Norman O'NEILL (1875-1934)
String Quartet in C major (before 1893? and 1909) [18.48]
Piano Trio in one movement, Op.32 (1909) [8.53]*
Piano Quintet in E minor (1904) [28.32]*
Theme and Variations for piano trio, Op.1 (1895) [13.07]*
Bridge Quartet (Colin Twigg, Catherine Schofield (violins); Michael Schofield
(viola); Lucy Wilding (cello)); Michael Dussek (piano)*
rec. Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, 22-23 February 2012
EM RECORDS EMR CD005 [73.22]
Norman O’Neill is known nowadays, if indeed he is remembered at all,
for the incidental music he wrote for a number of plays performed at the Haymarket
Theatre in London from 1909 onwards. These include Barrie’s Marie
Rose and Maeterlinck’s The blue bird. At the time of his
death following a traffic accident he was apparently intending to migrate
to Hollywood to take up a career as a film composer. He was one of the ‘Frankfurt
School’ which also included Percy Grainger, Balfour Gardiner, Roger
Quilter and Cyril Scott. His music belongs very much to the world of that
somewhat disparate group. These works, which have been revived thanks to an
initiative by the English Music Festival, belong to the earliest period of
his career and all are world première recordings.
The String Quartet is derived from manuscripts of various movements
in the Royal College of Music and this appears to be its first performance
in this form. The other works were given in London at the time of their composition
and appear to have been totally forgotten since, although a published score
of the Piano Trio in one movement is available from the invaluable
ISMLP website.
Beginning therefore with this Piano Trio and listening to this performance
with the score, one notes firstly the extremely original way in which the
single movement is constructed, with Allegro and Andante passages
contrasted throughout the relatively brief length of the work. The piano part
demands almost concerto-like virtuosity, and Michael Dussek in a booklet notes
points out the unmistakable influences of Debussy and Fauré. These
give the piece a positively Cyril Scott-like feel. The playing is faultless,
and one’s only very minor cavil may be that the admittedly unrealistic
demands for a crescendo from fff by the string players in the
final bars are not quite as forceful as the composer clearly wanted.
This piece was written at the time O’Neill was working on his incidental
music for Maeterlinck’s The blue bird and there is a strong sense
of drama here that clearly was to stand him in good stead in his later years.
Hitchcock apparently wanted to use his music for Marie Rose for his
film Rebecca in 1939 - after the composer’s death - but the orchestral
score could not be traced at that date although the composer had recorded
some excerpts in 1929. At one time these were available on a Dutton compilation
issued in 2006 (mentioned here). Hitchcock turned instead to Bernard Herrmann,
thus beginning his long association with that composer. Apparently the manuscript
of the full score is held in the National Library of Australia. It would merit
revival; Tolkien in his essay On fairy stories remarks with some disapproval
upon the “painful” effectiveness of the final scene in the theatre.
It was the same passage that also enthralled Hitchcock.
Lacking a score for comparison in the other works on this disc, one can only
observe that the performers give a magnificent rendition of the pieces although
they are less evidently dramatic and it does not seem that O’Neill’s
musical language was fully developed at that time of their composition. In
view of the antipathy expressed by the ‘Frankfurt School’ to German
romanticism and in particular the music of Beethoven, it is strange to find
a strictly classical approach to both form and harmony here. Although Michael
Schofield in his booklet note detects a Russian influence in the Piano
Quintet this is not overwhelmingly evident.
The earlier String Quartet - the first two movements of which appear
to pre-date O’Neill’s studies in Frankfurt - is even more obviously
modelled on classical models. There are already strong hints of other influences
in the use of cyclical themes which recur from movement to movement and in
the modal style of these themes themselves. The final Scherzo however
was not written until 1909 and may have been intended to be performed separately,
despite the fact that the score was preserved together with the first two
movements and re-numbered simply ‘III’ to become a third movement
for the much earlier pieces. The opening theme of the first movement is recognisably
English in feel. Indeed one recognises some affinities with the contemporaneous
very early works of Vaughan Williams which have recently been revived: O’Neill
seeming to anticipate the folksong revival here. The simplicity of the writing
in the first two movements contrasts rather strangely with the later Scherzo
which breathes a much more sophisticated atmosphere and shows evidence that
O’Neill was acquainted with the string quartets of both Debussy and
Ravel, written in 1893 and 1903 respectively.
The earliest piece here which O’Neill heard performed - both in Frankfurt
and later in London - is the set of variations for piano trio based on the
traditional song Sweet Polly Oliver the text of which is quoted in
the booklet. These notes suggest that the variations are intended to illustrate
various sections of the song. This certainly seems to be the case, thus making
the work a rare example of chamber programme music from the nineteenth century.
One can see why Grainger liked the piece; indeed the third variation breathes
a positively Graingerian atmosphere although it predates Grainger’s
pieces in the same jaunty style.
All these pieces are welcome discoveries, and the performances do the music
full justice. They make one anxious to hear more of the work of O’Neill,
whom Grainger described as “our dear friend-genius”. Unfortunately
none of his other music appears to be currently available on CD, although
some broadcast tracks including The blue bird are to be found on the
internet. Hopefully this CD will generate further interest in a composer whose
gifts were clearly very far from negligible.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Welcome discoveries and the performances do the music full justice.