The BBC's Light Music Festivals held on the Royal
Festival Hall between 1954 and 1960 had a great sense of occasion and
celebrated British light music at somewhere near its peak. The commissions
for them are an interesting bunch; many of their composers we have alluded
to already in the Garlands - all the commissions are worth noting,
Those of 1954 included four by established giants
of the light music genre - ERIC COATES' waltz Sweet Seventeen,
MONTAGUE PHILLIPS' overture Hampton Court, CHARLES WILLIAMS'
The Bells of St. Clements and HAYDN WOOD's Gypsy Rhapsody
- and one of a young man born across the Atlantic who had by that
time already done enough to be reckoned one of light music's top flight
and whose A La Claire Fontaine, first heard as a 1954 commission,
has since become one of his most popular pieces. I am talking, of course
of Canadian-born ROBERT FARNON, whose overture The Frontiersman
was a 1957 commission.
In 1956 (there were no commissions in 1955) three
concerted pieces - RONALD BINGE's Saxophone Concerto,
MONIA LITER's Scherzo for piano and orchestra and FRANCIS CHAGRIN's
Roumanian Fantasy - figured along with the Festival Suite
by ERNEST TOMLINSON and WILLIAM HILL BROWEN's Back Street Ballet.
The following year saw contributions not only from
Tomlinson, again (the Romance and Rondo for horn
and orchestra) but from three composers better known for their work
in "classical" music; WILLIAM ALWYN's Elizabethan Dances (although
Alwyn, in the lighter sphere, produced 60 film scores, plus Scottish
Dances, a Festival March (1951), Autumn Legend for
cor anglais and strings and the bustling Derby Day overture),
MALCOLM ARNOLD's Scottish Dances (and his contribution to light
music surely need not be detailed here) and CHARLES SPINKS' Concert
Toccata for organ and brass. Spinks was scarcely known as a composer
at all (Concert Toccata was only his Opus 9, other titles included
a Suite for flute and strings (1958) and a signature tune Farm Fare,
based on the folk song Mrs Bond) but he was a regular broadcaster
on organ and harpsichord. Also from this year I recall with affection
SIDNEY TORCH's London Transport Suite, while DENIS WRIGHT's
Cornish Holiday, for brass band and orchestra surely made the
Festival Hall rafters ring. DENNIS WRIGHT OBE (1895-1967) was for many
years employed at the BBC (1936-66) and was very much a brass band man.
He studied at the Royal College of Music, founded the National Youth
Brass Band of Great Britain in 1952 and produced over a thousand scores
for brass including some major works (e.g. Tintagel, Music for Brass),
plus Dance Suite, Two Arthurian Sketches and Suite in 18th
Century Style, for orchestra.
1958 saw more commissions than any other year. Again
several men well-known in the classical field were represented: GEOFFREY
BUSH (Concerto for Light Orchestra), which has never quite rivalled
in popularity in his other well-known light compositions the Yorick
Overture, inspired by Tommy Handley). ALUN HODDINOTT (Four Welsh
Dances), IAIN HAMILTON (Concerto for Jazz Trumpet and Orchestra;
Hamilton's Scottish Dances are another light music gem worth
exploring) and PHYLLIS TATE (the attractive London Fields Suite).
DENIS WRIGHT was called again for the Casino Carnival overture,
again for brass band and orchestra; HUBERT CLIFFORD was asked for his
Cowes Suite, JOHN ADDISON for a Conversation Piece
for piano and orchestra. An intriguingly titled piece from this year
was the scherzo The Nonsensical Tailor by "SPIKE" HUGHES. PATRICK
CAIRNS HUGHES, born in 1908, was Irish-born (his father - Herbert Hughes
arranged many Irish folk songs, still performed) and was known as a
writer on music at least as much as a composer. His interests lay to
an extent in the field of jazz (he was at one time a dance band leader),
but many of his compositions are properly to be regarded as "light"
and include incidental music for plays, a pantomime Cinderella,
a ballet High Yellow (1932), a march Wings Over Britain,
an overture St. Patrick's Day. The serenade for strings, Luna
Nuova and for full orchestra, the Variations on a Folksong Theme.
1959 saw just four commissions most by composers better
known in the "classical" field: LENNOX BERKELEY, President of the BMS
in the years prior to his death, represented by an Overture, ALUN HODDINOTT
again by the Nocturne and Dance for harp and orchestra, GORDON
JACOB (the overture Fun Fare)and ARMSTRONG GIBBS (Suite of
Traditional British Songs).
GORDON PERCEVAL SEPTIMUS JACOB, CBE (1895-1984), superb
instrumental writer, deserves mention in a light music survey for his
Denbigh Suite and Two Sketches (English Landscapes, August
Bank Holiday), both for strings, the orchestral comedy overture The
Barber of Seville Goes to the Devil, the suite Tribute to Canterbury
and Celebration Overture, some film music and the Suite in
B Major and the Prelude to Comedy for brass band. Most notably
Jacob wrote some of arrangements of popular tunes which were such wonderful
feature of Tommy Handleys "ITMA" programme during the 2nd
World War and after, a facet of his output continued in many later pieces
including Old Wine in New Bottles, four English tunes arranged
for wind instruments.
CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS (1889-1960), born in Essex,
educated at Winchester and Cambridge and a teacher in various schools
and at the Royal College of Music, certainly deserves to be mentioned
for his lighter music as much for his symphonies, string quartets and
large-scale choral works. It was his fate, as it was for Sullivan and
Edward German, to be remembered less for the latter as for the Fancy
Dress Suite of 1935, from which the waltz "Dusk" became enormously
popular and, rather less celebrated, other lighter works such as the
Essex Suite, Miniature, Dance Suite, Peacock Pie Suite, Dale
and Fell Suite, the Mediterranean Valse and the operettas
The Blue Peter and The String of Love.
Our final year, 1960, bought more interesting figures
BRIAN BOYDELL, commissioned to write a Suite of Irish Dances,
might be reckoned outside our terms of reference as he was born in the
Irish Republic and his largely worked there since. However for me "British"
= from the British Isles and Boydell, born in 1917, studied at Cambridge
and the Royal College of Music. His diatonic style was appropriate to
the writing of light music from time to time and apart from the Irish
Dances his titles in this direction included the Megalithic Ritual
Dances and Shulmartin Suite for orchestra and Dances for
an Ancient Ritual, Sarabande and Sleeping Leprechaun
for piano solo.
SIDNEY TORCH MBE (1908-90) was there again with his
Duel for Drummers. Torch, a theatre organist before 1939, became
Conductor of the RAF Concert Orchestra during the 2nd World
War and later of the BBC Concert Orchestra, notably, between 1953 and
1972, in "Friday Night is Music Night". His light arrangements and even
his original compositions were legion, the latter including, besides
the London Transport Suite already mentioned, single geve movements
like All Strings and Fancy Free, On a Spring Note, Barbecue,
Going for a Ride, Shooting Star, Cornflakes, Bicycle Belles, Meandering,
Romany Rhapsody and, possibly most popular of all, the Trapeze
Waltz of 1963.
JOHN GARDNER, born in 1917, a teacher of music at
Repton, Morley College, St. Paul's Girls School (where his predecessors
included Gustav Holst) and the Royal Academy, composed in a eclectic,
tonal idiom and again some of his work may be reckoned as light - some
incidental music, the overture Half Holiday, an English light
comedy overture tradition and, commissioned for the 1960 Festival, the
Five Rhythms suite (the rhythms being Rumba, Waltz, Pizzicato
Blues, Sentimental Song, Five-beat Boogie). ELIZABETH LUTYENS CBE (1906-83)
is a surprise to see writing for a Light Music Festival - a suite, entitled
En Voyage, apparently portraying a journey between London and
Paris - but it was not, I believe quite a "light music one-off" for
this composer, usually regarded as a uncompromising serialist, because
she wrote many scores for films and radio features with titles like
London Underground, Margate, The Thames, The Stock Exchange
and Port of London. Finally, PETER YORKE's suite for brass band,
The Shipbuilders was commission this year. Yorke (1902-66) pursued
a career in dance music in the 1920s, though he had been trained at
Trinity College, London. He formed the Peter Yorke Concert Orchestra
in 1937 (by 1949 this had ground to 36 players) and later smaller Miniature
Orchestra. Gallion's Reach, The Explorers overture and Automation
were other Yorke works for brass, while his orchestral members included
a suite, In My Garden, and the individual geve movements Caravan
Romance, Miss in Mink, Midnight in Mexico, Sapphires and Sables Outrage,
Neapolitan Holiday, Coffee Bar, Machine Tools, Fireflies, Parade of
the Matadors, Flyaway Fiddles and the waltz intermezzo Faded
Lilac. Another piece, originally entitled Silks and Satins,
became the theme music for TVs "Emergency Ward 10".
Let us now backtrack and note more fully two of these
composers who have not previously appeared in this Garland series: MONIA
LITER and JOHN ADDISON. Liter, who died in 1988, directed a number of
light music ensembles, all heard on the BBC around mid-century. He was
a fine pianist and an even finer arranger. His original compositions
maybe did not equal his best arrangements but they were heard in their
day and it is only right we should list a few of them: Mediterranean
Suite, Harlem Suite, Two Southern Impressions (a bolero and a rumba),
Serenade for harp and strings, Jote and Rumba, Irish Jig
and Cossack Dance , all for orchestra, and a Valse
Melancholique for solo piano.
ADDISON, born in 1924 and now living in the U.S.,
was born in Cobham, Surrey and studied at the Royal College of Music
with Gordon Jacob, whose music Addison's often resembles (he was later
Professor of Composition there). Addison's works in the light mode include
a ballet suite Carte Blanche, stage musicals like Keep Your
Hair On (1958), Popkiss and The Amazons (1971), and
scores for over sixty feature films, including, most notably, perhaps,
Reach For the Sky, plus Joseph Andrews, Three Men in
a Boat, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Cockleshall Heroes,
I Was Monty's Double, Carlton Brown of the Foreign Office and A
Bridge Too Far, the last three named particularly notable for their
marches, all of which were adapted for the concert hall.
The Light Music Festivals of 1954-60 were a splendid
conspectus of the light music scene and the commissions that we have
listed were by the most notable light music practitioners then alive
and active. The only surprising absentees I can think of are Frederick
Curzon, Henry Geehl, Reg King, Billy Mayerl and Alfred Reynolds. Few
of the 34 commissions are currently recorded, what about the others
, Marco Polo or whoever.
© Phil Scowcroft
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN 0903413 88 4) is
currently out of print.
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