RES10149 LENNO ENSEMBLE BERKELEY W CHAMBER ORKS X BERKELEY 1. Pièce (1929) * [2:50] Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989) pour flûte, clarinette et basson Sextet, Op. 47 Chamber Works for clarinet, horn and string quartet 2. Allegro moderato [5:45] 3. Lento [4:59] 4. Allegro [3:55]

Berkeley Ensemble 5. In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky (1971) * [1:32] Sophie Mather violin 2-5, 7-9 Canon for string quartet 2-5, 7-12 Dan Shilladay viola 6. Introduction and Allegro (1971) [6:41] Gemma Wareham cello 2-5, 7-9 for double bass and piano 5 Lachlan Radford double bass String Trio, Op.19 1-4, 13-15 John Slack clarinet 7. Moderato [5:55] 1 Andrew Watson bassoon 8. Adagio [4:39] Paul Cott horn 2-4 9. Allegro [5:15] with Three Pieces for solo viola * Julia Loucks violin 2-5 10. Moderato [0:59] 1 11. [Largo] [3:00] Sarah Bennington flute 12. [Allegro] [1:56] Libby Burgess piano 6, 13-15 About the Berkeley Ensemble: Sonatine (1928) pour clarinette et piano '[...] the ensemble gels cohesively, and the well-balanced recording 13. Moderato [4:10] shows the players in their best light' 14. Lento [5:30] The Strad 15. Allegro [2:31]

'[…] hardly more than one listening should convince you of Ferguson's high craft as he works within Schubert's Octet texture, as should the Total playing time [59:48] vibrancy of the Berkeley Ensemble's performance even compared with Dennis Brain and friends in [the Ferguson Octet's] first recording.' * world premiere recording Gramophone

Lennox Berkeley the guitar works for Julian Bream and the a marked disinclination to practice. madcap plot to convert Britain back to Violin Concerto for Yehudi Menuhin, he Nevertheless he enjoyed the piano, and Catholicism; alas, the score has vanished). Essentially orthodox in character, if could always call on the specialist advice by the time he reached Gresham’s School, unorthodox in his private and spiritual of a commissioning musician. Norfolk, in 1916, he had developed what Converted to the early music revival as life, Lennox Berkeley was adventurous a contemporary described as an much by his own inclinations as by the and open-minded as a composer. He This new recording offers seven of his works uncharacteristically florid style of examples of his organ teachers at never looked back at his work but always for rarer forces, some of which the Berkeley playing. His next school, the equally Oxford, W.H. (later Sir William) pressed on to the next piece, exploring Ensemble found at the British Library progressive St George’s, Harpenden, Harris and Henry Ley, Berkeley wrote and experimenting, in search of the amongst the hundreds of manuscript encouraged him to compose, and in several harpsichord pieces for his friend ideal means of expressing his thoughts scores acquired from the Berkeley family 1921 he won a prize for a piano piece Vere Pilkington, with whom he shared and feelings. in 2014. These seven pieces span most of he’d written that summer at his parents’ rooms. Both young men admired Bach Berkeley’s working life, from the Sonatine villa in the shade of the Forest of and Stravinsky, French music of the turn Like other composers of his time he was pour clarinette et piano, written in 1928, Fontainebleau. of the century and the early Baroque, much influenced by Stravinsky, but also when he was just down from Oxford and despised the romanticism of Wagner. by Gregorian chant, Bach, Mozart, the and studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, In 1922 he matriculated at Merton French Impressionists, Poulenc. He to the Three Pieces for solo viola, which College, Oxford, supposedly to study Berkeley’s favourite composer at Oxford tried, but rejected, twelve-tone serialism. date from the early 1970s. French, Old French and Philology, but, was Ravel, and in 1925 he actually met He wrote songs and operas, piano by his own admission, he did little else Ravel, when the great man was staying studies and concertos, string quartets The grandson of an earl who was himself but music (with a brief spell on the river with mutual friends in London. Plucking and symphonies, and a treasury of adept on the zither, Lennox Berkeley first in his first year, when he surprised up his courage he played one of his music for the church. He played the came to music as a small boy, listening to himself by coxing his college boat to harpsichord pieces: Ravel approved of piano (better than he thought he did), his mother playing Chopin on the piano, some notable successes in Eights Week). the harmonies (which weren’t a million conducted (when he had to), and his French aunt playing her own salon While the rest of the Bright Young miles from his own), but criticised the taught an entire generation of younger pieces, his English godmother singing Things of that Brideshead generation lack of technique. Berkeley wasn’t surprised composers, with a kindness and Schubert, and the pianola at home on were swanning around in Oxford bags, because he’d never had any composition generosity which none of them ever forgot. Boars Hill near Oxford, which played, as getting drunk, kissing other men and lessons, and when Ravel prescribed a though by magic, assorted rolls collected dancing the Black Bottom, Berkeley was period of study with the greatest music Though the piano was his only instrument, by his father, a naval officer, mathematician busy composing. During his four years teacher in Europe, Nadia Boulanger – Berkeley was always ready to write for and passionate music-lover. at Oxford he wrote more than seventeen and offered to make the introductions – other instruments, and for unusual works - mostly songs and keyboard pieces, he leapt at a chance that was to change combinations of instruments. This often He started having piano lessons when he but also a score for a film starring his life. presented technical problems which went to the Dragon School at the age of Evelyn Waugh (as a sinister Dean of Balliol were new to him, but, as in the case of eight, though his progress was marred by who seduces the Prince of Wales, in a Mademoiselle Boulanger accepted him as a student, on condition that he wrote only fourteen) and Stravinsky’s son nothing of his own for a year, did daily Soulima. Sometimes Soulima took Lennox exercises in counterpoint and fugue, and back home to the Stravinsky’s apartment studied the works of the masters, in the rue du Faubourg-St-Honoré. Years analysing Beethoven piano sonatas, later Berkeley remembered Stravinky’s Stravinsky’s Les Noces, pieces by Debussy chain-smoking and the fine claret and Ravel – and the complete Bach cantatas. bought by the barrel from Bordeaux. Berkeley was up for it all: it’s what he had Stravinsky, he said, was kind, well-mannered, always wanted. elegant – and terrified of his old mother. Though he was courteous, ‘he held very Off duty, he haunted Le Boeuf sur le Toit, the definite opinions about everything and fashionable bar for the night owls of the could be devastatingly critical of what he avant garde – often with Ravel, who had didn’t like’. become a special friend. There they listened to jazz and watched men After nearly twelve months of Boulanger’s dancing while Ravel talked. A young strict regime, Berkeley was allowed to Oxford friend once found them at resume composing. One of the first fruits Le Boeuf, Lennox wearing a frayed mauve was the Sonatine pour clarinette et piano, shirt and long hair, with his arm linked in which Frederick Thurston played with Ravel’s, as the older composer expounded Gordon Bryan at the Aeolian Hall in his theories. Ravel was never intimate London in 1928. Bryan, who was both a with anyone, but he was unusually friend and a professional critic, liked the close to Lennox, who was charming, piece and noted its debt to Hindemith. nice-looking, talented and modest. But another English reviewer accused More importantly they both ‘lived within Berkeley of having ‘caught some of the themselves’, drawing from a spiritual well Paris tricks fashionable at the present that neither of them needed to talk about, moment’ – in particular, Poulenc’s way of but which was to lead Berkeley to the creating a double tonality. Roman Catholic Church in 1929. Undeterred, Berkeley followed this up a year But there were other friends too: Francis later with Pièce pour flûte, clarinette et basson. Poulenc, Georges Auric, and two other The manuscript is stamped ‘36 Rue Ballu’, Boulanger students, Igor Markevitch (then which was where Boulanger lived. Whether this indicates that the piece was written there, Lennox Berkeley met was Benjamin Britten. under Mademoiselle’s watchful eye, or They had never met before, and fell in a whether Berkeley later gave her the sort of love. For a week they were manuscript and the stamp is an Ex Libris, constantly in one another’s company, isn’t clear. His musical biographer Professor listening to music, meeting other Peter Dickinson describes the piece as musicians, talking and sight-seeing – and showing ‘a neat, terse, neo-classical technique’. in England that summer they spent a further, more intense, week composing, After six years of study at the ‘Boulangerie’, reading, talking and swimming in Cornwall. Berkeley went south to look after his aged When Britten’s mother died the following parents in their opulent retirement on year, they moved into a converted mill Cap Ferrat, next door to Somerset at Snape in Suffolk. Their dream was to Maugham’s villa, La Mauresque. Maugham live and work together in an unofficial was always surrounded by interesting civil partnership. But it didn’t turn out people – film stars, royalty, intellectuals like that. and handsome young men; Berkeley joined them for tennis, golf, swimming, In 1938 Britten suddenly went off to America visits to the Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo, with Peter Pears, leaving Berkeley alone and parties. again – and devastated. On the rebound he formed an unsatisfactory relationship Within a couple of years both his parents with a young airman who led him a died. Alone in the Villa Melfort, Lennox merry dance till the end of the war, Berkeley hit one of the lowest ebbs of when, to their friends’ astonishment his life. Then came an invitation to (and his too), he married his beautiful represent Britain at the International secretary at the BBC, Freda Bernstein. Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Barcelona. With a heavy heart he set During the war Berkeley served as an ARP off for Spain in the spring of 1936, just warden in the Blitz, before joining the as General Franco was stirring the BBC, first in the French Service, then in army into rebellion against the Left-wing the Music Department as a programme Second Republic. But the Civil War was builder for the Symphony Orchestra. In still two months off. Meanwhile Barcelona 1943, with one ear to Occupied France, was alive with music. The first person where so many friends had been left behind, and another to the neo-classical James Lees-Milne, but previously married to a past (Mozart in particular), he wrote Boulanger student, Anthony (later the String Trio and dedicated it to the Viscount) Chaplin, whilst simultaneously Canadian-born violinist Frederick conducting a discreet affair with the Singer Grinke (Concertmaster of the Boyd sewing machine heiress, Winnaretta, Neil Orchestra, which had given princess Edmond de Polignac, patron of the first performance of Berkeley’s so many composers, including Berkeley Serenade for Strings in 1940), Watson and Stravinsky. Forbes (who played viola in the Aeolian Quartet) and the cellist James Stravinsky’s death on 6 April 1971 was a Phillips. These three gave the first blow to all those composers who had been performance at the Wigmore Hall in influenced by his revolutionary ideas. August 1944. Berkeley responded with In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky: Canon for String Quartet, Marriage to Freda brought Lennox Berkeley which was published in Tempo magazine not only security, order, happiness – and that summer, along with contributions three sons – but also the confidence and from sixteen other composers, including the peace to write some of his best Milhaud, Boulez, Copland, Tippett, music. In the decade that followed he Birtwistle and Berkeley’s student produced the Four Poems of St Teresa Nicholas Maw. All the tribute pieces of Avila, the Stabat Mater, concertos for were scored for the instruments which one and two pianos and for flute, and Stravinsky himself had used in his own the operas Nelson, A Dinner Engagement Double Canon of 1959, in memory of and Ruth. The Sextet for clarinet, the painter Raoul Dufy, and Epitaphium horn and string quartet dates (also 1959), in memory of Prince Max from this same fertile period. It was Egon zu Fürstenberg. commissioned by the BBC for the opening concert of the Cheltenham That same year, 1971, the double bass player Music Festival and played for the Rodney Slatford, then a young man at the first time by the Melos Ensemble on start of his career, was taking part in a 11 July 1955. The work is dedicated to performance of Berkeley’s Serenade for Strings Berkeley’s friend, Alvilde Lees-Milne, at St John’s, Smith Square, and, in the then married to the architectural historian crowded hall, he kept digging his bow into a man in the front row. When, at the end of Lennox Berkeley – and tea with Freda – was the piece, the man rose to acknowledge a Hungarian-born musician called Stephan the applause, Slatford realised he’d been Deák, a Jewish refugee from the Holocaust. stabbing the composer. He introduced Berkeley, who probably never knew the himself – and there and then asked details of his tragic life, was touched by Berkeley to write a work for him. The his seriousness and wrote for him Three result was the Introduction and Allegro Pieces for solo viola, inscribing the for double bass and piano, which manuscript, ‘To Stephan Deák, With all Slatford and his accompanist Clifford good wishes, Lennox Berkeley’. The Lee played for the first time in a Park fingering and bowing instructions on Lane Group Young Artists Award concert the manuscript are assumed to be those of at the Purcell Room later that year. Deák himself, but there is no indication that he ever actually played the pieces ‘Although he had not written for solo in public, and the work has never been double bass before,’ Slatford wrote in published. the 2014 Lennox Berkeley Society Journal, ‘the piece needed no alteration, The son of wealthy parents, Stefan Deák as Lennox had taken great pains to write began his music studies at the Budapest something that would be useful not only Academy. When he was eighteen and for Clifford and me, but also for other threatened with forced labour camp, young players looking for interesting his father smuggled him into Belgium repertoire that was both easily accessible and enrolled him in the Royal Conservatory and not too technically demanding.’ in Brussels. When the Nazis occupied The piece has been set on examination Belgium, Deák fled south to Lyon and and competition syllabuses all over the altered his passport to show his religion world, and Slatford still feels ‘a sense of as Protestant. He then travelled on down pride in having secured such a useful to Marseilles and joined the French Radio piece for the repertoire from such an Orchestra under the conductor Paul experienced and respected composer’. Paray, who did so much to help Jewish musicians later in the war when the One of the last of the many students who Nazis occupied France. knocked on the door of 8 Warwick Avenue, Little Venice, for a composition lesson with In the middle of the war Deák learned that both his parents and one of his sisters had the Kreutzer Quartet, to give what was lost their lives at home in Hungary, and thought to have been the world premiere at he suffered a mental breakdown. the West Norfolk Music Festival in September Diagnosed as schizophrenic, he was 2009. treated with electroconvulsive therapy. On his discharge from hospital he went Lennox Berkeley remained at home in Little to Paris, where, in 1946, he married a Venice till the last year of his life when, fellow Jew from Hungary, and shortly with Alzheimer’s disease, he was admitted afterwards they emigrated to South to St Charles’ Hospital, North Kensington, Africa. But Deák was a difficult man to where he died, with his family around him, live with, and, in 1949, his wife left him on Boxing Day 1989. and took their son to a new life in Israel. This resulted in another mental collapse, © 2015 Tony Scotland and Deák was admitted to an asylum in Pietermaritzburg. In the 1950s he Tony Scotland is the author of Lennox & moved to Britain and joined the Freda, Michael Russell Publishing, 2010 Philharmonia Orchestra, where he remained for twenty-seven years, with intermittent spells in hospital. After the suicide of his son, Dr Ilan Deák, he had another relapse, had to leave the Philharmonia and went into a mental hospital in St Albans. He spent his final years in a Jewish care home in Barnet, where he spoke to no one but read and walked. He died in Camden Town in 1999.

The manuscript of his Berkeley viola pieces turned up in a second-hand bookshop in Camden five years later. The buyer gave it to the viola player Elizabeth Watson, who allowed Morgan Goff, viola player with ther

Berkeley Ensemble album was praised by Gramophone for ‘the vibrancy of the Berkeley Ensemble’s y: Louise Ma Patron: Michael Berkeley, performance even compared with aph Baron Berkeley of Knighton, CBE Dennis Brain and friends in [the Ferguson ogr Octet’s] first recording.’

Phot Hailed as ‘an instinctive collective’ (The Strad) the Berkeley Ensemble takes its The ensemble is rapidly building a reputation name from two British composers of the for innovative and thought-provoking last hundred years, father and son Sir programming and in spring 2014 received Lennox and Michael Berkeley. It was official recognition with a Help Musicians UK formed in 2008 by members of Southbank Emerging Excellence award. Equally at home Sinfonia, Britain’s young professional on the summer festival circuit as in the orchestra, with the aim of exploring the concert hall, the group has performed at wealth of little-known twentieth- and the Latitude and Greenbelt festivals. twenty-first century British chamber music alongside more established Taking its music to new audiences, most repertoire. It now enjoys a busy concert importantly through education work, is schedule performing throughout the UK central to the ensemble’s activities. Its and abroad, and is also much in demand work in this area includes self-directed for its inspiring work in education. projects in addition to collaborations with Southbank Sinfonia, Merton Music The ensemble’s flexible configuration Foundation and Pan Concerts for Children. and collaborative spirit has led to The ensemble regularly coaches students performances with leading musicians in chamber performance at the University including Sir Thomas Allen, Richard Sisson of York, is ensemble-in-residence at Queen and Gabriel Prokofiev. The group is an Elizabeth School in Cumbria and Ibstock enthusiastic champion of new music and Place School in London and runs an has worked with composers John Casken annual residential chamber music and Robin Holloway. It was proud to course in Somerset. premiere its first commission, Michael Berkeley’s Clarion Call and Gallop, in www.berkeleyensemble.co.uk 2013 and featured the piece on its debut recording. Released in March 2014, the More chamber titles from Resonus Classics The Berkeley Ensemble gratefully acknowledges the following individuals and organisations who have made this recording possible: Clarion Call: Music for Septet and Octet Berkeley Ensemble Nicolas Bell, Curator, Music Collections, The British Library RES10127 Peter Dickinson Tony Scotland ‘[...] warmly communicative and commendably polished readings, most truthfully recorded and The Staypar Charitable Trust balanced within an ideally intimate acoustic' Kathleen Walker Classical Ear

This project is supported by a grant from the Lennox Berkeley Society www.lennoxberkeley.org.uk

The ensemble is generously supported by: Journey to Aldeburgh: Young Britten Jane and Stephen Ainger Simon Over Chamber Domaine Katherine Arnold and Adrian Harris Tony Scotland Thomas Kemp (violin & conductor) Julian Berkeley David and Brenda Shilladay RES10139 Jan and David Bonar Peter Shilladay Charlotte Castle Frances Slack ‘Chamber Domaine’s performance is a very Gavin Compton Kathryn and Nigel Slack impressive one, generating huge energy’ Valerie Cott John R. Veale International Record Review Alexandra Cross Katherine Wareham Hannah Horsburgh Linda Wareham John Lakey George and Jeanette Watson James and Elizabeth Mann © 2015 Resonus Limited è 2015 Resonus Limited Recorded in St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road, Oxford on 2-4 September 2014 Producer, Engineer & Editor: Adam Binks Berkeley Ensemble Trustees: Session photography © Resonus Limited Jan Bonar Steinway Model D Piano maintained by Joseph Taylor Pianos Ltd Recorded at 24-bit / 96kHz resolution (DDD) Charlotte Castle Cover image: 'Lennox Berkeley, 1938 (Photo Howard Coster, by permission Simon Over of Lady Berkeley and the Lennox Berkeley Estate) Richard Sisson With thanks to Sally Doyle and Michele Smith of SJE Arts.

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