Music Webmaster Len Mullenger
HUMPHREY SEARLE by David C. F. Wright: Part 2
Misfortune was never far away from Humphrey Searle, and the cruellest blow was now to befall him. His wife, who had been an exceptional support to him, went into hospital for a minor operation in 1957. It was diagnosed that she had terminal cancer and, in fact, she died that year on Christmas Day. The widower was devastated and, in his grief, people saw that "the composer to be feared" was a man of great warmth and tenderness quite at variance with the erroneous myths spread about him. At Lesley's death the Symphony no.2, op. 33 was in progress and the work was completed as a tribute, not as a threnody. This Symphony has been described as Searle's most "popular" work. The outer movements have an urgent resplendence while the slow movement's great beauty is interrupted by violent outbursts of grief. The re-emergence of the principal theme of the slow movement (Lesley's theme?) just before the end of the exhilarating finale is cleverly judged. There is no reason why this splendid work should not be played; it is easier to play than the First Symphony and employs a developed serial technique throughout. It should "go down well at any concert". One recalls the distinguished bassoonist Gwydion Brooke referring to Searle as "our most exciting composer," contrasting him with Messiaen who, at the time, seemed to do nothing wrong.
Probably Searle's most successful chamber work is the Variations and Finale, op. 34, for ten instruments, in which the movement for horn was written in memory of Dennis Brain. The piece was recast orchestrally as his second ballet, The Great Peacock, which was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in September, 1958 with décor by Yolanda Sonnabend, to whom he was to dedicate his Symphony no.3, op. 36. His first ballet Noctambules, op. 30, contains some very fine and "approachable" music even though the story-line is absurd, but Searle did not write that! A third ballet, Dualities, op. 39 appeared in 1963.
A further commission was received from Scherchen for the Berlin Festival. Humphrey Searle adapted Gogol's The Diary of a Madman, which formed the basis of a short opera and became his opus 35. The score included electronic effects to suit bizarre events in the plot. Receiving its première on 3rd October, 1958 in Berlin, it deservedly won the coveted U.N.E.S.C.O. Radio Critics' Prize.
A stay with friends in Venice later that year led to the beginnings of the Symphony no.3, which was suggested to the composer by Italian and Greek scenes. Strong and sparkling orchestration dominates this colourful work. The central movement is festive and a breathtaking tour de force, and the finale may be the most romantic and passionate music the composer ever wrote. It has all the ingredients for the total satisfaction of unbiased music audiences. Its first performance was given at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960. As it happens, this third Symphony was one of the composer's own favourite pieces. A particular broadcast in July, 1971 by the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra under John Pritchard gave Searle tremendous pleasure. He was an appreciative man and particularly valued the conducting of Pritchard and Norman Del Mar. The latter remembers Searle with "great affection" and "retains a considerable regard for his work".
The Symphony no.4. op. 38 was commissioned by the Feeney Trust for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. It marks a new departure for Searle, albeit a temporary one, for in this work a more fragmentary style appears and for the only time in his output there is a brief aleatory section. The music is uncompromisingly tough and a "graveyard" for all but the genuinely competent conductor. This may explain why only the composer has conducted it.
Ionesco's play The Killer was the basis of Searle’s opera The Photo of the Colonel, op. 41,commissioned by the B.B.C. and first broadcast in March, 1964. It was staged later that year in Frankfurt. It makes compelling listening, having great atmosphere, humour and a driving continuity that is a prime feature of Searle's best work. The Times called the score "a powerful projection of splendid, horrendous sounds"; The Daily Telegraph said, "Mr. Searle's score is remarkable". The Listener wrote that it was "first-class entertainment" and "a well-devised piece of music drama". In Frankfurt the work was warmly received. Die Welt wrote: "There is no music that could do justice to Ionesco more than Searle's". Frankfurten Neue Hesse reported: "The composer's great gift for form, with his distinctive sense of proportion, made the play into a perfect opera. Searle, who has been well known for two decades as a composer of very sensitive scores, proves himself here to be a very able man of the theatre". Frankfurten Allgemeine Zeitung commented: "All in all, the most exciting production ...". Richard Gorer wrote that "the music and the drama is so gripping". The main singing-role is extremely difficult and Leslie Fyson managed it wonderfully well. Musically, the work is akin to the First Symphony in that the basic row is a concentration of four notes and their transpositions. The final scene has an unmistakable suspense in which the killer is met face to face. This opera is completely absorbing, hugely entertaining and warrants a commercial recording. The discerning public would love it.
A fine choral work, Song of the Sun, op. 42 was written in South Africa for the Cheltenham Festival of 1964. The Symphony no.5, op. 43, was also conceived in South Africa and is dedicated to the memory of Webern. It was completed in three months in order to meet a deadline. The work recaptures something of the reflective pieces Searle wrote in the 1940s. Among its finer moments are the nostalgic reminiscences of pre-war Vienna, with their echoes of waltzes and a dream-like atmosphere. Many admired this work for its translucent quality. The Hallé Orchestra under Lawrence Leolard gave the first performance, in October, 1964 in Manchester, at which time Humphrey Searle was composer-in-residence at Stanford University, California.
This eventful year brought another commission from Scherchen: a short work for a Beethovenian orchestra, since Scherchen was to conduct all the Beethoven symphonies for Lugano Radio in January, 1965. Searle was pleased to compose his Scherzi, op. 44, for he not only admired Beethoven's genius but recognized Scherchen as a notable interpreter of the great composer and a fine all-round conductor.
In 1965 Searle presented his final piece for solo piano. The Prelude on a theme of Alan Rawsthorne, op. 45 was a 60th-birthday present for his friend, the theme being taken from the Elegiac Rhapsody. Incidentally, Humphrey Searle had an amazing capacity for friendship and he was always ready to abandon his own plans and support those of his ever-increasing circle of friends.
Lady Dorothy Mayer commissioned The Canticle of the Rose, op. 46 for the Cork International Choral Festival of 1966. This setting for unaccompanied mixed chorus of words by the late Edith Sitwell is dedicated to her memory. Searle's choral music, being always impressive, prompted Grayston Burgess to commission I have a new garden, op. 51 for the Purcell Consort of Voices to perform at the British Music Week in Vienna. Seven years later he was to set part of the Song of Solomon for chorus and organ under the title My Beloved Spake, op. 67. Humphrey Searle did not have any religious views but, politically, he was an old-fashioned Socialist.
One of Searle's greatest ambitions was to cast Shakespeare's King Lear as an opera. Benjamin Britten told him not to since he was going to do it himself. He never did. What he did compose was A Midsummer Night's Dream, which appeared in 1960. Searle was annoyed that he had been so misled but, sadly, this was in keeping with Britten’s quarrelsome and arrogant character. Britten had never forgiven Searle for writing the most original variation in a composite work based on Sellinger's Round which Britten had commissioned for the Aldeburgh Festival in 1953 and for which Britten had written a variation himself. When RoIf Liebermann of the Hamburg State Opera asked Searle to produce an opera, Hamlet, op. 48. was the outcome, and it was to be his largest work and occupied him during the years 1965-68. After its first performance in Hamburg on 5th March, 1968, with Tom Krause in the title-role. the subsequent performances at Covent Garden were delayed by the illness of the leading singer. It is another work in which the music is somewhat subservient to the words - another practical reflection of Searle's modesty. There is no melisma; there is one note per syllable all the way. Yet what the opera has is atmosphere, which has to be appreciated visually. There are aural highlights, particularly the vocal part for the First Player towards the end of the first act.
Writing for the voice was always a challenge for Searle, since he felt the voice to be the most expressive and flexible instrument. However, he treated it as any other instrument and, therefore, his music requires versatile singers who must be "technically assured". In 1963 he set Robert Graves's Counting the Beats, and, in 1969, the distinguished Romanian mezzo-soprano, Viorica Cortez, who was singing Carmen in London at the time, asked Searle to write a song for her. He chose Ophelée, which became his opus 50, an early poem of Rimbaud, not only because he liked it but also because he had recently completed Hamlet. In 1971 the popular baritone Owen Brannigan, impressed with "this composer of highest rank", commissioned a setting of G. K. Chesterton's The Donkey, but he died before its first performance could be arranged. At the suggestion of a friend, the actor Hugh Burden, Searle set an optimistic passage from Donne's Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, which was first given by the tenor Gerald English, to whom were entrusted many such first performances. English had asked for something especially for himself and this Donne setting is dedicated to him. It was the admirable Gerald English who was the soloist in the first performance of Oxus, op. 47. a scena for high voice and orchestra written for the 1967 Promenade Concerts and dedicated to William Glock. Oxus is a setting of the final passage of Matthew Arnold’s long narrative poem Sohrab and Rustum, which tells of the legendary battle between the Persians and the Tartars, the outcome of which was to be decided by single combat between two champions. This ends with Rustum killing Sohrab, not knowing it is his own son, whom he has never seen. The music, which is concerned with the futility and waste of war, begins with a vivid portrayal of the battle; the soloist enters with the 12-note theme that is the note-row for the work. The vocal line is very telling; many phrases, including the final one, are memorable. Here Searle again conjures up his remarkable gift for a clear and rapid illustration of the text.
The Sinfonietta, op. 49 for nine instruments was introduced by the B.B.C. and prefaced by a short talk from the composer, who was particularly good at such elucidations, heightening listeners' expectations and clearly explaining the musical thoughts and process.
For the Royal Concert of 1971, Searle produced a substantial orchestral work, Labyrinth, op 56. It is a fine essay and. like much music of quality, cannot be assessed on one hearing. A recent broadcast under Sir John Pritchard was a revelation, discrediting the savage criticism that followed its first performance. As a consequence, this work and its composer suffered; misfortune again was the prescription for Searle's singular and abiding talent. Labyrinth has some stunning moments and in its many subdued passages there is a rich variety of colour.
The Cheltenham Festival, pleased with their successful commissioning of the intellectually stimulating Zodiac Variations, op. 53, for small orchestra, requested a chamber work for the 1972 Festival. The result was a setting of four poems of Baudelaire for tenor, horn and piano: Les fleurs du mal, op. 58, which not only demonstrated Searle's striking affinity with the texts but was given a fine performance by Gerald English, Barry Tuckwell and Margaret Kitchin. The present writer vividly remembers the composer's profound satisfaction with the performance. He was equally delighted with Brian Rayner Cook's performance of Searle's last songs, the Two Sitwell Songs, op. 73, which date from 1980. Searle telephoned the singer in obvious appreciation. Cook admires the songs, saying that "they are full of musical interest, invention and humour".
In his final years Humphrey Searle and his music plummeted into neglect. Of course, he was resentful and disillusioned. He is not the only one to suffer, since musical fashion plays a large part in this. In the 1980s there were given innumerable performances of music that appeared to consist of nothing but disjointed sounds, distortions and long-winded expanses of slow, uneventful meandering - yet Searle's music is of painstaking craftsmanship. He used to say: "Years ago I was regarded as an abstruse avant-garde fellow; now I am called an old-fashioned romantic." He continued to compose in these years of cruel and undeserved rejection. There is an outstanding setting of Kubla Khan for solo voice, chorus and orchestra, which was performed with great dedication by amateurs at Santa Barbara, California, in 1977. At the Queen Elizabeth Hall in January, 1975 Julian Bream gave the première of Five, op. 61, for guitar, which suggested this instrumentalist's possible change of heart about serial music. An American commission, Contemplations, op. 66, in honour of the bi-centennial celebrations of 1976, was requested by the Clarion Society of New York. Searle chose to set a poem by Anne Bradstreet, who was born in Nottingham in 1612 and emigrated to America in 1630. The poem is in the seventeenth-century pastoral style and is concerned with the immanence of Deity in various aspects of nature. There is a central dramatic section, which provides the necessary contrast essential to music and which tells the story of Cain and Abel. Musically the work is a set of variations, the theme being the opening flute solo. The first performance, attended by the composer, was given in the Alice Tully Hall, New York by the splendid and sadly lamented Jan de Gaetini with the Clarion Orchestra under Newell Jenkins; the British première was given by Margaret Cable, another fine singer, with Richard Hickox conducting. The flowing vocal line and the music's effortless progression are remarkable.
In 1977 there was the first performance of the immediately entertaining Fantasia on British Airs, op. 68 for five military bands, a tonal work of tremendous wit tailor-made for the last night of the "Proms". There is an attractive cantata, The Devil's Jig, op. 69. consisting of ten "imaginary" compositions by Adrian Leverkühn, a character in Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus. Whereas the second piece, Ocean Lights, successfully evokes the sea, the apocalyptic movements are alive with atmosphere. There are moments of diverting parody: Offenbach's most famous cancan has never sounded quite as it does here. The penultimate movement is the devil's jig of the title, and the finale is an orchestral Adagio recalling Beethoven's Choral Symphony. It has a ravishing sound.
B.B.C. Television performed Oresteria: The Serpent's Son, Op. 70, which, like Jerusalem, op. 51, a radio play dating from 1969, offers more for the actors' skills than for the musicians - the composer's painful modesty again. Oresteria was savaged fiercely by the critics and even prompted a letter to the Editor of Radio Times. The musical history of the river Thames was the subject of Tamesis, Op. 71, performed in Southwark Cathedral in February, 1983 by the Morley College Orchestra under Lawrence Leonard, who has always shown a good understanding of Searle's work. Opus 72 is an accomplished Prelude, Nocturne and Chase for four horns, which the composer introduced at the Guildhall School of Music in April, 1980; there are also the Apollonian Whale, op. 74, for voice, cello and piano, published by Whalesound in Canada; the Winchester Overture, op. 75, to mark the 600th anniversary of the composer's old school; the highly agreeable Cyprus Dances, op. 76, and the symphonic suite Three Ages, op. 77, performed by the Royal College of Music's orchestra under Christopher Aedy seven weeks after the composer’s death. The suite recalls music of this century with Searle's usual impeccable craftsmanship, evident humour and skill. It includes jazz and a "pop" song with a jaunty saxophone solo. It is great fun to play and marvellous to experience. Again, Promenaders would love it, but will they ever hear it? It would certainly dispel the misconceived idea that Humphrey Searle and his music are unapproachable. He once told me that he was disappointed that he had not been invited to be a castaway on the B.B.C.'s legendary desert island. "They were afraid I would choose all modern pieces," he said. How wrong they were. He would, for example, almost certainly have chosen something by Duke Ellington. People have been so wrong about Searle and for so long; his musical outlook was never narrow.
His final work is written for two pianists, the Paraphrase on themes of Liszt, op. 78. Searle had championed the music of Liszt for most of his life, becoming a world authority and writing an informative book on him.
Humphrey Searle died in a London hospital on 12th May, 1982. Whilst he was awarded the C.B.E. in 1968 for his distinction as a composer, this justified recognition could not compensate for the neglect into which his work had fallen. He had been a producer at the B.B.C., and many owe him a great deal for the introduction to music once scorned but now admired. The B.B.C. admits in private correspondence that they are convinced that less than justice has been done to his works, particularly in latter years. Humphrey Searle taught at the Royal College of Music from 1965 and became a Fellow of that College a year later; he was a musical adviser to the Sadler's Wells Ballet from 1951 to 1957; composer-in-residence at Stanford University, California, during 1964 and 1965; guest professor at the Staatliche Musikhochschule, Karlsruhe from 1968 to 1972; guest composer at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado in 1967; an author of several books still in demand, composer of film scores and of music for radio and television productions.
If Humphrey Searle's music was neglected in his lifetime there is a prospect that he and his compositions will be completely forgotten now that he has died. His neglect, in the past, may have been attributable to his not being understood as a man, for he could, at times, present a shy, almost inhibited exterior giving the impression of austerity. He often appeared to be nervous, particularly on account of his breathless speech, suggesting doubts that afflicted him when pernicious neglect had undermined his natural sense of purpose. There were other outward expressions of his deep, inward pain. Yet, paradoxically, his modesty did not help him. His care for others was at the dire expense of himself. It was only when the subject of his own music was left behind that he would show any enthusiasm for music and display his warm and generous personality.
Another possible reason for Searle's neglect is probably his being musically Schönbergian and, therefore, belonging to what has been called the "psychologically grim Second Viennese School" that produced death-haunted works such as Schönberg’s Erwartung and Dallapiccola's Prigioniero. His essentially German seriousness was clearly foreign to British audiences and would explain why many of his works were first given in Germany and with genuine acclaim. Had Searle followed in the homespun line of Parry, Elgar and Vaughan Williams he might have fared better. Thankfully, he did not do that. He was a trail-blazer, not a disciple!
Of course, his music is difficult to perform, and some pieces call for Herculean efforts by musicians. His music will also be difficult for listeners if they are prejudiced and have an undeveloped sense of music appreciation. Serial music is the subject of criticism born of ignorance rather than knowledge. Masterpieces, like the Berg Violin Concerto, have been written in this technique and, as Reginald Smith Brindle once told me, "It is a very valid system with potential for complex harmony, originality and creativity demanding aesthetic judgment." Aaron Copland has said that in serial music he found chords and sounds that provided greater and exciting possibilities for musical expression and which released him from the consequences of being typecast as the composer of Americana.
Searle was often the subject of jealousy-something which, for so humble a man, is bewildering. He was always discussed, and even secretly admired, by those who savaged his music. However, there was a hatred, born of ignorance and jealousy, to the point of preventing the presentation of his work. Human nature is "short on gratitude". Searle's tireless efforts on behalf of countless others has not been reciprocated, and some have wrongly assumed his crusading spirit to have been an implicit personal depreciation of his own music-and there are also those in authority, who set themselves up as arbiters of musical taste and exercise their assumed rights to promote music of their choice and to condemn music that does not appeal to them. The ordinary man in the street (if he did but know it) owes a debt of gratitude to Humphrey Searle for the recognition of many modern works now admired but once dismissed.
For all this, what remains is that Searle's best work was, in effect, written for posterity and is worthy of international recognition. Many of his works would make countless friends and become enduring favourites, such as the First Piano Concerto, Three Ages, Fantasia on British Airs, The Photo of the Colonel and the Second Symphony. There are other works, such as The Riverrun, Poem for twenty-two strings, the first and third Symphonies, which, given a little perseverance on the part of some listeners, would reveal themselves as having reached the heights of inspirational, emotional and compositional achievement. Here is a prize-winning composer who bore the brunt of acrimonious criticism, who was vilified for adopting "a European system of composition" and who is still disparaged.
Edgard Varèse was being very perceptive when he said: "Contrary to general opinion, composers are not ahead of their time; it is the musical public that are fifty years behind." Humphrey Searle's music must not wait that long! It is far too good for that!
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