JOHN VEALE
(1922-2006)
© Dr David C.F.
Wright
Ph.D
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 John Veale at the recording
of his violin concerto
Nov 2000. Photograph by Lewis Foreman
Although born in 1922, John Veale has only a dozen or so concert works to
his name and this is largely due to his having stopped composing twice -
in 1956 for a period of about seven years, apart from some 'B' feature film
scores, and for fourteen years between 1966 and 1980. This may well account
for his being forgotten or, as some have expressed it, his having died young!
His music may not be easy to classify. It is tonal and, being immediately
likeable, it presents no problems to the listening public. The works of his
first period - that is up to 1956 - have a guileless simplicity and
attractiveness which, despite their being devoid of anything profound, certainly
impressed such conductors as Barbirolli, Boult, Weldon, Sargent, Groves and
Schwarz. Yet the immediacy does not render the music banal; it might be
restricted in its range due to the lack of tension that would evolve from
a more ingenious development of the musical argument. Some works, such as
the Clarinet Concerto of 1953 are monothematic and it is just possible
that some may find this wearisome although the comparative brevity of all
the works of this period should prevent this. Veale's sound world can be
lush and often very visual which may subconsciously reflect his involvement
with composing film scores; yet this lushness is not Hollywoodish but decidedly
English, showing an indebtedness to the mystic and modal styles of Vaughan
Williams as magnificently displayed in such superlative works as his Flos
Campi, Dives and Lazarus and the Tallis Fantasia. Veale's music
has a nostalgia both aurally and visually. Fortunately, it is free from the
nauseating kind of self-pity which some believe pervades the works of Parry
and Elgar. The visual impact of his music is very important; it conjures
up the rural England of yesteryear before the advent of motorways and
overcrowding; although the music cannot be regulated merely to anachronism,
it does encapsulate England's green and pleasant land, thus giving it a quality
that is both heart-warming and therapeutic. When we come to the final work
of his first period, Kubla Khan, the English feel, while still there,
gives way to an exotic quality depicting the East as demanded by the text.
There may be moments in the Symphony no 1 which suggests the "wide-open
spaces" style of the American composer, Roy Harris, with whom Veale studied.
All his works are very open-hearted and uncomplicated, the music is simple
in design (music students would have no difficulty in any chord analysis)
following the facile method of diatonic devices. It is music on the surface
yet not superficial and which, occasionally, has a beguiling and seductive
quality which music of a greater tension possibly might not achieve. John
Veale's works are distinctive as they bear the hallmarks of a personal voice;
his music is easily recognisable indicating not only a consistent style but
a composer who is confident in the idiom he has chosen.
The second period of his creativity includes the Violin Concerto completed
in 1984 and first performed in a broadcast with Erich Gruenberg and the BBC
Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986. Here, a more expansive style appears and
the music is more profound - the central "lament" is telling. This is probably
explained by the fact that the work is autobiographical and anger was part
of its inspiration. The works of this second phase retain tonality and immediacy
and could only have been written by John Veale. His admirable consistency
prevails and nowhere better is this shown than by comparing the Clarinet
Concerto of thirty years earlier with the Violin Concerto. The
earlier concerto is in one movement and is structurally the same as the large
opening movement of the later concerto.
John Veale was born on 15 June 1922 at Shortlands, near Bromley in Kent.
His father, Douglas, was a civil servant for twelve years until 1930 when
he became registrar of Oxford University, a position he held for twenty-seven
years. Douglas Veale's mother's maiden name was Rootham and she was closely
related to the composer Cyril Rootham.
As a child John was responsive to music. By the age of five he was haunted
by the Faery Song from Rutland Boughton's The Immortal Hour. However,
his real awakening to music came in 1934 when he acquired a clarinet and
sought to teach himself to play it from the tutor written by Frederick Thurston.
Later, he did receive some practical help from a maths master and general
encouragement in music from the English composer, John Gardner, who was director
of music at Repton School in 1939-40. John Veale was a pupil there for four
years from 1936 where he particularly enjoyed the classics and to this day
retains admiration for Jane Austen, George Elliot, Thomas Hardy and the Brontes
as well as modern novelists. He would probably single out such works as Emma,
Middlemarch and Jude the Obscure as outstanding examples of his personal
choice. His musical taste is also catholic. He regards Mozart as the perfect
exemplar of freedom of spirit within formal structures; he has a vast regard
for Bach but, like many, finds it difficult to respond to his genius; he
identifies very strongly with Beethoven and the master's obsession with form,
his tormented spirit making him a very "human" composer whose sublime art
is almost mesmeric. Veale has a "love-hate" relationship with Wagner's
"overwhelming" music explaining that when he hears Wagner's music he finds
his heart contradicting his head.
It was in modern history that Veale achieved his Batchelor of Arts degree
at Oxford in 1941 but by this time, he had decided upon a musical career.
He had discovered Sibelius and Shostakovich around 1938 and a year later,
had been profoundly impressed by Walton's Symphony no 1. He was also
deeply affected by the works of Bartok, Ravel, Vaughan Williams, Alan Rawsthorne,
Samuel Barber, Bax and Roy Harris. The outcome of these emotional responses,
coupled with his inner drive, determined his destiny. As with many young
composers, he encountered opposition from his parents. To complicate matters
his relationship with his father was never easy and he sometimes felt his
mother to be remote. What encouragements there were came from professional
musicians such as Sir Hugh Allen who was professor of music at Oxford from
1918 until his death in 1946. Walton was also a marvellous help which was
indicative of his character. He may have recognised in the young man the
strong self-criticism which was an abiding feature of his own life. To this
day, John Veale writes slowly, revises extensively and "agonises over getting
things right". His first attempts at composition were in 1937 and were mostly
orchestral. They have long since been discarded.
During the war Veale was in the Education Corps and eventually reached the
rank of sergeant. He was stationed in turn at Winchester, York, Wrotham,
London and Salisbury and, during these years, met Bryan Balkwill, Christopher
Hassall, Eric Fenby and William Pleeth.
On 26 August 1944 Veale married Diana Taylor in Oxford. She had studied at
the Slade School of Art which had been evacuated from London to Oxford during
the war. Being an artist, she designed the sets for the Oxford Repertory
Company.
It was in 1946 that the first work of John Veale was performed. This was
an amateur production of his Symphonic Study. The score had been shown
to Sir Hugh Allen by an Oxford organist, Basil Thewlis. Allen asked Veale
for permission to show the score to Walton which resulted in a public performance
by the Oxford Orchestral Society, conducted by Sir Thomas Armstrong. In 1947,
enabled by a Government grant to study music at Oxford, Veale went to Egon
Wellesz, although he had some "unofficial" lessons from him during the war.
Wellesz had come to England in 1938 from his native Austria, joining the
faculty of music at Oxford University. Veale liked Wellesz but they were
not in sympathy musically. At that time, Wellesz was steeped in Mahler; Veale
was devoted to Sibelius, of whom Wellesz was contemptuous saying, for example,
that the Symphony no 6 of Sibelius was "not really a symphony at all
- just a sketch for one!" Despite this aesthetic gulf between master and
pupil, Veale learned much of the subtleties of harmony and had to prepare
exercises with great care for discussions at lessons.
In 1947, John Veale wrote incidental music for the Oxford University Dramatic
Society's production of Love's Labour Lost, produced by Anthony Besch, with
a cast that included Ken Tynan and Lindsay Anderson. He also wrote music
for Ken Tynan's production of Maxwell Anderson's Winterset and for the Masque
of Hope attended by the then Princess Elizabeth. Another such collaboration
came to the notice of Muir Matheson who, consequently, introduced the young
composer to the film industry by commissioning music for Crown Film Productions.
It was "utility" music for which composers seldom received a credit but it
did have financial rewards. For example, music to portray the workings of
machines was such "utility" music that could be called for.
Lessons were also given to the keen student by Sir Thomas Armstrong during
the time Veale was with Wellesz. Armstrong was organist at Christ Church,
Oxford from 1933 to 1955. Veale's introduction to Armstrong was due to his
father being registrar at the university at that time. From Armstrong, formal
harmony and counterpoint including "species" counterpoint was learned.
The first professional performance of any work by John Veale was of his
Symphony no 1 given in the Town Hall, Birmingham in 1948 by the City
of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by George Weldon. Wellesz admired
it - but then Schoenberg liked Johann Strauss and Webern liked Schubert;
Wellesz's approbation, on its own, does not necessarily prove anything. However,
Sir John Barbirolli personally chose to perform the revised version at the
Cheltenham Festival in 1951, thus endorsing the music's worth. It was the
work that established the composer although he may consider, as I do, that
his first public success was Panorama for orchestra written in 1949
and first performed at the Malvern Festival in 1951 under Sir Adrian Boult.
This work was so well-received that the audience demanded a repeat performance
which was readily accommodated a few nights later cancelling Elgar's Wand
of Youth which Sir Adrian was delighted to abandon!
The Symphony no 1 was written between 1945 and 1947 and is dedicated
to the painter, Paul Nash. The history of the work's first performance is
remarkable. The composer sent it to George Weldon who replied to the composer
from his holiday venue in Cornwall saying that he would be happy to perform
it. It was also given on the campus at Berkeley in California with the late
Kurt Adler conducting. The revision which was to "tauten the detail" was
the version Barbirolli presented at Cheltenham.
Mosco Carner thought the work to be "doom laden" - a most inapt description.
The work is scored for triple woodwind, four horns, three trumpets, three
trombones, timpani, percussion and strings. Surprisingly for this composer
there is no harp. The music is continuous but falls into three clearly defined
sections - slow, fast, slow. All the material is derived from the four-note
theme which opens the work (mysteriously on three clarinets) and its variants,
a device which the composer was to use again, particularly in his Symphony
no 2. The composer's material is treated very simply. One evident feature
is the effective use of instruments to reveal their most telling characteristics
with some very well-judged doublings. For example, cello with clarinet and
viola with oboe. There is a tenderness and warmth combined with a nostalgia
that is neither sentimental nor stagy. A careful listener may detect slight
hints of the exoticism that was to come to the fore in Kubla Khan.
The dependance on the four-note motif gives the work the disadvantage of
the measure of predictability which reduces expectancy. The first climax,
albeit brief, is effective and the Allegro moderato section has many
expressive and indeed, touching moments. It may betray some fleeting influence
of Roy Harris' Symphony no 3. The music becomes more animated and
the strings, which bear the greatest responsibility for the music's exhilaration,
would have been more thrilling if a greater compass had been given to them.
There is a contagious trumpet tune and at times, the music is well punctuated.
After a momentary slow episode, the music regains its momentum with what,
at first, threatens to be a fugue. The horns straining with their four-note
motif is a tremendous moment and has a welcome repeat towards the end of
the work. Fanfare-like material launches the symphony into the final section,
an extended slow coda in which a declamatory style now appears. The marvellous
climax on page 70 of the composer's manuscript is an example of the composer's
confidence in simple, traditional harmony as the most effective means of
expression. There is a brief and strong climax which is not altogether
convincing.
Perhaps it is not a symphony at all. Symphonic Fantasy might have been a
more apt title for this fifteen minute work which has the artistic feel of
a soliloquy no one would claim it to be great music or of possessing startling
originality yet it is completely acceptable, enjoyable and unpretentious.
It also scores from some lucid orchestration.
The Veales' first daughter, Jane, was born in 1947. She suffered from the
awful blight of asthma which seriously affected her heart and lungs and led
to her death in 1951. Her father composed the Elegy for flute, harp and
strings in her memory. This was first performed by Richard Adeney, Maria
Korchinska and the Boyd Neel Orchestra in Oxford in 1952.
A Commonwealth Fellowship enabled John Veale to go to America for further
studies for two years. He obtained this Harkness grant by "simply filling
in a form and being interviewed by a panel of establishment bigwigs". He
studied for a year with Roger Sessions whose music belongs to the New England
school of austerity; in his second year he was with Roy Harris, a composer
whose outlook was very different. Veale was interested in modern American
music and chose these two composers for the diametric polarity or opposition
they represented - Harris for the primitive crudity (almost a counterpart
to Grandma Moses) behind his undoubted originality; Sessions for the
ultra-cerebral sophistication; Harris as the quintessential American rangy
rustic; Sessions as the self-consciously quasi-European oppidan. He was an
exceptionally likeable man, friendly, compassionate, generous-hearted and
amusing. His views on life in general were akin to those of his English pupil
- liberal, libertanian and humanitarian. He was also a humanist - yet his
outstanding characteristic was his unrivalled intellectual power, musically
and otherwise, although his mode of thought musically was rambling and prolix.
He was an excellent teacher provided the pupil's approach was, like his,
cerebral. If Sessions had a weakness it was in his need to be a disciple
rather than a trail-blazer - first it was Ernest Bloch with Black
Maskers, then Stravinsky with his powerful Symphony no 1, then
Schoenberg with his Symphony no 2. Veale was particularly struck by
the fact that Sessions spoke of such composers as if they were scientific
theorists, to be proved right or wrong in their respective approaches. Much
of Sessions' music is denigrated as being uneventful and severe, giving the
impression of a lazy composer who was entirely un-self-critical. Incidentally,
John Veale wrote the programme note for the first American performance of
Sessions' Symphony no 2 given in New York under Dmitri Mitropoulos.
Today Roger Sessions is respected rather than admired but all his nine symphonies
are impressive orchestral essays.
At the time he was studying with Sessions, Veale completed Panorama
while residing in the Berkeley Hills overlooking San Francisco Bay. He sent
the manuscript by surface mail as an entry for the Festival of Britain Concert
in 1951. The composer told me that, at one time, he hoped the work might
be lost at sea. It arrived too late to be included in the festival but David
Willcocks, a member of the adjudicating committee, was so impressed with
the score that he took the liberty of giving it to Sir Adrian Boult who was
delighted to conduct it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Malvern
Festival later that year. That it was repeated and upstaged Elgar was an
historical milestone for John Veale. John Hollingsworth conducted it in a
Promenade Concert during the 1955 season.
A fruitful three-week episode during the time he was with Harris was a motor
tour aimed at promoting the music of the American composer. It included meetings
with, among others, George Szell and Thor Johnson and a performance of Harris'
popular Symphony no 3 conducted by an unknown adolescent prodigy called
Lorin Maazel. Veale met other American composes, of course. He found Walter
Piston vastly knowledgeable, genial, mildly cynical, world-weary and sadly
caustic about his colleagues including Sessions and Harris. Virgil Thompson
was ostentatiously homosexual, wittily waspish and rather superficial in
his thinking although he was a very shrewd man. Peter Mennin was courteous
and friendly and an admirer of Vaughan Williams but he was a vain and conceited
man who countenanced odd behaviour such as accompanying his girlfriend as
she walked in central New York dressed in jodhpurs and brandishing a riding-whip.
However, from the benefit of his observations, Veale is probably inclined
to suspect that Gershwin, Ellington and Cole Porter are the real
twentieth-century representatives of American music, whereas it may be generally
held that Aaron Copland symbolised the American dichotomy - now folky, now
atonal, according to which bandwagon he thought was going to roll. Harris
took great pride in his "rangy" style. Having studied with Nadia Boulanger
this was considered by some to be a passport to respectability as a truly
modern composer. Some cynics used to aver that Boulanger was something of
a racketeer - that half an hour with her earned the requisite certificate.
Almost all young American composers belonged to some "school". Nonetheless,
that country has produced a few outstanding composers including some who
were pupils of Boulanger. Among these it is hoped that Irving Fine will soon
be internationally recognised. His Symphony, which dates from 1962
is a totally satisfying piece of the very highest achievement, a work of
quite overwhelming mastery and power.
The success of Panorama should have made John Veale's name but it
did not. This may be due to prejudice or the fact that the composer is not
a hustler by nature. Fashion of the day plays an important part. It used
to be said that the only way to write a successful piece of music in the
1950s and 1960s was to inscribe the name Benjamin Britten on the score.
Panorama is a robust score which pleases immensely. A friend, knowing
nothing of the piece, on hearing it, described it as a portrait of the USA
in the 1930s with its "industrialised sound" and great urgency. The use of
the tenor saxophone may have been employed to describe the less attractive
side of San Francisco but it gives the piece a mild jazzy, and therefore
American, flavour.
While in America, Veale composed a String Quartet first performed
by a nameless quartet in Berkely in 1950. As music it is acceptable but it
does not seem to suit the chosen medium, being unidiomatic and homophonic.
The Clarinet Concerto dates from 1953, the year in which the composer's
daughter, Sarah, was born. The first performance was given by Sydney Fell
with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal
Festival Hall in 1954. The work is monothematic and while it lasts only a
quarter of an hour it would have benefitted from secondary and contrasted
themes. However, the work is neither weak nor banal. It has an introspective
poetry and a nostalgic tenderness that is never allowed to wallow into self-pity
or sentimentality. It also has this rare quality of visually conjuring up
Britain of the past. The first section is uncomplicated and leads to a faster
section which is almost a moto perpetuo, certainly a toccata, although it
has a solemn interruption early on. The music is playful but not flippant.
The third section is slow and contains a cadenza-like passage before the
poetry and introspection of the opening return; there is a brief dialogue
between the soloist and the cor anglais which is one of the many aspects
of the impressive orchestral colour of this work. Momentarily it loses direction
but it ends with a flourish. The writing for the soloist is exemplary; the
choice of its register throughout is beautifully judged and gives the clarinet
and the work itself a definite sense of purpose. The music is not profound
but is attractive and both playable and rewarding to perform. It is a work
that should be taken up. Alun Hoddinott may have established himself with
his Clarinet Concerto which now benefits from a commercial recording.
Veale's is just as good and has the added advantage of presenting no aural
problems.
For two years up to 1953 Veale intended to research a book on American composers
and was awarded a Junior Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford to
achieve this. That the book did not materialise is a cause for regret.
The Concert Overture: The Metropolis dates from 1955, the year of
the birth of the Veales' son, Jacob. The work is dedicated to the London
Symphony Orchestra who performed it for the first time at the Royal Festival
Hall in 1957 in a series of concerts which, incidentally, included a performance
of Humphrey Searle's magnificent Riverrun. Veale's work was conducted
by Charles Groves and it was the first work he conducted at the Royal Festival
Hall. The Metropolis received some adverse criticism but the Guardian
wrote, "the orchestra appeared to relish the sophisticated evocation of the
varying moods of a large city with the imaginative use of the orchestra and
syncopated rhythms". For my part, I can only say that cities do not sound
as appealing and harmonious as this score would suggest.
The first major film score was in 1954. This was The Purple Plain
with a screenplay by Eric Ambler from a novel by H. E. Bates. It was produced
for United Artists by John Bryan, directed by Robert Parrish and starred
Gregory Peck, Bernard Lee, Maurice Denham, Brenda De Banzie and Lyndon Brook.
It is a wartime survival story and it succeeded as a film largely due to
a fine cast. Muir Matheson conducted the score, aspects of which can be detected
in Kubla Khan, completed the following year. This is probably the
composer's finest achievement in his first period of composition. Some of
the harmonies and voice spacings give the work an ethereal feel, enhanced
if the choir is well forward. This is music of a warm, lush and sensuous
quality. The percussion captures the primitive elements of Coleridge's poem
and the modality of the music gives it an exotic character. It suggests the
ingenious atmosphere of the East, yet behind it stands the shadow of Vaughan
Williams who is, undoubtedly, the finest British choral composer in the tonal
tradition. This melodic score seems to evoke drifting clouds; is easy to
listen to and the composer's intentions are very clear. Curiously, Kubla
Khan and other works of John Veale have an extraordinary capacity to
make one feel better. That observation may be treated with distain in some
quarters as it is neither musical nor academic but, like the music being
discussed, it readily communicates its message. The distinguished baritone,
Brian Rayner Cook, has expressed a wish to take this work up.
Veale was a film critic for the Oxford Mail from 1965 and later, film
correspondent until 1980 which, coupled with writing music for films, was
his livelihood. 1955 saw the release of Portrait of Alison, directed
by Guy Green and starring Robert Beatty and a thoroughly unlikeable Terry
Moore. The following year came Philip Leacock's The Spanish Gardener
based on the novel by A. J. Cronin and starring Dirk Bogarde and the dependable
Michael Hordern. Veale's score is haunting and atmospheric without being
obtrusive; the recurring theme associated with the boy in the film is memorable.
Song of Radha was conceived in 1966 and revised during 1980 and 1981.
Between these versions the Veales were divorced and incidentally, Mrs Veale
died during 1988. As the title suggests, Song of Radha is an erotic
love poem of Indian origin. The poem was especially written for the composer
by David Pocock who, for many years, was professor of social anthropology
at Sussex University. The work is scored for a soprano, who must possess
both lyrical and dramatic qualities, and full orchestra including two harps,
vibraphone and marimba. As with all truly successful vocal and choral music,
the narrative is unfolded expeditiously and with minimum melismata thus allowing
the music an effortless and unhindered flow. The soloist needs to have a
young voice to suit the text and therefore, avoid the legion of examples
in the world of vocal music, of ludicrous casting. It is, for example, ridiculous
to have Juliet sung by a fifteen stone soprano approaching her fifties.
The simplicity of the vocal writing in Song of Radha, which does not
imply that it is easy to sing, gives the work a telling human quality that
Vaughan Williams employed in such wonderful works as his Sea Symphony
where, in the superlative second movement, the baritone sings, "On the Beach
at Night Alone" as if it is almost speech. The soloist's entry in
Radha is on the same principle, suggesting an Indian chant. This reappears
throughout the work, as for example with the words,
"When it was winter round my heart then who has made it spring?"
The eroticism is never offensive either in the libretto or the music which
is highly evocative and sensuous aided by the use of a double string orchestra.
The girl sings of her passion, "sink slowly, slowly on me love - black cloud,
dark king of my desire, my soul is in my hair when your hot breath blows
there and where those firm lips slowly move, yours, yours, Govinda .....
How can my flesh contain such pleasure, such pain, those feet, your feet,
those thighs, your thighs, this breast, yours, yours, Govinda". There is
a tremendous climax - a top C - on the word "screaming" which rises almost
immediately after with the words, "a stranger in her arms and liquid fire
streaming". The composer produces some highly affective orchestral effects
throughout this quite splendid score. Strings col punta, sustained harmonies
and the glowing use of the violin's G string in the passage "How softly on
my throat his dark hair runs on my bruised breast his heavy head is sleeping
still those amazing arms and thighs are keeping the mastery this golden lord
has won". The work is not for soprano with accompaniment but for soprano
and orchestra where the musical colours have been applied with a fastidious
hand. The composer captures the ecstasy of love and its sometime-companion,
of heartbreak, particularly in a doloroso passage towards the end
of the work where a timpani C is played with both sticks and the oboes blend
with the violins. I hope the composer will consider making this string passage
"sul G" - a passage which reminds me of Leon Goosens's apt remark "the oboe
is a lady". In this sad passage doubt is well portrayed while the soprano
sings "Govinda has gone?" but fortunately, this is not overstated in a work
which is structurally sound. It ends as it opened, giving the impression
of true love's unending span.
There used to be a time, not so long ago, when such a subject as implicit
in The Song of Radha would be banned or, at least, discouraged from
concert halls, theatres and studios even if the works were by Puccini and
Verdi. Today, such censorship does not exist for it even allows such material
as the homosexual love duet which concludes Britten's War Requiem
which has offended some in a career which has projected an image of shallowness
and insincerity. Yet, for all this, Britten can perhaps be forgiven for his
inadequately acclaimed masterpiece, the Sinfonia da Requiem.
John Veale's Symphony no 2 in D minor dates from 1964 and is in four
movements lasting about forty minutes. As with Radha it awaits its
first professional performance although Ruth Gipps has given it two readings
with her London Repertoire Orchestra in 1968. Dr Gipps is a musician of reliable,
if catholic, judgement and she and the orchestra liked the symphony. "We
wouldn't have played it twice if we had not liked it the first time", she
told me emphatically. The work germinated from the first four notes of the
extended slow cor anglais solo that opens the work which I detect to be
autobiographical. If the oboe is a lady then it should be remembered that
oboists play the cor anglais. The main thrust of the first movement is a
Moderato leading to an Allegro returning, in turn, to
Moderato and then the Lento cor anglais soliloquy. The music
is eminently acceptable but is not very adventurous. The second movement,
Vivace, is akin to a burleske and is frivolous - but the composer
still seems to be under restraint. The third movement is probably the most
successful and is marked Andante con amarezza and has tragic overtones
redolent of guilt, shame or discovery; the soulful cor anglais makes its
point effectively in music that has purpose and character; the powerful climaxes
naturally evolve; there is a passion which recalls the language of
Radha although this magnificent slow movement is more intense. The
finale is an Allegro which, after a tremendous climax, breaks out
into a fugue which the composer found to be "a rewarding challenge". The
use of this device may take the music out of the inspirational into the academic
and I am not sure that it works as a finale. The opening of the symphony
is recalled in the closing pages; the special material hitherto given to
the cor anglais is employed elsewhere. The reappearance in a different guise
may have an autobiographical or, perhaps, a symbolic significance.
Such music is at the mercy of conductors. It demands and deserves performances
that can judge every nuance.
The Demos Variations for orchestra were completed in 1986. As the
title suggests, the work implies an optimistic view of human nature. The
piece falls into four sections and is symphonic in outlook if not design.
The music is attractive and robust and the orchestration is richly coloured.
It is a compelling piece and very exciting.
Between the years of 1968-1987 John Veale was a copy editor for Oxford University
Press which, to quote him, "meant having to read and edit masses of sociological
rubbish". There were also books on law, literature, politics, art, philosophy
and history. Perhaps the most notable undertakings were of a new edition
of the complete work of Jeremy Bentham, dealing with constitutional and social
organisation and Karl Popper's Objective Knowledge.
The Violin Concerto was finished in 1984. Erich Gruenberg gave the
first performance in a studio concert in Manchester in 1986. Although the
work was liked, curiously nothing was said about it in the media or music
journals, thus signifying it as a non-event which is gross injustice. Had
it been written by Tippett, articles about it would have appeared almost
everywhere. It is strange since Veale's Violin Concerto would have
a wider appreciative audience than any of Tippett's later works. All this
highlights the pernicious vagaries of musical fashion, controlled it would
seem, by a minority influencing the majority to kowtow to the opinions of
a few. This has been the death-knell of many careers in music. The international
soloist, Tasmin Little, has expressed her enthusiasm for "this beautiful
work."
With this concerto, Veale makes one of his most profound statements to date.
The large opening movement is leisurely; the central lament is of a very
personal and compulsive utterance; the finale approaches a "knockabout" sense
of high spirits. The music is tonal, immediate, refreshing, well-written,
beautifully balanced and eloquent. So why this conspiracy of silence about
it? And, for that matter, his other works?
As for the composer himself, he will continue to compose in his painstaking
way along his chosen path. He is contemplating a string quartet and a concertante
work for flute. Regrettably, he regards writing for the piano his Achilles
heel as, in fact, do many other composers. This has hindered his writing
songs which is indeed a pity bearing in mind his aptitude for setting words.
He has completed a large-scale oratorio-style Apocalypse which he
considers to be his best work to date and it is written with that consistency
which has been a feature throughout his life.
Other recent works include Encounter for two guitars, Triune
for oboe / cor anglais and orchestra premiered by Nicholas Daniel who "fell
in love with the piece", Sydney Street Scenes for chorus and instrumental
ensemble given its successful first performance in Australia in 1995 and
the Symphony no 3 dedicated to the author of this article.
John Veale will, no doubt, be stoical about his rejection in the musical
climate of today which is perverse. If a composer writes "way out" music
it is the subject of hostility and he is labelled a crank or schizophrenic;
conversely, if a composer writes melodic music of obvious quality, as does
John Veale, he is castigated as unoriginal and his music as an anachronism.
The truth of the matter is that there is outstanding music in both camps;
one camp impresses the intellectual and occasionally the emotions; the other
camp registers more easily with the ear. All discerning music-lovers devoid
of prejudice will value music of both types since artistic greatness is not
exclusive to one style alone.
John Veale's music would be enjoyed everywhere but first, it has to be made
available. It must not languish in oblivion.
John Veale (left) with the author
at Farringford, Isle of Wight
former home of Tennyson
© Copyright D. C. F.
Wright 1989 Revised 1997
See also John
Veale and Film Music by David Wright
John
Veale Symphony No 3 by David Wright
Lengnick
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