British Music

[calico]

Thanks mikehopf and Albion for the Whittaker - I've wanted to hear this setting of the Lyke-Wake Dirge for ages. I think this is the programme listing from Radio Times:

Saturday 18 August 1984 BBC Radio 3
11.15 British Music
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
leader Geoffrey Trabichoff, conducted by Norman Del Mar
Scottish Philharmonic Singers (chorus master Ian McCrorie)
Elgar Nursery Suite
W. Gillies Whittaker The Coelestial Sphere (first broadcast performance)
11.55 Interval Reading
12.0 Delius Over the Hills and Far Away
W. Gillies Whittaker The Lyke-Wake Dirge (first broadcast performance)
Bliss Prologue, Five Dances and Finale from Checkmate
BBC Scotland

[albion]

I've done a little more research. He was the son of William George S Wilson  and Clara Barclay and he was born at Barnes in Surrey. His father died when he was just one year old and in the 1901 census he is living in the house of his grandfather Arthur J Barclay in Hammersmith. Arthur J Barclay was a coal merchant and theatrical agent and is googleable and is found managing music halls and early cinemas; he is also given credit as an author of music hall sketches.

He conducted the Houdslow Symphony Orchestra between 1954 and 1972 and I think he may have taught at the Guildhall School of Music.

He wrote The Technique of Orchestral Conducting (Macmillan, 1937), edited Bizet's Carmen for Cramer and composed numerous works including Mors janua vitae for chorus and strings (1969), a Piano Sonata (1975), lots of other piano music and songs.

The Symphony is rather good - I just wish I could find a date for it!



Any help gratefully received.

Thanks mikehopf and Albion for the Whittaker - I've wanted to hear this setting of the Lyke-Wake Dirge for ages. I think this is the programme listing from Radio Times:

Saturday 18 August 1984 BBC Radio 3

Great - thanks, calico!

[gpdlt2010]

Thank you so much for your prompt response & congratulations on this excellent thread!

The latest recordings in the archive are:

from mikehopf -

Hubert Parry (1848-1918) - Ode on St Cecilia's Day (1989); De Profundis (1891)
William Gillies Whittaker (1876-1944) - The Coelestial Sphere (1923); A Lyke-Wake Dirge (1924)
Norman Hay (1889-1943) - Symphonic Poem, Dunluce (1920-21)

from Latvian -

Robert James Barclay-Wilson - Symphony

I have split the original file of the Whittaker into the two separate works and removed the redundant silence. These are both very impressive scores indeed.

As Latvian comments, there is very little information about Barclay-Wilson available, and even a discrepancy as to whether his name should be hyphenated or not. Since the publisher of his Symphony (Lengnick) does apply a hyphen, this has been adopted and consequently this work is in the Ba-Be folder.

Many thanks to both for these exciting additions.

[albion]

More important archival recordings have just been added -

Daniel Jones (1913-1992) - Symphony No.8 (1972); Symphony No.9 (1974) both conducted by the composer

John McCabe (b.1939) - Piano Concerto No.2, Sinfonia Concertante (1970); Clarinet Concerto (1977); Symphony No.3, Hommages (1978) including first performances of the Clarinet Concerto and the Symphony

Many thanks to Dundonnell for these.

[Dundonnell]

Just to explain that what I am doing now is to upload recordings from my collection made 30 + years ago of performances of British music which I feel have some historical significance. This may be because they are performances conducted by the composer or are the first performances of a particular work: both have that additional element of authenticity and excitement which renders them worth preservation. It may well be that subsequent renderings on disc or otherwise have been more polished or even-to be honest-just plain better all round.........

but you can be the judge of that if you so choose

I shall also include some concerto performances by notable soloists.

Next up will be some Edmund Rubbra....my favourite British composer

[albion]

Many thanks, Dundonnell - important Rubbra broadcasts are always welcome!

Colin's criteria for uploading alternative performances of already-commercially-recorded works are based on sound principles: works which may still with reason be classed as 'unsung' in

world premiere performances

composer-conducted performances

performances involving particularly significant soloists (for example, the composer)

This is not intended to be proscriptive, but these are criteria which members can apply and, by using their own judgement and research, assess whether or not a recording adds materially to our knowledge of a particular work.

[Dundonnell]

Samuel Sebastian Wesley(1810-1876)

Not really my period....but I have found recordings of his

Sacred Song for baritone and orchestra
Anthem "In the Wilderness" for choir and orchestra
Anthem "Ascribe unto the Lord" for choir and orchestra

The performers are Brian Rayner Cook(baritone), the Choir of New College, Oxford, Choir of Winchester Cathedral, the Waynflete Singers and the Academy of the BBC/David Lumsden.

Are these of interest? The Presto website seems to indicate that very few of the current recordings of Wesley's choral music include an orchestra.

[albion]

Samuel Sebastian Wesley(1810-1876)

Sacred Song for baritone and orchestra
Anthem "In the Wildreness" for choir and orchestra
Anthem "Ascribe unto the Lord" for choir and orchestra

Are these of interest?

Short answer - yes!

Invariably, S.S. Wesley anthems are only heard with organ, whereas he actually orchestrated quite a number of them.

[jerfilm]

Ah, my period, Colin.  Please upload them.

Jerry

[Dundonnell]

Ah, my period, Colin.  Please upload them.

Jerry

I shall send the link to Albion to try to make some sense out of what I recorded from the Wesley centenary concert from Winchester Cathedral(1976). The Symphony is in there certainly and some of the choral works but I can't quite work out which.

[albion]

I shall send the link to Albion to try to make some sense out of what I recorded

I'll see what I can salvage.

[Dundonnell]

I am also sending him the Sterndale Bennett 5th Symphony and the Cipriani Potter 10th.

I know that performances are already available here....so he can be the ultimate arbiter of whether they are worth keeping.

[albion]

Late-night ecclesiastical delights -

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) - The Wilderness and the Solitary Place (1832, orchestrated 1852); Ascribe unto the Lord (1851, orchestrated 1865)

An opportunity to hear two of Wesley's anthems in the composer's rarely-heard orchestral versions: The Wilderness was orchestrated especially for the 1852 Birmingham Festival and Ascribe unto the Lord for the 1865 Three Choirs Festival held at Gloucester.

Many thanks to Dundonnell.

[britishcomposer]

Wesley's 'The Wilderness' (orchestral version) has been performed as recently as 2007 by chorus and orchestra of the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk (MDR) conducted by Howard Arman. Arman has promoted quite a lot of British choral music during his tenure at the MDR.

[albion]

from mikehopf -

Hubert Parry (1848-1918) - Ode on St Cecilia's Day (1889)

Here is the text - spelling and punctuation are as given in my copy of the vocal score:

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)- Ode on St Cecilia's Day

Chorus

Descend ye Nine! descend and sing;
The breathing instruments inspire,
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain:
Let the loud trumpet sound,
'Till the roofs all around
The shrill echo's rebound;
While in more lengthen'd notes and slow,
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.
Hark! the numbers, soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies:
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;
Till, by degrees, remote and small,
The strains decay,
And melt away,
In a dying, dying fall.

Arioso (Baritone)

By Music, minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
If in the breast tumultuous joys arise,
Music her soft, assuasive voice applies;
Or when the soul is press'd with cares,
Exalts her in enlivening airs.
Warriors she fires with animated sounds;
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds:
Melancholy lifts her head,
Morpheus rouses from his bed,
Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes,
Listening Envy drops her snakes;
Intestine war no more our passions wage,
And giddy Factions hear away their rage.

Chorus

But when our Country's cause provokes to arms,
How martial music every bosom warms!
So when the first bold vessel dared the seas,
High on the stern the Thracian raised his strain,
While Argo saw her kindred trees
Descend from Pelion to the main.
Transported demi-gods stood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound,
Inflamed with glory's charms;
Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd,
And half unsheathed the shining blade:
And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound
To arms! to arms! to arms!

Solo (Soprano)

But when, through all the infernal bounds
Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds,
Love, strong as death, the Poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appear'd,
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts!
But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortured ghosts respire,
See, shady forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance;
The Furies sink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their heads.

Chorus

By the streams that ever flow,
By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of asphodel,
Or amaranthine bowers;
By the heroes' armed shades,
Glittering through the gloomy glades;
By the youths that dy'd for love,
Wandering in the myrtle grove,
Restore, restore Euridice to life:
Oh take the husband, or return the wife!

Solo (Baritone)

He sung, and hell consented
To hear the poet's prayer;
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair.
Thus song could prevail
O'er death, and o'er hell,
A conquest how hard and how glorious!
Though fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her,
Yet music and love were victorious.

Solo (soprano)

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:
Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move?
No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love.
Now under hanging mountains,
Beside the falls of fountains,
Or where Hebrus wanders,
Rolling in meanders,
All alone,
Unheard, unknown,
He makes his moan;
And calls her ghost,
For ever, ever, ever lost!
Now with furies surrounded,
Despairing, confounded,
He trembles, he glows,
Amidst Rhodope's snows:
See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies;
Hark! Haemus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries -
— Ah see, he dies!
Yet even in death Euridice he sung,
Euridice still trembled on his tongue,
Euridice the woods,
Euridice the floods,
Euridice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

Solo (Baritone) and Chorus

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm;
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.
This the divine Cecilia found,
And to her Maker's praise confined the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful choir,
The immortal powers incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And angels lean from heaven to hear.
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,
To bright Cecilia greater power is given;
His numbers raised a shade from hell,
Hers lift the soul to heaven.