DRN 126 Summer 2020 Text_Double Reed 75.qxd 29/05/2020 14:29 Page 10 Benjamin Britten’s Temporal Variations An Enigma Explored, Part III: Britten and the Oboe In part three, George Caird considers Britten’s relationship with the oboe and the four oboists for whom he wrote his renowned works for the instrument. (Parts 1 and 2 were published in DRN124 and 125.) Britten wrote four works for the oboe There is no hard evidence that Goossens which became a symbol of his magical during his lifetime, a number only directly commissioned the Phantasy playing and of his influence on the tonal exceeded by works for piano, voice, Quartet Op.2 on which Britten began possibilities of the instrument. This early, violin and cello. No other wind work on the 9th September 1932, but on slender instrument, very different from its instrument received such attention from 17th October the composer records: modern counterpart, was light in sound the composer and it is therefore ‘Go to R.C.M. in morning to see Léon but had wonderful tonal possibilities. It worthwhile to reflect on why this might Goossens about my Oboe Quart.’ was the model for the English Louis oboes be. Having included the oboe, oboe The Quartet was entered for the Daily made between the two World Wars that d’amore and cor anglais in some of his Telegraph chamber music competition on many of Goossens’ students would have earliest works, Britten records his 29th October but the prize on this played on, if not a Lorée. fascination with the instrument on hearing occasion went to Elizabeth Maconchy’s Léon Goossens perform at a Queen’s Hall Oboe Quintet. The work was to produce Britten’s interest in the oboe in his early Promenade Concert on 2nd October great outcomes for the composer: years is further borne out by his use of the 1930: ‘Goossen’s [sic] Oboe Concerto a broadcast performance by Goossens instrument in his Sinfonietta Op.1, in (‘beautiful, monotonous, impossibly the following August and, in 1934, many of his film scores including the gorgeously, immortally played by Léon’)’.1 an invitation to the International Society Rossini-based The Tocher, Coal Face, for Contemporary Music Festival in Ways of Communication (for piano and Florence where Goossens played the wind quintet) and God’s Chillun.2 It is not work with the Griller Quartet. surprising then that, on entering the RCM in 1930, he had quickly got to know and worked with some of its oboe students, notably Sylvia Spencer, Natalie Caine and Joy Boughton. Composer Eugene Aynsley Goossens, brother of Léon There are subsequent diary entries which confirm Britten’s admiration for Goossens’ playing such as on 27th November 1930: ‘Orchestra not too good, but L. Goossens adorable’ and on 25th February 1932: ‘Léon plays Eugene Goosen’s [sic] attractive(ly) Oboe Conc. superbly as can only he’. Terence MacDonagh Sylvia Spencer Goossens had begun teaching at the Royal College of Music in 1924 and during the Born in 1909, Sylvia Spencer joined the 1920s built up the premier oboe class in RCM Junior Department in 1923 as a the country. His students included Terence violin student, taking oboe lessons as a MacDonagh, who later was to succeed second study with Léon Goossens.3 She him at the RCM, and Evelyn Rothwell continued as a senior student from age 17 (Barbirolli) who established a worldwide with Goossens as her teacher, progressing reputation as an oboist and teacher to professional work as his second oboe herself. Many of Goossens’ students and eventually becoming 2nd oboe of the enjoyed successful careers and it is City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1928. interesting that three of these were to give Spencer only held this position for two the premières of Britten’s subsequent years, returned to London in 1930 on works for the oboe. Goossens played full graduation from the RCM and Léon Goossens throughout his career on a Lorée oboe thereafter freelanced. 10 Double Reed News 126 l Summer 2020 DRN 126 Summer 2020 Text_Double Reed 75.qxd 29/05/2020 14:29 Page 11 Spencer’s connection with Benjamin reasons outside my control! But I hope Britten probably came through the RCM they’ll get straightened someday, as as Britten began his studies there in I want to hear you blow it – Best September 1930, and Spencer would have wishes, Benjamin Britten6 remained in contact with the College in the years following her graduation. It is Born in 1908, Natalie Caine went to interesting to note that she had already school at Southwold in Suffolk, and was asked him for a trio for flute, oboe and initially a pianist and composer, coming piano for the Sylvan Trio by the 3rd April to the oboe late.7 On entering the RCM 1933 when Britten recorded in his diary her life changed on hearing Sylvia that he was to write, ’a Suite for Fl. Ob. Spencer play the oboe, and Caine Pft. commissioned by Sylvia Spencer’.4 immediately asked Goossens for lessons. On 25th July that year, she also deputised Her progress was rapid and soon she was for Goossens in a rehearsal of the performing at a high level. In 1933 she Phantasy Quartet. More than a year later, deputised in rehearsals of Britten’s she performed this work with the Phantasy Quartet and thus got to know renowned Griller Quartet at a the composer. This connection may well Contemporary Music Society concert: have led to her involvement in the ‘Sylvia Spencer and the Grillers play my première of the Temporal Variations as, quartet very beautifully; not perfectly, but with both Sylvia Spencer and Joy with imagination, and spirit. It goes down Boughton discounted by November 1936, well, after that they play the Prokofiev Britten may well have been instrumental Quintet brilliantly...’5 in turning to another RCM connection. Joy Boughton Despite in the end not being involved in In later life and after World War II, Caine the première of the Temporal Variations, played notably with the Philharmonia Spencer remained friendly with the Orchestra, taught at the RCM and Junior The third student of Goossens who was composer. She made contact with him in RCM and is on record playing the cor associated with Britten is perhaps the 1943 after his return from the USA, asking anglais in trios with Sidney Sutcliffe and most important in being the player for after a copy of his folk song arrangement Roger Lord. Her students, Janice Knight whom the composer wrote Six of I wonder as I wander which she had and Carolyn King 8 remember a modest, Metamorphoses after Ovid Op.49. obviously considered performing, playing highly musical and supportive teacher Joy Boughton is less relevant to a study of the one-voice piano part on the oboe. A who spoke little of past glories. But it is the Temporal Variations save that she was postcard from Britten to her, dated 8 June known that Caine, on hearing of the approached to play the première. 1943, was interestingly inconclusive: eventual publication of the Temporal However, as the daughter of the Variations with the apparent ‘altered’ composer Rutland Boughton, and a Sorry for long silence, but work and dedication from her to Montagu Slater, player who grew up in the artistic ‘flu have completely occupied me was deeply hurt by this. Caine played atmosphere of her father’s Glastonbury these last months. Sorry, also, that I on an English Louis instrument, made in Festival, it is not surprising that she can’t or couldn’t let you have a copy the style of the old Lorée instruments became the player of choice for the of ‘I wonder as I wander’ – copyright such as Goossens’. English Opera Group when it was formed after the Second World War. She in many ways personified Britten’s fascination with the oboe which combined the ‘impossibly gorgeous immortal’ playing of Goossens with an artistic freedom, a mixture that could cast light on the works that the composer wrote for the instrument. So, in tracing Britten’s connection with the oboe through these players of the instrument, another question emerges. Might the oboe itself have become significant to the composer? Britten’s visit to Barcelona in April 1936, just as he was working on Our Hunting Fathers, was for the first performance of his Suite for Violin and Piano Op.6 with the violinist Antonio Brosa. The performance took place on the hill, Montjuïc, Double Reed News 126 l Summer 2020 11 DRN 126 Summer 2020 Text_Double Reed 75.qxd 29/05/2020 14:29 Page 12 where previously it had been intended But, while the saxophone and clarinet Variations. The idea that the composer to hold an anti-fascist Olympics.9 may have fulfilled some of the qualities may have held a special regard for the Here, Britten heard a band accompanying that Britten heard in this folk style, instrument as one that could play with some Sardana dancing outside the Town it is the double-reed oboe that provided exquisite refinement on the one hand Hall, remarking on the Catalan shawms, more qualities for the works that Britten whilst also fulfilling a kind of primaeval the tible and the tenora, in an observation chose to write for it. It is interesting to role as a folk instrument seems to give that may prove significant when we note the use that Britten makes of the credence to the creation of the consider the composer’s choice of oboe in Our Hunting Fathers where in Temporal Variations and the later instrument for the Temporal Variations: both his Composition Sketch and the Fair Six Metamorphoses after Ovid.