George Butterworth and contemporaries

[Old Grumpy]

[I've already got me coat.]

Dunhill, I hope?

OG

[Pabmusic]

Hiya Pab,

The Stanford connection is there to Butterworth if indirectly as Charles Wood and Thomas Dunhill were pupils of Stanford.

Thank you! This could become a " connexions" game.

[Stanfordian]

Thank you! This could become a " connexions" game.

One eminent music author actually wrote that Ivor Novello (Ivor Davies) was a former pupil of Stanford. Just imagine that! But he never provided his source for that comment. I think he must have been confusing the connection between Stanford and his pupils Gurney and Howells who both knew Novello as they all studied with Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Catherdral.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thank you! This could become a " connexions" game.

I'm sure I heard it said on this morning's programme that Ernest Farrar (b.1885) taught Frank Bridge (b. 1879) at the RCM. Shurely Shome Mishtake?

[EdgeleyRob]

I'm sure I heard it said on this morning's programme that Ernest Farrar (b.1885) taught Frank Bridge (b. 1879) at the RCM. Shurely Shome Mishtake?

You heard right S_A but it can't be can it,I'm not even sure they were there at the same time.

They were both students of Stanford I think but Bridge was at the RCM until 1903 ? and Farrar from 1905 ? Pabsy'll know
Farrar certainly taught Finzi and Bridge's piano sonata is dedicated to Farrar
Bit of a tearful moment for me listening to the closing bars of RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 with George Butterworth staring at me from an I pad screen,very poignant (not the right word but don't know how else to describe it)
Loving the contributions from the archivist and librarian from the Folk Song Society

[Serial_Apologist]

You heard right S_A but it can't be can it,I'm not even sure they were there at the same time.

They were both students of Stanford I think but Bridge was at the RCM until 1903 ? and Farrar from 1905 ? Pabsy'll know
Farrar certainly taught Finzi and Bridge's piano sonata is dedicated to Farrar
Bit of a tearful moment for me listening to the closing bars of RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 with George Butterworth staring at me from an I pad screen,very poignant (not the right word but don't know how else to describe it)
Loving the contributions from the archivist and librarian from the Folk Song Society

I found the Norfolk Rhapsody recording chosen much more time-taking and suspenseful than those I've been used to hearing, with the stress more on the atmospheric opening and its recapitulation at the end than the folk dance middle section. It puzzles me, this piece: that opening and close sound to me as if VW had been acquainted with Sibelius's "En Saga" and "The Swan of Tuonela" - those open-spaced harmonies with the high strings, and the low strings in added-note harmonies that well up soon after the beginning. Where else could these ideas have come from, I always ask myself? Debussy's "La Mer", with its comparable passage in the first movement where the cellos surge forth with a new theme, was surely too recent a work to have been known to RVW.

[gradus]

The melody of the Rhapsody - The Captain's Apprentice - is so emotionally charged that it always gets to me, especially when VW scores it so effectively. Somehere I have a WRC recording of the song and others arranged by VW and sung by a choir conducted by Imogen Holst, as a recording it's a period piece but beautifully sung.

[EdgeleyRob]

I found the Norfolk Rhapsody recording chosen much more time-taking and suspenseful than those I've been used to hearing, with the stress more on the atmospheric opening and its recapitulation at the end than the folk dance middle section. It puzzles me, this piece: that opening and close sound to me as if VW had been acquainted with Sibelius's "En Saga" and "The Swan of Tuonela" - those open-spaced harmonies with the high strings, and the low strings in added-note harmonies that well up soon after the beginning. Where else could these ideas have come from, I always ask myself? Debussy's "La Mer", with its comparable passage in the first movement where the cellos surge forth with a new theme, was surely too recent a work to have been known to RVW.

Interesting S_A,perhaps RVW,Sibelius and Debussy all had the same ideas at the same time (and RVW made the best use of them ).
Seriously I don't know the answer

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting S_A,perhaps RVW,Sibelius and Debussy all had the same ideas at the same time (and RVW made the best use of them ).
Seriously I don't know the answer

There is a saying that great "men" think alike!

[EdgeleyRob]

The melody of the Rhapsody - The Captain's Apprentice - is so emotionally charged that it always gets to me, especially when VW scores it so effectively. Somehere I have a WRC recording of the song and others arranged by VW and sung by a choir conducted by Imogen Holst, as a recording it's a period piece but beautifully sung.

So much of RVW and many other English composers gets to me,more so than the music of composers of any other nationality can ever do.

[Pabmusic]

You heard right S_A but it can't be can it,I'm not even sure they were there at the same time.

They were both students of Stanford I think but Bridge was at the RCM until 1903 ? and Farrar from 1905 ? Pabsy'll know ...

I'm sure EF never taught at the RCM. He hung out around Sheffield and Harrogate (which is where he taught Finzi at school.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps a (?Freudian?) Stanford/Bridge association????

[Stanfordian]

You heard right S_A but it can't be can it,I'm not even sure they were there at the same time.

They were both students of Stanford I think but Bridge was at the RCM until 1903 ? and Farrar from 1905 ? Pabsy'll know
Farrar certainly taught Finzi and Bridge's piano sonata is dedicated to Farrar
Bit of a tearful moment for me listening to the closing bars of RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 with George Butterworth staring at me from an I pad screen,very poignant (not the right word but don't know how else to describe it)
Loving the contributions from the archivist and librarian from the Folk Song Society

Hiya EdgeleyRob,

Please can you tell me which recording it was of VW's Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 that affected you so much? I find the account from Neville Marriner and the ASMF on Philips very satisfying.

[gradus]

Three cheers for the Ben Luxon recording of the Shropshire Lad songs played today, memorable performances.

[Pulcinella]

Hiya EdgeleyRob,

Please can you tell me which recording it was of VW's Norfolk Rhapsody No 1 that affected you so much? I find the account from Neville Marriner and the ASMF on Philips very satisfying.

I'm not ER, but I hope it's OK to jump the gun and point you here: Richard Hickox and the LSO on Chandos (according to the programme playlist, anyway).