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Durham E-Theses A survey of new trends in English musical life 1910 - 1914 Hall, Richard Charles How to cite: Hall, Richard Charles (1981) A survey of new trends in English musical life 1910 - 1914, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7459/ 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 •A SURVEY OF NEW TRENDS IN ENGLISH MUSICAL LIFE 1910 - 191'+' A thesis based on research undertaken in the Music Department of the University of Durham and submitted to the University of Durham for the qualification of Ph D by Richard Charles Hall In two volumes VOLUME TWO September I98I The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and bformation derived from it should be acknowledged. 17 MAY 1984 TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 1 Chapter 1 Politics, Society and the Arts in early Georgian England p 5 Chapter 2 The English Musical Renaissance p 50 Chapter 3 Music and Musicians in Edwardian England p 78 Volume 2 Chapter 4 Early Georgian Musical Life P 5 Chapter 5 English Composers and their Works 1910 - 191^ P 79 Chapter 6 Conclusion P 25^ Bibliography p 266 CHAPTER k Early Georgian Musical Life In 1910 a book by William Johnson Galloway called 'Musical England' was published, and in an introductory chapter the author explains his purpose as being "to show to those, who do not realise it, what is being done all over the country in the cause of music" The work has its weaknesses: Galloway is extremely cautious about appearing to pass critical judgement on any of his contemporaries, and his fixation with National Opera is tiresomely intrusive. Nevertheless,his book gives a comprehensive if unfocussed picture of English music at the time, and thus makes a.good starting point for a survey of early Georgian musical life. A continuing picture has been built up from a collation of refer• ences from individual studies of musicians and musical institutions which touch on this period,and by examination of the pre-War musical seasons as revealed in the pages of the musical press. The survey is not restricted to London alone but is Extended to three provincial centres, Manchester, Birmingham and Bournemouth, each very different but all musically important, and further light is shed on music-making in the provinces by consideration of the provinciial festivals. Thus Johnson Galloway's sketch is amplified into a detailed survey of English musical life on the eve of the Great War. The musical season in London at this time ran from October to June, with particularly dense periods of activity before Christmas and in the late spring and early summer. In the provinces the con• cert season displayed a similar shape, although festivals often focused intense activity at other times of the year. London's main out-of-season music was provided by the Queen's Hall Promenade Concerts which ran from mid-August until late October, thus forming something of a prelude to the season proper. The Proms will make a convenient starting point for this survey. 1 ,.Musica l England" (I9IO) p 3 By 1910 the Queen's Hall Broms had become such an accepted landmark in the season's activities that Galloway claims that they "are almost too well known to need describing" . Neverthe• less,he does devote two pages to a discussion of them,, emphasising especially Wood's continued pursual of a doubly educative policy, helping the public to an appreciation of the best standard and classical works and also introducing new music by both foreign and native composers. (Up to the end of the 1909 season he had produced some five hundred new compositions, of which about one third were by English composers.) In his choice of new music Wood kept well abreast of all the latest trends, commissioning works from the most avant garde English composers and introducing works by the most up-to-date continental musicians. One of his boldest ventures, regarded by posterity as something of a coup, belonged to September 1912 when he gave the first ever performance of Schonberg's 'Five Orchestral Pieces', a work not only in a remark• ably advanced idiom but also of extreme difficulty. The fact that it was violently hissed by some members of the audience demonstrated, amongst other things, that Prom audiences were by no means uncrit• ically enthusiastic for whatever Wood cared to give them. It is worth mentioning that when the work was repeated at a Queen's Hall Symphony Concert sixteen months later under the composer's direction , "the performance drew a large and appreciative audience"^. Other continental composers whose works were introduced to England at the pre-War Queen's Hall Proms included Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Glazounov and Enesco; and new British works from the pens of Bax, Dale, Harty, Frank Bridge, Quilter, Scott, Harrison, Goossens, Dunhill and Vaughan Williams, amongst others,were brought forward. "Musical England" (I9IO) p:.:i23 ^ Henry Wood: My Life of Music' (1938) p 272 That Wood was able to introduce a large amount of new music as well as keep up a regular supply of standard works says a great deal for his meticulous and highly-organised method of rehearsal during the Prom season. The orchestra played for approximately two thirds of every concert, in other words provided about twelve hours of music per week; but for this Wood allowed himself no more than three three-hour rehearsals, only in exceptional circumstances exceeding this amount. Everything possible was done to economise on rehearsal time. The orchestra always played from Wood's own sets of parts, heavily annotated in thick blue pencil with his own interpretive markings; and, having been driven to distraction by delays in rehearsal due to nistakes in manuscript parts, Wood took to checking himself every note, of every part of each new work to be performed. Nothing was too much trouble to him to secure the smooth running of this series of concerts which he regarded as his own special province. The pattern of the week's concerts in the pre-War years had hardly changed since the early days, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday were still 'Popular Nights', Wednesday was now unashajnedly described as 'Symphony Night', Friday's concert always featured a major work by Beethoven, and above all Monday remained 'Wagner Night'. In terms of number of items played,Wagner was by far the most popular composer in all the early Georgian seasons, with one hundred and twenty-one items in .. 1911 and one hundred and sixteen two years later; his nearest rival was Beethoven with about one third as many items in each case. The most popular English com• poser was,predictably, Elgar,with twelve items in 1912 (equalling Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Dvorak) and two more in the following season when he was on a level with Handel, Schubert and Grieg. About one eighth of the music performed at the Promenade Concerts at this time was by English composers, a very much higher proper- tion of native music than was played in any other orchestral series in the country; and Wood drew special attention to the fact that the great majority of the soloists engaged to appear at the Proms (there were seventy-eight of them in 1911, eighty- seven in 1913) were of British origin. Wood was no chauvinist; it was merely another aspect of his educative policy that he wished to demonstrate to the general public that modern English composers had something to say and the technical equipment with which to say it effectively, and also that the best native players and singers compared very favourably with their continental rivals. The preponderance of English artists and the comparatively large proportion of English music in no way gave the Proms a parochial air; Wood's prograunmes were fully representative of the European classical and modern repertoire. He was accused in some quarters of a bias in favour of Russian music,for his style of conducting was well suited to its strength, clarity and passion, and Russian composers often wrote in such a way as to show off his highly-trained orchestra to its best advantage. But Herman Finck spoke the truth when he affirmed, in reply to a question about Wood's specialities as a conductor, that "(he) specializes in everybody" His interpretations were founded on a scrupulous regard for the composer's intentions, drawing out what was already in the music rather than imposing a personal interpretation on it. Eugene Goossens spoke for a whole generation of Queen's Hall Orchestra players when he said that "Under no other conductor could a more thorough and authentic grounding in the orchestral 2 repertory have been obtained." quoted by James Agate in 'Sir Henry Wood; Fifty Years of the Proms (19kk) p 59 ^ 'Overture and Beginners" (1951) P 90 For many people the Queen's Hall Promenade Concerts answered a keenly-felt need, and this largely explains the enormous success of the series.