GEORGE DANNATT – AN APPRECIATION
Three obituaries have appeared in the national press following
the death of George Dannatt. All have paid tribute to his multiple
talents, and in particular, to his important work as an artist.
This appreciation emphasises Dannatt’s musical interests and
activities.
On 17 November 2009 George Dannatt died at the age of 94 after
a long and creative life, during which he mastered and balanced
three seemingly disparate activities with distinction – chartered
surveying, art and music – activities which in the event influenced
and informed each other.
Dannatt was born on 16 August 1915 in Blackheath where his father
was head of the family firm of chartered surveyors, and appeared
pre-destined to join the family firm. From the age of 11 (1926)
he attended Colfe’s Grammar School before, at 19, becoming an
articled pupil to Surveyors, Land and Estate Agents at the College
of Estate Management of London University. At 25 (1940) he qualified
as a Chartered Surveyor (F.R.I.C.) and joined the family business.
Earlier, while still at school, his gradually developing interest
in music led him to become closely involved in music studies,
the catalyst for which was a 15th birthday treat
when he attended a concert at the Queen’s Hall. He heard, and
was deeply impressed by, the Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left
Hand and works by Berlioz and Hindemith. Dannatt himself claimed
that this concert opened up a world and a commitment which he
sought and pursued ever after. In addition to his studies for
professional examinations to become a Chartered Surveyor he
took lessons in piano, harmony, counterpoint and composition
(mainly song-writing), studying in the evenings at the Blackheath
Conservatory. He was told by Scott Goddard, who discussed the
progress of his songs, saying that while he would never be a
Schubert, he might well prove to be a Hugo Wolf.
There emerged some serious prospects for study under Michael
Tippett and possibly with Mátyás Seiber, prospects which were
sadly dashed by the outbreak of war and Dannatt’s call-up to
the Army in 1940. Songs written in 1941 and 1942 were composed
while on temporary transfers from the Royal Artillery into building
requisition work related to his qualification as a chartered
surveyor, and others were written prior to his discharge from
the Army in 1944 on health grounds. An important personal milestone
was reached during the war with his marriage to Ann Doncaster
in 1943.
Dannatt’s first foray into music criticism also dates from the
time of his wartime service, with an article for Augener’s Monthly
Musical Record in 1943. This was the prelude for his entry
into specialised musical criticism with the liberal newspaper
News Chronicle, Penguin Music Magazine and later as a
freelance writer, this at a time when most national newspapers
regularly covered music, opera and ballet in a literary and
non-academic capacity. He is said to have been a highly perceptive
writer, using meticulous and informed prose in the interest
of critical integrity; he was a sympathetic champion of modern
music, particularly where he recognised honest talent in its
composition. In 1948 he was elected to The Critics’ Circle (Music
Section), of which he later became an honorary member.
Dannatt’s first steps towards life as a professional artist
are probably traceable to his pre-war interest in photography
and, in particular, its application to landscape in abstract
form. Family influence may also have been a factor, as his father
had been an enthusiastic amateur photographer. Later, in 1955,
while still a full-time surveyor, he was introduced by his architect
brother, Trevor, to the artist Adrian Heath at the latter’s
London studio. Heath was prominent in the group of artists known
as Constructivists, who produced work in an abstract genre,
minimal, geometric and spatial, which had derived and developed
from several different movements of the early 20th
century. Following his first visit to Cornwall in 1963, Dannatt
was attracted into the group of St Ives painters and benefited
especially from his association with the artist John Wells and
the sculptor Denis Mitchell. Wells, like Dannatt, had had a
previous career – as a doctor – a fact that gave him encouragement
that a trained and disciplined mind from a “worldly” profession
could form a sound basis for creative expression in the visual
arts. Initially Dannatt had no intention of exhibiting his works,
but was urged by friends and colleagues to do so and, having
joined the Newlyn Society of Artists, his first exhibition was
held in St Ives at the Penwith Gallery in 1970.
Referring to himself as a “late starter” as an artist, he could
not know that in 2009, 46 years after his first visit to St
Ives, he would still be hard at work in his studio and still
exhibiting. Though reluctant to be “pigeon-holed”, he has referred
to his style as that of a “lyrical constructivist”, implying
perhaps a personal and gentler touch compared to the bold geometrics
of the “pure” constructivists, which in the view of the writer
is to be found especially in those of his works based on landscape.
One is reminded too that “lyrical” bears the connotation of
song, which brings us back to the songs he had worked on between
1939 and 1947, songs for which he had great affection and to
which he much later returned, having them privately printed
and recorded in 2005/2006. Dannatt exhibited his work between
1970 and 2008, most frequently in Cornwall and the south-west
of England, but also in London, Basel and Germany, where he
developed a particularly fruitful relationship with a gallery
in the North Sea coastal town of Cuxhaven.
The Dannatts’ friendship with Arthur and Trudy Bliss started
in 1953 when the composer and his wife visited their home, at
that time in Blackheath; the composer was already 64 years old.
Bliss had been knighted in 1950 and became Master of the Queen’s
Music in 1953, following the death of Sir Arnold Bax. They found
they had much in common over a wide spectrum of activities:
music, painting, literature and life in general. Trudy and Ann
were deeply involved in the study of geology, and the four of
them were frequently together at Canterbury, the Cheltenham
International Festival of Music (of which Bliss became President)
and London musical events. It was during this period, in 1957,
that the Dannatts bought a cottage on the Wiltshire/Dorset border
as “a part-time residence” and after the Blisses gave up their
modern-movement house Pen Pits in Dorset in 1955, from time
to time they borrowed the Dannatts’ country retreat. Bliss’s
work had always appealed to Dannatt, along with other post-Elgar
British composers and although Dannatt had not yet taken up
painting in a serious way, it is tempting to speculate that
an attraction was the parallels of organisation, dissonance,
intervals, space and colour present in both art-forms. Above
all, for Dannatt, the parallel struggles of the painter and
composer to achieve form from chaos, form in which both order
and dissonance could equally be present, were a driving force.
Much later, for Bliss’s 80th birthday (1971), Dannatt
produced a painting based on the composer’s Colour Symphony
which was written for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival nearly
50 years earlier. This remains the composer’s best-known, and
probably best-loved, large orchestral work, not counting the
film music for Things to Come, and one which frequently
serves as an entrée to Bliss’s music. Dannatt has referred to
Bliss’s penchant for experimenting in tone colours, for the
timbre produced through the association of certain instruments,
much as a painter has in his trial mixings. It was while staying
at the Dannatts’ cottage that Bliss was inspired by a series
of Dannatt’s paintings called Tantris to compose a major
commissioned work in variation form. This became the magnificent
Metamorphic Variations (1972); indeed Dannatt played
a further part by helping Bliss to decide on the final title.
The work was dedicated to George and Ann Dannatt and in one
of the movements, actually called Dedication, Bliss made
use of the initials GD and AD to provide a further dedication
in sound. It turned out to be Bliss’s last major work and is
unquestionably one of his finest, though remaining unjustly
neglected in concert and record performances.
George Dannatt shows his autographed copy of the score of Bliss’s
Metamorphic Variations to a young music graduate, 2008
Cuxhaven, and in particular the Galerie Artica, became a memorable
place, not only for the Dannatts but for Trudy Bliss also. Examples
of Dannatt’s paintings appeared in three separate exhibitions
there – in 1981, 1984 and 1990, the last two being one-man shows.
The gallery’s owners were accustomed to the combining of art
exhibitions with chamber music concerts or recitals. When Dannatt
learned that for his 1984 exhibition no less an ensemble than
the Delmé Quartet would be engaged, he requested that the two
Bliss string quartets should be played and that he would give
introductory talks. George was to write the scripts and Ann
would translate and deliver them. When Trudy Bliss heard about
this forthcoming double event, she travelled to Cuxhaven to
join the Dannatts and became completely involved with the gallery
and its owners. It was the second of these quartets that Bliss
described as the best of his chamber works. Those who know the
Clarinet and the Oboe Quintets might put them forward as worthy
contenders. The two nights in Cuxhaven when the quartets were
played, with the painting display all around, remained a most
memorable experience for the Dannatts and for Trudy Bliss. A
happy example, perhaps, of the perfect synthesis of painting
and music.
In 1981 the Dannatts moved from their London home in Belgravia
to live permanently in the Wiltshire cottage. Considerable changes
were made to the property including the addition of a spacious
music room, which easily accommodated two grand pianos, and
the creation of an extensive garden.
When, in 2003, at the instigation and with the great encouragement
of Lady Bliss, the Arthur Bliss Society was formed, she became
its President with George Dannatt as Vice-President. Many years
previously, after a chance meeting between Trudy and the Society’s
Chairman, Gerald Towell, she had introduced him to Dannatt.
George, though by 2003 almost 90, typically took an active and
serious interest in his role in the Society, frequently contributing
material for its twice-yearly newsletter and always ready to
provide generous advice and support. When Trudy Bliss died in
2008, George seamlessly stepped into her role, but sadly for
less than a year.
A view in George Dannatt’s studio, 2008
Always something to look forward to were the occasions when
the Society’s committee and guests would descend on the Dannatt
home for meetings or purely social occasions. It was always
a special delight to relax in the beautiful garden of the house
in its secluded setting, a location which sometimes posed a
challenge to the map-reading capabilities of the driver! George’s
conversation was often spiced with amusing and mischievous reminiscences,
with Ann proving to be the ideal foil and companion. Any “business”
would invariably be followed by a pub lunch, then by a tour
of the studio, hidden away in the grounds, where one would marvel
not only at the cornucopia of past and continuing artistic achievement,
but also at the meticulous tidiness and the total lack of clutter
that might have been expected in an archetypal artist’s lair.
Was this yet another example of the discipline of one of George’s
careers playing out through another?
David Wilby
Arthur Bliss Society
© The Arthur Bliss Society
Two exhibitions will shortly be held to commemorate the life
and work of George Dannatt:
on 17 – 28 February 2010 at the Osborne Samuel Gallery,
23a Bruton Street, London, and
on 20 February – 13 March 2010 at the Lemon Street Gallery,
Truro
