Trevor Duncan (1924–2005)
Orchestral Works
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Penny
rec. 1993, Concert Hall of Slovak Radio, Bratislava, Slovakia
British Light Music - Volume 8
NAXOS 8.555192 [68]
Not the least of the merits of this Naxos series of reissues of the Marco Polo originals of British Light Music is their preservation of the original booklet notes, in this case eight pages of invaluable information and insights gleaned from an interview conducted by David Ades with the composer at the time of the original issue eleven years before the composer’s death.
Like so many British composers of light music at this period, Leonard Charles Trebilco wrote under an assumed name (in fact, as the booklet informs us, he also wrote briefly in his youth under the pseudonym of “Steve Bretton”) but it was as Trevor Duncan that he achieved renown, a title initially adopted as a subterfuge to get round BBC regulations which forbade the involvement of their own salaried staff (Trebilco was employed as a music producer) with any performance of their own compositions. In fact, as the composer disarmingly explains, he subsequently came to accept the justice of these rules to prevent potential conflicts of interest, and two years later resigned from the BBC to concentrate on his creative activities.
Also, like several other British composers of light music, Trevor Duncan seems to have harboured a life-long ambition to write on a grander scale than the usual short pieces confined to the length of a single 78 rpm or 45 rpm side. Although he turned down an offer to write an opera, in the 1990s he was involved in the composition of a stage musical and he also wrote other more substantial works such as a half-hour Sinfonia Tellurica (1970); the booklet informs us that “he held a view, not uncommon among composers, that some of his most successful works, commercially speaking, were not those of which he felt most proud.” In this he resembled such other composers as Anthony Collins or Robert Farnon, and it is interesting to learn from the booklet that the latter particularly influenced his ‘pastoral soliloquy’ Meadow Mist [track 11].
In point of fact, two of the works included on this disc are multi-movement suites and no fewer than five other tracks are single items drawn from more substantial pieces or sets of pieces. Among these is what is certainly Duncan’s most successful work “commercially speaking” – the March from his Little Suite which found fame as the theme music for the long-running British television series Doctor Finlay’s Casebook, despite the fact that that it has no relationship to the Scottish setting of the drama. That March [track 2] is the first of the three movements of the suite given here, which otherwise remained unrecorded at the time, and to hear it is on its proper context is particularly valuable since its principal melody returns in the final movement Jogtrot [track 4] as a recurring sort of rondo. Other more substantial pieces on this disc include the Serenade (in the style of Schubert) [track 9], a movement from a set of five Maestro Variations, and the ‘idyll’ St Boniface Down [track 16] which is a miniature tone-poem describing a landscape on the Isle of Wight which perhaps significantly was not written to commission. The suite entitled The Visionaries consists of new fewer than six movements, of which the most extensive Grand March [track 18] lasts over five minutes on its own. We are also told that Sixpenny ride [track 14] came as part of a pair of movements, of which Tenbob Tour was in 5/4 time – which it would have been interesting to have heard.
Apart from the Doctor Finlay theme, Duncan’s best-known piece nowadays is probably his portrait The girl from Corsica [track 10], which in its turn generated a number of similarly styled French or Spanish influenced pieces such as Valse-mignonette [track 12], the bucolic Wine Festival [track 13] and La Torrida [track 17]. The olive grove might have been intended to be another such, but it was subsequently retitled Enchanted April [track 15] when it was taken up for yet another BBC television programme. Some ten years before, High Heels [track 5] was the item that first established the composer’s reputation; and although the composer acknowledged that music was influenced by David Rose’s Holiday for strings, it was originally written as a portrait of a member of his family – as indeed was Little Debbie, the delightful miniature which brings this disc to a conclusion. It only remains to commend the mini-suite Children in the park [tracks 6-8] which include the two shortest individual items on the CD, and the opening 20th Century Express [track 1] which provides the title for the collection as a whole.
The performances, with Andrew Penny once again conducting the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, are a delight and enter fully into the spirit of the music itself. The recording too is excellent, and the contents of this disc remain unique in supplying us with a portrait of the work of a composer who is otherwise usually relegated to single items in collections of British light music. The only other recordings I can find which consist purely of his own music include a long-deleted and extremely rare 1971 Boosey and Hawkes LP of his aforementioned Sinfonia Tellurica which appears never to have achieved issue on CD at all, although description on the LP cover of the music as “background music specially recorded for film radio and television” might well have deterred potential interest. There are also listings for a couple of CD issues of similar material, including a version of the Little Suite with an additional third movement Folk tune not included in the recording here. On the other hand, a complete recording (by anonymous performers) of the music for The Visionaries included in a Cavendish compilation issued in 2017 only includes a heavily abridged version of the Grand March which we are given in full on this uniquely valuable collection.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Previous review: Néstor Castiglione
Contents
High Heels (1949)
20th Century Express (1951)
Children in the Park (1954)
Meadow Mist (1954)
St Boniface Down (1956)
The Visionaries (1957): Grand March
A Little Suite (1958)
The girl from Corsica (1958)
Wine Festival (1958)
La Torrida (1958)
Enchanted April (1958)
Valse mignonette (1959)
Little Debbie (1959)
Sixpenny ride (1964)
Maestro Variations (1967): Serenade (in the style of Schubert)
