EDWARD GERMAN: Serious or Light?
by Philip Scowcroft
"Let them (the British musical public) have muck.
It’s all they care for".
"Muck", is according to the speaker, light
music; the speaker is Edward German (1862-1936), born Edward German
Jones in Whitchurch, the son of an organist and choirmaster. "Muck"
or not, German produced a number of light music masterpieces and when
Elgar said to him that he admired his music, we can be reasonably certain
that it was to the light side of his output that Elgar was alluding.
German of course had plenty of serious music credentials,
with study At the Royal Academy of Music (his composition teacher there
was Ebenezer Prout). He was, soon after, composing major pieces, a Te
Deum (1887) and a Symphony in E Minor (1887, premiered 1890), soon
followed by a Second, in A Minor, subtitled Norwich as it was
first performed in the East Anglian city in 1893, then a symphonic poem
Hamlet and a lengthy symphonic suite, The Seasons (1899),
quite as long as either of the symphonies. His Welsh Rhapsody,
which includes as its climax a stirring setting of Men of Harlech,
written for the Cardiff Festival of 1904, is on the borderline between
serious and light, while his last two works of significance were both
serious, Theme and Six Diversions (1919) and the tone poem The
Willow Song (1922), inspired by Othello.
Not that German composed solely for the orchestra,
though he never, unlike so many of his Victorian forebears, Sullivan
and Elgar included, felt the need – or perhaps had the commissions -
to write oratorios or cantatas. He published a small amount of church
music (his father was, remember, an organist) and a much larger corpus
of songs, choral, many with Shakespearean titles, others, like Rolling
Down to Rio, O Peaceful Night and O Lovely May, still
popular, and solo. The solo songs cover a wide range. All Friends
Around the Wrekin: A Song of Shropshire was a tribute to his native
county. Kipling’s verse spoke strongly to him, with settings of Big
Steamers, Be Well Assured (from The Fringes of the Fleet),
twelve Just So Songs based on lyrics from the Just So Stories
and, movingly in the circumstances, Have You News of My Boy Jack?
(1916). And many of his songs were ballads, like Charming Chloe,
Cupid at the Ferry, Love the Pedlar, Sea Lullaby, Heigh Ho, Bird of
Blue and, most memorably, the rousing Glorious Devon. German’s
instrumental music is attractive and not a little of it is classifiable
as "light". The violin was his preferred instrument at the
Royal Academy and he composed for violin and piano Bolero, Bacchanalian
Dance, Souvenir, Saltardle and a three movement Suite plus arrangements
of his theatre music. But he did not ignore the oboe (Pastorale and
Bourree), the flute (Romance in B Flat and Saltarello)
or clarinet (a delightful Romance in F and a Song Without
Words). His piano solos fill a CD, as Alan Cuckston proved some
years ago … and ignoring arrangements, too. They include a Sonata, several
suites and various individual salon miniatures showing the influence
of Grieg, Moscheles and Victorian drawing-room composers stretching
back to Mendelssohn.
German was writing for the theatre before he was out
of his twenties. In 1888 he was appointed Musical Director of London’s
Globe Theatre and he began by writing incidental music for Richard
III (Sullivan admired its overture, a major work performed many
times in the concert hall). Other commissions followed, for Shakespeare
(Henry VIII – the suite from this IS light music, beyond a peradventure
– Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It and Much Ado) and other
authors, notably Anthony Hope and Edwards Rose’s English Nell. The
Nell Gwyn Dances are another light music "standard",
as was the Gypsy Suite, a concert work performed at the Crystal
Palace as early as 1892. German’s light orchestral music was influential
in the development of British light music. We have only to look at Eric
Coates earliest orchestral suite, the Miniature Suite of 1911,
to be convinced of this.
But it was the death of Sullivan which confirmed German
as a light music composer. That event, in November 1900, left The
Emerald Isle unfinished German agreed to complete the operetta and,
premiered in April 1901, this remained popular into the 1920s. Basil
Hood who had written the book produced another the following year which
was to be more popular with Britain’s amateur societies. Merry England’s
hits included O Peaceful England, The Yeomen of England, The English
Rose and the stirring chorus God Save Elizabeth, plus
enough dances to make another characteristic
German suite. A Princess of Kensington (1903)
proved to be a less enduring operetta, though it was attractive enough,
especially its dances; but Tom Jones (1907) was a great success
and remained so for decades though at first some societies fought shy
of it on account of the supposed bawdiness of Fielding’s novel. Its
Waltz-Song was long a popular concert solo and the dances once
again were great hits. I enjoyed pummelling its tunes out on the piano
in the 1940s. German’s last operetta Fallen Fairies (1909) was
however a failure despite the librettist being one W S Gilbert.
German was dogged in later years by ill-health and
suffered a painful road accident during the Great War, but if latterly
his composing output flagged he continued to conduct and he was encouraged
by a knighthood (1928) and the award of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s
Gold Medal (1934). He died on 11 November 1936, aged 74. It is his lighter
music that has kept his name alive, whether this is operetta, orchestral,
instrumental or songs. (Incidentally he is credited with being the first
man to compose music for a British film, in 1911 – 16 bars, possibly
more, for Henry VIII, for which he was paid £50. Unfortunately
the music does not survive). We could do with more live performances
and recordings; the latter at least have never been plentiful. He may
in one sense be the heir of Sullivan, but he himself was the ancestor
of many British light music composers.
Philip L Scowcroft
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