20th Century British Composers

[thalbergmad]

Incredibly, I have spent a few weeks listening to almost nothing but 20th Century British composers and mostly what a joy it was.

Working alphabetically, I have already sampled Bainton, Bate, Bax, Berkeley, Bowen, Britten & Bush and it would appear to me that whilst our Brits did not exactly shine in the previous centuries, they more than made up for it in the 20th century.

Initially, it was Bainton & Bowen that appealed to my romantically tuned ears, but the Symphonic Variations by Bax eventually "sunk in" and now i cannot get enought of the piece.

Apart from Bate, all the works I have listened to were for piano and orchestra, so suggestions would be welcome for further listening.

Already started on the "C's", with Chisholm leaving me slightly confused.

Thal
 

[ctrastevere]

Any Brian? His works, to me, are extraordinarily powerful and moving.

[ahinton]

Incredibly, I have spent a few weeks listening to almost nothing but 20th Century British composers and mostly what a joy it was.

Working alphabetically, I have already sampled Bainton, Bate, Bax, Berkeley, Bowen, Britten & Bush and it would appear to me that whilst our Brits did not exactly shine in the previous centuries, they more than made up for it in the 20th century.

So what happened to Alwyn, Arnell, Arnold...? Yes, indeed, there is far more to wrap one's ears around in 20th century British music than in earlier times - but if you'd been trying to do this 30 or so years ago you'd have been struggling to get hold of recordings of anything like as much as you can nowadays. I note from your list, however, that all the composers whose music you've been listening to are long since deceased...

Initially, it was Bainton & Bowen that appealed to my romantically tuned ears, but the Symphonic Variations by Bax eventually "sunk in" and now i cannot get enought of the piece.

Bowen has lain almost entirely ingored until relatively recently - quite unjustly, in my view. THe Bax work you mention is undoubtedly among his best.

Apart from Bate, all the works I have listened to were for piano and orchestra, so suggestions would be welcome for further listening.

Even from just the composers you name, there are symphonies aplenty - there's Britten's stage works and War Requiem (and much else).

Of course it will take you a while to get to the Ss at this rate, although your trip to the Netherlands in a few days' time should provide quite an interruption to your alphabetic samplings!

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

Thal, have you heard Alan Bush's piano concerto? It is on a scale perhaps only matched by the Busoni, complete with a chorus in the finale. I have not listened to it enough times to really give a fair evaluation of it, but it isn't coming close to the Busoni yet. I wasn't expecting it to. I was expecting something good, though, for I did like his piano sonata and his second symphony.

Also, Thal, going forward a bit, you might like the rather tame piano concerto by Michael Tippett, which is a rather sunny and optimistic work. It is nothing like his more difficult (but still rewarding) later music such as his epic third and fourth symphonies. You should really like the piano concerto, though.

[thalbergmad]

No old chap, not listened to Bush concerto, only the sea song variation thingy. The concerto would be too much for me at the moment.

Tippett I expect to get around to next year.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

Any Brian? His works, to me, are extraordinarily powerful and moving.

I missed him out this time as I had listened to his works a couple of years ago.

I remember being unmoved.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

So what happened to Alwyn, Arnell, Arnold...?

Not sure I have listened to Arnell, but i have heard bits from the other two.

Arnold did nothing for me personally.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

The Arnell concerto was pretty aimless from what I remember. However, the two Alwyn concertos were excellent, especially the first. The Arnold Concerto for 3 Hands was pretty funny also, and makes for some nice light music, but nothing more.

Not sure he would count as British (he lived in England for some time), but do check out Arthur Benjamin's piano concerto, which is one of the more interesting works I have heard of his.

Also, where did you get the Chisholm concertos? I didn't know they were recorded.

[ahinton]

Thal, have you heard Alan Bush's piano concerto? It is on a scale perhaps only matched by the Busoni, complete with a chorus in the finale. I have not listened to it enough times to really give a fair evaluation of it, but it isn't coming close to the Busoni yet. I wasn't expecting it to. I was expecting something good, though, for I did like his piano sonata and his second symphony.

Comparisons to the Busoni concerto are perhaps inevitable, given the scale of Bush's concerto and the chorus in the finale - but this perhaps is a classic example of the phrase "comparisons are odious", since one would have to go on a very long, arduous and likely fruitless journey to find a piano concerto that does come close to the Busoni! That said, it is one of Bush's best works, I think, although it has yet to receive a really good performance and the Randall Swingler "poem" that the composer sets in the finale is of such shameful quality that it remains a wonder to me that Bush even read it, let alone set it - yet somehow the music succeeds in transcending its ghastly cheap sentiments (no small achievement in itself!). As you no doubt know, Bush wrote it to play himself and was the soloist in its première.

the rather tame piano concerto by Michael Tippett, which is a rather sunny and optimistic work. It is nothing like his more difficult (but still rewarding) later music such as his epic third and fourth symphonies. You should really like the piano concerto, though.

"Tame"? That's abit unfair! It's an immensely attractive work from one of the best and most sustained creative periods of his career, although it's quite blisteringly uncomfortable to play, displaying as it rather embarrassingly does that its composer probably had less idea of how to write for the piano than Godowsky did as to how to write for the contrabass clarinet; oddly, however, it doesn't actually sound like slipshod piano writing, especially in the hands of John Ogdon (who was the first pianist that I heard playing it). I'm sorry to say that Tippett's Third Symphony is my least favourite by far of his non-stage works; the Fourth, whilst somewhat abstruse in places, does a lot to make up for it and the Second is possibly his finest orchestral work of all. A few years ago, BBCSO / Slatkin played a concert in which the Bush Piano Concerto (soloist Rolf Hind) followed Tippett's Second Symphony, which did the Bush no favours, especially as most of the rehearsal time had evidently gone into the far better known of those two works.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Also, where did you get the Chisholm concertos? I didn't know they were recorded.

The 1st has been commercially released old chap, but not the second which can be obtained by e mailing the delightful Morag Chisholm. All details are here.

https://www.erikchisholm.com/ect/index.php?id=268

Probably also available from the Scottish Music Centre, but you would need a credit card with a $1,000,000,000,000 limit to buy anything from them.

Thal

[ahinton]

The 1st has been commercially released old chap, but not the second which can be obtained by e mailing the delightful Morag Chisholm. All details are here.

https://www.erikchisholm.com/ect/index.php?id=268

Morag Chisholm, Erik's eldest daughter, has indeed done a great deal over the years to promote her father's work.

Probably also available from the Scottish Music Centre, but you would need a credit card with a $1,000,000,000,000 limit to buy anything from them.

I didn't know that SMIC accepted payments in US(?) dollars. How did you manage to obtain your own credit card with that somewhat substantial limit, by the way? - and have you yet thought which countries you could buy with it?

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

By golly Thal, if not gee wizz!

First your write that you are starting to find Sorabji worth the effort, now your going 20th century! In no time we'll be readsing you find Ferneyhough and Finnissey tame and lame and not modern enough!

As for Brian, I think he's a composer you like or like not, with little in between. I think he may be overdoing things a bit here and there with respect to orchestration, and his line of argument is not totally to my taste, but I think he could need a bot more attention. And I totally like the way he ends the 21st Symphony!

Keep digging!

gep

[ahinton]

By golly Thal, if not gee wizz!

First your write that you are starting to find Sorabji worth the effort, now your going 20th century! In no time we'll be reading you find Ferneyhough and Finnissey tame and lame and not modern enough!

For some unaccountable reason I am given to suspect that the likelihood of Thal wrapping his ears around those two composers' works (let alone responding to them thus!) is about as great as that of Sorabji having written a set of easy Chorale Preludes for the organ! (and there's no "e" in "Finnissy", by the way!).

As for Brian, I think he's a composer you like or like not, with little in between.

I'm not so sure that this applies to everyone, actually. I do agree that Brian usually tends to invite total devotees and total detractors with little in between, but I for one fall into neither category. Much of what he wrote before the Gothic Symphony - attractive and competent though some of it is - does little to suggest a truly great mind at work, despite Elgar having thought well of Brian's music for some quarter century before that monumental symphony was completed. That symphony seemed to come out of nowhere (although obviously it didn't) and the handful of his symphonies that immediately follow it are also bold and strong works but, apart from odd moments in his later pieces, I have rarely been anything like as impressed as I am with the music that Brian composed between the two world wars. Brian occupies a curious but important place in the early history of the British symphonic tradition; whilst Elgar's first two and Vaughan Williams's first three symphonies really seemed to spearhead this tradition, it seemed to fall largely fallow after around the end of WWI, with Bax perhaps the only major torchbearer keeping it alive until the 1930s, when Elgar's work on his Third Symphony came more or less to coincide with the early symphonic utterances of Lloyd, Walton and Rubbra. I describe Brian's position in all of this as curious because he already had three very substantial symphonies to his credit by the time that Elgar embarked on his Third Symphony but as none of them were performed until much later, their significance was largely unknown and unappreciated at the time.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

First your write that you are starting to find Sorabji worth the effort, now your going 20th century!

Well, I felt I was beginning to run out of British romantics and there was not an immense amount  to start with.

I had already spent some time listening and attempting to play works for piano & orchestra by McFarren, J F Barnett, Arthur Jackson, Willan, Baines, W S Bennett, Parry, Stanford, Parish Alvars, Hopekirk, Jewson, C A Trew, F E Bache, A M Smith, Beringer, Cusins, Litolff and gawd knows who else & just fancied something a little different.

It seems that romanticism did not die in the 20th century, but perhaps tonality became more extended and in some cases vanished completely. However, I have had to change my previous stance that works that are not tonally rooted are horsecrap and I am glad that i did. On the downside, whilst my ears may become attuned to such works, my sight reading ability falls even further short of what is required to decipher scores and unless I have a recording to listen to, it becomes nigh impossible for me to have a good bash at playing through something.

LONG LIVE THE BRITS.

Thal

[argerichfan]

LONG LIVE THE BRITS.

Indeed.

I assume you have the Chandos CD of the Howells piano concertos.  What do you think of those?   

[thalbergmad]

I have not reached the H's yet old chap, but Howells will definately be on my listening list along with Hamilton, Hely-Hutchinson & Hoddinott.

Not checked on available recordings for those though.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

As far as I know, Kathryn Stott has recorded the second on Hyperion and Howard Shelley has recorded both on Chandos. The Chandos disk has better performances, so I would recommend that one. Also, good luck getting the Hoddinott concertos (except for 1 and 2, which are still in print). I just bought the third on an old LP, but have not listened to it yet. As far as I know, it has not come out on disk yet. The fourth is unrecorded as far as I know.

[thalbergmad]

I say, I love LP's and it is wonderful when one finds something that is not available on CD.

It does get increasingly difficult to find replacement stylus though.

Thal

[argerichfan]

I have not reached the H's yet old chap, but Howells will definately be on my listening list along with Hamilton, Hely-Hutchinson & Hoddinott.

When you wrote 'Hamilton', did you mean Hamilton Harty?  Harty wrote a worthy concerto, if a bit like Rachmaninov and water. 

[thalbergmad]

I was referring to Iain Hamilton old chap.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

I was referring to Iain Hamilton old chap.

Thal

I don't think either of his concertos have been recorded. I have only seen the violin concerto around, personally, which was pretty good.

[ahinton]

I was referring to Iain Hamilton old chap.

Dear me! A Scottish composer beginning with an "H" and ending in "on"; that'll have to stop! Well, I suppose that it will do so on the basis that I mentioned briefly earlier when observing that all the composers whose work you're investigating are dead...

Best,

Alistair

[argerichfan]

I was referring to Iain Hamilton old chap.

Oops.  I did check Amazon.com (should have checked co.uk instead) to see if there was a Hamilton I missed, but nothing came up.  So, never heard of Iain Hamilton. 

[thalbergmad]

Well, I suppose that it will do so on the basis that I mentioned briefly earlier when observing that all the composers whose work you're investigating are dead...

I am tipping my toe into the water instead of diving straight in. If I venture into more contemporary works, the chances are I will come across some serialistic new complexity shitepile and head straight back to the 19th century.

However, going into the C's I was going to try some Philip Cannon (who appears to be still alive), but there does not appear to be many recordings. Also bypass Chagrin (as he was born in Romania) and Chisholm (already heard), so its straight to Coleridge-Taylor for me.

Makes one proud to be British.

Thal

[liordavid]

anyone got rawsthorne sheet music

[ahinton]

Oops.  I did check Amazon.com (should have checked co.uk instead) to see if there was a Hamilton I missed, but nothing came up.  So, never heard of Iain Hamilton. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Hamilton_%28composer%29
and rather more detail at
https://www.musicweb-international.com/Hamilton/

Best,

Alistair

[argerichfan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Hamilton_%28composer%29
and rather more detail at
https://www.musicweb-international.com/Hamilton/

Many thanks for that, Alistair.  Should get me started! 

[argerichfan]

anyone got rawsthorne sheet music

Assuming you mean Alan, but actually I'm currently curious about Noel (organist at Liverpool Anglican for many years).  I just purchased a CD of his service music.  Then when can we expect a CD of Goss-Custard? 

[gep]

I say, I love LP's and it is wonderful when one finds something that is not available on CD.

It does get increasingly difficult to find replacement stylus though.

Thal

Indeed so, my collection of LPs is still on the grow (will need to build an extension to the house soon...).
One of my pride and joys as a whole box played by John Ogdon which doesn't appear to have been reissued on CD!

As for stylus (Stylusses? Sytly?), do you knwo this site:
https://www.needledoctor.com/Replacement-Stylus
They seem to have quite a lot!

All best,
gep

[retrouvailles]

One of my pride and joys as a whole box played by John Ogdon which doesn't appear to have been reissued on CD!

You must share what is on this set, for I have a lot of things that some people would be surprised that I have it, as do some other members here, I would expect. Ogdon is one of my favorite deceased pianists, for the record.

[mikey6]

No Frank Bridge?
I'm guessing his later more adventurous stuff might not be too your ears but the early stuff is generally in the high romantic vein and always well crafted.

[retrouvailles]

No Frank Bridge?
I'm guessing his later more adventurous stuff might not be too your ears but the early stuff is generally in the high romantic vein and always well crafted.

My guess is that he has already heard the Phantasm, for he seems to be focusing on piano and orchestra works, and the Phantasm is very well known. He seems to be focusing on less recorded works more.

[thalbergmad]

It appears I am becoming too predictable.

No posts from me for a week as I am off on a score hunt in Lincolnshire.

Bye

Thal

[minor9th]

Oops.  I did check Amazon.com (should have checked co.uk instead) to see if there was a Hamilton I missed, but nothing came up.  So, never heard of Iain Hamilton. 

Oh my! I like him quite a bit. He's cut from much the same cloth as Tippett--thorny at times (perhaps a touch thornier) but still somewhat melodic.

[ted]

Thal:

Peter Jacobs' recording, three CDs, of Bridge's piano music on Continuum is very good.

Also, don't forget John Ireland - very beautiful piano music - John Lenehan recorded two CDs of it on Naxos.

[kevinr]

Also worth a look is the piano sonata by Benjamin Dale

https://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/4/42/IMSLP15683-Dale_Piano_Sonata.pdf

which I once saw referred to in a review as "the greatest piano sonata by an Englishman".

It's an enormous work (seems modelled on the Liszt sonata) which, astonishingly, Dale completed at the ago of 17.

Unfortunately after this precocious start Dale never really fulfilled his early promise.

[kj77]

Hoddinott I like a lot, thanks to Martin Jones' CDs. The piano concertos (1 and 2 I think) are available on amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoddinott-Piano-Concertos-Clarinet-Concerto/dp/B000VPDCBS/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1374881711&sr=1-2&keywords=hoddinott , as it this very good song CD featuring 2 of the UK's leading singers (Clair Booth and Nicky Spence) and their gifted accompanist Andrew Matthews Owen. Both CDs worth a listen. This composer is good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoddinott-Landscapes-Song-Cycles-Folksongs/dp/B0041XSB6C/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1374881744&sr=1-3&keywords=hoddinott