Prom 22: A London Symphony – 31.07.18

[edashtav]

Go on with yer! I'd never have guessed.


Which is not at all the same as the mutual dislike that you seem desperate to believe in. They were professional colleagues, corresponded quite regularly with mutual respect; and Lutyens used Ursula Vaughan Williams' texts for her own compositions.

I don't know - but what has this to do with the professional relationship in later years? Lutyens was a late developer, whose Music as she became a student wasn't impressive; there'd be no chance of her becoming one of RVW's students.


Lutyens was never "Lizzie" except to her (many) detractors - to her family and friends she was "Betty". I do not know of any expressions of "annoyance" at being so "left out", but if these do exist, then doesn't it blow up your notion that Lutyens held RVW's Music in contempt? (And Lutyens was part of a "fold" - with Lemare & Macnaughten, she founded a series of concerts devoted to present the work of her contemporaries - including Williams and Maconchy.) And I'm not sure if you're thinking that Williams and Maconchy were also included in the Cowpat School?



I would prefer at least some first-hand evidence to support such "beliefs", "seemings to remember" and "suggestions", ed. But that's probably just me being pernickety.

Here’s some evidence about Lutyens light music Suite ‘En Voyage’. It’s a clip from a review on MusicWeb, and.. to me it reads as if the music is rattling through bucolic, cowoat country. Cheeky, or what?

The first movement, ‘Overture: Golden Arrow’ has a softly dissonant introduction, which suggests the train beginning its journey from Platform 2 at London’s Victoria Station. However, this is not developed. Soon, a largely ‘mock-Tudor’ mood is introduced. Lutyens makes clever use of woodwind tone-colour in this section. This part of the movement is certainly not a description of the train journey but reflects more on the rural aspect of the countryside through which the Golden Arrow is speeding. Pleasant ‘songs and snatches’ topple over each other: delightful ‘pastoral’ flute and oboe melodies are characteristically supported by strings. Then the composer recalls the subtitle of this ‘Overture’ – there is a short section that nearly approaches ‘rhythm on the rails’ before a recapitulation of the ‘landscape’ themes. The movement closes with a reference to the opening ‘train noise’ passage and, after a short codetta, Lutyens brings the train to a halt at Dover Maritime Station buffer stops.

Read more: http://www.musicweb-international.co...#ixzz5NE4ePZZw

[Bryn]

Here’s some evidence about Lutyens light music Suite ‘En Voyage’. It’s a clip from a review on MusicWeb, and.. to me it reads as if the music is rattling through bucolic, cowoat country. Cheeky, or what?

The first movement, ‘Overture: Golden Arrow’ has a softly dissonant introduction, which suggests the train beginning its journey from Platform 2 at London’s Victoria Station. However, this is not developed. Soon, a largely ‘mock-Tudor’ mood is introduced. Lutyens makes clever use of woodwind tone-colour in this section. This part of the movement is certainly not a description of the train journey but reflects more on the rural aspect of the countryside through which the Golden Arrow is speeding. Pleasant ‘songs and snatches’ topple over each other: delightful ‘pastoral’ flute and oboe melodies are characteristically supported by strings. Then the composer recalls the subtitle of this ‘Overture’ – there is a short section that nearly approaches ‘rhythm on the rails’ before a recapitulation of the ‘landscape’ themes. The movement closes with a reference to the opening ‘train noise’ passage and, after a short codetta, Lutyens brings the train to a halt at Dover Maritime Station buffer stops.

Read more: http://www.musicweb-international.co...#ixzz5NE4ePZZw

[edashtav]

Are composers necessarily the best judge of their own works? If the Sea Symphony is an apprentice piece, how would you describe his earlier Walt Whitman setting - schoolboy scribbling, perhaps?

I think I’ve described the earlier piece, LMcD as a study for the Sea Symphony. Both are “Work in Progress”.

[edashtav]

To return to ferney’s long charge sheet. EL’s cowpat comment came in her Lecture “ Style and Integrity”.

[edashtav]

I think I’ve described the earlier piece, LMcD as a study for the Sea Symphony. Both are “Work in Progress”.

Another way of replying to you, LMcD, is to quote RVW when he commented in 1948:”I’ve struggled all my life to conquer amateur technique and now that perhaps I’ve mastered it, it seems too late to use it.”

[cloughie]

Ed, just stop digging and bury the cowpat!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Here’s some evidence about Lutyens light music Suite ‘En Voyage’. It’s a clip from a review on MusicWeb, and.. to me it reads as if the music is rattling through bucolic, cowoat country. Cheeky, or what?

The first movement, ‘Overture: Golden Arrow’ has a softly dissonant introduction, which suggests the train beginning its journey from Platform 2 at London’s Victoria Station. However, this is not developed. Soon, a largely ‘mock-Tudor’ mood is introduced. Lutyens makes clever use of woodwind tone-colour in this section. This part of the movement is certainly not a description of the train journey but reflects more on the rural aspect of the countryside through which the Golden Arrow is speeding. Pleasant ‘songs and snatches’ topple over each other: delightful ‘pastoral’ flute and oboe melodies are characteristically supported by strings. Then the composer recalls the subtitle of this ‘Overture’ – there is a short section that nearly approaches ‘rhythm on the rails’ before a recapitulation of the ‘landscape’ themes. The movement closes with a reference to the opening ‘train noise’ passage and, after a short codetta, Lutyens brings the train to a halt at Dover Maritime Station buffer stops.

Read more: http://www.musicweb-international.co...#ixzz5NE4ePZZw

And the evidence that this is all a parody of RVW ... ?

I think, believe, and suggest, ed, that you are confusing RVW's public persona, and even social attitudes with his Music as you hear it from a late 20th Century viewpoint, which is unfair, unhelpful, and lends itself to erroneous judgements. Listening to the "Norfolk Rhapsody" in the light of Elgar's Cockaigne Overture, or the "Tallis Fantasia" in that of Parry's Fifth Symphony, or the Pastoral Symphony in the light of the Elgar 'cello Concerto - in the terms of contemporary English Music, RVW (and George Butterworth, and Holst) are positively psychedelic; they are the "advanced" composers of their time, not the nostalgist conservatives that many commentators describe them as (both those who approve of such a way of hearing the Music and those who use such terms as a way of slapping the Music around the head). That's why he gave encouragement and support to subsequent composers later in his life, regardless of his reservations about - and even dislike of - their Music. And we now know that he gave encouragement to Harrison Birtwistle - now there's a composer who also uses the post-industrial English pastoral/lyrical traditions to fuel his work!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To return to ferney’s long charge sheet. EL’s cowpat comment came in her Lecture “ Style and Integrity”.

Many thanks, ed. Now, where in it does she mention RVW as one of the "Cowpat School"?

[LMcD]

Is it true that among certain circles in Dublin the Pastoral was once known as the Turd Symphony - this would give the 'cowpat' reference a degree, albeit slim, of historical validity.

[Pabmusic]

And the evidence that this is all a parody of RVW ... ?

I think, believe, and suggest, ed, that you are confusing RVW's public persona, and even social attitudes with his Music as you hear it from a late 20th Century viewpoint, which is unfair, unhelpful, and lends itself to erroneous judgements. Listening to the "Norfolk Rhapsody" in the light of Elgar's Cockaigne Overture, or the "Tallis Fantasia" in that of Parry's Fifth Symphony, or the Pastoral Symphony in the light of the Elgar 'cello Concerto - in the terms of contemporary English Music, RVW (and George Butterworth, and Holst) are positively psychedelic; they are the "advanced" composers of their time, not the nostalgist conservatives that many commentators describe them as (both those who approve of such a way of hearing the Music and those who use such terms as a way of slapping the Music around the head). That's why he gave encouragement and support to subsequent composers later in his life, regardless of his reservations about - and even dislike of - their Music. And we now know that he gave encouragement to Harrison Birtwistle - now there's a composer who also uses the post-industrial English pastoral/lyrical traditions to fuel his work!

Perfect, Ferney. How we remember is very complex, and it is impossible to consider any one work now without the knowldge of what else was to come. But that was never how rhe work was seen in its day by anyone. It's called hindsight bias.

Nice nod to Buterworth there which illustrates it nicely. His style was an amalgam of Debussy, Grieg and folk song, with a penchant for rhythmic subtlety, and had he lived (and continued writing - by no means certain) would have developed in ways we cannot know. E. J. Dent saw this and declared in print that George had been the only composer in Britain who could have rivalled RVW. Quite significant because he disliked George a lot as a person.

[edashtav]

Ed, just stop digging and bury the cowpat!

As a chemist, Cloughie, I’ve never buried a cowpat in my life but I did build a cowpat anaerobic digester in my lab. that, with the help of a mini gas holder, fed a number of Bunsen burner points for a month. My problem, essentially, is that I ‘gas’ too much.

[edashtav]

I’m too astonished by your detailed response#172 to answer it without ‘due diligence’, ferney. I shall do so but I need to check on some ‘facts’ . But, thank you for making such a terrific effort to bring one, apparently,lost sheep, back to its fold amongst the cowpats.

The section, I shall anatomise is... “ in terms of contemporary English music, RVW (and George Butterworth and Gustav Holst ) are positively psychedelic; they are the advanced composers of their time..l”

One cheap shot comes straight to my mind: I don’t compare your advanced English composers with contemporary English music but against the best of the rest of their contemporaries, worldwide.

Until tomorrow, have a restful night, ferney.

[Lat-Literal]

I'm not sure that anyone has made the point that Lutyens was a woman. As suggested above, she might have had issues with other women being in with RVW but she would have also known that being female and in with RVW was rarely enough for equal promotion. See Ruth Gipps etc. So she was probably tying her colours to The Glock and that sort of spiel, sensing that was the more likely road to glory. Obviously she was wrong. Mostly, women composers were regarded sadly as basics in a separate field. So savvy, yep - but that was not enough. It takes a nobody like me - and luckily there are plenty of us - to promote Gipps - and increasingly Grace Williams - in a more accepting age. Lutyens also has her 2018 backers. Good.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One cheap shot comes straight to my mind: I don’t compare your advanced English composers with contemporary English music but against the best of the rest of their contemporaries, worldwide.

Well, yes - I'd give the palm to Schoenberg and Stravinsky, of course, but I think that RVW at the very least holds his own (in terms of harmony, tonal-modality, timbre, texture, rhythm, structure) with Sibelius, Nielsen, Roussel, Martinu, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Copland, Bartok, Puccini, Respighi, Schmidt, Schmitt, Schoek, Martin, Janacek, Hindemith, Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger, De Falla, or Szymanowski.

Until tomorrow, have a restful night, ferney.

For Hear & Now listeners, the night is yet young - but thanks for the best wishes, which I am delighted to return to you.

[edashtav]

Well, yes - I'd give the palm to Schoenberg and Stravinsky, of course, but I think that RVW at the very least holds his own (in terms of harmony, tonal-modality, timbre, texture, rhythm, structure) with Sibelius, Nielsen, Roussel, Martinu, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Copland, Bartok, Puccini, Respighi, Schmidt, Schmitt, Schoek, Martin, Janacek, Hindemith, Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger, De Falla, or Szymanowski.


For Hear & Now listeners, the night is yet young - but thanks for the best wishes, which I am delighted to return to you.

Phew... your list of coeval and coequal composers leaves me lost for words, ferney, yet it doesn’t include Sorabji!