A Thumbnail Sketch
of the Music of William Blezard
Part 1
Introduction
The life, times and music of William
Blezard is a project for someone in
the future. What I have tried to present
here is an introduction to his music
based on what is readily available on
CD. I recall John Eliot Gardiner once
saying to me (in connection with Patrick
Hadley) that it is an impossible task
to write about music that the critic
has never had the opportunity of hearing.
With this sentiment I entirely agree.
Fortunately there are
a handful of orchestral works by Blezard
available for the listener. His corpus
of piano works is covered by two excellent
recordings and will be the subject of
a later article.
Of course Blezard is
not in the front rank of composers.
He is known to relatively few listeners
and often not for his original compositions
but for his work as an accompanist.
Yet his pieces are attractive and do
not deserve to sink into oblivion. The
recent ‘revival’ of ‘light music’ by
CD companies such as ASV and Naxos have
led to quite a large number of discoveries
of works by many composers that have
languished unheard for many years. A
number of William Blezard’s best are
amongst them.
The characteristics
of Blezard’s music are difficult to
define. He is not a ‘light’ music composer
in the vein of Eric Coates or Robert
Farnon. He does not compose for the
mass market: he would not be at home
on ‘Friday Night is Music Night.’ What
Blezard has done is to eschew progressive
developments in music – we do not find
the use of tone rows or set theory in
any of the works recorded. Of course
who knows what lies deep in the Blezard
archive? The typical impression of his
music is one of craftsmanship. Of course
his melodies and harmonies are often
quite traditional: he often nods to
Delius both formally and harmonically.
Blezard’s music can be quite sentimental,
but never cloyingly so. There is always
a freshness that stops it becoming melancholic.
Perhaps his masterpiece (from the works
we know) is the tone-poem The River.
However for sheer inventiveness, craftsmanship
and variety the Battersea Park Suite
is hard to beat. The nearest he comes
to a ‘popular’ work is the Overture-
Caramba, with its distinctive and
completely overt Latin mood.
Biographical Sketch
William Blezard was
born in the North Country at Padiham
in 1921. His parents worked at a local
cotton mill. However there was much
music in the household as William’s
father sang tenor on a semi-professional
basis. After some self taught practice
on the piano and harmonium, Blezard
was discovered whilst playing at a local
cinema. Apparently a member of the audience
was so impressed with his performance
and recommended him to her brother,
a local mill-owner, who paid for the
young man’s lessons.
Later, he was then
fortunate enough to win a Lancashire
County scholarship to the Royal College
of Music in London. He studied piano
with Arthur Benjamin and Frank Merrick
and composition with Herbert Howells.
A further study of orchestration was
taken with Gordon Jacob. However his
academic career was interrupted by five
years of war service in the RAF. During
the war he served in the North of Scotland
as a Morse code operator.
After early success
in winning the Cobbett chamber music
prize in 1946, Blezard was appointed
student composer at J. Arthur Rank’s
Denham film studios where he worked
extensively with the ubiquitous Muir
Matheson. He married Joan Kemp Potter
who was a fellow student at the Royal
College of Music.
Much of his subsequent
career revolved round the theatre where
he was well regarded as an accompanist
and musical director. Some of the big
names he has worked with include Honor
Blackman, Marlene Dietrich, Max Wall
and Joyce Grenfell.
William Blezard died
in Barnes in 2003 aged 81. His final
musical performance was the night before
his death.
A
Brief Selection of Blezard’s Orchestral
& Chamber Music
Battersea
Park Suite Orchestra
Behind
the Wheel 3 clarinets
& bass clarinet
Caramba
–Overture Orchestra
Duetto Viola,
Cello and strings
Kensington
Suite Flute &
Strings
Little
Suite Oboe &
piano
Little
Suite for Four Clarinets
River,
The – Overture Orchestra
Scherzo
Furioso Clarinet
& piano
Short
Variations on a Sea Shanty Clarinet
& Piano
Small-Town
Gladys Soprano &
Piano
Suite
Françaises Clarinet
& piano
Three
Cabaret Pieces Clarinet
& Piano
Two
Celtic Pieces Oboe
& Orchestra
Two
Contrasted Pieces Oboe
(or clarinet) and Piano
The Music
The River
(1969)
This is perhaps Blezard’s
best known work – if it is possible
to say that any of his pieces have really
captured the musical public’s imagination.
When I first heard this work I had not
read the programme notes. I immediately
felt that this was a perfect musical
portrait of an English River. Of course
I was wrong. It was actually composed
after Blezard had returned from a tour
of Australia in 1969. A certain programme
has gathered round this work, which
I feel is unnecessary. Apparently it
is said to depict two lovers meeting
by the riverside and going for a gentle
stroll. Obviously the passion builds
up a bit and the music swells, only
to subside into a pleasant cup of tea
and a scone at a riverside tearoom.
I am afraid all this leaves me very
cold. I accept that it is a romantic
piece: I agree that the composer may
have had a river in mind – be it in
England or Australia. I will even concede
he may have been in love. But the bottom
line is that a programme like this spoils
what is a very beautiful and quite moving
piece.
This work is in the
classic ‘Delian’ arch shape – beginning
quietly, rising to a climax and then
subsiding. I was reminded of Constant
Lambert’s famous injunction about the
only thing you can do with a folk tune
is to play it again - louder. Blezard
by and large uses just one tune – however
it is not really a folksong. The subtlety
with which he manipulates this basic
material is perfectly satisfying. The
orchestration of this work is excellent
with exquisite moments for the harp
and French horn. Most of the melody
is carried on strings which gives this
work its romantic feel.
All in all, I was reminded
of Smetana’s Moldau as I was
listening to this work: not in detail
but just in the effectiveness of portraying
running water in purely musical terms.
Duetto (1951)
A reviewer has said
that this piece is an interesting way
to spend six minutes. And I wholeheartedly
agree with this. This is one of these
gorgeous works that makes one wonder
why it has hardly been heard over the
last half century. How can it have been
hidden away on the library shelves for
all this time? It was written in 1951
as a response to Blezard’s friend and
fellow composer Clifton Parker’s suggestion
that he [Blezard] needed to write music
in a more contrapuntal manner. Parker
is noted for his work on film music
including The Blue Pullman, Treasure
Island and Sink the Bismarck!
The Duetto is well scored for
solo viola and cello accompanied by
strings and makes extensive use of canon
and other traditional devices. The work
is pervaded by another of the composer’s
lovely tunes that is quite spine tingling
and stays with the listener long after
the six minutes has expired. Of course,
this is not really light music as such,
but it is actually quite classical,
if not baroque. I suppose the ‘light’
epithet is applied because of the high
strings which often carry the tune an
at times give it a sort of ‘Mantovani’
feel. Yet this work has some lovely
reflective writing in the English pastoral
vein that never loses interest for a
moment. It is fair to say that this
work is more ‘concertante’ than ‘concerto.’
Caramba (1966)
This is another work
that was written when the composer was
on the other side of the world. Apparently
he began writing it during a tour of
New Zealand. Yet the musical basis of
this work is about as far away from
Kiwi culture as you can get. Apparently
the word Caramba is Spanish for
‘goodness me’ or perhaps more colloquially
‘golly!’ Of course it nearly rhymes
with ‘Rumba’ which is what this work
is more or less based upon. The ‘more
or less’ includes the tango and the
havanaise which, as Rob Barnett has
pointed out has ‘a sultriness that has
about it enough of the sea air to keep
things falling into Siesta.’ The entire
work has an exotic feel to it that is
so suggestive of things Spanish or Latin
American. This is helped by the extensive
use of percussion and of course the
brass is pure Latin American dance style.
The demanding piano part features as
an almost ‘concertante.’ Perhaps the
obvious comparison would be to Constant
Lambert’s Rio Grande. However
on first hearing I thought of the first
movement of Malcolm Arnold’s Fourth
Symphony. For the life of me I cannot
understand why this work is not a great
‘Proms’ favourite or regularly played
as an encore. It has all the hallmarks
of a great piece of concert music that
pleases as well as excites.
Two Celtic Pieces
The Two Celtic
pieces were originally composed for
flute and piano. They were written for
a friend who needed some material to
help to learn the flute. However, after
some thought Blezard decided that the
Highland Lament would sound better
on the oboe. The Irish Whirligig
followed suit. I once wrote that the
finest piece of Scottish music was written
by Sir Malcolm Arnold – a man born in
Northampton- when he penned the third
of the Four Scottish Dances.
Arnold seemed to have achieved what
a generation of Scots composers had
failed to do. He perfectly evoked the
highland landscape in music. However
William Blezard’s evocation of things
Scottish in his achingly beautiful Highland
Lament comes pretty close. It has
been well likened to a piece that could
have been written by Delius.
The nod to Ireland
is equally impressive. The title Whirligig
perhaps is misleading. Although there
is much movement here there are also
some quite reflective moments. In fact
the orchestra gets quite aggressive
in places becoming almost discordant
before the oboe resumes with its slightly
wistful theme. The work ends with a
little flourish preceded by a short
muse on earlier material.
Battersea Park Suite
This is a little gem.
It is presented a being a ‘suite for
children.’ I would only partially agree
with this statement. I would suggest
that it is really a Suite for
those who are still children at heart!
There is nothing trivial about this
work: nothing that suggests immaturity
or simplicity. Each one of these five
short movements is a miniature tone
poem that well complements their titles.
‘Walk up, Walk up!’ reflects the showman’s
cry to the reveller to step up to the
coconut shy and knock one off the stand
or perhaps ‘roll a penny’ It is a cheeky
cockney tune that convincingly depicts
the fairground. The second piece is
called ‘Boat on the Lake.’ It has a
poignant clarinet solo that is heart
achingly beautiful. This is no childrens’
messing about in boats. Rather, this
is a wistful look back to a time when
father was sat at the oars and we were
sat in the stern imagining all sorts
of romantic or heroic dreams. The ‘Little
Merry-go-round’ is exactly what it says.
We can almost hear the showman’s engine
providing the power for the roundabout
and the fairground organ. ‘Distorting
Mirrors’ is a weird piece –exactly as
it should be. All of us remember laughing
at, or being scared of, our altered
images. It lasts for all of 46 seconds.
It opens with a naive brass tune followed
by discordant crashes. Was he nodding
to Webern with this piece? The flute
comes to the rescue in ‘Child Asleep.’
All is calm as nanny pushes the pram
past the tired holidaymakers and dreaming
lovers.
It is hard to imagine that this is in
the centre of London. The last piece
is the best – and most effective. Those
of you who know Battersea Park know
that the Southern Region main line ran
nearby with all those marvellous locomotives
– ‘Battle of Britain’, ‘West Country’
and ‘Schools’ classes. But Blezard’s
portrait is not of these giants of the
iron road but of the miniature railway
that was once found in Battersea Park.
This is the complete ‘railway’ tone
poem – complete with chugging sounds
and whistles. Maybe not quite Pacific
231 or Coronation Scot, but
this perfectly epitomises a miniature
railway which must have been the highlight
of many a school boy and girls day out
back in the 1950. But do I perhaps detect
a nod towards the giants on the British
Railways viaduct high above the Thames?
Discography
British Light
Music Discoveries 2 [The
River]
Label: ASV White Line Catalogue
No: 2126
Composers included: Butterworth, Warren,
Lane, Croftm Hedges, Blezard, Lewis,
Fenby and Arnold
Conductor: Gavin Sutherland
Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia review
English String
Miniatures Volume 3 [Duetto]
Label: Naxos Catalogue: 8.555069
Composers included: Finzi, Holst, Blezard,
Hurd, Wood, and Montgomery.
Conductor: David Lloyd-Jones
Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia Review
British Light
Overtures Volume 1
[Caramba]
Label: ASV White Line Catalogue: 2133
Composers included: Pitfield, Monckton,
Lane, Chappell, Dunhill, Langley
and Blezard
Conductor: Gavin Sutherland
Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia review
English Oboe
Concertos [Two
Celtic Pieces]
Label: ASV White Line Catalogue: 2130
Composers included: Gardner, Hurd, Lane, Blezard
and Leighton
Soloist: Jill Crowther
Conductor: Alan Cuckston
Orchestra: English Northern Philharmonia
review
British Light
Music Discoveries 4 [Battersea
Park Suite]
Label: ASV White Line Catalogue
No: 2131
Composers included: Hurd, Rutter, Lewis, Fanshawe, Blezard,
Bennett, and Arnold
Conductor: Gavin Sutherland
Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia review
Oboe d'amore
collection Volume II [Two contrasted
pieces]
Label: Amoris Edition AR 1003
Composers include Carr, Schiffman. Salzedo,
Rushby-Smith, Josephs, McCabe
Jennifer Paull (oboe d’amore);
Read Gainsford (piano) review
John France
see also Blezard
Piano music
