The chamber music of Sir John Blackwood McEwen is most likely
an unknown quantity for the vast majority of listeners. In fact the entire
corpus of this underestimated composer is probably unexplored territory
for all but the most persistent of British Music enthusiasts. To be fair
some people will be aware of the odd piano piece or maybe one of the tone
poems. However, Chandos have done a great service to this Scottish composer.
Recently, over the past decade, they have issued five fine CDs of well
played music by McEwen. This is the sixth, with more on promise. With
some six or seven hours of music and perhaps some two dozen compositions
we have an opportunity to survey the craft of a highly competent, skilful
and inspired composer.
It is perhaps the string quartets that best allow us
to see the achievement of McEwen. He wrote nineteen examples of this
form. The first was composed in 1893 and the last in the year before
his death.
The first problem to overcome is the numbering of these
works - I give two possible solutions to this below:-
|
Quartet
|
Date
|
Grove
|
Cobbett
|
Chandos
|
|
Quartet in c minor
|
|
-
|
1
|
|
|
Quartet in f minor
|
|
-
|
2
|
|
|
Quartet in F
|
1893
|
1
|
3
|
|
|
Quartet in A min
|
1898-9
|
2
|
4
|
|
|
Quartet in E m
|
1901
|
3
|
5
|
|
|
Quartet in C min
|
1905
|
4
|
6
|
4
|
|
'Nugae' 7 Bagatelles
|
1912
|
5
|
[7]
|
|
|
Quartet in A Biscay
|
1913
|
6
|
[8]
|
|
|
Quartet in Eb 'Threnody'
|
1916
|
7
|
9
|
7
|
|
Quartet in Eb
|
1918
|
8
|
|
|
|
Quartet in B min
|
1920
|
9
|
14
|
|
|
The Jocund Dance
|
1920
|
10
|
11
|
|
|
Trivial tunes
|
1920
|
|
|
|
|
Quartet in e min
|
1921
|
11
|
|
|
|
Suite of Old National Dances
|
1923
|
12
|
10
|
|
|
Quartet in c min
|
1928
|
13
|
|
|
|
Quartet in d min
|
1936
|
14
|
|
|
|
Little Quartet 'In modo Scotico'
|
1936
|
15
|
|
|
|
Quartet 'Provençale'
|
1936
|
16
|
|
16
|
|
Quartet Fantasia
|
1947
|
17
|
|
17
|
From this list it is possible to see that the two early
string quartets were numbered in the Cobbett survey, however, McEwen
is know to have dismissed them as 'juvenile' when he compiled his list
for Grove.
Chandos are wisely following the Grove list. However
it is possible to find other designations in various catalogues and
lists. There are even one or two quartets mentioned in the literature
that cannot be fitted into the above scheme.
A brief overview of the composer's life and works is
called for; relatively few people will be aware of his considerable
achievement.
John Blackwood McEwen was born in the Border town of
Hawick on April 13th 1868.
McEwen had an interest in singing - he was choirmaster
at St James' Free Church in Glasgow and subsequently Lanark Parish Church.
He had a period of study with the great names of the
day at the Royal Academy of Music; Ebenezer Prout, Tobias Matthay and
Frederick Corder.
In 1893 he returned to Scotland and became choirmaster
at South Parish Church in Greenock. He taught piano, harmony and composition
at the Athenaeum School of Music in Glasgow.
In 1898 he joined the staff at the Royal Academy of
Music as a professor of harmony and composition. He later became Principal
of that organisation in 1924. He received a knighthood in 1931. McEwen
died in 1948.
His best-known orchestral work is almost certainly
his Solway Symphony that has been revived by Chandos. He wrote
a fine series of tone poems, including Grey Galloway and Coronach.
However it is perhaps his chamber music that best epitomises his musical
style and achievement. Of this large catalogue, the nineteen string
quartets are the bedrock.
The first quartet (chronologically) on this disc is
No. 4 in c minor dating from 1905. This is quite an adventurous
work for its era. It certainly defies any complaint that McEwen was
somehow writing music that was parochially Scottish. One can agree with
the writer of the programme notes that there are echoes of Bartók
- at least in the first movement. There is intensity and depth, which
sets this work above much British and European chamber music that, was
being composed at his time. It is clear that McEwen was absorbing a
variety of styles at home and abroad. The scherzo is aggressive. Although
the harmonies are not outrageous there is a strong feel of dissonance
to this moto perpetuo. The third movement, an andante espressivo begins
with an impassioned theme with a Scottish feel to it. However this is
not pastiche. The mood changes into a very chromatic and quite involved
meditation on this theme. There is an air of sadness here; a lament
if ever there was one. The last movement is 'a high spirited romp'.
Yet as with much of McEwen's music there is a definite bitter-sweetness
about it. There is no doubt that this is fine music. How it can have
languished for so long is a complete mystery to me. It is a masterpiece
of balance between the Scottish idiom and the western musical tradition.
The Quartet for Strings No.7 in Eb was written
in 1916. Obviously this was in the middle of the First World War. It
is hardly surprising that this work was subtitled 'Threnody'. This is
a song of lamentation. This quartet is written in four movements - three
of them being slow. The work opens with a very dark and lugubrious Lento.
However there are some moments of warmth in this movement. With increasing
complexity it builds up to a climax which resolves itself into a restatement
of the opening theme. This is a very satisfying opening movement, showing
the composer's genius to the full. The short second movement is full
of string effects. The programme notes describe them as "late Elgarian
arpeggios and motoric figures." All too soon we are in the Allegro Moto.
There is no doubt that this is the heart of the work. Here we have a
stunning display of string writing. Tunes seem to be passed to and fro
across this movement. Suddenly a gorgeous phrase is taken up, used and
then seemingly cast aside. There is no doubt that this is a masterpiece
of string writing. Not until Britten and Tippett do we reach such an
understanding of how a string quartet works. The last movement is a
meditation - the old Scottish Lament - Flowers of the Forest.
This song was composed to remember the fallen at the battle of Flodden
in 1513, and is a highly appropriate choice for a work written during
the 'War to End all Wars.' Somehow McEwen manages to avoid any sense
of the parochial or of pathos or sheer sentimentality. It is a beautiful
and perfect ending to a splendid composition.
The Quartet No.16 in G major 'Quartette Provençale’
was composed in 1936. Once again this is a fine example of the craft
of string writing. It is supposed to be an 'evocation of the moods and
colours of Provence’. McEwen is able to bring a variety of techniques
to bear on these impressions. This includes the whole-tone scale so
beloved of Debussy. Each of the movements have a descriptive title -
Summer Morning - The Place of the Good King; Summer Evening - The Hill
of the Angel; Le Mistral. The slow movement is particularly fascinating.
There is an almost detached feel to this music. It is as if the composer
is musing on the summer evening from afar. Perhaps it has some half-remembering
a Scottish summer on the Clyde Estuary? It is played in a very quiet
and subdued manner. There are some very interesting sonorities here.
Perhaps it is the heart of the work. The last movement is a study on
rhythmic variety. A fine finish to an excellent mood piece.
The last of McEwen's String Quartets is a Fantasia.
It lasts a bare ten minutes. Yet the short duration should not encourage
us to belittle this music. It is highly concentrated stuff. It occupies
a sound-scheme very much of its own. It is not possible to say, Bartók;
Shostakovich or Britten. Here is a work that exhibits considerable creative
powers present in the mind of an eighty-year old man. This is not a
composer resting on his laurels, nor harking back to some youthful or
previously successful style. It is a powerful statement in its own right.
We look in vain for the Scottish fingerprints - although perhaps it
is in the 'air' rather than in the notes. This is a dark work - although
the darkness is occasionally relieved by passages of some warmth. It
is a fitting end to a fine academic and creative career. There were
to be only a few relatively minor chamber pieces for cello and piano
before the composer's death.
McEwen's music is not easy to come to terms with. Neither
is it unapproachable. Critics regarded him in his day as being something
of a modernist. Certainly, with hindsight it is easy to see that he
was quite daring in his use of harmony and instrumental timbre. None
of his music could be classified as extrovert; much of it is introspective.
Yet it is all the better for this. McEwen is not a showman - he does
not use effect for effect’s sake. Every note seems to count for him;
he composes with an economical style. This is especially obvious in
the chamber works.
We now have a fair number of easily available works
by which to judge this composer. They include orchestral, chamber, piano
and choral works. Each one of them shows a composer that is competent,
inspired and at times verging on genius. He is a neglected figure who
deserves to be rehabilitated in the Pantheon of not only British music
but of Western music as a whole.
I look forward to the subsequent releases from Chandos
in the near future.
John France
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