No.28 October 2003
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No.28 October 2003 23/9/03 14:55 Page 1 Journal of the No.28 October 2003 EDITOR Stephen Connock (see address below) RVWSociety There was a Time In this issue... A Special Flame – Elgar he RVW Society is proud to announce two new publications closely associated with our and Vaughan Williams TPresident, Ursula Vaughan Williams. The first, called There was a time is a large collection of photographs taken from Ursula’s collection. The editors, Stephen Connock, ● Photographs from the Ursula Vaughan Williams and Robin Wells, have selected many photographs which have not been published before. Other more well known images have been included where these are Conference important to a full appreciation of Vaughan Williams’s life. Well over 150 photographs are Page . 2 - 3 included and we reproduce Tad Kasa’s web-based chronology to provide a framework for the illustrations. Stephen Connock’s narrative from the Exhibition at All Saint’s Church, Down ● Elgar and Vaughan Williams: Ampney, is also included. an overview by Michael The title of the book is taken from Kennedy one of the songs from RVW’s opera Page . 5 The Poisoned Kiss. There was a time... ● The work is divided into six sections: What Have We Learnt from Elgar?: Vaughan Williams ● Early Life alph and the Ambivalance of ● War and its aftermath R Inheritance by Byron Adams ● Achievements and recognition Vaughan Page . 8 ● Uncle Ralph illiams and more . ● W Homes and Places A pictorial journey ● Friends and Family from the collection of CHAIRMAN Ursula Vaughan Williams Stephen Connock MBE 65 Marathon House Fall of Leaf 200 Marylebone Road Our second publication this Autumn is The Complete Poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams. London NW1 5PL This new book includes around 30 poems not previously published. These were selected by Tel: 01728 454820 Stephen Connock from a large number of poems languishing in corners in Ursula’s London Fax: 01728 454873 home. The book also includes a short story, Fall of Leaf, which Ursula is particularly fond [email protected] of. At 470 pages in total, this is a significant addition to Ursula’s publications, and a worthy successor to Paradise Remembered. TREASURER John Francis Lindeyer Francis Ferguson There was a time shows all the remarkable facets of Vaughan Williams’s life. Ursula’s North House Complete Poems is equally as revealing - and, of course, Ralph and Ursula feature directly 198 High Street or indirectly in both books. Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1BE Ah God! A life is here Tel: 01732 360200 Simple and fair [email protected] Murmurs of strife are here, SECRETARY Lost in the air Dr. David Betts Tudor Cottage “There was a time”… and “The Complete Poems” will be published in mid-November. 30 Tivoli Road Brighton East Sussex STOP PRESS: BN1 5BH Tel: 01273 501118 The Poisoned Kiss will be available from October 13, 2003. [email protected] Charity No. 1017175 No.28 October 2003 23/9/03 14:55 Page 2 A Special Flame memorative Photogra Com phs Front Cover - A Special Flame Hugh Cobbe and Michael Kennedy Michael Kennedy and Byron Adams Robin Wells in conversation with Lady Barbirolli Page 2 Journal of the RVW Society No.28 October 2003 23/9/03 14:55 Page 3 A Special Flame Michael Kennedy and Stephen Connock Ursula Vaughan Williams and Oliver Neighbour Oliver Neighbour and Byron Adams Joyce Kennedy, Helen Petchley and Pat Hirst Diana McVeagh Special thanks to Joyce Kennedy for taking the photographs Journal of the RVW Society Page 3 No.28 October 2003 23/9/03 14:55 Page 4 THE ELGAR SOCIETY FOUNDED 1951 President: RICHARD HICKOX, C.B.E. Vice-Presidents: PROFESSOR-EMERITUS IAN PARROTT, SIR DAVID WILLCOCKS, C.B.E., M.C., DR. PERCY YOUNG DIANA McVEAGH, DR. VERNON HANDLEY, MICHAEL KENNEDY, C.B.E., DR. JERROLD NORTHROP MOORE MICHAEL POPE, LADY BARBIROLLI, O.B.E., E. WULSTAN ATKINS, M.B.E., PROFESSOR ROBERT ANDERSON SIR COLIN DAVIS, C.H., C.B.E., SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS, C.B.E., JUNE, MARCHIONESS OF ABERDEEN, C.B.E. DAME JANET BAKER, C.H., D.B.E., LEONARD SLATKIN, SIR ANDREW DAVIS, C.B.E., DR. DONALD HUNT, O.B.E. Chairman: Vice-Chairman: Treasurer: Secretary: ANDREW NEILL DAVID MORRIS JOHN GREIG WENDY HILLARY, J.P. 17 Earlsfield Road 2 Marriott’s Close Orchard Barn 29 Van Diemens Close London Haddenham, Bucks. Derringstone St., Barham Chinnor, Oxon SW18 3DB HP17 8BT Canterbury, Kent OX39 4QE (020) 8516 4681 (01844) 299239 CT4 6QB (01844) 354096 Fax: (020) 8870 3205 Fax: (0870) 1319 448 (01227) 831841 (also fax) Fax: (01844) 354459 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 27th April 2003 Mr Stephen Connock Chairman The RVW Society Dear Stephen It seems clear now that our joint seminar at the end of March was a great success. I am sure you have received many letters of appreciation, as I have. Indeed some stalwarts have asked ‘what are we going to do next?’! Anyway, I wanted to write formally to thank you and your fellow trustees for joining with this society in putting the event together and then seeing it through to its eventual success. We were lucky with the high quality of our speakers, and it is interesting that we were able to sustain our theme, which linked these two great artists together, almost to the end. It was, of course, distressing for us all that Margaret Fotheringham collapsed, and subsequently died, at the end of the conference. However, it was typical of her that she was joining in the debate at the end when she was taken ill. Personally, I found working with you and our friends at the British Library a very great pleasure. It would not take much to persuade me to seize the opportunity of repeating the exercise sometime in the future, provided we can find the right theme and persuade an equally high quality of speaker to contribute. Thank you again for your substantial contribution to these two memorable days! With very best wishes Yours, very sincerely Andrew Neill The Society is a Registered Charity No. 298062 The Society’s Web Site is at http://www.elgar.org General E-mail address: [email protected] Page 4 Journal of the RVW Society No.28 October 2003 23/9/03 14:55 Page 5 A Special Flame ELGAR AND VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: AN OVERVIEW by Michael Kennedy For most of us, I suspect, Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams are would not give him lessons he could not stop him spending hours at the the two greatest English composers of the past 150 years. I put British Museum studying the full score of the Variations or 1900. d it like that because comparisons with Tallis, Byrd, Purcell Gerontius. r and others of their epochs are misleading and in some In that essay, Vaughan Williams gives specific ugust 3 ways impossible. Perhaps only Benjamin Britten A examples of what he himself learned from Elgar challenges Vaughan Williams’s place in the top and what he specially admired in Elgar. He two. League tables are objectionable, anyway, makes the point that Elgar’s choral technique ontius on so let’s just say that Britten is England’s developed from his orchestral technique and greatest opera composer and leave it at that. cited as example how he would add altos to Fifteen years separate the births of Elgar tenors - I quote - to “reinforce the tone and eam of Ger and Vaughan Williams, not quite enough to enrich the colour just as he might add the put them in different generations and, violas to the cellos”. The Dr indeed, as far as their composing careers He also gives examples of what he calls are concerned they are contemporaries from Elgar’s “orchestral daring, the outcome of an about 1897. We know that Elgar first dawned inishing absolutely sure touch”. One of them - which on Vaughan Williams’s consciousness when he always liked to mention and which he spoke he went to an early performance of the Enigma about to me at the time of Elgar’s centenary in Variations. I deduce that this was in October 1899 1957 - was the muted horn’s counter-melody at the when Richter conducted it in London for the second Photo: Elgar f beginning of the First Symphony. Vaughan Williams time and therefore Vaughan Williams heard the first said he was sure that if a student had taken this passage to London performance of the revised ending. He had gone to a teacher, the teacher would have crossed it out and told the the concert, it seems, to hear a work by Dohnányi but the Variations student he did not know the elements of orchestral balance. Yet, VW says, put it out of his mind. Considering how much interest the Variations had “Elgar has so placed it that it comes through with entire clearness”. aroused among musicians as well as the general public at the first performance in June of that year, it is curious that a composer like VW The other point he makes is orchestral scoring. Elgar’s orchestration went to St James’s Hall not to hear the Elgar. Never mind, the music did sounds so full, he says, that subtlety is the last thing we expect. He then its work, as it had done for Bernard Shaw who also heard Enigma as it gives an example which I will quote in full from the climax to ‘Praise to were by accident and sat up and said “Phew! We’ve got it at last”.