Cheltenham Symphonies

[JimL]

Calling Dan Aykroyd!  Bad Opera, anyone?  This is a job for Leonard Pinth-Garnell!

P.S. I always thought that the music introducing that segment of SNL was an original composition by Howard Shore, the bandleader of the show during that period.  But it's March of the Lunatics by Leonard Pennario.

[eschiss1]

as to Hadley/Sainton, I recall a very positive review in Fanfare of one of the discs when it appeared on Chandos some years back. Intriguing...

[secondfiddle]

Only just seen this site on Cheltenham, but in answer to the original question there is a 36-page booklet 'The Cheltenham International Festival of Music 1945-1994 - Reminiscences' (oddly, no publisher or printer named) that lists all first performances by year from 1945 until 1994 (11 pages), together with a list of all featured composers, giving years but not listing all individual works.  A very useful booklet.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, and welcome to the forum!

[Dundonnell]

Even so perceptive and distinguished a writer as Malcolm MacDonald can write (in reference to Havergal Brian's Symphony No.21):

"....it may be this prevailing 'Englishness' that leads one to view it as almost a representative manque of that peculiarly English genre, the 'Cheltenham Symphony': the formally correct, harmonically fairly innocuous symphony in a 'modern English' idiom (Post-Hindemith, post-neo-classical Stravinsky, with some post-Vaughan Williams tunes, if we must be unkind) acceptable to the English critical establishment of the 1950's but with little to offer more exploratory minds. Except, ironically, that Brian was never commissioned to write anything by the Cheltenham Festival. One wonders however (perhaps over-mischievously) if he might one day have heard on the radio a sufficiently worthy specimen from William Alwyn or Lennox Berkeley or Peter Racine Fricker or Alan Rawsthorne (or even Edmund Rubbra....) to have thought to himself: 'I can do that sort of thing too-only a bit better' ".

This appears in Volume II of Malcolm's book on the HB Symphonies. I remember almost exploding when I first read the passage and writing to the author to express my surprise and indeed shock that he should be starting to compare in this way, should be crudely lumping a number of British composers in this way and should be dismissing their works with such faint praise.

To be entirely fair, Malcolm regrets the passage

(....and, looking through the list of works played at the Festival, there does not appear to be a performance of a Lennox Berkeley symphony).

[albion]

I agree - this umbrella dismissal of such diverse composers as Alwyn, Rubbra, Rawsthorne, Berkeley and Fricker jarred with me when I first read it, but I'm glad that MM has effectively retracted the comment.

(....and, looking through the list of works played at the Festival, there does not appear to be a performance of a Lennox Berkeley symphony).

When I provided the listings of symphonies and other orchestral works earlier in the thread I was reliant upon Frank Howes' history of the Cheltenham Festival published in 1965 which only covers the Festivals up until 1964, so the many works performed subsequently will need a further list. Lennox Berkeley's Symphony No.3, a direct commission from Cheltenham, was performed at the Festival in July 1969.

there is a 36-page booklet 'The Cheltenham International Festival of Music 1945-1994 - Reminiscences' (oddly, no publisher or printer named) that lists all first performances by year from 1945 until 1994 (11 pages), together with a list of all featured composers, giving years but not listing all individual works.  A very useful booklet.

I've been trying to locate a copy of this for ages without success! If any member has this title and could send me scans of the relevant eleven pages (or, better still the whole booklet) I would be very grateful - and the lists could be further extended.

[vandermolen]

Has anybody acquainted themselves with this recording of Symphony No.1 by John Gardner (b.1917) -


written in 1947 and first performed at Cheltenham under Barbirolli in 1951? It's one I've not got round to yet and wondered if I should! 

I bought this CD a little while ago purely out of curiosity. I am SO glad I did. I have found this one of the most rewarding CDs of English music I have bought in a long while.  While perhaps not the most daring voice of his time, Gardner speaks with a style very much his own. The symphony is finely wrought and captures the imagination from beginning to end. I am not such a fan of English piano concertos (can't explain why), but the Midsummer Ale overture is a good romp. The style is slightly reminiscent of Vaughan Williams à la 4th and 6th symphonies and the Holst of, say, Egdon Heath. Anyone who enjoys the EJ Moeran Symphony wouldn't go too far amiss with this CD either.

Get it and enjoy!

Totally agree wth this.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I've been trying to locate a copy of this for ages without success! If any member has this title and could send me scans of the relevant eleven pages (or, better still the whole booklet) I would be very grateful - and the lists could be further extended.

May I echo John's request, please.

[Dundonnell]

Albion points out that I did my esteemed friend Malcolm a disservice by suggesting that Lennox Berkeley had not written a 'Cheltenham Symphony'. I wish that I had checked that out

Regarding John Gardner: at the age of 94 he must be Britain's senior composer. Gardner has composed a wide range of tuneful and accessible works and it is excellent that he has received some attention for record companies in more recent years(Richard Arnell and Arthur Butterworth are two other examples of British composers who have received belated recognition in old age). The Gardner Symphony No.3-a short work of 16 minutes duration-and the Sinfonia Piccola for strings are on an ASV cd issued in 2000 with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Gavin Sutherland.

What we need though is Gardner's much more substantial Symphony No.2 from 1984.

There is a superb website devoted to Gardner and run by his son Chris.

[britishcomposer]

Regarding John Gardner: at the age of 94 he must be Britain's senior composer.

Not quite: as far as wikipedia knows Roy Douglas is still alive - at 103!

[eschiss1]

Roy Douglas died in- correction, that 1990 death listing is for a "Roy Douglas Wright", writer in medicine- whoops!. I really need to read more carefully. Skip that... *goes to look further*

[albion]

Regarding John Gardner: at the age of 94 he must be Britain's senior composer.

Not quite: as far as wikipedia knows Roy Douglas is still alive - at 103!

There is a rather moving Musician's Benevolent Fund video interview with Roy Douglas -

http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/help_you/retired/retired_musicians/roy_douglas_story.aspx

[Dundonnell]

Thanks for that video link

Wow..Roy Douglas is only two months off 104 now   Good for him

[albion]

Here are scans of the souvenir programmes for some of the Cheltenham Festivals -

     

1949, 1950, 1953

     

1954, 1955, 1956

     

1959, 1961, 1964

     

1965, 1967, 1968

     

1969, 1970, 1971



1972

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well done, John, for obtaining this valuable archive. I'm so glad it has gone to a good home.