Erik Chilholm

[lontano]

Hello everyone. I wanted to alert those here with a love of discovering undeservedly overlooked piano music. I very recently discovered the works of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm (1904-1965), a man of tremendous talent and love for the traditional music of Scotland. A visit to www.erikchisholm.com gives most of what you would like to know about him. I ordered the 1st 4 (of planned 6) CDs of his piano music played by Murray McLachlan. On vol 1 of this set is an amazing "Sonata in A - An Riobain Dearg)" in 4 movements, a work of great power and enormous virtuosity, highly original, but infused in the folk music of Scotland that he loved so much. In a way EC did for Scottish folk music what Bartok & Kodaly did for the folk music of Hungary and central Europe (and indeed EC and Bartok were friends). Sadly the scores to these works remain unpublished and/or out of print, but I am expecting a reply from the scottishmusiccentre.com regarding the cost of obtaining the score of this remarkable work. I fear it will be more than I can afford, but I encourage adventurous pianists (and lovers of great music) to do a bit of your own research into this composer.

I bid you all well,

Lontano 

[thalbergmad]

I am only aware of one of his piano concerto's (the 2nd i think) and indeed it is an interesting work.

The Scottish Music Centre will sometimes on request make an item availalbe to order online, if it does not show on their website. They did this for me for the concerto, but it was an astounding £49.50.

Pianostreet member Richard Black has played the concerto, so i expect he will be able to enlighten us more about Chisholms work.

Thal

[ahinton]

Chisholm arguably suffered from neglect for quite some time at least in part because he spent most of the last 20 years of his sadly short life (i.e. around one-third of it) away from Europe and partly because he was such a polymath - organist, pianist, composer, academic, conductor, teacher / lecturer, author, administrator / concert organiser. One of the major achievements during his yourger days was to found and run the Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music for the purpose of bringing major European composers to Glasgow to perform their work. The Society was effectively a one-man show thoughout its existence (1929-1937) and for that one man successfully to attract to that city in the economically depressed 1930s such figures as Bartók, Medtner, Sorabji, Szymanowski, Ireland, van Dieren, etc. with so much unfamiliar music was quite an extraordinary coup.

He conducted quite a few world and national premières during his lifetime, not necessarily always of new works. Quite how he found the time to write as much as he did in addition to all his other professional activities (which for some years included responsibility as Dean of the Faculty of Music at University of Cape Town) I have less than no idea. His student Yonty Solomon performed his two-piano ballet score The Forsaken Mermaid with Murray McLachlan a few years ago in London as part of the Chisholm centenary celebrations; it has been Chisholm who introduced Yonty to Sorabji's music while Yonty was studying at University of Cape Town.

The present society and website is the creation of Chisholm's eldest daughter who is arguably doing more than anyone other than the musicians themselves to promote his work and disseminate information about him.

Bartók said that he got an idea from Chisholm that he used in one of his piano concertos (the second, I think but I've no time to check at the moment); Bartók was evidently intrigued by his work and, rather as Roslavets has been dubbed "the Russian Schönberg" and Medtner "the Russian Brahms", some of Chisholm's colleagues and compatriots nicknamed him "MacBartók".

Best,

Alistair

[lontano]

It seems Chisholm's daughter Morag is working hard to "get the word out" about her father's music, but it is a slow labor of love. I have no idea how much of his music was actually published, and if any of it is still in print. I received a somewhat cryptic reply from the Scottish Music Centre regarding my request for a price quote on the "Sonata in A". The text was embedded in unprocessed html code, but I edited it out so you can see what they sent me:
------------------
Hi Stephen,

Our hire librarian has asked me to email you to say that this is a difficult piece to copy for a number of reasons and she would like clarification on exactly what you require.
 
There are 2 versions of Mov't.s 3 & 4, and the page numbers seem strange.
 
I would like to know: -
Would like to have the piece bound or loose leaf?
Would you like copies of both sets of the last 2 movements?
 
Here is an idea of what the costs would be: -
Version 1- 98 pages. Bound, £51. Unbound, £48.
Version 2- 3rd & 4th movements- 37 pages. If bound in with the rest, £62.50, or unbound (all) £59.50. Or bound separately, £27.50. Or loose-leaf on their own, £24.50.
 
I hope this makes sense,
Best wishes,
--
Jamie Gilmour
Membership Administrator
Scottish Music Centre
City Halls
Candleriggs
Glasgow, G1 1NQ
Scotland[/font]
----------------------------------
Besides the "options" (which I know nothing about) the price is too dear to invest in this work for now (esp since I've spent quite a bit over on Alistair's Sorabji Archive in the last few months - Thanks Alistair!  ) so this will, at best, remain on my wish list. It also reflects (to some degree at least) the sorry state in which Chisholm's scores are in. I'd like to ask Murray McLachlan where he obtained the scores, and what form they were in. He certainly has done a fine job of bringing this music to life.

Erik Chisholm needs an archivist just as Sorabji did, so Alistair, do you know anyone who might want to step up to the plate and give Morag a much deserved and needed hand at such a job?? 

My best,

Stephen Heller

(aka Lontano)