British Choral Music

[edashtav]

oh yes. "O Ebenezer Prout, you're looking very stout" sung to the fugue theme of BWV 542

Ebenezer Prout had a great respect for the rulebook. Unfortunately, his rigorous book on Harmony was the first such book to be translated into Chinese. Red China and its people were great observers of rules. Dear Ebenezer's rod of harmonic iron ruled the thoughts of Chinese composers until comparatively recently. Have a listen - their works are so "correct" they can only be matched by EP's symphony.

[mercia]

Ebenezer Prout had a great respect for the rulebook. Unfortunately, his rigorous book on Harmony was the first such book to be translated into Chinese. Red China and its people were great observers of rules. Dear Ebenezer's rod of harmonic iron ruled the thoughts of Chinese composers until comparatively recently. Have a listen - their works are so "correct" they can only be matched by EP's symphony.

fascinating !

[BBMmk2]

Granville Bantock was prolific and uncritical. I spent three years whilst at the University of Birmingham studying a mass of his scores in the vaults of the old Central Birmingham Library.

His music contains everything he had heard as well as everything that he imagined. Bleeding chunks of incompatible composers are forced into unnatural intimacy and their lack of chemistry is there for all to hear. The sublime and the ridiculous collide. I except certain short pieces written in white-hot haste - such as "Sea Reivers"; they rush by before the arrival of incompatible elements. So many of Bantock's Choral works e.g. Omar Khayyam are gargantuan, a quality that showcases their incongruities. As long as his scores remain unplayed, Bantock will remain a white-hot hope for For3 boarders. Of course, they'll be forever a delight to the well-versed who love to play "spot the influence" as their CDs spin.

I hope that companies like Chandos and Hyperion(who have done a lot of his music), might resurrect a lot more of Bantock's scores.

[Stanfordian]

Granville Bantock was prolific and uncritical. I spent three years whilst at the University of Birmingham studying a mass of his scores in the vaults of the old Central Birmingham Library.

His music contains everything he had heard as well as everything that he imagined. Bleeding chunks of incompatible composers are forced into unnatural intimacy and their lack of chemistry is there for all to hear. The sublime and the ridiculous collide. I except certain short pieces written in white-hot haste - such as "Sea Reivers"; they rush by before the arrival of incompatible elements. So many of Bantock's Choral works e.g. Omar Khayyam are gargantuan, a quality that showcases their incongruities. As long as his scores remain unplayed, Bantock will remain a white-hot hope for For3 boarders. Of course, they'll be forever a delight to the well-versed who love to play "spot the influence" as their CDs spin.

Hiya edashtav, I'm not sure why you have singed out Bantock for being derivative as a composer as if it was a problem. Persoanally there are a number of his works that I greatly admire and I couldn't give a fig who inspired him.

[edashtav]

A Case of the Blues

Hiya edashtav, I'm not sure why you have singed out Bantock for being derivative as a composer as if it was a problem. Persoanally there are a number of his works that I greatly admire and I couldn't give a fig who inspired him.

There are aspects of Bantock's music that make it easy to forgive his flaws - for instance his knowledge of instrumentation and colour; rarely do his scores fail to glow. But, Stan, being derivative is something that I abhor. I'm glad that such problems don't irritate you. I presume that you have a a healthy respect for Charles Villiers because you're not distressed that some of his music has been "previously owned". I have no worries when a composer is inspired by the work of others but has absorbed those influences, melding them into his own style; but when influences have merely "adhered" and are regurgitated in an original state, I'm distracted and long to get back to "the real deal".

I've not singled out Bantock, by the way. I wrote in a similar vein about dear, prodigious Derek Bourgeois a few days ago. Again a fluent composer with real strengths but he reminds me of the bride donning something old, something new, something borrowed, & sometimes something blue.

[BBMmk2]

I see your point eadstv but with Stanford's music, you say something borrowed something new, etc? I can't see where your coming from here(or am I missing something?)

[edashtav]

I see your point eadstv but with Stanford's music, you say something borrowed something new, etc? I can't see where your coming from here(or am I missing something?)

I wrote that of Derek Bourgeois , in particular.

It does apply to Stanford - perhaps the Irish elements in his music were amongst the novel aspects in his music.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I wonder how many composers we could name that aren't in some way derivative?

[edashtav]

I wonder how many composers we could name that aren't in some way derivative?

Of course, it's natural to be derivative in one's apprentice works but maturity is, so some extent, defined by the successful assimilation of influences.

[BBMmk2]

I wonder how many composers we could name that aren't in some way derivative?

Quite a few, I would imagine but how else would they get inspiration from, wi9thyout some kind of derivation?

[Suffolkcoastal]

Quite a few, I would imagine but how else would they get inspiration from, wi9thyout some kind of derivation?

Exactly BBM, even a 'mature style' is for the most part arrived at through absorbing what has come before. In many cases the 'mature style' continues to develop as the composer draws in yet more new influences.

[EdgeleyRob]

Exactly BBM, even a 'mature style' is for the most part arrived at through absorbing what has come before. In many cases the 'mature style' continues to develop as the composer draws in yet more new influences.

Makes sense to me Suffy.

[EdgeleyRob]

While we're on Parry, Elgar was impressed by the 1907 Symphonic Poem A Vision of Life for soprano, bass, chorus & orchestra (I say! That "vision" of Parry's is fine stuff and the poem is literature: you must hear it some day!). It's Parry's own words, very much a humanist work (as a counter to Elgar's enthusiasm, perhaps, Bernard Benoliel writes that the libretto "reads like rejected lines from Goethe's Faust, Nietsche's Zarathustra and Hardy's The Dynasts").

It's the last of his 'Ethical Canatas' (War & Peace, Voces Clamatium, The Love That Casteth Out All Fear, and The Soul's Ransom being the others). The Soul's Ransom has been recorded: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parry-Invoca...ouls%27+ransom).

I have that Chandos set Pabs,it's wonderful.
It also contains The Invocation to Music which IMO is one of Parry's most beautiful pieces.

[edashtav]

Exactly BBM, even a 'mature style' is for the most part arrived at through absorbing what has come before. In many cases the 'mature style' continues to develop as the composer draws in yet more new influences.

Yes, genius doesn't sit happily with stasis. Genius admits influence but makes it grist to his mill not the Emperor's new clothes.

[Pabmusic]

I wonder how many composers we could name that aren't in some way derivative?

Absolutely, SC. If we're talking of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries the answer must be none, since any musician is influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by what is around them.