The EMI Classics label
as part of their ‘British Composers’ series have re-issued a
disc of music by Cyril Rootham that was originally
released in 1987. It comprises five
scores, three of which are for chorus
and orchestra together with two for
orchestra alone.
The feature work is
undoubtedly the moving choral setting
of Laurence Binyon’s poem
For the
Fallen; a work that preceded
Elgar’s
setting of the same text A.
Considering the high
quality of his music Rootham is one
of the lesser known lights among the
esteemed cohort who studied at the Royal
College of Music at the turn of the
twentieth century. Bristol-born Rootham
was from 1894-97 a sizar at St John’s
College, Cambridge and later studied
at the RCM under Sir Walter Parratt,
Marmaduke Barton, Sir Hubert Parry and
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford; of whom
he wrote, "…
he was a great figure
in British music when this country needed
such men.
B
As well as composing
Rootham was also an organist, teacher
and conductor. An influential figure
for many years in the musical life of
Cambridge, in 1901 he was appointed
organist at St John's Cambridge holding
the post until his death. Later between
1913 and 1924 he was a lecturer at the
University. From 1912 until his death
he served as conductor of the Cambridge
University Music Society.
Rootham’s father Dan
Rootham was a singing teacher who numbered
amongst his pupils the eminent Dame
Eva Turner and Dame Clara Butt. In view
of this pedigree it is not surprising
that Rootham is often at his finest
when composing for the voice. I have
seen a Rootham works-list that contains
around hundred and twenty scores; including
two symphonies. His love of the human
voice and the focal point of his oeuvre
is unmistakable - a dozen of his scores
are for chorus and orchestra; some forty
for unaccompanied chorus and there are
over thirty songs plus an opera
The
Two Sisters (1918-21). It is difficult
to place the music of Rootham in a particular
category, although he was influenced
by the mainstream Austro-German Brahms/Schumann
tradition and also by British folk-song
and Celtic mythology.
The opening work is
Rootham’s 1911 setting of
The
Stolen Child for mixed chorus
and orchestra from an early 1886 text
by William Butler Yeats. It is dedicated
to Rootham’s wife and their son Jasper.
The Stolen Child is a hauntingly
beautiful score, reflecting the captivating
atmosphere of the Irish twilight world.
Here it is sensitively performed.
Scored for piano and string orchestra
the
Miniature Suite was
composed in 1921 for the Clifton High
School for girls in Bristol where Rootham’s
sister Mary organised the music. It
seems that the four movement score proved
too difficult for the abilities of the
girls. The score opens with an appealing
Allegretto given a light, confident
and carefree interpretation that conveys
a strong feel of folksong. In this performance
the proud
Lento assai is conveyed
with hearty and vibrant playing followed
by a brief
Allegro moderato e leggiero
that bursts with vivacity and
joie
de vivre. Marked
Molto vivace
the exhilarating and skilfully crafted
final movement reminded me of a characteristic
Percy Grainger folk music setting. Pianist
Alan Fearon’s valuable contribution
could hardly be bettered and is splendidly
persuasive throughout.
The
City in the West for
chorus and orchestra, setting a text
by Rootham’s son Jasper, was composed
in 1936 as a depiction of the composer’s
beloved city of Bristol. Premiered in
1937 at the Colston Hall, Bristol the
score was again performed in 1939 in
Oxford and then not heard again until
revived by Richard Hickox in 1984 at
Hexham Abbey. Hickox directs his impressive
choral and orchestral forces with considerable
vigour that aptly communicates this
beguiling and approachable setting.
City in the West deserves to
be better known. At times it reminded
me of the hymns
To the Dawn and
To Vena by Gustav Holst from
his third group of
Choral Hymns from
the Rig Veda.
Rootham originally
set the Theocritus ode
The Psalm
of Adonis for mezzo-soprano
and piano to be sung in Greek. It was
written for Rootham’s cousin Hélène
Rootham a friend and teacher of Edith,
Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. It was
in 1931 that Rootham prepared this impressive
orchestral version. Hickox’s well paced
interpretation reveals a myriad delightful
nature sounds; the woodwind being especially
evocative of birdsong. The beautiful
orchestral textures are radiant, fresh
and shimmering. Although maintaining
an individual voice I was on occasions
reminded of the sound-world of Vaughan
Williams and Holst; both fellow students
of Rootham at the RCM.
The feature work is unquestionably
For
the Fallen. The text suitably
reflected the Nation’s anxieties and
distress following the outbreak of the
Great War. Elgar in 1916-17 also set
of
For the Fallen the third of
three Binyon poems used in his cantata
The Spirit of England, Op.80.
Rootham set the poem
For the Fallen across three movements.
In the opening movement ‘
With proud thanksgiving,
a mother for her children’
one
feels a strong sense desolation and
lamentation. A martial character towards
the conclusion adds to the warlike quality
of the writing. The central movement ‘
They went with songs to the battle,
they were young’
is noticeably
brisk and seems to reflect the poignant
eagerness of those hordes of young men
marching to join up in response to Lord
Kitchener’s recruiting poster "
Your
Country Needs You." In the
opening section of the final movement ‘
They mingle not with their laughing
comrades again’ the intelligent
blending of the voices and orchestra
provides a noble soulfulness. In the
final section that concludes the score
the exalted soaring voices are deeply
expressive in this awe-inspiring music.
On occasions the clarity of the recording
does not do full justice to the massed
voices of the Sinfonia Chorus and BBC
Northern Singers.
It is good to have
this EMI Classics Rootham disc back
in the catalogues. A quick google has
revealed that with the exception of
some organ scores currently the only
other Rootham works available in the
catalogues seem to be:
Rootham
Symphony
No. 1 in C minor from the LPO under
Vernon Handley on Lyrita SRCD269 (c/w
Granville Bantock
Overture to a Greek
Tragedy, Josef Holbrooke
The
Birds of Rhiannon).
Rootham
Miniature
Suite played by Martin Roscoe (piano)
and the Guildhall Strings/Robert Salter.
This disc of works for piano and strings
is titled
Peacock Pie and was
recorded at the Henry Wood Hall, London
in 2001 on Hyperion CDA 67316
(c/w
Gordon Jacob
Concertino;
Cecil
Armstrong Gibbs
Concertino &
Peacock Pie; Robin Milford
Concertino
and Madeleine Dring
Festival Scherzo).
Owing to the high quality
of these Rootham scores, especially
the fascinating choral works, it started
me thinking about other choral works
from the highly talented group of composers
that Rootham would have known from his
days at the RCM. A large proportion
of these scores are neglected and surely
deserve reassessment. I know that Stanford
and Parry still have numerous choral
works from their vast oeuvre that require
recording and there will be many discoveries
to be made from the talented past RCM
students who were among Rootham’s cohort:
Charles Wood, Thomas Dunhill, Henry
Walford Davies, W.H. Bell, Gordon Jacob,
Hamish MacCunn, James Friskin, Arthur
Somervell, Arthur Benjamin, Cecil Forsyth
and Haydn Wood not forgetting more from
Rootham himself.
I was generally pleased
with the sound quality on display on
this disc from the EMI engineers. The
accompanying booklet contains two interesting
and informative essays by musicologist
Percy Young and by Jasper Rootham. Sadly
the presentation is let down by the
relatively short playing time and annoyingly
no texts are provided. Let’s hope that
this all-Rootham disc serves as a trailblazer
for similar offerings of unfamiliar
scores from British composers.
Michael Cookson
see also review by Rob Barnett
A The Spirit of England:
Elgar:
The Spirit of England,
Op.80 (1916-17); Frederick Septimus
Kelly:
Elegy for Strings ‘
In
Memoriam Rupert Brooke’ (1915);
Ivor Gurney:
War Elegy (1920);
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry:
The
Chivalry of the Sea (1916); Lilian
Elkington:
Out of the Mist, tone
poem (1921). BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/David Lloyd-Jones; Susan
Gritton (soprano); Andrew Kennedy (tenor)
& Ian Farrington (organ) on Dutton
Epoch CDLX 7172.
B An obituary of Sir Charles
Villiers Stanford written by Cyril Rootham
from the Royal College of Music Magazine,
20 February 1924.
Alan Fearon, piano (Miniature Suite)
