Produced annually,
British Music is the flagship publication
of the British Music Society, a body
that plays a vital role, among others,
in unearthing, promoting and preserving
British compositions that otherwise
may never have seen the light of day.
Its aims are pursued through publications,
recording ventures (the Society has
its own label) and live music events.
It is many years, I
think, since I last saw a copy of the
Journal so I was a little shocked, before
I got stuck into the content, at the
sight of something that still looks
a little like an old fashioned school
magazine in terms of production standards.
More of that later.
Within this slim but
densely packed volume I found a wealth
of revelatory material. Of the five
items, four are about little-known composers.
The fifth article, one of the shortest,
comprises a brief history of the office
of Master of the King’s Musick and details
of the contributions made by some of
its incumbents. The author, Alastair
Mitchell, is writing what will become,
I hope, a published book on the subject
and this is a welcome glimpse at what
is to come.
The article is timely
because we have a new Master of the
Queen’s Musick in Sir Peter Maxwell
Davies who has not yet had time to show
what he is to make of the role. The
office itself is one of those archaic
British institutions that can be likened
to the House of Lords. It is recognised
as an anachronism and frequently comes
under threat but in the end it is one
of those things that survives on the
grounds that if it isn’t broken, you
don’t fix it. It is true the House of
Lords has been treated to some fixing
lately but that will only help to preserve
it from abolition. What these institutions
provide for public life partly depends
on the quality and quantity of the contributions
from the members. The previous holder
of the "Master" title, Malcolm
Williamson, certainly put the office
under threat through his inactivity
during his 28 year spell. When he died
last year, some obituaries did not hold
back and there were calls for abolition
of the post. Williamson did not succeed
in breaking the institution but it falls
to Maxwell Davies to do a bit of patching
up.
Of the remaining four
articles, two are quite short: one on
organist and choir master Edwin Rose
(1898-1958), described by Lord Robbins
at a memorial event as "a genius"
but whose extant compositional output
is minute, and the other on Ronald Stevenson,
now in his mid-seventies and still going
strong as composer. His output has been
considerable and I am inspired to explore
it further.
The other two contributions
are quite meaty and contain some detailed
discussion and even analysis of works.
The one on W. Denis Browne(1888-1915)
concentrates on the ballet, The Comic
Spirit. But there is also plenty
of fascinating biographical material.
Denis Browne was one of those great
talents, such as Rupert Brooke, cut
off in his prime by the First War. Browne
was at school and at Cambridge with
Brooke and was with him when being shipped
to fight in the disastrous Dardanelles
campaign. Browne it was who chose the
spot under a tree on the island of Skyros
at which to bury his friend. Not long
afterwards, Denis Browne was shot and
killed while attacking entrenched Turkish
positions.
The substantial piece
on Frederic Austin (1872-1952) is a
skilful distillation by Martin Lee-Browne
of the book he wrote on his grandfather
published in 1999. It contains some
updated material so will be welcomed
by Austin fans who have already read
the book. For someone like me who has
not read the book, it provided a fine
insight into a man of many parts who
I knew more of as a leading baritone
of his day than as a composer. Yet his
compositions were often successful,
well received and were conducted by
Wood and Beecham among others.
I enjoyed reading this
Journal and am resolved to ensure I
catch up with it annually from now on.
I liked the balance between detailed
musical discussion and entertaining
biography. Some very English anecdotes
pepper the texts. My favourite concerns
Austin - a likeable man - and his only
enemy, Philip Heseltine (the song writer
Peter Warlock). After an argument (about
Schoenberg’s music, would you believe)
Warlock sent Austin a "composition"
in the form of unpunctuated words and
no spaces. It began:
FredAustingoandbuggeryourself..........
The musical discussions
are usually aptly accompanied by musical
examples. I would have found these very
useful, particularly in the case of
Austin for they would have helped me
to get a feel of his styles. I say "would"
because they are so badly reproduced
that they would have taxed even one
of Beethoven’s long-suffering copyists.
At least a couple were quite illegible.
Now no printer, surely,
would let pass undecipherable text,
yet this one has put out some unreadable
music in a specialist musical publication.
This takes me back
to the cheap look of the journal that
I implied earlier. Apart from the music
examples, this may not matter. It is,
no doubt, a matter of cost. Yet in these
days of cheap, high-tech printing methods
I would have thought a better standard
could be achieved, even for a cash-strapped
British charity. Dare I suggest it is
time to look into the option of farming
the printing out to China. Not a very
British solution perhaps, but then pragmatism
is often cited as a British virtue.
John Leeman
