Prom 22: A London Symphony – 31.07.18

[cloughie]

And sitting in the outhouse with the Sunday paper - Arthur Bliss.

I did think there was a composer called Phil Septic-Tank, but I might be mis-remembering.

He’s probably buried in somebody’s garden and visited annually!

[LMcD]

There's a group called Mad Dog McRea at this year's Loo Festival on 22/8/1918. Apparently they've been told to stay away from the beach and the parks, just in case any of them gets caught short. Health and Efficiency gone mad!
Breaking news...The Government is to introduce a nationwide ban on Poo Sticks races in case young over-excited would-be contestants turn up with the wrong equipment.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Breaking news...The Government is to introduce a nationwide ban on Poo Sticks races in case young over-excited would-be contestants turn up with the wrong equipment.

I think the government directive was about Pooh-sticks. Poo sticks is something else.

[Bryn]

I think the government directive was about Pooh-sticks. Poo sticks is something else.

"I heard that. Pardon."

[edashtav]

I can't comment on each one but that seems quite diverse to me. I just don't get the inclusion of Holst. It could be doing him a disservice. Armstrong Gibbs is surely borderline light classical. Rubbra is highly individualistic although overtly rejected the twelve-tone technique so perhaps that is why he has been listed. Ireland can be stark and took from Russian as well as French influence. Williams doesn't really appear with anything until 1927 but there is an RVW link. I am struck by the omissions - no Grainger, no Moeran, no Delius, no Fenby, no Harrison, no Browne, no Holbrooke etc. not that I'm advocating a box for them. It could seem somewhat haphazard but thank you for providing an indication of how you feel.

To pick up on some of your list of omissions:
Grainger, who might prefer to jump out of your window than walk out of your door, had too bracing an attitude to Folk music , to be labelled amorphous.
I don’t find much Brown matter in Browne’s distinguished, but slight, output.
Delius had little connection with the British Folk music scene.(Pipe down Brigg Fair, North Country Sketches)
Holbrooke was too intoxicated with Wagner to stoop to folksongs.
Fenby: I clsssify under amanuenses, not composers.
Moeran is a latecomer but could be a fringe candidate.
Yes, do put Julius in Room 101!
.........
Rubbra appeared in Brown (khaki) at the Proms. The orchestration of his earlier works was criticised for its monochrome nature (grey and brown were comparisons)
Light music composers were not inoculated against mad cow disease. Montague Phillips had a serious dose.

Holst did a lot of folksong scavenging, and his short Choral works are more Pastoral than his orchestral ones. ( Guilt by association?)

[edashtav]

To return to a more sober state: there is a serious point to be made and that is that the members of the cowpat “group” were rarely, if ever, named, often it was a question of ‘if the cap fits’.

Can anyone unearth a definitive list: after all the French have their six, the Russians a mighty handful, ... how many in an English cowpat?

[Pabmusic]

To pick up on some of your list of omissions:
Grainger, who might prefer to jump out of your window than walk out of your door, had too bracing an attitude to Folk music , to be labelled amorphous.
I don’t find much Brown matter in Browne’s distinguished, but slight, output.
Delius had little connection with the British Folk music scene.(Pipe down Brigg Fair, North Country Sketches)
Holbrooke was too intoxicated with Wagner to stoop to folksongs.
Fenby: I clsssify under amanuenses, not composers.
Moeran is a latecomer but could be a fringe candidate.
Yes, do put Julius in Room 101!
.........
Rubbra appeared in Brown (khaki) at the Proms. The orchestration of his earlier works was criticised for its monochrome nature (grey and brown were comparisons)
Light music composers were not inoculated against mad cow disease. Montague Phillips had a serious dose.

Holst did a lot of folksong scavenging, and his short Choral works are more Pastoral than his orchestral ones. ( Guilt by association?)

You are repeating the 'received impressions'. Holst almost never collected any songs. Those he set were almost always collected by others (George Gardiner mainly). Moeran, on the other hand, was quite a collector in his youth. And he came along no later than Finzi, whom you did include.

Maybe a refresher course...?

[Pabmusic]

To return to a more sober state: there is a serious point to be made and that is that the members of the cowpat “group” were rarely, if ever, named, often it was a question of ‘if the cap fits’.

Can anyone unearth a definitive list: after all the French have their six, the Russians a mighty handful, ... how many in an English cowpat?

No. No-one can because there was never such a group.

[edashtav]

By the way, whilst discussing the issues around the status of RVW, it has been pointed out to me that in recent years his symphonies have been played more frequently in Germany than in Britain. That claim seems well grounded but it does surprise me, and undermines one comment that I made about the reaction of RAH audiences.

note to Ed: German audiences can’t get enough Vaughan Williams!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No. No-one can because there was never such a group.

True. There seems to be an assumption that such a group existed, just because of an inappropriate comment by Peter Warlock. Even he never used the word "cowpat" - unsure of how oxen dung got into it.

[Bryn]

True. There seems to be an assumption that such a group existed, just because of an inappropriate comment by Peter Warlock. Even he never used the word "cowpat" - unsure of how oxen dung got into it.

How can you be unsure about it. In this very thread, its source, in a Dartington contribution from 'Twelve-Tone Lizzie', has been referred to several times.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

True. There seems to be an assumption that such a group existed, just because of an inappropriate comment by Peter Warlock. Even he never used the word "cowpat" - unsure of how oxen dung got into it.

Pay attention, Alpie! See #117 on this Forum and onwards.

(Going back to that Post is also a useful reminder of how a discussion of this urban work morphed into a "discussion" of the English Patoralists - and how ed's reference to cowpats led to his talking quite a lot of bulsh.

It's partly RVW's public reticence [which, not unlike Elgar, he covered with an often blustering image] in giving the Pastoral that misleading name. It is, pace Michael Kennedy, RVW's Eroica. )

[Pabmusic]

Pay attention, Alpie! See #117 on this Forum and onwards.

(Going back to that Post is also a useful reminder of how a discussion of this urban work morphed into a "discussion" of the English Patoralists - and how ed's reference to cowpats led to his talking quite a lot of bulsh.

It's partly RVW's public reticence [which, not unlike Elgar, he covered with an often blustering image] in giving the Pastoral that misleading name. It is, pace Michael Kennedy, RVW's Eroica. )

Well said, Ferney!

[Bryn]

Pay attention, Alpie! See #117 on this Forum and onwards.

(Going back to that Post is also a useful reminder of how a discussion of this urban work morphed into a "discussion" of the English Patoralists - and how ed's reference to cowpats led to his talking quite a lot of bulsh.

It's partly RVW's public reticence [which, not unlike Elgar, he covered with an often blustering image] in giving the Pastoral that misleading name. It is, pace Michael Kennedy, RVW's Eroica. )

Re. #117, it should be stressed that it was at a Dartington Summer School event that Lutyens used the term, (not to be confused with the ill-fated Dartington School).

[edashtav]

No. No-one can because there was never such a group.

Of course, you and Alpie are correct in one sense: there was never a collective called “cowpat” with a membership. Cowpat [school] was a Collective noun applied externally to lasso a group of composers who had certain stylistic similarities. The noun was used in a derisive manner often by those who wished to feel distinct and, maybe, superior.

The literature abounds with such usage and that cannot be denied. Whether Lutyens or someone else actually published a list of the ‘usual suspects’ is another matter.