Denis ApIvor was born in Collinstown, West Meath, Eire on 14th April,
1916 of Welsh parentage. His father, Elwy, was so totally Welsh as
to have no part of him that did not stem from the hills of Merioneth.
He had been born in the slate-mining village of Corris, gone to school
at Machynlleth and then to University College, Aberystwyth before
entering the Anglican ministry. When a curate at Llangefni in Anglesey
he met his wife-to-be, Mona Nicholls Jones, who had trained in London
as a Montessori school-teacher. Her father, Thomas Nicholls Jones
was a church warden at Llangefni. Miss Jones's maternal grandfather
was a clergyman named Lewis and her uncle was James Sculthorpe Lewis,
a canon of St. Asaph and a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford.
The composer aged
60
During the first world war Elwy ApIvor had a parish
in Eire and all his children were born there. With the Irish Revolution
the family moved to Caernarvon, where Mr. ApIvor was a classics master
at the High School and took Sunday services in various churches. By
this time Denis was learning the piano and singing in the choir. Later
he was to sing in two cathedral choirs, thus in his youth becoming
steeped in music that has, in fact, been the real training for many
composers here and abroad. William Walton is a good case in point-although
in the late 1940's he did go to Humphrey Searle for several lessons.
In 1925 the ApIvors crossed the border to Herefordshire,
where Mr. ApIvor was classics master and chaplain at the Cathedral
school until his death in 1944. It was also in 1925 that Denis was
awarded a scholarship as a chorister under Henry Ley at Christ Church,
Oxford. As it happens, the organist who succeeded Ley was Noel Ponsonby,
who died young. Denis sang at the christening service of Noel's son
Robert, who was to become the Controller of Music at the B.B.C. Denis
had piano lessons with a Mr. Rushworth and began to compose, but he
was far from happy at Oxford and, after contracting pneumonia, which
put him into the Radcliffe Infirmary, he refused to go back to his
college and was transferred to Hereford Cathedral, where the organist
was Sir Percy Hull. Denis studied the organ at Hereford with Reginald
West, sang in the choir and, having taught himself the clarinet, played
in the Hereford Choral and Orchestral Society as well as in the pit
orchestra at the Kemble Theatre. He sang in the Three Choirs Festivals
under the likes of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Sir Ivor Atkins, a
relation of the present writer.
His parents, being opposed to their son's pursuing
a musical career, saw to it that Denis took the Higher School Certificate
in mathematics and science. He went to University College, Abetystwyth
for a year and then, in 1934, to University College, London. However,
he continued his musical studies by 'devouring' Berlioz's treatise
on orchestration. Today. ApIvor admires the music of Berlioz, particularly
The Damnation of Faust.
ApIvor's early compositions were mostly songs influenced
by his great admiration for the work of Peter Warlock, whose suicide
was such a senseless tragedy. The 1914-18 war seriously affected Warlock
(as the 1939-45 war was to affect ApIvor). Warlock had unsympathetic
and uncomprehending parents who opposed his musical life, and he was
therefore unable to see his way forward in the musically backward
England of those days. In 1916 Warlock fell under the influence of
Bernard van Dieren, who was also to influence ApIvor's life. In fact,
ApIvor's Chaucer Songs, op. 1 were written in memory of van
Dieren, and in 1974, when van Dieren's son died a bankrupt (he had
been selling his father's scores to relieve his financial embarrassment),
ApIvor wanted to copy everything he could before it was lost and therefore
made performing editions of much of van Dieren's music. Yet for all
this hard work ApIvor has been shamefully treated. He had, for example,
the frustrating experience of seeing his edition of the Ballade
of Villon and his arrangement of the de Quincey Rapsodia and
The Cenci Song for voice and string quartet used as the mainspring
of the de Doelen Concert in Rotterdam in 1982 without due credit in
the programme. His published edition of the Chinese Symphony was
given at the Holland Festival of 1983 without the briefest mention
that it was his edition and production of the full score.
Like Humphrey Searle, ApIvor had wanted to study with
van Dieren but van Dieren's poor health was unequal to teaching. ApIvor,
too, was profoundly influenced by the first broadcast of Berg's Wozzeck
and set about the study of the fascinating method of serial composition.
About the same time Constant Lambert's brilliant book Music Ho!
was published, and a friend of ApIvor, knowing of his desire to
meet Lambert and Cecil Gray (who, in 1934, published a book on Warlock),
arranged meetings. Gray visited ApIvor in 1937 and, being a wealthy
man, was instrumental in securing lessons for him with Patrick Hadley,
who, frankly, taught him nothing. Paddy Hadley always required a bottle
of sherry to be provided for him at lessons; this was strategically
situated by the piano.
It was Gray who introduced ApIvor to Lambert at Pagani's
restaurant near Queen's Hall, where Busoni used to "hold court" when
he was in London. ApIvor found Lambert "unique" and "probably the
best conversationalist since Oscar Wilde". Lambert, like Warlock,
was a flawed personality and asked ApIvor, then a medical student,
for tablets to help him sleep.
ApIvor was with Hadley for six months, after which,
at the joint behest of Gray and Hadley, he went to Alan Rawsthorne,
with whom he studied for two years until the outbreak of war in 1939.
From Rawsthorne he was to learn a love for the concerto form and a
neatness and economy of style but, sadly, not much else. They went
through ApIvor's scores together but Rawsthorne, being lazy, was an
inadequate teacher, as the present writer can testify. He was a man
of studied but limited culture, self-absorbed and already damaged
before the age of 35 by that alcoholic obsession that ultimately destroyed
not only himself but also his friend Constant Lambert.
Rawsthorne wanted to write one brilliant best-seller
and, with his Piano Concerto No.1, did that. What is not generally
known is that the Chaconne that forms the central movement
of that Concerto Rawsthorne derived from ApIvor's Ostinato for
orchestra, which ApIvor showed him when he was rehearsing it with
the Tookey Kerridge chamber group.
ApIvor had moved to Belsize Park early in 1939 to
be nearer Rawsthorne for lessons. After Lambert's divorce Rawsthorne
and Lambert shared the same house. After Lambert's death Rawsthorne
married his widow Isabel.
In the 1930's ApIvor had a great enthusiasm for Busoni
and in 1940 he arranged for orchestra the latter's mammoth Fantasia
contrappuntistica, which was played by the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra
under Clarence Raybould in 1952 at Maida Vale.
Denis ApIvor says that he first became aware of himself
as a composer when he wrote the song As the holly groweth green
(Henry VIII) in London in 1936. This now forms part of his opus
2,.AIas Parting for voice and string quartet.
Constant Lambert greatly admired the poetry of T.
S. Eliot and encouraged ApIvor to write The Hollow Men, op. 5,
for baritone, male chorus and orchestra. The poem deeply inspired
the composer at the outbreak of war; but the work lay fallow until
1949, when he reorchestrated it. It was performed in 1950, with Redvers
Liewellyn as a magnificent soloist and Lambert conducting - and what
singing he drew from the choir! There is no doubt that Lambert was
a conductor of rare ability. The Hollow Men was very well received
and should have been the "break-through" the composer deserved; but
it has, as yet, had no subsequent performance. It is a work that communicates
at once and makes a lasting impression. It covers a wide range of
emotion and is a "human" work with which we could all identify. It
would not be too much to acclaim it as a masterpiece, and it is refreshing
in these days to recommend a work that is totally enjoyable in the
true meaning of that word. Its neglect is a mark of the oblivion into
which ApIvor's music has at present fallen. ApIvor is in effect forgotten,
with four operas unperformed, as well as three symphonies, a violin
concerto and other pieces. Had he the fame and "clout" that comes
from a ruthlessly ambitious drive, or had he the professional background
of the Royal College of Music or his own ensemble, things might have
been different. Some, who ought to know better, have said "ApIvor
is a doctor, not a composer". Borodin was a chemist. Do we conclude
he was not a composer? Or does the public deny the great theatrical
and executive musical talents of Jonathan Miller or Jeffrey Tate because
they were educated as doctors?
ApIvor was very grateful to Edward Clark for the B.B.C.'s
performance of The Hollow Men. Clark was a man of profound
insight and judgment in modern music. It was Clark of whom Stravinsky
wrote "when I read of his death, I wept". Clark's wife, Elisabeth
Lutyens, though a long-time friend of Denis ApIvor, was in some ways
hostile to his music, but in attracting her attacks from time to time
ApIvor was by no means unique; she was well known for generating controversy.
He had first met her at a party at Hereford for her son's christening.
Another interesting composer with whom ApIvor was on close terms over
many years was Christian Darnton, who was physically a blond giant.
He was also noisy, extrovert and wealthy and drove a Bugatti. His
father was a German aristocrat while his mother was a British one.
It was Darnton who tried to recruit fellow musicians for the Communist
Party. However, ApIvor voted Labour until the "winter of discontent"
of 1978/90 when he experienced the horrors of what the trade
unions were doing to the health service. He would probably say the
only logical government was the "communism" born from the conviction
that all people are equal. Denis ApIvor was brought up as the son
of a parson and is a very human person, deploring Russian involvement
in Afghanistan, the American action in Vietnam and the slaughter of
the ecology of the South American continent, He once told me, "One
is, in a way, almost ashamed to be alive."
Grace Olga ApIvor (neé O'Brien)
(1918
- 1945)
At the outbreak of war in 1939 Dr. ApIvor was
immediately taken into the emergency service in London hospitals and,
as he had little experience, was sent to training-posts in military
hospitals in Alton and Swindon and then, as a member of the Royal
Army Medical Corps, into surgical hospitals. Captain ApIvor came home
ahead of time as his wife, Grace O'Brien, a Fleet Street journalist
with The Sunday Pictortal, was suffering from a kidney disease
which, in those days, was a sentence of death. After a while in the
Worcestershire Regiment ApIvor was a penniless, homeless widower.
His wife's relations provided a home for him while he was studying
at the Middlesex Hospital and writing his first opera. This was She
Stoops to Conquer, op. 12, which occupied the years 1943-1947.
The libretto by the composer is based on the play and other lyrics
by Oliver Goldsmith. It is an opera buffa in three acts, since
the composer's obsession at this time was bel canto and the
framework of the comic operas of Mozart and Rossini. We still await
its first performance.
There is a strong Spanish influence in ApIvor's life
that began before the war, when a girl friend brought him a copy of
the first British publication of the work of Frederico Garcia Lorca.
He composed the Lorca Songs, op. 8 while he was in the uniform
of the Worcestershire Regiment. However, it was through his friendship
with the lutanist Diana Poulton, who accompanied her husband Tom in
vihuela songs, that ApIvor encountered Spanish classical music and
records of the gypsy cante jondo.
ApIvor had met the fine baritone Frederick Fuller
through Alec Hyatt King of the British Museum's music department.
It was Fuller who gave the first performance of the Lorca songs for
a Society for the Promotion of New Music concert at Salle Erard in
1946. Cecil Gray, Edward Clark, Diana Poulton, Alan Rawsthorne and
Bernard van Dieren's widow, Frida, attended this auspicious event
and, as a result, Clark included these songs in a London Contemporary
Music concert at the Wigmore Hall in 1947. Later that same
year, and at the same venue, Clark put on ApIvor's Violin Sonata,
op. 9 played by Antonio Brosa and Kyla Greenbaum.
It was the perspicacity of Humphrey Searle that brought
about the first broadcast of any of ApIvor's works. This was the Concertante
for clarinet, piano and percussion, op. 7, which was given
by Frederick Thurston, Kyla Greenbaum and the Blades brothers, with
the composer conducting. That was in 1948.
In 1947 ApIvor had married Irene Russell, a neuro-surgical theatre
sister, and in 1950 he gave up medicine after the success of The
Hollow Men. He had produced his first two concertos. The scintillating
Piano Concerto, op. 13, which dates from 1948, was first
performed by Eiluned Davies with the B.B.C. Welsh Orchestra under
Mansel Thomas. This was his last work to receive a Promenade Concert
performance; that was in 1958, with Patrick Piggott as soloist and
Basil Cameron conducting. The other was the Concerto for violin
and fifteen instruments, op. 16, of 1950, the first performance
of which was given by Alan Loveday and a chamber orchestra under Trevor
Harvey.
This was followed by the first of ApIvor's ballets,
The Goodman of Paris, op. 18. The Royal Ballet commissioned
the ballet A Mirror for Witches, op. 19, which dates from 1951
and which was first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, in 1952. Things were looking reasonably good for ApIvor.
After his Symphony no.1, op. 22 of
1952 there was another Royal Ballet commission, which was the
hugely successful Blood Wedding, op. 23, produced at
the Sadlers Wells theatre in 1953. It was subsequently restaged
in Germany, Vienna, Copenhagen, New York, Cape Town, Ankara and Santiago.
It is no hyperbole to say that these ballets were triumphs and, while
the music of all deserves revival, Blood Wedding is the most
marvellous and impressive score.
However, making an adequate living out of music was
impossible and the ApIvor's marriage suffered and broke up during
1953-4.
ApIvor can probably be credited with the distinction
of having composed the first British Guitar Concerto. This
is his opus 26 and dates from 1954. It had to wait four
years for its first performance in Glasgow, with Julian Bream as soloist.
Having gained a prestigious post-graduate qualification
in anaesthetics, ApIvor elected to return to medicine, accepting a
consultancy in the West Indies, to enable him to live while he completed
the operatic commission offered by Norman Tucker and the Sadlers Wells
Trust to compose the three-act opera, Yerma, op. 28, based
on Garcia Lorca's play. Tucker wanted Day Lewis to be the librettist,
but the composer chose Montagu Slater, whom Britten had used. This
was an unpopular choice, for Slater was a communist and refused to
recant, as many did in 1956, at the time of the Hungarian uprising.
The opera took five years of hard work and, although
ApIvor had a growing interest in serialism, he deliberately oriented
his approach in such a way as not to lose sight of the classical,
melodic and reiterative structures.
Tucker's promise to stage Yerma was not fulfilled
and the work has had only one concert performance - a broadcast by
the B.B.C. in 1961 with Sir Eugene Goossens conducting, although it
had a repeat broadcast about a year later. The title-role was taken
by Joan Hammond, who gave a performance of great brilliance, though
she was evidently out of sympathy with the style of the music, as
was Adrian Boult with Berg's Wozzeck in his great performance
for the B.B.C. in the 1930s. Sir Arthur Bliss wrote to Denis ApIvor
in March, 1959 saying:, "I have been through Yerma bar by bar
and I can assure you that you can be proud of your achievement. I
have written to Tucker expressing my conviction that it will be a
noteworthy night when this opera is produced.... I do intend to speak
to Schotts (the publishers) about it and this is occasioned entirely
by my respect for its value."
Edward Clark wrote to Tucker:
"Mr. ApIvor has had a long musical association with
the work of Lorca from the two splendid sets of songs on his lyrical
poetry, the dramatic ballet "Blood Wedding" one of Sadlers Wells most
successful post-war creations which has triumphed in hundreds of performances
all over the world.... I mention ApIvor's earlier ventures in elective
affinity with Lorca to underline my conviction that in this new opera
he has surpassed all those former efforts. . . . The multiple problems
of dramatic characterisation of major and minor personages, of choral
and other groups, the tremendous scene of combined chorus and ballet
in Act 3 are resolved in a manner completely worthy of the dramatist's
conception. I have no doubt that this work is an outstanding achievement.
. . . and that its production would be a sensational revelation to
the musical public of this and other countries."
Malcolm Rayment, critic of The Glasgow Herald,
wrote to the Sadlers Wells Trust after the failure to stage
Yerma: "I consider Yerma a work of major
importance.... From every point of view the work has outstanding
qualities.... Musically it is only necessary to study a single scene
to realise the work has exceptional merit. . .. There can be few
contemporary operas that contain such magnificent choral writing.
.I feel it is of utmost importance for British opera that Yerma
is staged."
Martin Cooper, the critic and musicologist, wrote in The
Daily Telegraph that "ApIvor's music is full-blooded and
intensely dramatic with a strong power of conveying both character
and atmosphere". Humphrey Searle, himself a distinguished composer
with an unerring ability to judge modern music, called Yerma "a
fine work".
The shameful failure to stage Yerma was inexcusable,
particularly as Tucker would not communicate on the subject. Common
courtesy demanded something better than this. What is clear is that
the refusal to produce the work could hardly have been attributable
to any deficiency inherent in the score, as the authoritative opinions
quoted show.
Working as a hospital consultant in Trinidad and composing
Yerma took its heavy toll. Dr. ApIvor nearly died of overwork,
suffered a gastric haemorrhage and had to come home. The final act
of Yerma was written in a friend's house in Kilburn and the
scoring completed in a cottage in Suffolk in 1958. Without funds yet
again, he had once more to return to medical work as a clinical assistant
at St. Bartholomew's and St. Mark's Hospitals before becoming a National
Health Service consultant in Maidstone hospitals in 1959.
While in the West Indies ApIvor missed the performance
by the Royal Philharmonic under Goossens of his choral work Thamar
and Amnon, op. 25, which recounts the Biblical story of
the brother who rapes his sister. He also missed his "Portuguese"
ballet, Saudades, op. 27, which was another Royal Ballet
commission. The production was apparently not successful owing to
the half-heartedness of the participants.
The year 1961 saw the completion of the Dylan Thomas
cantata, Altarwise by Owl-light, op. 32, which William
Glock at the B.B.C. refused to perform, although it was ApIvor's magnum
opus of the period, a work in the "movement", so to speak, of
post-Webern, post-Varese and at a time when open-house was extended
by the B.B.C. to the music of the Berio-Boulez-Stockhausen "camp"
and to young British composers influenced by them. The composer took
this reverse badly, as he had been on close terms with his fellow
Welshman in the years after the war, and this was his first major
setting of Thomas's work.
It is a misconception to believe that well-known conductors
can always deliver the composer's intentions, so much so that Stravinsky,
a notorious example, boycotted performances by anyone but himself
for years. The first of ApIvor's works inspired by Paul Klee, the
nine orchestral variations, Overtones, op. 33, was first played
in a B.B.C. "Music in Our Time" concert in 1967 by the Philharmonia
Orchestra under Bryan Balkwill. It was an inadequate performance that
did not do justice to the composer's work.
 |
Denis ApIvor met Rima Austin at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden. She was a ballet teacher, ballet dancer and a member of
the pioneering team of the Beneshes, who had devised a modern
improved choreology to supersede the cumbersome Laban notation
of ballet movements. They were married in 1962 and, later, she
gave up her career to have a family. Lyndel was born in 1966 and
Dylan in 1968. (Rima died in 1997 from Motor
Neurone Disease having first exhibited symptoms in 1991). The
year 1962 also saw the completion of one of ApIvor's finest chamber
works: the duo for cello and piano, Mutations, op. 34, which
was first performed by Christopher van Kampen and Malcolm Binns
at a Pollitzer concert at the Wigmore Hall in 1967. Here is an
unashamed serial work that benefits from a marvellous sense of
continuity and, while much music in this style is slow and uneventful,
this little masterpiece is not. Typical of ApIvor's best work,
it has logic and craftsmanship that could be achieved only by
an accomplished composer.
Denis with Lyndel
(1966)
|
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The Symphony no.2, op. 36 appeared in
1963 and it is the only one of the four symphonies to have been performed
at the time of the writing of this article. It shows more clearly
than ApIvor's other orchestral works the epigrammatic and sparing
influence of Webern's orchestration.
Another work of this period was the String Quartet
no.1, op. 37, described by the distinguished Irish composer
Gerard Victory as a work of 'tremendous intellectual power" - a remarkable
tribute from a musician whose own second Symphony has qualities amounting
to a revelation to the present writer. ApIvor's Quartet is wonderfully
interwoven and deeply committed. His Quartet no.2, op. 63,
of 1976, still awaits its first performance.
Attractiveness may not be a word that springs to some
minds when it comes to serial music, but ApIvor's Crystals (Concert
minuscule), op. 39, of 1965 is nothing if not attractive; it deploys
unusual forces: a Hammond organ, amplified guitar, marimba, percussion
and double bass. It is diverting music and creates a musical world
that is all its own. Harp, Piano, Piano-Harp, op. 41, uses
an upright piano with the action removed so that the strings are played
with fingers and beaters. This is not for novelty or humour but to
obtain certain ethereal and percussive musical timbres.
Between these two works came the third opera Ubu
Roi, op.40. The play on which it is based has a strong element
of the commedia dell'arte but, thanks to Alfred Jarry's pioneering
use of the technique of the "absurd", the protagonist graduates from
pantomime character to a symbol of oppression and evil - the "shadow"
of Jungian psychology, killer, destroyer and tyrant. Like the dictator
Idi Amin, he escapes to live another day, hoping for another country
to tyrannize. The music is unashamedly post-Schönberg.
B.B.C. television commissioned the one-act ballet,
Corporal Jan, op. 42, with choreography by Peter Wright. The
theme of the work is the terrifying one of a poor soldier who dreams
he is the "sacrificed hero", the slain god of mythology, and wakes
up to find that the dream has come true. It is a robust score that
includes piano-accordion, Hammond organ and a vast array of percussion
including piano. Four flutes and a piccolo are the only woodwind used.
The music seems to have a concertante feel about it. It certainly
has verve and élan - a dramatic and absorbing
score indeed. It deserves to be heard.
Another work worthy of availability is the set of
ten orchestral variations, Neumes, op. 47. It is a colourful
score in which the actual notes of the twelve-note series have been
replaced by "directional vectors" in which there are no fixed notes
- only "directions like the 'neumes"' of the title. The first variation
includes some excellent counterpoint and has a strong sense of forward
motion; the second is mainly peaceful, but uneasy; the third is typical
of ApIvor's musical tension and "interweave"; the fourth is dramatic
and brilliantly scored; the fifth recaptures the mood of the second;
the sixth contrasts comical and tender moments; the seventh deploys
high chordal string parts, and the uneasiness is this time undiluted;
the eighth tellingly highlights the percussion; the ninth is sinister
and of heightened tension, while the final variation combines all
the qualities of the previous variations. The performance I heard
conducted by Norman Del Mar suffered, in my opinion, from pauses between
the variations, which hindered the work's continuity.
Bouvard and Pécuchet, op. 49,
is a comic opera comprising a prologue and three acts based on Gustave
Flaubert's Dictionary of Stupidities. His theme was the good-natured
foolishness of two city clerks who, returning to the country on a
legacy, try out all forms of knowledge and "make a mess of the lot".
The heroes embody elements ranging from Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
to Laurel and Hardy. ApIvor has set the libretto to a serial score
that may be at variance with the fatuous atmosphere of the original.
Whether or not this works, only a performance would show.
The Clarinet Quintet, op. 60, was written
in a week in March, 1975 and it is probably not only ApIvor's finest
chamber work but also one of the best British works in this genre.
It has a marvellous logic of musical argument, and the slow movement
is one that cannot but fail to fascinate discerning music lovers.
The finale is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, contrasting colour and
a restrained exuberance. In this impressive work every single note
is essential. The slow coda is the only less-than-perfect passage;
but it is as satisfactory a conclusion as a more robust one would
be.
Four concertante works followed: the Violin
Concerto, op. 61, which is, in fact, ApIvor's second for violin
(the first, opus 16, used only a small chamber ensemble);
the Cello Concerto, op. 64; and two works for horn, the Fantasy
concertante, op. 70 (with orchestra), first performed by Frank
Lloyd, and the Duo concertante, op. 71, first performed
by Michael Thompson and Catherine DuBois. As with much of ApIvor's
work, the music is tough and uncompromising but, as one composer expressed
it to the author, "a challenge is better than moribund predictability".
ApIvor's music falls into categories. There is an
early chromatic-diatonic style up to 1945, which was deployed
almost exclusively in song-writing. From the hugely enjoyable Seven
Piano Pieces, op. 14, ApIvor has used twelve-note methods
in most of his scores while retaining some features of classical tonalities
up to and including the opera Yerma, completed in 1958.
These seven piano pieces open with a Prelude and a Study, which is
a toccata of onward motion truly pianistic and rewarding both to play
and to hear. The ensuing Invention is a "walking-tune" in canon; the
Dance is a waltz-like piece but strong in character; the Nocturne
is not a dreamy effeminate piece (thankfully) but a flowing piece
of real atmosphere; There may be a hint of the composer's love for
Bach in this piece; the fifth movement is a Tarantella that suggests
Rawsthorne; but the music is ApIvor's own. It is an exciting piece.
The following March is slow and the finale is a quick toccata-like
piece.
By opus 30, which is another set of
Seven Piano Pieces, there is clear evidence of Webern and ongoing
serialism. At first ApIvor's new style was epigrammatic, as in the
interesting Wind Quintet, op. 31; but this proceeded
to extended forms. By 1980 there were some relaxations of these disciplines
with the Fantasy concertante for horn and orchestra, op.
70. However, ApIvor has never embraced a complex serial
approach in any of his solo songs. The late Dowson Songs, op. 76,
show a return to a relatively simple diatonic-chromatic style with
romantic overtones, as does the Vox populi, op. 58 of 1974-5.
His songs are especially fine. ApIvor has tended to concentrate his
works in groups dealing with specific forms or literary influences.
During 1951-4 that concentration was on ballets (with later ones in
1968 and 1978) - namely, Corporal Jan and Glide the dark
doors wide, op. 66. There are works influenced by Spanish music
and Lorca extending from opus 8 in 1945 to El silencio ondulado,
for guitar and orchestra, op. 51, of 1951. There
are the two T. S. Eliot works, The Hollow Men and Landscapes,
op. 15, for tenor and six instruments, which dates from 1950;
the Dylan Thomas works Altarwise by Owl-light, op. 32, and
Fern Hill, op. 56; there are five works inspired by Paul Klee
ranging from Overtones, op. 33, via Orgelburg, op.
50 (the composer's only work for solo organ), to Resonance
of the Southern Flora, op. 54, for wordless chorus and large orchestra.
We are left with the question of the neglect of Denis
ApIvor's music. Publishers have said his music should be in print
but do nothing about it. Many professional musicians speak highly
of it yet performances are not forthcoming. There may be those who
doubt the artistic merit of ApIvor's music, but this article has cited
the opinions of well-known authorities on the obvious worthwhile qualities
of the music, further evidence of which is that, while he does not
play the violin, horn or cello, ApIvor's concertos for these instruments,
when performed by artists of the top rank, did not necessitate the
changing of a single note. In extreme circles ApIvor may be regarded
as "old-fashioned", since he does not belong to any of those groups
which, since the 1960s, have been "operating" on the unsuspecting
public with electronic circuits plus or minus distorted instrumental
sound or to others who use microtonal "tremolandi" without aural relief,
not to mention yet others who repeat a few bars for long periods,
thus strongly inducing sleep, ennui or annoyance.
Another reason for the neglect of ApIvor's music is
the apathy people have towards serial music and their fear of it.
A famous instrumentalist commissioned a work from Denis ApIvor and
never played it, admitting he was terrified of twelve-note music.
Then he met Henze and revised his views, for here was a composer in
the ascendancy. This is nothing short of cult snobbery, for it is
judging by fashion rather than by merit. It is a common but erroneous
notion that the attitudes "I know what I like" or "it must have a
tune" must inevitably transcend all other considerations. The appreciation
of immediacy in music is not belittled by ApIvor:;he would regard
Bach and Mozart as the greatest composers and would have much in common
with "traditional" music lovers.
A further excuse might be that ApIvor's music is difficult
to play and that rehearsal time and expense do not warrant such resources
for what may remain the only performance That idea, valid in the 1930s,
can be disregarded today when the most complex works are performed.
To quote one example: a broadcast in 1989 of Robin Holloway's Second
Concerto for orchestra was accompanied by an interview with the conductor,
Oliver Knussen, who said that this "enormously difficult" work had
necessitated five days of strenuous rehearsal by the orchestra.
It may be that popularity and financial considerations
do, in fact, play a significant part, compounded by the melancholy
fact that when excursions are made into "modern" music the choice
of works to be performed depends less on the merit of the music than
on the standing of the composer with the self-appointed cabals and
arbiters of value currently in "high places".
Denis ApIvor has suffered unjustifiable neglect and
gross discourtesy, and his personality has been affected, which is
understandable. However, I have always found him to be a man of purpose
and kindness, unashamedly honest and deeply concerned about integrity
in music.
I make no claim that this composer, any more than
any other, achieves the same excellence in all his works. There are
some that fail to arouse my enthusiasm. There are others that reach
the highest standards. The success of The Hollow Men and Blood
Wedding, and the praise accorded to Yerma, render their
perennial neglect an injustice not only to the composer but also to
the public, who are deprived of fine music that could become enduring
musical experiences.
Every composer of originality
and talent deserves to be heard but this
hearing has been very inadequately granted
in recent decades to certain composers born
before 1920, of whom Denis ApIvor is an
outstanding example.
footnote
Denis ApIvor married Sue,
a young woman from the Philippines in 2001.
His sight gone and age taking its toll his
last years were less than contented. He
was very cross when someone in North America
took my biography of him from this website,
the only biography that existed, changed
a few words and put their own name to it,
thus claiming to have done all the hard
work and written the article. This is why
copyright protection is so vital. Denis
worked hard at the promotion of his music
and , in the last years, Ludmilla Andrews,
performed some of his songs which were broadcast.
He died on Thursday, 7 May 2004.
I understand that his scores are housed
at Leeds University. Four of his five symphonies
are yet to be performed. His opera Yerma
is a fine work, his Piano Concerto would
make an instant and lasting appeal as would
his ballet scores. The Hollow Men Opus 5
is quite superb and there is much chamber
music and many fine songs.
CATALOGUE OF WORKS
Opus
1 Four Chaucer Songs for baritone and
String quartet (1936).
2 Alas Parting. Five songs for high
voice and string quartet (1937).
3 Nineteen Songs for two voices and
piano (1935-40).
3a Four Songs (from the 19 above) for
soprano. baritone. chorus and orchestra (Or organ).
4 Nocturne (Fantasia on a song of Diego Pisador)
for string orchestra (1938).
5 The Hollow Men for baritone. male voices
and orchestra (1939).
6 Eight Songs for two voices and piano.
7 Concertante for clarinet, piano and percussion
(1945).
7a Concertante for clarinet. strings. harp
and percussion.
8 Six Lorca Songs for voice and piano (19456).
8a Six Lorca Songs arr. for voice and guitar.
9 Sonata for violin and piano (1946).
10 Estella marina for chorus and strings
(or organ) (1946).
-- Invention on an Interval for piano( 1947).
11 Here we go round. Six chillren's songs for
voice and piano (1949).
12 She Stoops to Conquer: opera buffa in
three acts (1943-7).
13 Piano Concerto (1948).
14 Seven Pieces for piano (1950).
15 Landscapes. Five songs for tenor and six
instruments.
16 Concerto for violin and fifteen instruments (Violin
Concerto no. 1) (1950).
17 Overture: Bouvard and Pécuchet (1950)
(withdrawn).
18 Ballet: The Goodman of Paris (t951).
19 Ballet: A Mirror for Witches (1951).
19a Ballet Suite: A Mirror for Witches.
20 Te Deum for unison voices and organ
(1951).
21 Aquarelles for piano (withdrawn).
22 Symphony no.1(1952).
23 Ballet: Blood Wedding( 1953).
24 Four Beddoes Songs for high voice and piano
('954).
25 Thamar and Amnon for soprano. tenor, bass,
chorus and orchestra (1954).
26 Guitar Concerto (1954).
27 Ballet: Saudades.
28 Yerma: opera in three acts (1955-9).
29 Variations for guitar (1959).
30 Seven Pieces for piano (1960).
31 Wind Quintet (1960).
32 Cantata: Altarwise by Owl-light for four
singers, speaker chorus and chamber orchestra (1961).
33 Overtones: nine orchestral variations (1962).
34 Mutations for cello and piano (1962).
35 Animalcules for piano (1962).
36 Symphony no.2 (1963).
37 String Quartet no. 1. (1964).
38 Chorales (The Secret Sea) for baritone,
chorus and orchestra (1964).
39 Crystals (Concert minascule) for six instrumentalists
(1965).
40 Ubu Roi: opera in three acts (1965-6).
41 Harp. Piano. Piano-Harp (1966).
42 Ballet: Corporal Jan (1968).
43 Concerto for string trio and string orchestra (String
Abstract) (1967).
44 Ten string design for violin and guitar
(1968).
45 The Lyre-playing Idol for piano (1968).
46 Tarot: Variations for chamber orchestra
(1968-9)
47 Neumes: Variations for orchestra (1966).
48 Discanti for guitar (1970).
49 Bouvard and Pécuchet: opera in a
prologue and three acts (1971-4).
49a Little Preludes and Entr'actes (Bouvard
and Pécuchet).
50 Orgelburg for organ (1971).
51 El silencio ondulado for guitar and chamher
orchestra (1972).
52 Exotics Theatre for ten instrumentalists
(1972).
53 Saeta for guitar (1972).
54 Resonance of the Southern Flora for chorus
and orchestra (1972).
55 Psycho-pieces for clarinet and piano (1973).
55a Psycho-pieces arr. for piano trio.
56 Fern Hill for unaccompanied tenor (1973).
56a Fern Hill for tenor and chamber ensemble.
57 Seven Studies, each for a solo instrument
(1974).
58 Vox populi. Fourteen unaccompanied songs
(or with piano accompaniment) (1974-5).
59 Triptych. Three carols for chorus and organ
(1975).
60 Clarinet Quintet (1975).
61 Violin Concerto no.2 (1975).
62 Liaison for guitar and keyboard (1976).
63 String Quartet no.2 (1976).
64 Cello Concerto (1976-7).
65 Chant Eolien for oboe and piano (1977).
66 Ballet: Glide the dark doors wide (1978).
67 Symphony no.3 (1978-9).
68 Bats for tenor and three instrumentalists
(1978).
69 Serenade for guitar (1980).
70 Fantasy concertante for horn and orchestra
(1989).
71 Duo concertante for horn and piano (1981).
72 Ten Guitar Pieces (1981).
73 Divertimenti for solo bassoon (1982).
74 Seven Songs for soloists, chorus and orchestra.
75 Sonatina for guitar (1983).
76 Fourteen Songs of Ernest Dowson for high
voice and piano (or strings)
77 Vista for double wind quintet (1983).
78 Nocturne for guitar (1984).
79 Cinquefoil for flute. guitar and viola (1984).
80 Melisma for recorder (1984).
81 Symphony No. 4 (1985)
82 Majestatas Dei Ultra Stellas for chorus
and orchestra (or keyboard) (1986)
83 Hidden Leaves: Song for voice and piano
(1987).
84 String Quartet no.3 (1989).
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