"Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner
That I love London town"
(popular song)
"For if you think
of it, there is a London cognita, and
a London incognita. We all know about
Piccadilly and Oxford Circus, London
Bridge and the Strand ... But where
will you be, if I ask you about Clapton,
about the inner parts of Barnsbury,
about the delights of Edmonton, about
that region which was once called Spa
Fields?"
(Arthur Machen: ‘The
London Adventure’ or ‘The Art of Wandering’.
Secker 1924)
Following on Lewis
Foreman’s edition of the extensive reviews
of musical activity in ‘Hazell’s Annual’
(1885-1920), now appears this detailed
and exciting musical gazetteer of the
London scene. It is a rich agglomeration
of facts and ideas – and more, an enthusiasm
for London – London town, not city or
metropolis – as only a Londoner can
see it. There is nostalgia too – awakening
my own nostalgia for a flat in Clanricarde
Gardens, walking through Bayswater on
a Spring morning to Foyles in Charing
Cross Road, a pie and pint in Moonies
Cambridge Circus, the afternoon in Gilbert
Stacey’s Aladdin’s Cave before a curry
supper in a Notting Hill Gate pub –
and Valentine Dyall in Honegger’s Jeanne
d’Arc at the Albert Hall!
"The book reflects
our personal interests and enthusiasms"
– thus Lewis Foreman and his wife Susan
chart the musical highways and byways
of London town, taking in Theatres,
Concert Halls, Churches, Libraries as
well as Graves and Memorials. Here one
may find such gems of information as
directions for visiting the grave of
Baron Fred D’Erlanger (when was Les
Cents Baisers last heard?) at St
Mary’s Cemetery at Kensal Green!
The book is packed
with such items – Johann Zumpe and square
pianos, Elton John’s "Candle in
the Wind", No. 16 Young Street
where Thackeray wrote the endlessly
boring ‘Vanity Fair’ – even the
home address of Constant Lambert’s mother.
After a brief outline
of ‘Five Centuries of Music in London’
the erudite authors set off on a trek
(perhaps easier by camera obscura!)
from their Rickmansworth eyrie to a
remote Blackheath. This includes a fascinating
section on composers with strong links
with London and, walks, (for me another
bit of nostalgia) one of which takes
me past Harriet Cohen’s Gloucester Place
Mews flat (and ‘The Princess’s Rose
Garden’), ‘The George’ in Great Portland
Street – and other walks resurrecting
such publishers’ names as Swan and Enoch,
lost or swallowed in the vast maw of
Music Sales Group!
There is humour – John
McCabe’s ghost stories from the London
College of Music and Norah Kirby wearing
John Ireland’s trousers!
There are, too a few
excellently chosen photographs – an
extensive bibliography and a list of
useful web-sites – as well as such valuable
lists as paintings hanging in the Royal
College, Concerts of music by Ravel,
Percy Grainger’s many London addresses
and a list of organists of St Paul’s
– altogether a volume to be dipped into.
Substantially bound in card by Yale
University Press it must find itself
a place on music-lovers’ shelves beside
the British Music Yearbook and is excellent
value for the quite modest price.
Colin Scott-Sutherland
