Speranza
There were
-- Percy Fletcher
-- Frederic Curzon
-- Haydn Wood
-- John Ansell
-- Albert Ketelbey and
-- Montague Phillips.
here are
notes on a dozen others who may be reckoned also as light music composers; to
avoid any possibility of a favoured order of merit among people so different, I
present these alphabetically. Charles Ancliffe (1880-1952) was a bandmaster's
son, so it was natural for him to train at the RMSM, Kneller Hall and to become
a bandmaster himself, first of the South Wales Borderers, then of the
Scarborough Military Band. His creative output reflects this to a degree, with
marches like Ironsides, a rousing piece which I heard recently in a brass band
version, Castles in Spain and the popular The Liberators, but he is best
remembered for his waltzes. Nights of Gladness, the most famous, gave its name
to a BBC programme, for which it was the signature tune (he often conducted for
radio), and there were many other waltzes like Alpine Echoes, April Clouds,
Dream Princess, Festive Days, Irish Whispers, Shy Glances, Southern Nights,
Temptation, Smiles Then Kisses, Thrills, Hesitation, Twilight Time and
Unforgotten Hours. In addition he composed dozens of short genre pieces often
styled "intermezzo" or "entr'acte": April's Lady, Down in Zanzibar, A Forest
Wooing, Peacock's Parade, Moon Maid, Cinderella's Wedding, The Flutter of the
Fay, Secrets, Valley of Roses, Penelope's Garden, Burma Intermezzo, Fragrance
and the "Capricietto Italien" Mariette-Coquette, the Latin-American style
serenade El Saludo and the "Dutch silhouette", Hans the Stroller. His
attractively and ingeniously titled suites include Southern Impressions, from
which Carnival at Nice was popular in its day, Below Bridges (1936, all London
bridges, with the titles Wapping Old Stairs, Stepney Church and Poplar) and The
Purple Vine, in three movements: The Vintagers, The Purple Vine and Evening at
the Inn! Ancliffe's songs were very popular in character with titles like Ask
Daddy, Someday in Somebody's Eyes and I Cannot Live Without You. Hubert Bath,
born in Barnstaple on 6 November 1883 died at Harefield, Middlesex on 24 April
1945, just days before VE Day. He sang in the local church choir as a boy (his
father, a school teacher, was the choirmaster) and he studied piano, organ and
composition when he went to the RAM at the age of 17. His musical output, as we
shall see, looked in several directions, but he certainly falls within our
chosen field of light music, not least because his best remembered work, the
Cornish Rhapsody, for piano and orchestra written for the film Love Story, was
so popular with light orchestras for so long. It was not his only film music by
a long chalk; in 1929 he composed at least some of the soundtrack for the first
full-length British 'talkie', Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and was
working on the score of The Wicked Lady when he died. There were many others for
the Gaumont-British and Gainsborough (and other) studios of which I remember
particularly the 1935 Donat version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Rhodes of Africa
(1936) and The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935). He conducted music for
films and in the concert hall. Nor was the Cornish Rhapsody his only light
orchestral piece. At his best Bath approached Eric Coates. Like Coates he
produced several stirring marches, such as Atlantic Charter with its parts for
three saxophones, Empire Builders, Out of the Blue (written for an RAF display
at Hendon, once recorded by a brass band and for many years the signature tune
of BBC Radio's Sports Report), the "nautical march" Admirals All, which added
two cornets and a euphonium to the usual orchestral brass of four horns, two
trumpets and three trombones and The Nelson Touch performed in Doncaster during
the 1940s. His orchestral suites ranged widely in a topographical sense: Two Sea
Pictures and drawing on his memories of South Africa, the African Suite -
premiered at the Henry Wood Proms in 1909 and 1915 respectively - the Two
Japanese Sketches and the Egyptian Suite (both the latter were published also
for piano solo), The Norwegian Suite for small orchestra, the "oriental suite"
Scenes from the Prophets, Pierrette by the Steam and Woodland Scenes, all three
of which latter were very popular, the two Troubadour Suites, the Petite Suite
Romantique and a tribute to his native county, Devonia, whose three movements
are entitled Prelude, Breeze at Hartland Point; "melodie d'amour", Lorna of
Exmoor; and Sea Dogs of Devon, which is another "nautical march". The overture
Midshipman Easy was also of course inspired by the sea and Marryat's novel of
course; the Summer Nights waltz of 1901 achieved much popularity. With G H
Clutsam and Basil Hood he brought out an operetta Young England produced at
Daly's Theatre in 1916, from which the song Sweethearts and Wives enjoyed great
fame and an extensive selection from this appeared on gramophone records at that
time. Other stage works were in general more serious. The Spanish Student, after
Longfellow was written while he was still a student at the Royal Academy in
1904; Bubbole was performed in Milan in 1920 and as Bubbles by the Carl Rosa in
Belfast in 1923 and at London's Scala Theatre in 1924; and there were also The
Sire de Maletroit's Door, The Three Strangers after Hardy (both one-act
affairs), and Trilby, after Gerald Du Maurier's novel. In his earlier days
especially Bath wrote a considerable number of short or shortish cantatas which
were eagerly taken up by provincial choral societies, works such as The Jackdaw
of Rheims, Men on the Line for the male voices of the Great Eastern Railway,
Psyche's Departure, Look at the Clock (described as a "Welsh Rhapsody") (1910),
Orpheus and The Sirens, The Legend of Nerbudda (1908), The Wedding of Shon
Maclean (1909, written for the Leeds Festival of 1910) and The Wake of O'Connor
(1913). The latter two were put on in my home town of Doncaster by the Doncaster
Musical Society in 1911 and 1920 respectively (O'Connor had originally been
slated for 1915). Bath even arranged Elijah Memories, a potted version of
Mendelssohn's oratorio and also produced smaller scale vocal pieces, partsongs
like The Heart of the Night (1910), When You Sing (1911), recitations to music
and the three songs Voices of the Air (1911), in six parts (SAATBB) and a
variety of solo songs: Bedtime Ballads for children, the humorous It Was a
Golfer and his Lass, the Three Indian Songs, songs for the ballad opera Polly,
revived in the twenties in the wake of the success of Austin's Beggar's Opera,
and several songs inspired by the sea, Evoi: A Sea Sketch, The Vikings' War
Song, The Jolly Roger and Sea Memories. Bath trained as a pianist at the Royal
Academy - he also studied composition there with Frederick Corder - and his
works include Coquette, Italian Suite, Sonatina in F, Song of Autumn and Song of
Summer for piano solo and organ pieces like Toccatina (1914) and Heroic Prelude
(1928). He had a genial sense of humour; he was a conductor of both Quinlan
Opera and Carl Rosa for short periods and directed the GSM's Opera Class and was
for a while Music Adviser to the LCC and organised its outdoor band concerts. He
adjudicated band contests and conducted the famed St Hilda's Band with which he
made records. He composed a considerable amount for brass band himself,
including Freedom, the test piece at the National Championships in 1922, 1947
and as recently as 1973, which is effectively a symphony for brass condensed
into a mere 12 minutes, and Honour and Glory, the test piece at the same
Championships in 1931. These are substantial and serious works and are still
played by bands - I have myself enjoyed them. Much of Bath's work as listed
appears to show a composer, like Edward German or Sullivan maybe, who was
anxious to be known for this more serious side of his output, but doomed to be
remembered for more popular effusions. For every thousand who know Cornish
Rhapsody is there even one who knows he composed a symphonic poem The Visions of
Hannele written in 1913 (revised in 1920) and based on incidental music he wrote
for the play Hannele, at His Majesty's Theatre years earlier? He is credited
with chamber music too, but I have not yet discovered any. Sidney Baynes is
another who was known primarily for one work, the Destiny Waltz, one of many
waltzes he wrote with titles ending in 'y': Ecstasy, Entreaty, Flattery,
Frivolry, Harmony, Loyalty, Modesty, Memory, Mystery, Phantasy, Victory and
Witchery. He did of course write other things besides waltzes. He worked for the
BBC for many years and his march Off We Go was the Radio Variety march. Other
compositions included a Miniature Ballet Suite, the overture Endure to Conquer,
first played at an Armistice Thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey, the genre piece
The Spider Tread and another march, Here Goes! His songs include several
arrangements (by others) of the ever-present Destiny; of the rest First Love and
the Garden of My Love were adapted as cornet (or clarinet) solos. He also wrote
much for piano solo and some church music. Baynes was even more valuable, to the
BBC and to light music generally, for his arrangements than his compositions.
These were countless, including Fifty Years of Song, The Gay Nineties,
Tipperaryland and other Irish selections, Leslie Stuart's Songs, Molloy's Songs,
Sanderson's Songs (two selections), W.H. Squire's Songs, the dances from
Sheridan's 'opera' The Duenna, in Alfred Reynolds' adaptation, and so on. His
fondness for saxophones emerges in his compositions and arrangements. Born in
1879, he was Organist at various London churches, then accompanist to singers
like Edward Lloyd and Ben Davies. He subsequently conducted in several London
theatres including Drury Lane and the Adelphi. He formed and conducted his own
orchestra between 1928 and 1938 which broadcast and recorded regularly. He died
on 3 March 1938 at Willesden. Ernest Leslie Bridgewater, born in Halesowen in
1893, died as recently as 1975. Study at the Birmingham School of Music with
York Bowen was followed with a period as Musical Director at the Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon where he composed incidental music to
nineteen of Shakespeare's plays; he continued to write incidental music for
plays and the songs for his later efforts like Love for Love, Vanbrugh's The
Relapse (1948) and Farquhar's The Beaux Stratagem were published while the BBC
possesses scores of his overture to Dodie Smith's play Dear Octopus and a six
movement suite from Molière's Tartuffe. Bridgewater produced a Piano Concerto
recorded on Paxton and premiered on the BBC in February 1947 and several film
scores like Against the Wind (1947) and Train of Events (1949) but he was to
become best remembered for his lighter music which was a legacy of his
employment on the BBC's music staff for many years. Here he founded the Leslie
Bridgewater Quintet (piano and strings) and conducted the BBC Salon Orchestra
between 1939 and 1942. For the Quintet he arranged much music including several
series of 18th century pieces (by such composers as Arne, Michael Kelly, D
Scarlatti, Boccherini, Leclair, Dauvergne, Richard Jones, Veracini and Henry
Eccles) and a Hindoo Lullaby, also published in a setting for violin and piano.
Orchestral items, mainly for small orchestra, included Alla Toccata for strings
(also for violin and piano) the "marche grotesque" Shadows, a Rustic Suite, the
Ballet in Progress suite, Prunella, a caprice for violin and orchestra, and
other single movements like Harlequin, Love's Awakening, Serenata Amorosa and
the intermezzo Spirit of Youth. Hubert Clifford (1904-54), Australian-born and
a conductor also, is another whose orchestral music, once popular on the BBC for
whom he conducted 1941-4, may be worth another look. He composed a Symphony in
1940; his piece Atomic Energy, is scored for bass (alto) flute, heckelphone, E
flat clarinet and vibraphone as well as the more usual orchestral instruments.
The Serenade for Strings, in four movements, is a work of substance; Five
Nursery Tunes, broadcast for the first time by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in May
1941, showed that he like so many other English composers, derived inspiration
from this source. He wrote for British films, like Bath, notably Bachelor of
Hearts (1958), The Dark Man (1950), House of Secrets (1956), The One That Got
Away (1957) and Hunted (1952). He provided attractive contributions to the light
orchestral suite in the Cowes Suite and the Kentish Suite, whose five movements
are Dover, Canterbury (a prelude on Orlando Gibbons hymn tune of that name),
Pastoral and Folk Song, Swift Nicks of Gads Hill and Greenwich, sub-titled
Pageant of the River. He penned Four Sketches from As You Like It for strings
and a couple of brass fanfares, one for Australia Day, the other derived from
the Cowes Suite. Clifford was a Professor at the RAM after leaving the BBC in
1944. Information on Horace Dann is not easy to come by but I vividly remember
his sparkling concert march Worcester Beacon, worthy of Coates, in the first BBC
Festival of Light Music in March/April 1949, diligent research in various
catalogues has come up with mentions of two other orchestral pieces the Prima
Ballerina waltz and a Lullaby, and a Well-Tempered Polka (1952) for piano and
the songs Whenever My May Goes By (1950) and Music When Soft Voices Die.
Montague Ewing (1890-1957) was primarily an arranger of pot pourris and also a
writer of light music for piano and of popular songs. A surprising number of his
piano suites were orchestrated, usually by other hands, and broadcast: Changing
Skies, Fireflies, The Fragrant Year (four movements, one for each season), Guy
Fawkes Night, Kaleidoscope, 'Neath Sunny Skies, Silhouettes (at least five
sets), Spirit of the Dance, Variety Suite (four stage dances), The Wand of
Harlequin, Humours of Nature (four movement, Gnat Dance, The Snail and the
Thrush, Daddy-Long-Legs and Procession of Frogs) and Water Colours. There were
also marches like Advance of the Tanks, The Swing of the Kilt, Toy Patrol, Over
the Scottish Hills, The Parade of the Home Guard, 21 Guns (also arranged for
band) and Wedding in the Highlands, nautical novelties like Bosun Bill and
Sailormen All and intermezzi with titles like Fairies on the Moon, Purple
Heather (also arranged for band), Dream Dance of a Puppet, Tumbling Clown, Fly
by Night, An Irish Picnic, Pierrette by the Stream and Whirling Leaves - his
musical impression Portrait of a Toy Soldier was orchestrated by Hubert Bath.
For piano and not orchestrated (as far as I know) were Three Folly Dances,
Cobwebs and Woodland Shadows and, for piano duet, Three Cameos and the "novelty"
Dutch Marionette, for two pianos; contributions to the field of "light chamber
music" included the suites In Arcady (1923), My Lady Terpsichore and Titania
(1922), all for piano trio and useful for amateurs. A number of his songs were
popular in their day: The Seamen of England, Tribute, Lady Rainbow, Lullaby to a
Gipsy Child, Spring is Dancing Back to You, Sweet Hour that Lingers and the two
part The Clock in the Hall and, most popular of all, the humorous The
Policeman's Holiday set to words by other hands. Ewing also wrote songs (e.g.
Butterflies in the Rain, Scarecrow and Moonlight on the Ganges) and piano pieces
(some, like Fiddler in the Rain, Highland Fiddler and Wedding of the Wasps,
orchestrated by other hands) under the name of Sherman Myers. Two other
composers known primarily for their popular songs were Frederick John Easthope
Martin (1882-1925) and Gerald Graham Peel (1877-1937). Martin, born in
Stourport, studied piano, organ, harmony and composition (with Coleridge-Taylor)
at Trinity College London. His Evensong, variously arranged for piano, organ and
orchestra, became very popular, but apart from An Old Time Tune which also
appeared in various versions, the posthumously published Souvenirs for piano and
a few other piano solos, the bolero Castanets, for violin and piano, and Two
Eastern Dances for orchestra premiered by Sir Henry Wood at the Proms, his
output was primarily for the voice: anthems, such as Holiest Breathe an Evening
Blessing and Holy Spirit Come O Come, and songs. One or two of these were
sacred, like The Holy Child, apparently the last to be published in his
lifetime. Many were grouped into cycles: Four Dedications, High Days and
Holidays (four songs), The Love Spell (4), Songs of the Open Country (3), Songs
of Syria (4), Songs of the Hedgerow (5), The Way of a Ship (5), The Mountebanks
(7), Four Pastorals, Five Poems by John Masefield, Songs of a Gipsy Trail (5)
and Red Letter Days (4). The Philosopher and the Lady (1915) was a song cycle
for solo SATB, the first and last of the nine songs being for the full quartet,
two middle ones being duets and the rest solos, a not unusual formation at a
time when ballad concerts, often featuring three or four singers on one
platform, were very common. There were three sets of Songs of the Fair (1912,
1917 and 1921), from the first of which comes Come to the Fair, which is still
heard today both in its original form and in duet, mixed and male choral
arrangements. Of the "separate" songs Absence, The Crown of the Year, An Autumn
Song, Shall I Complain?, Everywhere I Go, The Daffodils, One and Twenty, sung in
a Doncaster Grammar School concert in 1919, and Who Goes a Walking? were most
popular. So popular was he as a song writer that, like W H Squire, Sanderson and
Molloy he had the accolade of an orchestral selection of his songs, arranged by
Henry Geehl. He could always be relied on for a strong tune but, as in
Timberlore, his harmonies could be weak. He died young; he was always troubled
with his lungs and as a result spent part of each year latterly in Monte Carlo,
though he died in Hampstead. Graham Peel, a pupil of Ernest Walker at Oxford,
was born in Pendlebury, Manchester in 1878, not 1877 as often stated, and died
in Bournemouth where he was in the thirties an excellent Chairman of the
Municipal Choir. He studied at Harrow and Oxford University and was a welfare
worker for much of his life; he died in 1937. Even more than Martin he seems to
have been almost exclusively a song composer, of which he produced about a
hundred, exclusive of folk song settings, though there were a few piano solos.
He studied singing with George Henschel. In Summertime on Bredon remains popular
and if it is more ballad-like than the settings by Butterworth and Vaughan
Williams, this simple setting has claims to be regarded as the most attractive
of all the versions of those frequently set words. Peel altogether set four of
the Housman poems from The Shropshire Lad, published as a cycle and of which
Reveille is particularly striking; other "cycles" included the Bad Child's Songs
About Beasts, and Leaves from a Child's Garden, both for children, Four Love
Songs and The Country Lover (five songs). I fairly recently enjoyed making the
acquaintance of the charmingly simple The Early Morning, while Go Down to Kew in
Lilac Time, Requiem, Gipsies, Ferry me Across the Water, Where Go The Boats, The
Ballad of Semmerwater, In Youth is Pleasure, Come Friend, The Lute Player
(overshadowed by Frances Allitsen's better-known setting), The Wild Swan, Wander
Thirst, The Oxen, Almond, Wild Almond and Flow Down, Cold Rivulet, to pick out a
dozen or so, would be worth looking at again. Flow Down was described when it
appeared on record during the Great War as a "smooth flowing melody with an
exquisite rippling accompaniment". Peel's genuine lyrical gift which hovers
between ballad and art-song but perhaps is more often nearer the former should
not be lost to us. Richard Maldwyn Price, born at Welshpool in 1890 (he died in
1952), gives this Garland a distinctive Welsh flavour. He studied at the
University College of Wales at Aberystwyth and was the first student to be
awarded the degree of D.Mus (Wales). An organist and choirmaster in Welshpool,
and a schoolmaster at Redhill and Malvern, he produced sacred choral works,
string quartets and some music for brass band; Owain Glyndwr and Henry V were
test pieces at the Open Championships in Manchester in 1938 and 1941
respectively and he also composed a Welsh Fantasy for brass. It is his
orchestral music which qualifies him for inclusion here as so much of it is
light in character: suites like the Bijou Suite, the Cambrian Suite (for
strings), Gwalia Suite and Recreative Suite, overtures like the Concert
Overture, An English Overture, Fantasie Overture and A Little Overture and
individual movements: Air de Ballet, Bolero, Concert Valse, Introduction and
Scherzo, Romance and Saltarello and a Fantasy on Captain Morgan's War Song. His
music is now little known and perhaps our friends in Wales can do something
about this. So many of the composers we are looking at are remembered for one
work even though they produced vastly. This is true also of Frederick Rosse,
born in Jersey in 1867, whose Doge's March from The Merchant of Venice music
long remained popular. Rosse was educated at Harrow and abroad at Leipzig,
Dresden, Brussels and Vienna. He began as a singer in the theatre, taking part
in The Geisha at Daly's. He also became Chorus Master at Daly's and moved on
from that to be Musical Director in various London theatres. That he was a man
of the theatre is reflected in his compositions: a musical farce All Aboard,
produced in 1895; and incidental music for Monsieur Beaucaire (1902: six
movements were extracted as a concert suite), Almond Eye (five movements) and,
as we have seen, The Merchant of Venice, for the Garrick in 1905. Not all his
music was for the theatre. Some of his orchestral suites were inspired by plays,
like Cyrano de Bergerac (1923) and the five movement The Three Musketeers, but
others, such as Gabrielle (1916), the Petite Suite Moderne (1918) and the three
Intermezzi Op 110 were apparently not; he also composed songs like In the Old
Countrie and The Refractory Monk. Rosse died on 20 June 1940. Despite his
prolific output and good craftsmanship Rosse seems to have sunk without trace.
Even the Doge's March is not heard. And so to the last of this varied dozen:
William Henry Squire, born at Ross-on-Wye on 8 August 1871, who was at least as
well known as a cellist as he was a composer. Educated at Kingsbridge Grammar
School in South Devon, he became a Foundation Scholar at the RCM, in 1883 where
he studied the cello with Edward Howell and composition with Parry and Stanford.
His London debut was in 1890 at the St James' Hall; he played in the Covent
Garden Orchestra 1894-7 and the Queen's Hall Orchestra 1897-1901, toured widely
as a soloist, notably with Clara Butt. He came to Doncaster in 1908 and played
his own arrangements of Chopin and Offenbach (Kennerley Rumford, Clara Butt's
husband, sang in the same concert Squire's song For Me Alone). Squire returned
to Doncaster in 1910 and played his Meditation in C. He taught at the RCM
between 1898 and 1917 and at the Guildhall School 1911-17 and was associated
with the Performing Rights Society between 1926 and 1953. His last public
concert appearance was in 1941 in Exeter Cathedral - he died in London on 17
March 1963, aged 91. His recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto has been reissued
in recent years. He wrote a Cello Concerto of his own and is credited with two
operettas. Also putting him into our light music sphere are his orchestral
pieces - the Serenade for flute, clarinet and strings, Op 15, the entr'actes
Summer Dreams, Sweet Briar and Slumber Song premiered at the Proms in 1897, 1898
and 1899 respectively, the idyll, Sylvania, the marches The Jolly Sailor and The
Yeomanry Patrol and the waltz, Lazy-Lane - plus his instrumental miniatures and
his popular songs (his sister was a well-known soprano). The instrumental
miniatures were of course usually for cello and piano (though Slumber Song
appeared for violin, Sylvania was published for piano solo and the attractive
Calma de Mare was written for a lady mandolinist) - most popular were Danse
Orientale, Harlequinade, Consolation, Larghetto in D, Madrigal in G, L'Adieu,
Bourée, Danse Rustique, Gavotte, Minuet, Old Swedish Air, the gorgeously "Palm
Court" Priere, Tzig-Tzig (a czardas of much virtuosity), Tarantella and
transcriptions of folk songs. There were many more and as I have heard for
myself student cellists still enjoy playing them in the 1980s and 1990s. Of
Squire's songs (and those were so popular as to warrant an orchestral selection
of them made by Sydney Baynes and arranged for brass band by J Ord-Hume) the
most popular were In an Old Fashioned Town, Mountain Lovers, Like Stars Above, A
Chip of the Old Block, A Sergeant of the Line, Pals, The Corporal's Ditty, When
You Come Home, If You Were Here, If I Might Only Come to You (all of them in the
selection just mentioned), My Prayer, beloved of Clara Butt, Lighterman Tom, The
Moonlit Road, The Watchman, The Road that Leads to You, and the duet The Singing
Lesson. One or two of these like My Prayer, were arranged as choruses.
Friday, September 13, 2013
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