A composer’s own
most memorable performances - Arthur
Butterworth
Some days ago I was
asked to comment on some of the most
memorable and influential performances
I had heard in my lifetime of music-making.
These included a variety of concerts
in which great works by other composers,
ranging from Monteverdi to Sibelius
and Bax were performed and which had
had a profound seminal influence on
all my own subsequent music-making,
both as a player, conductor and composer.
The earliest of these
memorable performance came about when
I was merely a schoolboy of about 14.
The others came from later in life,
when I had already developed an awareness,
and some wide experience as a musician,
so could then fully appreciate the significance,
musical, philosophical, psychological,
intellectual and certainly emotional,
of what was I was hearing.
However, it has been
suggested that there must have been
many occasions when my own music was
performed that impressed me for some
reason. Apart from a small handful of
pieces that were written in my very
earliest years as an inexperienced manipulator
of the composer’s craft (it could hardly
have been called "art" at
that time) all the music I have written
since 1947 – when a composition student
at Manchester – has had a formal opus
number allotted to it. This was done
not for any reason of self-satisfaction
in being able to claim to the world
at large that I have reached such-and-such
an impressive list of works, but because,
admittedly I have ever been meticulous
at listing things carefully so that
in the future there would not be any
doubt as to when, where, or indeed why,
a piece of work had been embarked upon.
This trait I got from my father, who,
when I used to do my school homework
(maybe physics or chemistry) insisted
– quite logically – that a proper record
of what one does is useless, and indeed
unscientific unless it has the exact
date on it; otherwise referring to the
sequence of whatever kind of work, research
or whatever else can be meaningless
and misleading unless one can identify
in what order one’s work has been carried
out. So this is what I have done with
carefully numbering all the musical
creations with an opus number, then
I know in future in what order I have
done things; what follows on from what;
what the logical development has been
and so on.
This I carry on – some
would say to pedantic lengths! – when
I ALWAYS put the date on communications
of any kind; without a date any kind
of communication to another person can
be totally puzzling and lead to misunderstanding.
You will gather that I am not one for
casual communication: to me a letter
must always have a greeting (but never
that modern-day casual "Hi!"
which to me is lacking in punctilio
and is far too casual) and should have
a proper closing salutation; although
I realise we all get casual nowadays.
Some of us even descend to wearing those
awful American base-ball caps – ugh!
So, all the pieces
have a proper opus number. At the present
(to be exact, 20 June 2006!) there are
now 127 listed works. This is not a
particularly impressive catalogue, many
composers can claim quite a lot more
than this, but perhaps many of these
larger catalogues could consist of relatively
short pieces. The list of works I have
brought to completion includes several
quite large-scale orchestral works;
there are now six symphonies, seven
concertos, and twenty-six other orchestral
works. Additionally there is a corpus
of major brass band works (not often
played it has to be admitted) along
with a growing number of chamber works
– the two piano trios having been quite
recently recorded on a CD. Also numerous
slighter pieces for one purpose or another
– usually educational, and a slender
number of works for voice or voices.
So what have been,
at least as far as I myself can judge,
the outstandingly memorable performances?
This is hard to answer, but here then,
are just a few:
- The first major work I had played
by an orchestra was the "Sinfonietta"
Op.9 and it was the BBC Northern Orchestra
(as the BBC Philharmonic was then
known) who played it. This was in
1953. It was conducted by my then-rival
in the conducting field, John Hopkins;
who warned me before they began rehearsing
it, that the players would absolutely
insist that all the band parts should
be flawless; they would not consent
to spend valuable rehearsal time correcting
badly-copied parts; the players would
just refuse to play it. Remember –
there was no such thing as computerised-printing
of music in those days; composers
either had to pay a copyist or do
the whole lot themselves with pen
and ink; a most tedious, time-consuming
task: it could take months to copy
out a major work, and paying a professional
copyist was beyond the means of young
composers, so they did it themselves
and learned many invaluable lessons
thereby; not least to ask themselves
(as they burnt the midnight oil laboriously
copying) whether they really meant
what they had written in the flush
of inspiration.. The performance on
the Third Programme (Radio 3) was
all right, but not outstanding; but
it was for me a milestone of achievement.
- The Cheltenham Festival premiere
of the First Symphony by the Hallé
Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli,
remains in my recollection the most
important and memorable of all the
performances of my music. It was done
superbly well and received universal
critical acclaim; it had had something
approaching nineteen hours rehearsal
in the previous ten days or so. It
still remains the highlight of my
musical life.
- Perhaps not surprisingly the next
landmark was the premiere of the Second
Symphony (which had been commissioned
as a result of the First Symphony’s
premiere). This took place at Bradford,
with the Hallé Orchestra conducted
by Sir Adrian Boult.
- Something quite different happened
in 1968 when the Northumberland Youth
Band , who had commissioned "Three
Impressions for Brass" gave its
premiere one dull Sunday afternoon,
but this was indeed memorable too
– I cannot quite say just why – but
it certainly was, and is one of the
few brass band works of mine which
has ever since stayed in the band
repertoire; maybe on account of its
evocation of the Royal Border Bridge
at Berwick-on-Tweed.
- I shall never forget the first broadcast
(a live public concert) of the Violin
Concerto from Glasgow, when Nigel
Kennedy played this work and I conducted
it with the very shortest imaginable
rehearsal (because his plane was delayed
due to fog) and we managed to do it
with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
almost at sight; it was a stunning
display of violin virtuosity on the
part of Kennedy; yet somehow, I now
feel uncomfortable with the design
and form of the first movement and
have recently revised it in the hope
that somehow, and somewhere it might
be done again.
- The Fourth Symphony had had its
splendid first performance under Bryden
Thomson with the BBC Philharmonic
in 1986, at a public broadcast performance
in Manchester, but it was a later
performance at Warwick University
that was truly a memorable occasion:
for not only was this the very first
time a splendid student orchestra
had ever attempted a symphony of mine,
and made an excellent record of it,
but my 75th birthday was
most generously celebrated that evening
with a huge birthday cake too, all
organised by the most resourceful
and generous manager of the web-site
you are now reading: Dr Len Mullenger,
to whom I shall ever remain grateful
for promoting that concert in 1998.
- A Hallé commission in 1995
brought about the premiere of "Mancunians"
for orchestra and a full brass band
(The Scottish CWS Band from Glasgow);
this work formed part of the opening
concert of the Hallé’s final
season in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester;
this too was a splendid – and indeed
unusual performance – since it brought
together a large orchestra and a large
brass band in a specially designed
work for these two disparate kinds
of musical forces.
- More recently the Fifth Symphony
played by the BBC Philharmonic under
Jason Lai persuaded me that this was
a new departure for me: a more restrained
musical utterance, so different from
that youthful First Symphony of nearly
fifty years ago.
- Finally, most of the previous recollections
have been concerned with the orchestra,
but one particular premiere stands
out as well: the first performance
in 1983 of the First Piano Trio at
the Cheltenham Festival played by
the eloquent Music Group of London;
this too marked a new departure for
me into the realm of chamber music,
a path I have become more drawn to
explore ever since.
Arthur Butterworth
20 June 2006
