Durham E-Theses The music of Eric Ball (1903-1989) a complete catalogue, with a commentary on his life and work Taylor, Dennis John How to cite: Taylor, Dennis John (1994) The music of Eric Ball (1903-1989) a complete catalogue, with a commentary on his life and work, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2211/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 THE MUSIC OF ERIC BALL (1903-1989) A COMPLETE CATALOGUE, WITH A COMMENTARY ON HIS LIFE AND WORK DENNIS JOHN TAYLOR The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. VOLUME ONE Presented for the Degree of Master of Music at the University of Durham Department of Music 1994 3 0 JUN 1994 ILLUSTRATIONS page Frontpiece: colour portrait Eric Ball in uniform 23 Eric Ball rehearsing Brighouse and Rastrick Band 32 Front page of the score of Heimwarts 50 Eric Ball and Olive, his wife in retirement 55 CONTENTS Page Abstract Acknowledgments List of Illustrations PART I Chapter 1 : The Life of Eric Ball 1 Chapter 2 : The Music of Eric Ball: A Survey 58 Index to examples 139 PART II Catalogue of the Music of Eric Ball 1A0 List of Abbreviations 146 Alphabetical Index to Catalogue 347 Index of Types of Music (a) Instrumental 359 (b) Vocal 366 Bibliography 369 THE MUSIC OF ERIC BALL (1903-1989) A COMPLETE CATALOGUE, WITH A COMMENTARY ON HIS LIFE AND WORK The main part of the thesis is a complete catalogue of the music of Eric Ball, published and unpublished. The catalogue is in four sections, as follows: A. BRASS BAND (SACRED AND SECULAR) B. VOCAL (CHORAL AND SOLO) C. ENSEMBLE AND SOLO INSTRUMENTAL D. UNPUBLISHED WORKS Following the catalogue there are two indexes, one an alphabetical index of first lines and titles, the other an index of works according to type. There is a biography of Ball which endeavours to present the man behind the music, and to give an understanding of the output he gave to the music field in which he worked. The greatest influence upon his life was the Salvation Army, which gave him his roots in Christian living, also it was his training ground musically. The biography shows his contribution to the secular brass band movement, as a band-trainer, conductor, editor, adjudicator as well as his composition skills. The catalogue is preceded by Chapter 1 and gives an account of Ball's life which incorporates much newly- discovered information. Chapter 2 provides a survey of his music. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I am indebted to Professor D. Greer, my Supervisor, who for a period of three years has guided me in my research for this thesis. His patience and interest in my subject have kept me enthusiastic in the task to hand. Moreover he has helped me, through his eye for detail, to define the style and content of the work. Then to my wife who has spent hours sitting at the word-processor typing out draft upon draft after corrections have been implemented. Working in spite of her disability has been an inspiration to me. I am grateful to Peter Cooke who gave me material to use from the book he was writing on Eric Ball. I want to thank Lieut. Colonel Robert Redhead of the Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters Music Department, who made the records of published music readily available to me for my research, also for the availability of music scores for me to study. Warmest thanks go also to the following institutions and individuals: Boosey and Hawkes Ltd; British Library, London; Chester Music Ltd; Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society Ltd; Musikhaus Ruh, Switzerland; New Zealand Brass Bands Association, Inc; Novello and Co.Ltd; R.Smith and Co. Ltd music publishers; Salvation Army International Heritage Centre; Salvationist Publishing and Supplies Ltd; Wright and Round Ltd; Lieut. Colonel and Mrs. Norman Bearcroft; Colonel Brindley Boon; Geoffrey Brand; Major Trevor Davis Roy Horabin; Ed. Noble; Derek Rawlinson; Lieut. Colonel Ray Steadman-Allen. PART I 1 CHAPTER ONE THE LIFE OF ERIC BALL There have been a number of leading figures in the brass band movement this century, and Eric Ball has an important place in this gallery of musicians. As a composer he set new standards for band music, especially in the use of colour, because the brass band it is sometimes said, lacks colour variety due to the similarity of the instruments. He achieved a range of colours and shade both within the Salvation Army and in the secular world of music. As a conductor he helped to raise the standards of performance, by his initial teaching and interpretation of the music. As editor, adjudicator and writer he contributed much to the rising popularity of brass bands. He was a man who combined persuasive charm with strong Christian beliefs, and this opened up the way for a strong influence in every aspect of life in which he was concerned. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a complete catalogue of all his musical compositions, sacred and secular, instrumental and vocal. To put this catalogue into context I have provided two preliminary chapters, one giving a broad account of his life, the other a survey of his music. The opening biographical chapter, while it is indebted to some degree to Peter Cooke's book^ on 1 Peter Cooke; Eric Ball, The Man and his Music (Baldock, 1991) , 24 2 the composer, also contains much material from sources not used in this book, including interviews and letters from persons who knew the composer. Family background and childhood Eric Walter John Ball was born at Kingswood, near Bristol, on Saturday, 31 October 1903. To the best of our knowledge, Ball's grandparents were natives of the Bristol area, and their roots were in the population of poor people who earned meagre wages in the local manufacturing industries of hat making and shoe making. Grandfather Daniel Ball kept a smallholding of three or four acres, and grew vegetables to distribute to shopkeepers. He and his wife Esther had sixteen children. John Daniel, the eldest, and a grocer by trade, met a young Salvation Army Officer, Mabel Lily Bryan, when she was appointed to Kingswood Corps in Bristol. She was born in the Aston district of Birmingham into a family of Baptists, and she, with some of her sisters, and a brother, joined the Salvation Army and subsequently she was trained to become a Salvation Army Officer. John Ball and Mabel Bryan were married in St George's Parish Church, Bristol on 25 December 1902. After their marriage they continued to be members of the Salvation Army, a movement that was both evangelical and deeply involved in the social welfare of the population. The Salvation Army came into being when its founder, the Reverend William Booth, resigned from the Methodist New Connexion in 1862 on his accepting an invitation to lead a tent mission in the Whitechapel Road of East London. The movement was 3 formally established in 1865. Eric Ball was the eldest son of John and Mabel; he had two other brothers, Harold who was born in 1908, and Donald in 1919. Early days Eric's mother had a brother Walter who took the young boy to concerts, and gave him his first introduction to good music. His uncle George (his father's brother) was a pianist, who made a living by playing in the local public houses, and taught him to improvise at the keyboard, a skill which in later years Ball used with great effect as he improvised gospel songs in Salvation Army meetings and festivals. 'Both my mother and father,' says Eric, 'had a keen appreciative sense of music' and the father jocularly recalled the fact that many years ago he served 2 for a time as a church organ-blower. These early days were not stable times for Ball, owing to the fact that his father could not settle in one place for long, so that by the age of fourteen he and his family had moved fourteen times. Unfortunately these years are not documented very well, and it is difficult to give exact dates as far as the sojourns were concerned. The move from Kingswood to Godalming in Surrey occurred when Ball was about ten years of age, in the year 1913. It must have been about this time that he was unable to attend 2 Eric Ball, 'The Music Editorial Department'. The Bandsman and Songster, 5 July 1930, 210 4 the Salvation Array because the family did not reside near a corps, so he attended the local Methodist Church. A local Anglican church organist, (whose name is unknown) a retired teacher, not only gave him piano lessons, but taught him mathematics along with some harmony and counter• point.