Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals, by Michael Hurd (Review) Julian Onderdonk West Chester University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
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West Chester University Digital Commons @ West Chester University Music Theory, History & Composition College of Visual & Performing Arts 9-1995 Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals, by Michael Hurd (review) Julian Onderdonk West Chester University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/musichtc_facpub Part of the Musicology Commons Recommended Citation Onderdonk, J. (1995). Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals, by Michael Hurd (review). Notes, Second Series, 52(1), 108-109. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/musichtc_facpub/42 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Visual & Performing Arts at Digital Commons @ West Chester University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Music Theory, History & Composition by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ West Chester University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 108 NOTES, September 1995 genre, the carnival samba and the ball- cycle that took thirty-seven years to com- room samba of the 1920s and 1930s. (P. plete. Sixty-two music examples accompany 155) the text, while a discography and appen- dixes listing his compositions and literary When discussing the relationship of writings follow. Villa-Lobos's individual style to the various That there is yet another appendix, one musics that have appeared under the label giving the cast listings for the principal pro- of nationalism Behague writes: "The de- ductions of the Glastonbury Festival (1914- termination of the meanings of musical na- 26), is a reminder of what the book's title tionalism warrants, therefore, more reflec- already asserts. This is a critical biography tion, to which the present study attempts that places special emphasis on Boughton's to contribute, for all of these ideas have work as that Festival's founder and spiritual relevant applications to the case of Brazil- father. Indeed, it is Boughton's association ian musical nationalism in general, and to with Glastonbury, argues Hurd, that con- Heitor Villa-Lobos's position within it, in firms his importance in twentieth-century particular" (p. 149). This reviewer agrees, British music. The fulfillment of a personal and welcomes the appearance of a study vision of an English Bayreuth dedicated to that offers valuable insights into the music the performance of his own works, Glas- of Brazil's best-known composer. tonbury nonetheless touched a nerve in DAVID P. APPLEBY British musical life and became for many Fort Worth, Texas a rallying point for the cause of British opera. Edward Elgar, Thomas Beecham, and Edward Dent, among others, took a personal interest in the Festival, where early English operas by Henry Purcell and Rutland Boughton and the Glaston- John Blow were produced alongside those bury Festivals. By Michael Hurd. Ox- of contemporary English composers like ford: Clarendon Press, 1993. [xiv, 415 Edgar Bainton, Clarence Raybould, and, p. ISBN 0-19-816316-9. $69.00.] of course, Boughton himself. Perhaps most important, Glastonbury attracted and In a field so often dedicated to the res- served as a training ground for a young cuing of neglected figures, Michael Hurd generation of singers, Steuart Wilson and is surely the Good Samaritan of twentieth- Astra Desmond among them, who were to century British music scholarship. The au- make a significant contribution to British thor of the superb and moving biography music in the interwar years. The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney (Oxford: Oxford As portrayed by Hurd, Boughton is a University Press, 1978), he has in this book fascinating and complex individual. A zeal- turned to the even more-forgotten Rutland ous and energetic man who inspired deep Boughton, the once-famed composer of loyalty in others, he was also his own worst The ImmortalHour (1914) whose spectacular enemy, driven by artistic and sexual com- fall from grace was the consequence of an pulsion to alienate his friends and bene- uncompromising artistic and social ideal- factors. A pragmatist who brilliantly ism. A radically revised and enlarged ver- adapted materials to hand (productions sion of Hurd's earlier Immortal Hour: The were mounted in the cramped town hall, Life and Period of Rutland Boughton (Lon- usually with piano accompaniment), he was don: Routledge, 1963), Rutland Boughton also a naive idealist whose staging of his and the GlastonburyFestivals is in two parts: Christmas drama, Bethlehem (1915), as an a biographical section, comprising two- allegory of capitalist oppression effectively thirds of the text, which follows Boughton's terminated all financial support for the Fes- life chronologically; and a critical section, tival. A lifelong radical and member (from which attempts a brief but nonetheless in- 1925) of the Communist party, he became clusive survey of Boughton's work as a -through the phenomenal operatic suc- composer and journalist. His compositions cess of The ImmortalHour-the darling of are here discussed by genre, with special the idle rich and the personal friend of the attention given to his operas and music dra- Marchioness of Londonderry, society host- mas, above all to the ambitious Arthurian ess and admirer of Benito Mussolini. This content downloaded from 144.26.46.227 on Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:19:14 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Book Reviews 109 But if Boughton's was a contradictory Shaw's.) Beyond his control, though, is the personality, this was in large part because disturbing number of typographical errors of the period in which he lived and worked. contained in the text that considerably In a musical world still dominated by the hinders the flow of the prose. and well connected, privileged composers JULIAN ONDERDONK of lower-class were in a difficult origin po- New York University sition. Few succeeded, and those who did rarely emerged unscathed. Even at the height of his fame, Elgar believed that prej- udice against his shopkeeper origins de- Fritz Reiner: A Biography. By Philip nied him his proper recognition. It is this Hart. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern predicament, the "inferior" composer's University Press, 1994. [xii, 329 p. struggle against the "system," that Hurd ISBN 0-8101-1125-X. $30.00.] captures so effectively in his portrait of Boughton. But while he explains much of Although Fritz Reiner has been dead for Boughton's eccentric behavior-his hu- more than thirty years, his reputation has morless earnestness and often naive sense been kept fresh and glowing by his record- of purpose-in terms of his outsider status, ings, many of them reissued on CDs. A Hurd stops short of any suggestion of high biography of him has been overdue. Philip political maneuvering against the com- Hart, who knew him well, is an ideal bi- poser: "When projected performances of ographer, admiring yet cognizant of his his works failed to mature it was not be- subject's darker side. Hart's research is as cause of some capitalist conspiracy, but sim- thorough as any we are likely to have, in- ply the luck of a very tricky game" (p. 194). cluding interviews with Reiner's surviving Instead, he concentrates almost exclusively daughter in Switzerland and his grandson on Boughton's psychological response to in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as well as interviews his situation, attributing his increasingly with all manner of persons who worked erratic and paranoid behavior to an un- with Reiner-students, orchestra members, balanced personality. One can imagine a managers, and journalists. Hart also con- radically different interpretation of this sulted orchestra archives and a wide range material-indeed, the recent The English of published and unpublished documents. Musical Renaissance 1860-1940: Construc- As an orchestra administrator himself, tion and Deconstructionby Robert Stradling Hart is sensitive to the kinds of problems and Meirion Hughes (London: Routledge, experienced by Reiner and his associates. 1993) offers just that-but not one that is Reiner was born in 1888 in Budapest carried out more sympathetically or with a when it was a regional capital of the Austro- deeper understanding of the contradic- Hungarian Empire. As a student at the tions inherent in the human heart. Franz Liszt Academy, he was influenced by In short, this is another excellent biog- Bela Bart6k and Leo Weiner, composers raphy from an author who is intensely whose works he championed later as a aware of the inseparability of character and conductor. No course in conducting was environment. Its value resides in its double offered, but Reiner received thorough portrait of an individual and the artistic grounding in composition, theory, and pi- and political world in which he lived. Nor ano. After some work as a rehearsal pianist, should we underestimate the importance of he conducted his first public performance the book's musical discussion. Its concen- at nineteen, substituting for the staff con- tration on Boughton's music dramas, in ductor by conducting Carmen at an inde- particular, fulfills a service in providing in- pendent theater, the Vigopera. Later, as a formation essential to any understanding teacher, Reiner maintained that the best of the British opera revival. Were one to place to learn conducting was not in the quibble, it might be wished that the author classroom, but in an opera house, where, had been slightly more careful in attrib- in Europe at least, a full range of vocal and uting his citations, especially where the instrumental music was available. printing of letters is concerned. (To his It was primarily as an opera conductor credit, he presents a great many of these, that Reiner's career began in Laibach (now including a riotous series of Bernard Ljubljana), in Budapest, and at the Saxon This content downloaded from 144.26.46.227 on Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:19:14 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions.