Prom 2: John Wilson conducts the Sinfonia of London (16.07.22)

[Pulcinella]

Thanks!

Yes, I must say I think the difference between 'comparison' and plagiarism is rather important - I enjoy both works and never detected anything underhand...

Further corroborated by this in Michael Kennedy's Portrait of Walton:

....the whole work, it has been suggested, being a brilliantly creative paraphrase of Roussel's Suite in F.

Earlier, Kennedy mentions that Walton had asked for copies of scores of Roussel's Third and Fourth Symphonies and Suite in F.

This doesn't of course mean that there isn't a quote from Bacchus and Ariadne too, though. Again, it's not a piece I know well.

[mahlerfan]

Further corroborated by this in Michael Kennedy's Portrait of Walton:
Earlier, Kennedy mentions that Walton had asked for copies of scores of Roussel's Third and Fourth Symphonies and Suite in F.

This doesn't of course mean that there isn't a quote from Bacchus and Ariadne too, though. Again, it's not a piece I know well.

Thank you for this interesting commentary.

Serial_Apologist is very clear on this - he says the theme "was directly cribbed from Roussel's Bacchus et Ariadne of 1929". I think that's quite shocking.

Another reason why I may not go to this Prom.

Paraphasing is one thing, directly cribbing is another. I'm so disappointed. I may not even listen on the radio now....

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry but I don’t see how Betjeman (to spell his name correctly ) could possibly have inspired the Enigma Variations , the Tallis Fantasia , or Tintagel.

Very fair comment - I really should have typed "inspiring" rather than "inspired", by which I would have indicated what are for me strong aesthetic links between English (as opposed to Scottish, Welsh etc) tropes to be found in the music and built landscape of the first half of twentieth century English music. What might be called Semi-detached Land, the swathes of middle and lower middle class suburban housing surrounding or major cities, and epitomised by their extent around London after the building of the Metropolitan Railway in the 1920s, I believe we "hear into" "our" versions of modernism of the time musical parallels. Obviously there is a lot more of tradition in both than in for example French or German new music of that era, where likewise the modern in architecture, painting and sculpture either turns its back on stylistic precedent - or tries to - or presents it ironically pastiched - and we can find specific extra-musical reasons for this being the case on the Continent. On the other hand one finds little of either the uncompromisingly new or irony in the English arts of the time - unless it is unintentional and possibly cynically read into it. The "jazziness" in for example Facade or The Rio Grande express the jolly japes of comparatively privileged composers living it up in fashionable parts of London or on country retreats; likewise the architecture of the semi could not be said to belong to any previous era - its origins are in Charles Voysey - yet its modernism is a carefully chosen blend of selected motifs from earlier times with controlled limited gloss in front entrance glass panels and fanlights. There are of course exceptions - in music the later 1920s works of Vaughan Williams, Holst and Bridge; in domestic architecture the curving windows and green pantiles of the Art Deco, itself a contained, commercialised version of Cubism and Abstraction. One should remark that Betjamen loved the SW peninsula and, I may be wrong, but if I remember rightly he loved Tintagel, and all such places that reminded Romantically of an idealised past, encrypted in interwar architecture and much of the music of the period that passes as "English music" to today's quotidian ears - "Enigma Variations" as the Heritage part of it, with all that that entails in the shaping of our temperament, attitudes now being questioned as awareness of the wider cultural diaspora seeps into how we evaluate these things.

The first two are masterpieces - key in the development of English music and could not conceivably be described as “soft.” All were composed before JB started writing poetry ...

The question nevertheless still arises as to to whom this music was supposed to appeal. To the working class masses, who had little access to Elgar's, Vaughan Williams's and Delius's countryside until the successful trespass campaigns of the Ramblers Association? To be fair these were questions which had concerned composers going back to the birth pangs of the Modern Movement - we know of Debussy's agonized doubts over which of two possible directions in which to take his music around the year 1890 - the more popular or more "sophisticated"; they perplexed modernist composers, painters, poets, architects and policy advisers as to what constituted "Proletarian culture" in the wake of October 1917 in Russia. This conundrum would not find resolution in the capitalist West until the coming of Consumerism in the 1950s and 1960s, with its association of wealth and influence with American popular culture. Answers to these questions for most people were now to be supplied by the Music Industry, rather than the conservatoire.

[Serial_Apologist]

Me neither. Maybe SA can tell us where he read this. I'm confused.

If you get the chance to listen to both openings you will hear what I am claiming. And yes, there are references to the Suite in Fa Op 33 in the Partita's finale, which I'd forgotten about. If you doubt this I might be able to find youtubes of the two works for comparison purposes, and pinpoint the moments of "coincidence".

[mahlerfan]

The question nevertheless still arises as to to whom this music was supposed to appeal. To the working class masses, who had little access to Elgar's, Vaughan Williams's and Delius's countryside until the successful trespass campaigns of the Ramblers Association? To be fair these were questions which had concerned composers going back to the birth pangs of the Modern Movement - we know of Debussy's agonized doubts over which of two possible directions in which to take his music around the year 1890 - the more popular or more "sophisticated"; they perplexed modernist composers, painters, poets, architects and policy advisers as to what constituted "Proletarian culture" in the wake of October 1917 in Russia. This conundrum would not find resolution in the capitalist West until the coming of Consumerism in the 1950s and 1960s, with its association of wealth and influence with American popular culture. Answers to these questions for most people were now to be supplied by the Music Industry, rather than the conservatoire.

I never knew there was so much to this. I was about to foolishly go to this concert on Saturday, but I shan't now.

Many thanks, S_A

[Serial_Apologist]

I never knew there was so much to this. I was about to foolishly go to this concert on Saturday, but I shan't now.

Many thanks, S_A

Well I don't know if I should apologise: the Partita is an enjoyably boisterous romp, reminiscent of quite a lot of Malcolm Arnold, and the middle movement is well crafted for all its references. And there are the other fine works that are on offer too. Me? I'm just an old cynic, really!

[cloughie]

Well I don't know if I should apologise: the Partita is an enjoyably boisterous romp, reminiscent of quite a lot of Malcolm Arnold, and the middle movement is well crafted for all its references. And there are the other fine works that are on offer too. Me? I'm just an old cynic, really!

Did Roussel know - I’ve not checked dates - he may not have been around, but if he’d been The Chiffons he’d have sued!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I never knew there was so much to this. I was about to foolishly go to this concert on Saturday, but I shan't now.

Many thanks, S_A

Would it help if I were to say that both works , rather than being some sort of salute to Merrie England are in fact an intensely personal exploration of the musical challenges they felt they faced at a crucial period of English musical development?
Or do I detect a very English irony ?

[Serial_Apologist]

Would it help if I were to say that both works , rather than being some sort of salute to Merrie England are in fact an intensely personal exploration of the musical challenges they felt they faced at a crucial period of English musical development?
Or do I detect a very English irony ?

Assuming you to be referring to Enigma and the Tallis Fantasia, I would agree. Probably best if I withdraw from the thread at this point, but if anyone's interested in comparisons between the two Roussel works and Walton's Partita, I can see if there is any youtube of the works in question and do some pinpointing.

[mahlerfan]

Would it help if I were to say that both works , rather than being some sort of salute to Merrie England are in fact an intensely personal exploration of the musical challenges they felt they faced at a crucial period of English musical development?
Or do I detect a very English irony ?

Yes, and yes.

[cloughie]

Would it help if I were to say that both works , rather than being some sort of salute to Merrie England are in fact an intensely personal exploration of the musical challenges they felt they faced at a crucial period of English musical development?
Or do I detect a very English irony ?

My view also and I will add that Tintagel is a great work and possibly Bax’s very best. What great composer never borrowed other’s musical ideas and pieces?
What is not to like with a Prom, early in the season of three well-known works separated by a new work and a less familiar one. Something old, something borrowed! And the blue - recent skies over Tintagel. Listen at home - certainly - I don’t do London!

[Ein Heldenleben]

My view also and I will add that Tintagel is a great work and possibly Bax’s very best. What great composer never borrowed other’s musical ideas and pieces?
What is not to like with a Prom, early in the season of three well-known works separated by a new work and a less familiar one. Something old, something borrowed! And the blue - recent skies over Tintagel. Listen at home - certainly - I don’t do London!

I agree re the Bax - though I would like to hear less frequently played works of his. The programme has been carefully constructed as a kind of multi layer sandwich of the crowd pleaser and the less well-known.
In the current heat I would stay as close to Tintagel as possible. Luckily it’s cloudy at the moment this side of the Tamar.

[cloughie]

I agree re the Bax - though I would like to hear less frequently played works of his. The programme has been carefully constructed as a kind of multi layer sandwich of the crowd pleaser and the less well-known.
In the current heat I would stay as close to Tintagel as possible. Luckily it’s cloudy at the moment this side of the Tamar.

Yes, there is a welcome breeze here today! A pleasant 21C.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, there is a welcome breeze here today! A pleasant 21C.

26 in the shade now and rising …

[Serial_Apologist]

My view also and I will add that Tintagel is a great work and possibly Bax’s very best. What great composer never borrowed other’s musical ideas and pieces?
What is not to like with a Prom, early in the season of three well-known works separated by a new work and a less familiar one. Something old, something borrowed! And the blue - recent skies over Tintagel. Listen at home - certainly - I don’t do London!

Absolutely! A few years ago I cited strong echoes of the stormy passages from "Dutchman" in "Tintagel", and was queried by one or two on this forum. Today for the first time I noticed an emerging quote from "I Vow to Thee My Country" - or rather that part of Holst's "Jupiter" someone chose to put those words to: unlike so many others Holst's own recorded interpretation of the movement avoided all bombast - the theme comes across as a natural follow-on from what has preceded, in almost precisely the manner VW would later part-adapt it in the Third Symphony. It comes right at the end of the final climax of Vaughan Williams's "Pastoral", a work dedicated to the fallen of WW1, having been implied in the rising phrase which is repeated and dovetailed a number of times in the lead-up. It seems to me intended as such given its considerable prominence, as is the fact that VW only states the first four notes of the upward phrase before proceeding with the lovely tune issuing from it which concludes the symphony as a sort of coda. Surely this can't have been coincidental! Things like this are fascinating, for all sorts of reasons. It would seem quite likely that Holst would have mentioned his own distaste for how his "Jupiter" theme had been adapted for patriotic, nay nationalistic reasons by superimposing a narrative contrary to his views about war, with which RVW would have concurred.