Graham Peel: Ettrick
–a song for baritone
by John France
( also incorporating
A LITTLE MORE ON
GRAHAM PEEL by Christopher Howell)
I was rummaging in
a second-hand music bookshop in London
the other day and I found this song
by the relatively unknown composer Graham
Peel. This piece caught my eye largely
because it is an evocation of the Scottish
Border Country, an area that I have
long known and loved. It is a corner
of Scotland that is often by-passed
when tourists are heading north to the
Highlands. Yet, ignoring the wind-farms
and the monoculture of coniferous forestation,
this part of Scotland remains a wild
and unspoilt area. Literary associations
abound, including Sir Walter Scott,
John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson
and James Hogg. Culturally rugby and
hunting are perhaps more important in
this region that other parts of the
Scottish Nation. From the latter, the
ethos of this song surely derives.
Where he is known at
all, Graham Peel, is seen as a respected
writer of songs – especially his setting
of four poems from Housman’s Shropshire
Lad. However, he has written over
a hundred other songs to texts by many
diverse poets and versifiers. There
are also a few piano pieces. Peel was
born in Pendlebury, Salford in 1878
and was educated at Harrow and University
College, Oxford where he was fortunate
to study with Dr Ernest Walker. He moved
to Bournemouth in 1914 and remained
there until his death in 1937, aged
59. He spent much of his life as a public
servant and was heavily involved in
the Discharged Prisoner’s Aid Society.
Naturally, music took up a considerable
portion of his life – he was President
of the local branch of the British Music
Society and was chairman of the Bournemouth
Municipal Choir. So composition was
perhaps a relatively small part of his
day to day work.
Of course, it is easy
to compare Peel’s settings of Housman
with those by Vaughan Williams, Gurney,
Butterworth and Somervell – and to declare
them inferior. Yet this is perhaps to
miss the point. Philip Scowcroft wisely
suggests that "Peel’s genuine lyrical
gift which hovers between ballad and
art-song but perhaps is more often nearer
the former." It is in this context
that we must judge his vocal music.
The words of this song
were written by the Scottish poet and
writer William Henry (W.H.) Ogilvie.
Ogilvie was born at Holefield House
which is situated in the Borders between
Kelso and Coldstream. After a good education
at Fettes College in Edinburgh, he worked
on a sheep station in Australia. He
began writing poetry at his time. After
his return to Scotland he became a published
author, writing both verse and agricultural
journalism. He produced a number of
‘small volumes’ of poetry including
one dealing with fox-hunting – a popular
pastime in the Borders. Interestingly
Ogilvie married the daughter of the
Master of the Jedforest Hunt.
Graham Peel had recently
set Ogilvie’s The Challenge (1920
and also Little Brown Bees (1925)
Other settings included Ferry
me across the water by Christiana
Rossetti, The Lute Player by
William Watson, Nick Spence by
William Allingham and Kew in Lilac
Time by Alfred Noyes. As an aside,
the back cover advert is for a number
of works by the largely forgotten composer
Martin Shaw – his suite for String
Quartet looks promising, as does
his settings of Masefield’s Cargoes,
and Bliss Carman’s At Columbine’s
Grave. It is unfortunate that his
catalogue is largely unknown and unheard.
Wild Ettrick, Wild
Ettrick,
Your blue river gleams,
An azure cloak’d lover
That rides thro’ my dreams,
The heath’s at your stirrup,
The broom’s at your knee,
You sing in your saddle
A love song to me.
Thro’ green lands you
led me
In lone ways apart
In long days you told me
Things dear to my heart,
In dream-time, in silence,
With haunting refrain
You murmur them over
And over again.
Wild Ettrick, Wild
Ettrick
Love-raider in blue
Ah! Swing me to saddle
And take me with you
To glens of remembrance
And hills of desire,
The stars over Kirkhope
The Moon on the Swire
The basic sentiment
of the song is of the love of native
land that an exile may have and of course
his dreams of that place. In fact the
poet draws an analogy with a lover in
the accepted sense of the word. For
the curious, a ‘swire’ is a gentle depression
between two hills and would appear to
be an ‘old English’ word that has jumped
across the border.
The song is actually
quite simple – both from the singer’s
and the accompanist’s point of view.
The vocal range is from D to Fι
and is hardly taxing for a good baritone.
The work is in waltz-time and is written
in G major: it is signed ‘allegretto
grazioso’ which perhaps seems an odd
tempo for a song of horsemanship. The
piano accompaniment echoes the progress
of the vocal melody and is primarily
written in octaves and common chords.
The fundamental melody is derived from
a G major triad in second inversion
and slips between the tonic and the
dominant chord. The tune could certainly
be described as being somewhat naïve
– although this is, I think a deliberate
attempt to mimic a ballad. There is
also a feel of the hunting horn to this
melody – which is highly appropriate,
considering the poem’s protagonist is
most likely a huntsman! Each stanza
ends with a long held note lasting for
more than three bars. The second and
third stanzas are set to a similar,
but not identical melody. It is as if
the composer had regarded the initial
phrase as a ‘set’ and then presented
the notes in varying order. The second
verse has a brief modulation to B minor.
The final verse has an interesting variation
for the penultimate line – Peel modulates
to the dominant seventh of the subdominant.
And finally the very last line of the
poem is signed ‘ad lib’ and is unaccompanied.
It is preceded by a short cadenza on
the piano. The song ends on a long tenor
D and is supported by a piano coda.
The song was published
by J.B Cramer of New Bond Street, London
in 1925. There is no record of any first
performances- although I guess it would
not be too off the mark to suggest that
it was given in Bournemouth. The work
appears to have fallen out of the repertoire.
As far as I am aware
this song is not presently available
on CD. However I have found a reference
to a recording made in 1926 by Denis
Noble. It was coupled with a song called
Passing By alleged to be by a
certain Mr Purcell – but apparently
so dull as to make an ascription to
Henry unlikely!
John France Ó
2008 The
Land of Lost Content - British Music
Blog
A
LITTLE MORE ON GRAHAM PEEL by Christopher
Howell
John France’s article
on a little-known
song by Graham Peel led me to check
what I had on my own shelves.
I have three pieces.
Two are from "A Country Lover",
published by Chappell in 1910. It is
not clear whether "A Country Lover"
consists of just these two songs or
whether they belong to a longer cycle.
Since the single songs cost two shillings
each in those far-off days (10p for
those unfamiliar with pounds, shillings
and pence) and the complete work just
three shillings, I rather think it must
have consisted of this pair only.
The first song is a
setting of Hilaire Belloc’s "The
Early Morning". It has just two
pages, a smooth vocal line over pulsating
chords. Though divided into two stanzas,
the second is a subtle variation on
the first with the vocal part rising
nobly towards the end. There are some
unexpected turns of phrase and I must
say that, humming and playing it at
the piano, I found it unexpectedly moving.
It is too brief to stand alone but would
be effective when the second song is
to follow.
This latter has a text
by Eva Gore-Booth and is entitled "The
Little Waves of Breffny". It is
a much more ambitious piece with a quite
elaborate piano part and some opportunities
for the singer to let fly, but each
verse ends tenderly. The Irish tone
set me thinking that Stanford had already
passed this way, until I suddenly realized
that the Stanford songs I was reminded
of, the Letts settings op. 139 and op.
140, had not yet been written – they
were composed in 1913. Peel no doubt
knew "An Irish Idyll" op.77
(c.1900), but this is rather different
in tone. I should think these two Peel
songs would be welcomed by any singer
looking for something off the beaten
track that will make easy contact with
the audience.
The other piece I have
is a setting of William Allingham’s
"Nick Spence" as a unison
song. It was published in 1927 as no.
42 of "Cramer’s Library of Unison
and Part Songs by Modern British Composers,
edited by Martin Shaw". It comes
as a reminder that the decline of musical
education in British schools over the
last fifty years has practically consigned
to oblivion a vast repertoire of music
so finely gauged to the schoolroom as
to have limited chances of survival
elsewhere.
The distinction between
a solo song and a unison song can be
a blurry one; Stanford’s "Satyr’s
Song", for one, was published in
both forms, the only difference being
the size of the pages. Any solo song
can theoretically be sung in unison
if it is not too vocally demanding;
I got my first taste of Schubert at
school in this way. So, vice versa,
the best of these unison pieces may
yet return to life in solo performances.
However, it has to be said that, the
better the song was tailored to its
original purpose, the less it is likely
to be effective in the recital room.
"Nick Spence" is a borderline
case. The poem is brief indeed, almost
meaningless:
Nick Spence, Nick
Spence,
Sold the cow for
sixpence!
When his master scolded
him,
Nicky didn’t care.
Put him in the farmyard,
The stable-yard,
the stack-yard,
Send him to the pig-stye
And Johnny to the
fair.
It is sung three times
over with a boisterous accompaniment
that varies each time and must surely
have pleased the children. The vocal
line is altered at the end to make a
rousing conclusion. The thought that
an adult singer might feel embarrassed
at singing such words at all is countered
by the reflection that such a singer
could have good fun characterizing each
verse differently, in a way the third
form at St. Dominic’s – or wherever
– could not.
The Cramer series had
begun in 1924 with some late pieces
by Stanford and reached 120 numbers
by 1935. If we bear in mind that major
publishers like Novello, Boosey &
Hawkes, Curwen, OUP and Chappell were
all running similar series, as were
smaller, now-forgotten operators like
Edwin Arnold, Edward Arnold and the
Year Book Press, we get an idea of the
sheer quantity of music produced and,
presumably, purchased. Novello’s, furthermore,
had already been publishing music of
this kind for about fifty years before
the others got started. Virtually all
this music faded from view in the post-war
period. Browsers in second-hand bookshops
may be surprised at how many miniatures
by even major – and widely-recorded
– composers such as Vaughan Williams,
Holst, Ireland and Howells are lying
around unused. Glancing down the Cramer
list we find quite a few names that
still have resonance for lovers of British
music – and a few considerably more
than that: Jacobson, Walthew, Bairstow,
Howells, Mackenzie, Rowley, Darke, O’Neill,
Bantock, Dunhill, Dorothy Howell, H.
Farjeon, W.G. Whittaker and Ernest Austin.
Graham Peel appeared only the once.
Also on the list is Shaw’s brother Geoffrey
as well, as, unsurprisingly, a goodly
number of pieces by Martin Shaw himself.
So again I find myself
trailing John France in drawing attention
to the considerable influence once exerted
on British musical life by this energetic
figure. Shaw’s tenuous hold on posterity
is at present limited to a few hymn
tunes – he was co-editor of "Songs
of Praise". The frequency with
which his songs – solo as well as educational
– appear in piles of second-hand music
indicates how widely they were once
used. Peter Dawson’s recording of his
setting of Masefield’s "Cargoes"
shows how effective his music can be,
when the interpreter has a magical way
with words. And even a cursory glance
at his titles reveals that, in a period
when the royalty ballad had not yet
run its course, he had a discerning
taste in poetry. So perhaps I shall
be returning to him ere long.
Christopher Howell
