George Lloyd, anyone?

[ahinton]

Fair point well made !! I had succumbed to Andy-Murray-itis!

And he's nae a Sassenach nor a Frenchman either!

Actually, the quote that I suppose I remember best from Thea M is "I am a woman and I am a composer, but rarely at the same time". I had a handful of lessons from her once.

[Nick Armstrong]

And he's nae a Sassenach nor a Frenchman either!

Aye.... the -itis I referred to was the chronic tendency of the former to adopt Mr Murray when it suits them (us)!!!!

[ahinton]

Aye.... the -itis I referred to was the chronic tendency of the former to adopt Mr Murray when it suits them (us)!!!!

Je comprends bien! (said the Scotsman)...

[teamsaint]

well I would certainly love to hear some of our neglected french chums musical offerings, on R3. (rather than for instance yet another Beethoven cycle).


But as we had a month , perhaps a weekend would be enough for them

Le weekend, in fact.

[Nick Armstrong]

Je comprends bien! (said the Scotsman)...

That's the Auld Alliance for ye...!

[BBMmk2]

Ah the French! Hmmmmm.... me has French ancestary, so i cannot be ante French!!

[Pabmusic]

Ah the French! Hmmmmm.... me has French ancestary, so i cannot be ante French!!

Like Asterix is?

[Pabmusic]

...(I still want to explore the output of Albéric Magnard, though )

Highly recommended. I'm particularly fond of the fourth symphony and the Hymne à la Justice, written about the Dreyfus affair.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Returning to topic - - I listen to yesterday's COTW and the quality of the music staggered me. I'd heard a few snippets of Lloyd's music in th '80's, and had considered it rather uninteresting. But with new ears, I have suddenly become a fan.

[teamsaint]

Returning to topic - - I listen to yesterday's COTW and the quality of the music staggered me. I'd heard a few snippets of Lloyd's music in th '80's, and had considered it rather uninteresting. But with new ears, I have suddenly become a fan.

Good news that you enjoyed the music, Alpers.

and for the benefit of intrigued board members,I really think you should post a photo of those new ears. What they can do nowadays, eh?!

[Nick Armstrong]

Returning to topic -

I haven't heard yesterday's programme yet... Must catch up !

[Sir Velo]

Returning to topic -

Well said. Perhaps members could refrain from inclicting their tiresome badinage on those of us who are interested in the topic under discussion.

[Stephen Whitaker]

It's one of those discussions that comes around every ten years.


"Simon Heffer on the composer George Lloyd, who died five years ago.
The Spectator
| July 05, 2003 |
Lloyd would have been 90 last week: and this week is the fifth anniversary of his death. He was England's last romantic composer, and he suffers in death for that label just as much as he did in life. Although his recordings have a large following, and the rare concerts of his music are packed out by devotees, his name is very little known just now. All composers seem to endure a period of unpopularity after their demise: Lloyd's admirers trust that his will not prove permanent.

He wrote 12 symphonies, three before his 20th birthday. There were three operas, two written in his early 20s: one had an extensive run at Covent Garden in 1935, the other at Sadler's Wells a little later. He also produced four piano concertos, two violin concertos, several substantial choral pieces and much piano music, as well as works for brass band. He was a patriot and a Tory, who despised composers who sought subsidy to allow them to write self-indulgent and unpleasant works, which is perhaps part of the reason why the musical establishment came to hate him. His own analysis of their distaste was that, in an age where atonalism was de rigueur, he had the temerity to write tunes.

His brilliant career came unstuck after 1942. He joined the Royal Marines when war broke out and his ship was holed by one of its own missiles on the Arctic convoys. Lloyd was trapped in the oil and water of the engine room and almost drowned. His shellshock was so bad that his wife was told he would need to be institutionalised for the rest of his life. She disagreed with the doctors. As soon as the war ended she took him to her native Switzerland and they set about his recovery. In late 1945 he began to write his Fourth Symphony, able at first to work for only a half-hour a day before the noises in his head became too much for him. He completed the work in September 1946, and it remains his masterpiece. That it took 35 years for it to have its first--and only--public performance is indicative of what happened to Lloyd after the war.

A man who clung to his fundamental inspirations of Verdi, Puccini, Berlioz and Brahms found little favour in the immediate post-war world. His third opera, commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951, was beset by production difficulties, and Lloyd was driven to a nervous collapse. For 22 years he went off the map, to grow mushrooms and carnations in Dorset. He still wrote music, and optimistically sent it to the BBC for consideration: it was sent back to him with what he called 'vicious' replies. Eventually, the pianist John Ogdon forced them to give Lloyd the respect he deserved. He enjoyed a renaissance in his 70s and 80s, with all his major works recorded, London performances of several of them, and recognition around the world. However, his death at the age of 85 seemed, sadly, to bring an end to any efforts to make Lloyd and his music familiar to the world.

There is no longer a blacklist of composers to whom Radio Three will not give airtime, but in Lloyd's case there might as well be. I know from conversations over the last few years with some who do the Corporation's classical music programming that he is regarded with a mixture of hostility, ridicule and utter indifference. The loathing music critics had for him was reciprocated fully: when, as a young journalist nearly 20 years ago, I wrote to him asking for an interview, he eventually assented on the grounds that I wrote about politics and was not a professional critic. When I met him in his flat off Baker Street in the spring of 1986 I found a man who had modesty, charm and fierce determination in equal measure. Lloyd was in no doubt that what he wrote was worthy of regard. Within a few years his own opinion was endorsed by that of the public and impresarios on several continents. But here it was always a grudging respect: and when George died, despite the valiant efforts of his record company to keep his name alive, his reputation began to fade for want of the enormous energy he used to put in to preserving it.

When he was 80 the French national classical music station devoted a special programme to him, while his own country largely ignored the event. When he died Radio Three broadcast a tribute programme: but since then there has been silence. As well as Ogdon and the celebrated pianist Kathryn Stott, he was championed by two significant conductors, Charles Groves and Edward Downes. There is nothing cheap, tawdry or amateur about his music, as the endorsement of such distinguished musicians would seem to confirm. He simply does not fit in with the prejudices of the contemporary musical establishment, a body too much motivated by snobbery and cliquism; and so, until someone of standing in the musical world can take up the cause, is he likely to remain.

And yet when the critics come to Lloyd sight, as it were, unseen, they seem to admire him. I gave one of our most revered critics a CD of the Fourth Symphony some years ago: he returned a few days later, having always dismissed the very notion of George, to say it had been a revelation. It had been as if he had heard a missing symphony by Tchaikovsky, he said. Others, unfortunately, cannot be bothered to test their prejudices so.

Those of us who heard the first performance of the Fourth in 1981 will never forget it. Massive in scale (it lasts over an hour), it draws on every conceivable emotion--fear, anger, grief, serenity, love--before a finale of the ecstatic reaffirmation of the triumph of life over death. It shows all Lloyd's talents at their best: his gift for orchestration not least, but also his apparently bottomless well of inventiveness. He said the finale mimicked the Cornish tradition (he was born in St Ives) of the band striking up a jolly tune after the funeral. I have a tape of the premiere, so I know the prolonged, rapturous ovation the symphony and its composer received after; it is no trick of the memory. It would bring the house down at a Prom, but the normally open-minded Nicholas Kenyon remains steadfastly unconvinced of its merits, or of the merits of any other of Lloyd's works."




IMHO there's a lot of special pleading here which doesn't stand up to scrutiny. "His own analysis of their distaste was that, in an age where atonalism was de rigueur, he had the temerity to write tunes", rather overlooks the fact that in the era of the "Cheltenham Symphony" atonalism was far from de riguer in the UK and the "Establishment" composers like Britten, Bliss and Walton were writing tonal tunes all over their scores.

I've listened to the Mass recently and feel that the tunes aren't really that memorable and are not matched to the text in a very meaningful way.

[ahinton]

That's the Auld Alliance for ye...!

Indeed! Some years ago, on my return from a most pleasant sojourn in eastern Catalunya close the the French border, I stopped off in Perpignan. In a pleasant bar on my first evening there I was drawn into conversation by some English-speaking locals and, although I had lost any trace of such Scottish accent as once I had many years ago, something in the way that I spoke (though I have no idea what) somehow identified for one of them that I am Écossais; the welcome that the party then extended to me was almost embarrassingly different to that which had thus far been extended to me as a mere English speaker.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot?
No! Not if they're français.
I'll drink a cup on kindness yet
For the sake of entente. Yay!

Actually, in the part of France that I know best - the southern Charente - fine malt Scotch whisky is evidently quite popular (all the major supermarkets sell a wide selection, the best of which easily rivals that of a large branch of Waitrose); what especially surprises me about this is that the southern Charente is very much cognac country and the entire region is awash with signs for small producers of this and of the local fortified wine Pineau des Charentes (made from he same grapes as are used in the making of cognac itself, many a très vieux white version of which can be an utter delight - it has to be served chilled and works well either as an apéritif or an after dinner pleasure). The maire of the village where I usually stay has a wonderful collection of such malts.

Anyway, methinks that I digress too much from the topic, although, like me, George Lloyd spent most of his life in England but was not English himself!

[Nick Armstrong]

"Simon Heffer on the composer George Lloyd, who died five years ago.
The Spectator, July 05, 2003

Stephen many thanks for copying that and for your comments, thought-provoking. I'm still working out what I think of GL's music. Need to catch yesterday's and today's COTW...