Butterworth, George (1885-1916)

[Pabmusic]

Hello.

Well, I’ve started a thread on George Butterworth, as you see. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but I’ve been writing a book about him – which has taken a year – and that’s occupied my time. The book will be published this year in Germany (though it’s in English). I’m still working on the bibliography (awkward) and index (hell) but it’s almost ready.

So I’m going to give ‘tasters’ on this thread, and pick out some of the more interesting things I’ve unearthed. I should be able to post something twice a week, but today I’ve got two things to start with. First his name.

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth.

Butterworth is a genuinely Anglo-Saxon name, like Elgar. The second element, ‘-worth’, is an enclosure; so it’s either an enclosure where butter is produced (a dairy, in other words), or it’s an enclosure belonging to an Anglo-Saxon with a name like Boter. My inclination is towards the latter, simply because there’s only one place-name, and it doesn’t seem likely the place was named after a dairy – unless it was a very prominent one. The settlement of Butterworth lies beneath the town of Milnrow, near Rochdale. That’s interesting, since George’s ancestral Butterworths came from the Rochdale area. By the 18th century they included many ministers – Baptists, then Methodists and latterly C of E (getting watered-down?). George’s own grandfather was Rev. George Butterworth, Vicar of Deerbolt near Tewksbury, where he was vicar for nearly 50 years.

But the family fortune dates from Joseph B., who was MP for Dover, and an abolitionist friend of William Wilberforce. He founded a publishing house that specialised in law reports and legal textbooks. Butterworths was a highly respected firm that was taken over in 1995. The publishing house passed down through another line (eldest son) but all the family benefitted, and Joseph B.’s grandson, Rev. George, married the daughter of the Bishop of Lincoln. They were our George’s grandparents. Rev. George had two sons that survived, Alexander and (yet again) George. Alexander was our George’s father; he was a barrister and clearly had pretentions, because he adopted his mother’s maiden name in a double-barrelled ‘Kaye Butterworth’ (his brother didn’t). It’s not hyphenated. (Not so long before, another barrister, John Williams, had adopted an ancestral name of ‘Vaughan’ in another non-hypenated double-barrelled name.)

Well, that deals with the family name(s) and also ‘George’ – which I suppose was inevitable. ‘Sainton’ is different. George’s mother, Julia Wigan, was from an Anglo-Indian family of doctors, but she was born in England and, like Alexander, lived in the West Country, at Portishead. She was a singer, and apparently a very good one; I traced solo performances (recitals and oratorios) all over the country, conducted or accompanied by big names. She had been a pupil of Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, the wife of the French émigré violinist Prosper Sainton. Mme. Sainton-Dolby employed her as her ‘resident pupil’ (a sort of living advertisement). Julia was also Professor of Singing at the Croydon Conservatoire and visiting professor at the Hampstead Conservatoire. She was already 34 in 1883 when a 28-year-old A. K. Butterworth enrolled at Mme. Sainton-Dolby’s Vocal Academy for vocal tuition. The pair were married next year (society wedding at St. Margaret’s Westminster) and their only child was born on July 12th 1885. But while Julia was expecting George, Mme. Sainton-Dolby died. Hence George’s second given name.

And despite what every R3 announcer says, it is pronounced in the French manner. This was confirmed to me by Hugh Butterworth the younger, remarkably George’s 1st cousin - yes! - the child of George’s ‘Uncle George’ and a second wife. (The only awkward bit is that Uncle George gave his new son the same names as the son he had lost at Loos in WW1 – Hugh Montagu Butterworth.) Hugh was born in the 1930s and remembers ‘Uncle Alick’ well. He liked him a lot and he always pronounced the name as a French name – which of course it is.

[Pabmusic]

Butterworth was twenty-five when the Songs from A Shropshire Lad were performed, twenty-six when the Two English Idylls were introduced, twenty-eight when the “Shropshire Lad” Rhapsody was given at Leeds, and The Banks of Green Willow at West Kirby and Oxford. What would we now know of his British contemporaries if they had composed their last at the age of 28?

We would remember Hubert Parry for the String Quartets 1 & 2, and Nonet; C. V. Stanford for the Symphony No. 1, Violin Concerto no. 1, and Piano Concerto no 1; Edward Elgar for Sevillaña and an early version of the Sérenade Mauresque; Frederick Delius for nothing at all; Ralph Vaughan Williams for the Bucolic Suite and the Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue; Holst for the Cotswolds Symphony, the Suite de Ballet and the Walt Whitman Overture; Arnold Bax for Into the Twilight, and Variations for Orchestra (Improvisations). It seems that Arthur Bliss wrote both Rout and Madame Noy at 28. But only Benjamin Britten (not a contemporary, of course) had written many more significant works by then: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Sinfonia da Requiem, Les Illuminations, the Violin and Piano Concertos; but there are not so many others. And I have not included Love Blows as the Wind Blows, since it hadn’t been performed when George died. It must be apparent that this tiny corpus of works has outlasted almost everything anyone else in Britain wrote at a similar age. This is a truly remarkable yet unremarked fact that should be borne in mind when we consider what Butterworth might have done had he returned in 1918 or 1919.

[Sir Velo]

Quite agree with you on Butterworth's startling output. IMO, "A Shropshire Lad" is the finest orchestral tone poem composed by a British composer, despite betraying a somewhat unsophisticated compositional technique. The opening is quite the most haunting in British music.

Returning to the origins of Butterworth as a name; I would agree that it seems likely that it is a corruption of an older name, but that it does not necessarily have to be connected to the only extant settlement which bears the name of Butterworth. There may well have been other 'butterworths', or indeed 'boter's worths' elsewhere, where the original name has been superseded by a new name, possibly on a change of use or ownership.

[BBMmk2]

It's so unfortunate that Butterworth is known only by a small number of his works. he is most definitely a composer worth investigating.

[Pabmusic]

It's so unfortunate that Butterworth is known only by a small number of his works. he is most definitely a composer worth investigating.

There aren't many, BBM. He destroyed several early things (violin sonata, string quartet, etc). His main works are the 11 Shropshire Lad songs, the song Requiescat, the Two English Idylls, the Shropshie Lad Rhapsody, the Banks of Green Willow and Love Blows as the Wind Blows. There are other things, but those are unquestionably fine. But his influence was a bit more surprising than you'd expect. Watch this space....

[BBMmk2]

There aren't many, BBM. He destroyed several early things (violin sonata, string quartet, etc). His main works are the 11 Shropshire Lad songs, the song Requiescat, the Two English Idylls, the Shropshie Lad Rhapsody, the Banks of Green Willow and Love Blows as the Wind Blows. There are other things, but those are unquestionably fine. But his influence was a bit more surprising than you'd expect. Watch this space....

Yes, very small output. Reminds me of other composers, who were like that, as well.

it be most interesting to hear that Pabs!

[Pabmusic]

Quite agree with you on Butterworth's startling output. IMO, "A Shropshire Lad" is the finest orchestral tone poem composed by a British composer, despite betraying a somewhat unsophisticated compositional technique. The opening is quite the most haunting in British music...

R. O. Morris (teacher of Michael Tippett, Edmund Rubbra, Constant Lambert, Gerald Finzi, etc. was a friend from childhood (they met at dancing lessons when they wrre 6). He wrote that Butterworth had more fluent technique than almost anyone, but that he was dreadfully slow and lacked confidence.

[EdgeleyRob]

Many thanks Pabs,oh to have heard his Violin Sonata and String Quartet

[Serial_Apologist]

Many thanks Pabs,oh to have heard his Violin Sonata and String Quartet

Some composers of course destroyed their early compositions, feeling that they were too derivative: Edgard Varèse being just one example. In some cases this might have been just as well, when we consider for example Stravinsky's Symphony in E of 1906, which I keep just out of interest for its almost total failure to give any indication whatsoever either of originality or of the great composer to come. I've no idea of George Butterworth's unpublished works might have fallen under such a description.

[Pabmusic]

Perhaps the moderator can edit the title to put 'Butterworth' first, making it consistent with the other composers. My fault, I'm afraid. :)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps the moderator can edit the title to put 'Butterworth' first, making it consistent with the other composers. My fault, I'm afraid. :)

No sooner said than ... well, done an hour later.

[Pabmusic]

No sooner said than ... well, done an hour later.

Thank you, Ferney.

[Barbirollians]

Sounds fascinating Pabs I look forward to reading it.

[Pabmusic]

Here's another snippet - an entire (short) chapter of trivia. More paraphrased biography soon.

One feature of Butterworth’s short life is the sheer variety of things he turned his hand to. 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 for just a year at Radley College. The Times’ music critic was J. A. Fuller-Maitland,[1] who worked with two assistants, Butterworth and H. C. Colles,[2] 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 now 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 A Mass of Life, Vaughan Williams’s 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. Moreover, many foreign works were played, including Debussy’s Nocturnes conducted by the composer. There was Rachmaninov’s British debut (in a concert conducted by Koussevitsky that included Kalinnikov’s 1st Symphony), and more than one appearance by Sibelius. Perhaps George attended the concert on April 7th, 1909 in which Leonard Borwick, Donald Tovey and York Bowen performed J. S. Bach’s Concerto for Three Pianos. York Bowen’s Viola Concerto had also been premiered at the Philharmonic Society a little earlier, and Thomas Dunhill’s and Donald Tovey’s chamber works featured during the same period.[3]

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 articles remain still.[4]

The presence of Vaughan Williams’s name is significant; the two had met at Oxford in 1906 — seemingly at the home of Hugh Allen — and George had begun taking meals and spending evenings with Ralph and Adeline.[5] Friendship grew and they began to share ideas, sometimes involving practical musical projects, such as composition or collecting folk-songs. One such was the formation of the Palestrina Society.


Interest in Renaissance polyphony had been growing for some years when in 1912 a group of musicians with connexions to the Royal College of Music started a club to perform some of the repertoire. Butterworth was a member, and he may actually have been prime mover of the whole enterprise, although this is not clear; it seems to have been he who approached Vaughan Williams to conduct the choir.[6] The older composer was enthusiastic and led the Society until the outbreak of war, when it was wound up. The repertoire included at least one contemporary piece, performed presumably in rehearsal: RVW’s choral ballet based on Greek plays — The Bacchae, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Electra, which was begun — but not completed — for Isadora Duncan. It may be that Butterworth’s three choral pieces, In the Highlands, We Get Up in the Morn, and On Christmas Night, stem from this club. Other members of the Palestrina Society included the partially-sighted Scottish pianist, James Friskin,[7] and a newly appointed violist with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra — one of the earliest professional female orchestral players — with whom Friskin would later settle in New York, teaching with her at the Juilliard School and, after many years, eventually marry: Rebecca Clarke.[8]


[1] 1856-1936. Fuller-Maitland had spent time in the 1890s folk-song collecting with Lucy Broadwood.



[2] 1879-1943



[3] Tovey’s is another name that occurs often in Butterworth’s story. In fact it was he who seems to have encouraged the young man in 1906 to take the piano seriously. Tovey was a friend of Sir Edward Speyer (Ferdinand and Edward’s father), as well as of Dunhill, “Cleg” Kelly and the pianist Leonard Borwick. George himself took several piano lessons with Borwick in 1908 at 1 guinea a time – about £100 by today’s standards (see Murphy, op. cit., p. 59, who has discovered that George actually offered twice that amount, but Borwick halved it, so impressed was he by the young man’s playing).



[4] ed. Stanley Sadie: The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vols. 3 & 5, Macmillan (1980)



[5] A clear social pattern had George visiting older married couples. The Vaughan Williamses and the Allens were by no means the only ones who entertained him regularly.



[6] As usual with Butterworth’s story, so little can be tied down exactly. Rebecca Clarke’s sister-in-law-to-be, Beryl Reeves, who had also been a member of the Palestrina Society, did write to RVW and elicit a reply in May 1910 that he “should very much like to help you and your fellow collegians to study Palestrina. But you must not think that I am an expert on him…” (see ed. Liane Curtis, A Rebecca Clarke Reader [2004] Indiana University Press, p. 40). It was nevertheless more than a year before the Society met. There was probably a concensus among several members to invite RVW, and George Butterworth was in the best position to discuss it with him as he was a close friend. In fact, 1910-1912 was just the period when he was dining regularly with Ralph and Adeline, encouraging the older man to write a symphony, and being rowed in circles with him by a drunken Norfolk folk-singer.



[7] 1886-1967. Friskin had played timpani in the first performance of RVW’s The Wasps at Cambridge in 1909. He later gave the first American performance of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations.



[8] 1886-1979. Herself an enigmatic figure, she composed some of the century’s great chamber works, particularly the Viola Sonata and Piano Trio (but there is much more), as well as some 60 songs.

[vinteuil]

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... thanks as ever, Pabmusic - all most interesting. Fuller-Maitland was an early 'early music' buff : his edition of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book dates from 1899.

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