Rebecca Clarke: 29 May - 2 June

[french frank]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rg5g6

1. Studying with Stanford

2. The famous viola sonata

3. The ascending star

4. An unproductive mouth

5. Coming soon


The Rebecca Clarke Society

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rg5g6

1. Studying with Stanford

2. The famous viola sonata

3. The ascending star

4. An unproductive mouth

5. Coming soon


The Rebecca Clarke Society

Yes, I spotted this in my copy of the Radio Times.

[Lat-Literal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rg5g6

1. Studying with Stanford

2. The famous viola sonata

3. The ascending star

4. An unproductive mouth

5. Coming soon


The Rebecca Clarke Society

Thank you.

I chop and change on Clarke.

Was keen and then not so keen and now I think I am keen again.

This from what is unequivocally my favourite decade in classical music:

Rebecca Clarke - Sonata for Viola and Piano (1919) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqpiW0-2eTQ

Has anyone got a time travel ship heading for a century ago?

I'm buying a ticket.

[french frank]

Yes, I spotted this in my copy of the Radio Times.

Yep - it's on next week, so would be in your copy :-P

[BBMmk2]

thanks for bringing this up, Frenchie. Not read my copy of RT yet. Looking forward to this.

[Pabmusic]

Sounds great: can't wait.

In the meantime I've just (within 48 hours) written this part of my George Butterworth book ( an 'interlude' is factual stuff that doesn't take the story forward, but is nevertheless interesting).

"Interlude: The Times and Palestrina

In 1948, Sir Adrian Boult wrote a foreward for a reprint of the Memorial Volume that Sir Alexander and ‘Dolly’ Butterworth (with help from R. O. Morris) had compiled and had privately distributed in 1918. Boult included this:

There are probably few people living now who remember that quiet but impressive figure who was in the centre of London music, and was already in 1914 writing fine songs and other things.

“In the centre of London music”? … Really? … Hyperbole, surely? …

One feature of Butterworth’s short life is the sheer variety of things he tried. His first paid employment was as an assistant music critic for The Times, which he undertook in 1908 and 1909, before he became a teacher at Radley College. The Times’ main critic was J. A. Fuller-Maitland, who worked with two assistants, Butterworth and H. C. Colles, and the three shared out the many London concerts between themselves. Unfortunately, no reviews were published over a by-line, so that it is difficult to identify who wrote what. But this was at a time when much new music would (as we can now attest) become classics of the early 20th Century. Elgar’s Symphony in A♭, Delius’ Brigg Fair and Sea Drift, Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region, On Wenlock Edge, and The Wasps were all premiered in London during the time, or just before, when Butterworth was regularly attending concerts for The Times.

This employment led to his being asked to contribute articles to the second edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, of which Fuller-Maitland was editor. George wrote on York Bowen, Thomas Dunhill and Henry Balfour Gardiner. All three articles were retained in subsequent editions until 1980, when the Balfour Gardiner was replaced. The Bowen and Dunhill remain.

The presence of Vaughan Williams’ name among those composers is significant; the two had met at Oxford – seemingly at the home of Hugh Allen – and George had begun taking meals and spending evenings with Ralph and Adeline.Friendship grew between the two men and they began to share ideas, sometimes involving practical musical projects, such as folk-song collecting. One was the formation of the Palestrina Society.

Interest in Renaissance polyphony had been growing for some years when in 1912 a group of musicians connected with the Royal College of Music began a club in order to perform some of the repertoire. Butterworth was a member, and he may actually have been one of the prime movers of the whole enterprise, although this is not clear. It certainly seems to have been he who suggested that Vaughan Williams be approached to conduct the choir. The older composer was enthusiastic and led the Society until the outbreak of war, when it was wound up. Other members included the partially-sighted Scottish pianist, James Friskin, who had played timpani in the first production of The Wasps in 1909, and a violist with whom Friskin would emigrate to New York at the outbreak of war, spend the rest of his career with teaching at the Julliard School, and eventually marry: Rebecca Clarke."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- many thanks, Pabs

[Pabmusic]

It's largely a first draft; I sit on it for a while and phrases magically transform.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I sit on it for a while and phrases magically transform.

Something similar happens with me - but that's moistly because I talk out of my

[Pabmusic]

Something similar happens with me - but that's moistly because I talk out of my

I'm sorry Ferney, I don't undertand ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm sorry Ferney, I don't undertand ...

An attempted self-deprecating witticism that fell flat, not least because I spelt "mostly" incorrectly Probably best paying it no further attention ...

[Pabmusic]

An attempted self-deprecating witticism that fell flat, not least because I spelt "mostly" incorrectly ...

Story of my life ...

[french frank]

An attempted self-deprecating witticism that fell flat, not least because I spelt "mostly" incorrectly Probably best paying it no further attention ...

That was even funnier

[Beef Oven!]

That was even funnier

Agreed - and very Captain Beefheart, too!

[french frank]

Good to hear a Franco-Russian performance of the sonata: Caussé/Apekisheva in Oxford last year.