THE ROBIN MILFORD CENTENARY
A Cause for Celebration
‘If I wanted to show the intelligent foreigner something worth
doing which could only possibly come out of England I think
I would show him some of the work of Milford’ – thus Ralph Vaughan
Williams, in a letter to Sir Adrian Boult. The centenary of
Robin Milford’s birth falls early next year, on 22 January 2003
– a cause, one would imagine, for widespread celebration: nothing
like a centenary to stimulate the concerts, broadcasts, publications
and recordings. But without a dramatic increase in awareness
over the next few months, my guess is that the event will be
marked by a resounding silence. The fiftieth anniversary of
Milford’s death – by suicide – went past on 29 December 1999
without even disturbing the snow that has settled over his memory.
Milford had an unhappy life: money worries and career difficulties
compounded low self-esteem, bringing recurrent depression and
a number of suicide attempts, one of them directly triggered
by the death of his only child, Barnaby, aged five. His final
– successful – attempt at suicide, on 29 December 1959, was
provoked, at least in part, by a letter from OUP demanding that
he remove the works they had remaindered from their catalogue.
Milford, in failing health despite his relative youth, could
see a future neither for himself nor for his music. In the short
term, he might have been right. British music was about to enter
the ice age of the Glock era, which tested stronger constitutions
than his. But those days are past, and musical taste these days
is catholic to the point of generosity.
In spite of the difficulties he encountered, Milford never stopped
composing until right at the end of his life. As a result, there
is an extraordinary amount of immediately appealing music, beautifully
crafted – and often written for musician friends and therefore
scored for practicable forces. And his style is entirely his
own: although it lies on a continuum between the work of his
close friend Gerald Finzi and that of Vaughan Williams, Milford’s
voice is unique: lyrical, gentle, unemphatic – quietly individual.
His music rarely grapples with the deeper issues of life – though
since most of his few large-scale works have not been performed,
at all or for decades, there may yet be some surprises in store.
His sheer productivity means that there is a huge range of choice
for musicians looking to include Milford in their programmes
– and there may just be time to plan to mark the centenary before
next season’s brochures go to press. His most ambitious work,
the ‘dramatic oratorio’ A Prophet in the Land, was first
– and last – heard at Gloucester Cathedral as part of the 1931
Three Choirs Festival, and it would be too much to expect it
to re-appear in next summer’s Proms season. But most of the
rest of his output lies within the range of more modest forces.
There’s a generous number of works for string or chamber orchestra,
including Fishing by Moonlight, a short by gorgeous piece
for piano and strings that gave its name to a Hyperion LP in
the early 1980s; and The Darkling Thrush, for violin
and small orchestra, could yet achieve genuine popularity, if
anyone picked it up – it offers the Lark re-ascending. There
are copious songs; music for piano and two pianos; choral pieces;
chamber works for various combinations.
The BMIC holds a number of Milford scores, which can be examined
online. Many more are held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford,
where the Milford papers were deposited. There are gems here,
waiting to be uncovered. He had a hard run at life but, with
luck and a little advocacy, things might begin to go right for
him in his second century.
Martin Anderson
First published in the BMIC newsletter - Counterpoint.
With acknowledgements to the BMIC
Milford composer resource
page
.
