Article written by Roger Miller.
The Winter Journey Op. 29 (1946) by Alan Bush
Cantata for soprano and baritone soli and mixed chorus, with accompaniment for string quintet and harp or pianoforte (NewSPAL holds a set of 21 copies of the vocal score.)
In his 1985 memoir Amiscellany, John Amis, writer, broadcaster, music administrator and observer from close quarters of musical life in Britain from the 1940s onwards, devoted a chapter to composers he considered his friends. Alongside Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett he included Alan Bush who he judged to be at his best the equal of those two composers. Of Bush’s works he singled out for praise ‘the quite haunting loveliness of the Christmas cantata The Winter Journey’. Bush is hardly known today partly because of what Amis delicately calls his political integrity, by which he meant Bush’s ardent support of communism during a period when that did nothing for a composer’s reputation, at least on the western side of the Iron Curtain.
Alan Bush was born in Dulwich, South London in 1900. He entered the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in 1918, studying organ, piano and composition there until 1922. He then studied piano further under Benno Moiseivitch and Mabel Lander[1] and from the mid 1920’s with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. From 1922 to 1927 he studied composition with John Ireland. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the RAM in 1925, a position he held until his retirement in 1978. In parallel with his duties at the RAM initially he continued his own studies in philosophy and musicology in Berlin, also performing there in piano and chamber music recitals. He returned to London in 1931 and that year married Nancy Head, sister of the singer and composer Michael Head.
He became involved in socialist choirs active in London and helped establish an umbrella organisation, the London Labour Choral Union. In 1936 he formed the Workers' Music Association which continues to this day. In 1934 Bush composed the music for a large theatrical pageant The Pageant of Labour held in the Crystal Palace, Sydenham to mark the centenary year of the trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. 1,700 performers were involved. He was assisted in conducting this by Michael Tippett, who was to acknowledge Bush as a significant musical influence. One of Bush’s most highly regarded compositions is his single movement string quartet Dialectic Op. 15 of 1929 which received its first performance in 1935 in the same concert that the original version of Tippett’s first quartet was also premiered. A fine 1947 recording of Dialectic by the Aeolian Quartet can be heard here.
In April 1939 Bush took a major role in organising a Festival of Music for the People which started with another large scale pageant with 600 performers, this time in the Royal Albert Hall. Bush wrote to a number of composers asking them for contributions, including Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams despite having reservations about who constituted ‘the People’ provided his Flourish for Brass Band to open the pageant. In addition to the pageant the wider festival included two concerts, one of which introduced Benjamin Britten’s short cantata Ballad of Heroes which set texts by Randall Swingler and W. H. Auden and was intended to honour British members of the International Brigade who had volunteered in the Spanish Civil War of 1937.
Bush, having joined the Independent Labour Party in 1924 and then the Labour Party in 1929, became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1935. Tippett joined the CPGB in the same year but resigned after a few months. Britten’s involvement on the margins of left-wing politics receded as Auden’s influence on him declined. Bush served as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps during WW2 and was based in London where he was able to continue to be active as a conductor and pianist, though his writing was limited.
On demobilisation in 1945 he started composing again and one of his first works was a short cantata The Winter Journey for soprano and baritone soloists, representing Mary and Joseph, mixed chorus and string quintet and harp (or piano) to a text by Swingler. It was the result of a commission by The Council for the Arts, Music and Drama in Northumberland and part of post-war efforts to renew the arts under the new Labour government. The organisers had staged a performance of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols in December 1945 and proposed to Bush that he should compose a Christmas cantata. The atheist composer was uneasy about writing a work with a religious dimension but accepted Swingler’s solution of stripping down the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem (here called just The City) to its essentials. After a slow introduction the first movement represents the busyness of the city and the lack of regard by the inhabitants for the couple and their unborn child. In the second movement the baritone soloist recounts in a long declamation the trials of the journey in a way that is reminiscent of T. S. Eliot’s 1927 poem The Journey of the Magi. The short choral third movement describes the sleepers in the city uneasily stirring, aware that something is about to happen without knowing what it is. The fourth movement for solo soprano – Mary’s Song – asks whether the citizens of the city will accept her child ‘And when my child shall stretch out arms to me, Which shadow shall I see along the floor, The cross of death, or blossoming tree?’. The fifth and last movement starts with a solemn chorale for unaccompanied semi-chorus saying that the couple’s journey has been in vain and then the main chorus joins in with the words ‘unless we make some place to lay the child’.
The story can be seen as an allegory for the long journey through six years of war and the question of what the post-war world will bring.
The first performance of the cantata was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in December 1946 from Alnwick Parish Church, Northumberland. There were further broadcast performances in 1948 and 1951, a televised performance in a programme about Alan Bush’s music introduced by John Amis on BBC 2 in 1970 and a broadcast in 1980 of a performance by the BBC Singers on what was by now Radio 3. A recording of this performance was repeated in a 1993 radio programme described in the Radio Times as follows: “John Amis introduces music by Alan Bush (born 22 December 1900) who, despite a career that has been crippled by his espousal of communism, should some day take his rightful place as one of the most distinguished composers of his time.” Alan Bush died in 1995 at the age of 94 and the BBC Singers performance was broadcast again in a programme paying tribute to him, again involving John Amis, on 22nd December of that year. There is no commercial recording of the cantata. The most recent live performance to be found is one by the BBC Singers in January 1986. Since then it appears to have completely dropped out of the repertoire but surely would merit an occasional revival when circumstances allow.
[1] Mabel Lander (1882-1955) taught many leading pianists quite a few of whom, probably unknown to her, turned out to be members of the Communist Party. Rather surprisingly she was also piano tutor to the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret!
In response to the above article, a NewSPAL supporter contacted us to share their story:
'I was so interested to read about Alan Bush. At the first Prom I ever attended, in Sept 1956, he conducted the first London performance of his Concert Suite for cello and orchestra. Florence Hooton was the soloist with the BBC SO.
Then in 1963 at the Dartington Summer School of Music I sang in the choir when we performed "The Winter Journey". The soloists were Hazel Schmid and Joseph Ward, and the Dartington String Quartet played, with Terence Weil (cello) and Margaret Beeston (harp). Bernard Keeffe conducted.
In that programme we also sang three movements from Byrd's four-part mass. Alan Bush kept turning up to rehearsals so we had to rehearse his piece (which was difficult) and therefore didn't have time to learn the whole of the Byrd!
I've attended the Summer School many, many times and Alan Bush was sometimes there so I did meet him. He was certainly a very talented and interesting man.'
Thank you to Juliet Chaplin for allowing us to share your story.
Updated 18/08/20
Further reading/viewing/listening
- More information about Alan Bush and his many compositions, including four symphonies and four operas, can be found at Alan Bush Musical Trust
- Alan Bush: A Life (1983) An excellent documentary film directed by Anna Ambrose with a number of performances of key works and extensive interviews with the composer and Michael Tippett.
- A Spotify playlist of music by Alan Bush.
For a list of all Bush resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below. Article written by Roger Miller.
Playwright: John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
John Galsworthy was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, in a fine house on Kingston Hill (now a care home known as Galsworthy House) into a prosperous family. He attended Harrow and New College, Oxford. trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1890.
He did not take up the law, instead travelling world-wide, including to Australia, where he met, and became friends with, Joseph Conrad. He began to write, at first for his own pleasure, and under a pseudonym, John Sinjohn. He is now probably best known for his novels, including The Forsyte Saga, but in his lifetime he was better known for his plays.
During the First World War Galsworthy worked in a hospital in France as an orderly, after being passed over for military service, and in 1917 turned down a knighthood, for which he was nominated by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, on the grounds that a writer's reward comes simply from writing itself.
He was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1932. He died in Hampstead, London, but was cremated at Woking, with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.
Galsworthy campaigned for a variety of causes through his writing, including prison reform, women's rights, and animal welfare, and also against censorship. He supported British involvement in the First World War calling for war on Germany to protect Belgium. Throughout his life he opposed the slaughter of animals and fought for animal rights. He was also a humanitarian and a member of the Humanitarian League.
Galsworthy’s plays available in the Performing Arts Library (all have large casts; there area good number of copies for each title, see comprehensive table below).
For a list of all Galsworthy resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below. Article written by Carol Hall.
John Galsworthy was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, in a fine house on Kingston Hill (now a care home known as Galsworthy House) into a prosperous family. He attended Harrow and New College, Oxford. trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1890.
He did not take up the law, instead travelling world-wide, including to Australia, where he met, and became friends with, Joseph Conrad. He began to write, at first for his own pleasure, and under a pseudonym, John Sinjohn. He is now probably best known for his novels, including The Forsyte Saga, but in his lifetime he was better known for his plays.
During the First World War Galsworthy worked in a hospital in France as an orderly, after being passed over for military service, and in 1917 turned down a knighthood, for which he was nominated by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, on the grounds that a writer's reward comes simply from writing itself.
He was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1932. He died in Hampstead, London, but was cremated at Woking, with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.
Galsworthy campaigned for a variety of causes through his writing, including prison reform, women's rights, and animal welfare, and also against censorship. He supported British involvement in the First World War calling for war on Germany to protect Belgium. Throughout his life he opposed the slaughter of animals and fought for animal rights. He was also a humanitarian and a member of the Humanitarian League.
Galsworthy’s plays available in the Performing Arts Library (all have large casts; there area good number of copies for each title, see comprehensive table below).
- The Silver Box (1906) deals with the double standard of justice as applied to the upper and lower classes
- Justice (1910), probably Galsworthy’s most famous play, was instrumental in prison reform in England, securing reductions in the amount of time convicted prisoners had to spend in solitary confinement
- Strife (1909) takes the confrontation of capital and labour as its main theme
- Loyalties (1922) takes issue with caste solidarity and antisemitism
- Escape, (1926) is a study in class structure and ethos according to Galsworthy's interpretation of 1920s British society
- The Skin Game (1920) which deals with enmity between two families
For a list of all Galsworthy resources in the SPAL collection for hire please see the table below. Article written by Carol Hall.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer of half-African descent who achieved an extraordinary success in Edwardian Britain and attained an international reputation with his cantata Hiawatha’s wedding feast. He was a prolific composer, an admired conductor and a respected teacher, and the musical world was shocked by his early death at the age of just 37. He died suddenly at home in Croydon, having fallen ill with pneumonia, possibly brought on by overwork. A local newspaper ran a lengthy obituary accompanying the report of his death, in which he was described as ‘a distinguished composer and one of the most famous citizens of Croydon’.
Coleridge-Taylor was born in London but some mystery surrounds his parentage. His father was Daniel Taylor, a doctor from Sierra Leone, who returned to Africa around the time of his son’s birth. His supposed mother was Alice Evans – she was never married to Dr Taylor and she later wedded a railway storeman named George Evans. Precise details were glossed over in early biographies in an attempt to conceal the composer’s illegitimacy. It has more recently been suggested that his real mother may have come from a more distinguished family (perhaps a Coleridge, thus explaining the boy’s name) and that a family friend - a Colonel Walters - arranged for the boy to be taken care of and became his unofficial guardian and protector. Perhaps the full truth will never be known.
Young Samuel displayed evident musical talents, learned the violin and sang in a church choir. Supported by Colonel Walters, he entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 15 to study the violin. While there, he wrote music and had some pieces published by Novello. On the recommendation of Sir George Grove, he switched to studying composition with Sir Charles Stanford. His name became known to Edward Elgar, and when Elgar was unable to undertake a commission for the Three Choirs Festival, he recommended Coleridge-Taylor instead. The result, his Ballade for orchestra, was very well received. Shortly afterwards, Stanford conducted the first performance of Hiawatha’s wedding feast to great acclaim. This was widely performed and made Coleridge-Taylor’s name. He was soon receiving more commissions from various music festivals.
He went on to enjoy a successful career as a composer and conductor. As well as directing many small choral and orchestral societies, he was appointed conductor of the Westmorland Festival and the Handel Society. He visited the USA several times, where the New York orchestral players, impressed by his conducting, dubbed him ‘the black Mahler’. He was also honoured to be received at the White House by President Roosevelt. His teaching activities led him to become professor of composition at Trinity College of Music in London and also
at the Guildhall School of Music. As a man he was modest, sincere and widely respected.
Owing to his youthful inexperience, Coleridge-Taylor sold Hiawatha’s wedding feast outright for 15 guineas and so failed to benefit financially from its huge success. He was attracted by Longfellow’s poem, with its unusual metres, strange names and exotic American Indian setting, and he produced a colourful cantata full of delightful melodies. It proved highly attractive to choral societies seeking some variety from the customary oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn. He later added two further parts – The death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha’s departure - to form an extended trilogy.
Coleridge-Taylor’s music was championed by Malcolm Sargent, who said of him ‘He’s a first-class composer, completely equipped technically, with a remarkable and individual chain of melodic invention’. During the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Sargent conducted ‘Hiawatha fortnights’ at the Royal Albert Hall. These proved enormously popular and ran for several years, packing the Albert Hall full every night. Hiawatha was performed by the Royal Choral Society – numbering hundreds of singers – in full costume, acting, singing and dancing amid scenery and props. In this immense spectacle, hundreds of Native Americans filled the hall’s arena, and the audience was ecstatic. (Its great popularity with choral societies may also be gauged from the fact that the Performing Arts Library has numerous vocal scores of the music!)
Besides Hiawatha, Coleridge-Taylor wrote a large amount of music in a wide range of genres – choral, orchestral, chamber music, piano works and songs. He was proud of his African heritage and sometimes made use of native African melodies in his music. Nevertheless his upbringing and training were English, and he always desired that his music should be judged by its merits and not through the colour of his skin. Although there were obstacles facing a black composer in the Britain of his time, he achieved complete professional success and was highly esteemed by his colleagues. Following his death, generous tributes came from many quarters. A memorial concert was held at the Albert Hall, which saw that large venue filled to capacity with many distinguished figures, including members of the royal family, in attendance.
Written by Ian Codd
See below for items by Coleridge-Taylor in the SPAL collection available for hire:
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer of half-African descent who achieved an extraordinary success in Edwardian Britain and attained an international reputation with his cantata Hiawatha’s wedding feast. He was a prolific composer, an admired conductor and a respected teacher, and the musical world was shocked by his early death at the age of just 37. He died suddenly at home in Croydon, having fallen ill with pneumonia, possibly brought on by overwork. A local newspaper ran a lengthy obituary accompanying the report of his death, in which he was described as ‘a distinguished composer and one of the most famous citizens of Croydon’.
Coleridge-Taylor was born in London but some mystery surrounds his parentage. His father was Daniel Taylor, a doctor from Sierra Leone, who returned to Africa around the time of his son’s birth. His supposed mother was Alice Evans – she was never married to Dr Taylor and she later wedded a railway storeman named George Evans. Precise details were glossed over in early biographies in an attempt to conceal the composer’s illegitimacy. It has more recently been suggested that his real mother may have come from a more distinguished family (perhaps a Coleridge, thus explaining the boy’s name) and that a family friend - a Colonel Walters - arranged for the boy to be taken care of and became his unofficial guardian and protector. Perhaps the full truth will never be known.
Young Samuel displayed evident musical talents, learned the violin and sang in a church choir. Supported by Colonel Walters, he entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 15 to study the violin. While there, he wrote music and had some pieces published by Novello. On the recommendation of Sir George Grove, he switched to studying composition with Sir Charles Stanford. His name became known to Edward Elgar, and when Elgar was unable to undertake a commission for the Three Choirs Festival, he recommended Coleridge-Taylor instead. The result, his Ballade for orchestra, was very well received. Shortly afterwards, Stanford conducted the first performance of Hiawatha’s wedding feast to great acclaim. This was widely performed and made Coleridge-Taylor’s name. He was soon receiving more commissions from various music festivals.
He went on to enjoy a successful career as a composer and conductor. As well as directing many small choral and orchestral societies, he was appointed conductor of the Westmorland Festival and the Handel Society. He visited the USA several times, where the New York orchestral players, impressed by his conducting, dubbed him ‘the black Mahler’. He was also honoured to be received at the White House by President Roosevelt. His teaching activities led him to become professor of composition at Trinity College of Music in London and also
at the Guildhall School of Music. As a man he was modest, sincere and widely respected.
Owing to his youthful inexperience, Coleridge-Taylor sold Hiawatha’s wedding feast outright for 15 guineas and so failed to benefit financially from its huge success. He was attracted by Longfellow’s poem, with its unusual metres, strange names and exotic American Indian setting, and he produced a colourful cantata full of delightful melodies. It proved highly attractive to choral societies seeking some variety from the customary oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn. He later added two further parts – The death of Minnehaha and Hiawatha’s departure - to form an extended trilogy.
Coleridge-Taylor’s music was championed by Malcolm Sargent, who said of him ‘He’s a first-class composer, completely equipped technically, with a remarkable and individual chain of melodic invention’. During the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Sargent conducted ‘Hiawatha fortnights’ at the Royal Albert Hall. These proved enormously popular and ran for several years, packing the Albert Hall full every night. Hiawatha was performed by the Royal Choral Society – numbering hundreds of singers – in full costume, acting, singing and dancing amid scenery and props. In this immense spectacle, hundreds of Native Americans filled the hall’s arena, and the audience was ecstatic. (Its great popularity with choral societies may also be gauged from the fact that the Performing Arts Library has numerous vocal scores of the music!)
Besides Hiawatha, Coleridge-Taylor wrote a large amount of music in a wide range of genres – choral, orchestral, chamber music, piano works and songs. He was proud of his African heritage and sometimes made use of native African melodies in his music. Nevertheless his upbringing and training were English, and he always desired that his music should be judged by its merits and not through the colour of his skin. Although there were obstacles facing a black composer in the Britain of his time, he achieved complete professional success and was highly esteemed by his colleagues. Following his death, generous tributes came from many quarters. A memorial concert was held at the Albert Hall, which saw that large venue filled to capacity with many distinguished figures, including members of the royal family, in attendance.
Written by Ian Codd
See below for items by Coleridge-Taylor in the SPAL collection available for hire:
John Ireland (1879-1962)
John Ireland spent his last years living in a converted windmill in Sussex. Places had always been important to him and his favourite spot was Chanctonbury Ring, a prehistoric hill fort high on the Sussex Downs. Although born in Cheshire, he lived for the greater part of his life in Chelsea, before his love of the Channel Islands led him to seek peace and tranquillity in Guernsey. His stay there was cut short by the German invasion and occupation and he returned to London before settling finally in Sussex. Chelsea, the Channel Islands and especially the soft and rolling landscape of the South Downs – all these inspired him and occupied an important place in his music.
Ireland had an unhappy childhood and found his escape in music. He entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 14 with the idea of becoming a concert pianist, and later began studying composition with Sir Charles Stanford. Stanford venerated the German tradition, especially Brahms, and he attempted to pass this on to his students. From Stanford’s authoritarian teaching Ireland learned to be highly self-critical, but he turned his attention to more modern composers. He was greatly influenced by the French impressionism of Debussy and Ravel and also admired Stravinsky.
His own music is sensitive and lyrical, with harmony that can be gently dissonant or can sometimes sound quite sharp. It is always beautifully crafted and it is clear that Ireland took great care over everything he wrote. He produced around forty short pieces for the piano, plus a fine large-scale sonata, and he also wrote many songs. Literature was another source of inspiration. He was a well-read man and he set a wide range of English poets, especially Housman and Hardy, whose sometimes bleak verse clearly resonated with him. He was much affected by the supernatural tales of the Welsh writer Arthur Machen, imbued with elements of pagan mysticism, and he was attracted to prehistoric sites and the legends associated with them.
Ireland’s personality was a complex one. Throughout his life he was fundamentally lonely and unhappy, suffered from feelings of insecurity, and was prone to alcoholism and periods of depression. Nearing the age of 50, he married a 17-year-old pupil and pianist, but the marriage was a disaster and was annulled after only a year. He then became attached to the pianist Helen Perkin and dedicated his piano concerto to her, only to withdraw the dedication when she later married. In his last years, he was cared for by a devoted housekeeper.
Ireland earned his living initially as an organist and choirmaster and then taught for several years at the Royal College of Music. His students there included a number of future composers, most notably Benjamin Britten. Besides his many songs and piano music, he wrote a small number of orchestral works, some chamber music, and various choral pieces including the impressive cantata These things shall be, expressing his hopes for a world freed from the scourge of war. In his later years he wrote very little and suffered from the feeling that his
music was being neglected. He died at his home of Rock Mill, from which he could see his beloved Chanctonbury Ring, and he was buried close to that ancient site.
John Ireland’s chief gift to English music lies in his songs and piano pieces, especially those inspired by the places he loved, such as Amberley wild brooks (Sussex), Sarnia (the Channel Islands) and The island spell (Jersey). The library holds a good selection of his songs, choral music, chamber works and piano pieces, both as scores and on CDs, as well as several books about the man and his music.
Written by Ian Codd
See below for items by Ireland in the SPAL collection available for hire:
John Ireland spent his last years living in a converted windmill in Sussex. Places had always been important to him and his favourite spot was Chanctonbury Ring, a prehistoric hill fort high on the Sussex Downs. Although born in Cheshire, he lived for the greater part of his life in Chelsea, before his love of the Channel Islands led him to seek peace and tranquillity in Guernsey. His stay there was cut short by the German invasion and occupation and he returned to London before settling finally in Sussex. Chelsea, the Channel Islands and especially the soft and rolling landscape of the South Downs – all these inspired him and occupied an important place in his music.
Ireland had an unhappy childhood and found his escape in music. He entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 14 with the idea of becoming a concert pianist, and later began studying composition with Sir Charles Stanford. Stanford venerated the German tradition, especially Brahms, and he attempted to pass this on to his students. From Stanford’s authoritarian teaching Ireland learned to be highly self-critical, but he turned his attention to more modern composers. He was greatly influenced by the French impressionism of Debussy and Ravel and also admired Stravinsky.
His own music is sensitive and lyrical, with harmony that can be gently dissonant or can sometimes sound quite sharp. It is always beautifully crafted and it is clear that Ireland took great care over everything he wrote. He produced around forty short pieces for the piano, plus a fine large-scale sonata, and he also wrote many songs. Literature was another source of inspiration. He was a well-read man and he set a wide range of English poets, especially Housman and Hardy, whose sometimes bleak verse clearly resonated with him. He was much affected by the supernatural tales of the Welsh writer Arthur Machen, imbued with elements of pagan mysticism, and he was attracted to prehistoric sites and the legends associated with them.
Ireland’s personality was a complex one. Throughout his life he was fundamentally lonely and unhappy, suffered from feelings of insecurity, and was prone to alcoholism and periods of depression. Nearing the age of 50, he married a 17-year-old pupil and pianist, but the marriage was a disaster and was annulled after only a year. He then became attached to the pianist Helen Perkin and dedicated his piano concerto to her, only to withdraw the dedication when she later married. In his last years, he was cared for by a devoted housekeeper.
Ireland earned his living initially as an organist and choirmaster and then taught for several years at the Royal College of Music. His students there included a number of future composers, most notably Benjamin Britten. Besides his many songs and piano music, he wrote a small number of orchestral works, some chamber music, and various choral pieces including the impressive cantata These things shall be, expressing his hopes for a world freed from the scourge of war. In his later years he wrote very little and suffered from the feeling that his
music was being neglected. He died at his home of Rock Mill, from which he could see his beloved Chanctonbury Ring, and he was buried close to that ancient site.
John Ireland’s chief gift to English music lies in his songs and piano pieces, especially those inspired by the places he loved, such as Amberley wild brooks (Sussex), Sarnia (the Channel Islands) and The island spell (Jersey). The library holds a good selection of his songs, choral music, chamber works and piano pieces, both as scores and on CDs, as well as several books about the man and his music.
Written by Ian Codd
See below for items by Ireland in the SPAL collection available for hire:
