British Music

[dafrieze]

I'm not sure being called Percy harmed the poet Shelley's chances too much.  Maybe it's a cultural thing.  Anyway, I have recordings of music by 18th-century composers named Pichl and Titz, so things could always be worse...

[thalbergmad]

Perhaps it is a cultural thing, but again I am slightly amused that someone called Reginald from Hampstead could compose a lusicious piece of romantic music as recently uploaded in this wonderful thread. Perhaps people like me are not exactly helping the cause of British composers. I would hesitate to listen to music by Eli Parish, but not Elias Parish Alvars and is not Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji slightly more appealing than Leon Dudley Sorabji??

As for Shelley, I did not even know that his first name was Percy. I have only ever heard him referred to as Shelley.

Thal

[Pengelli]

After hearing Whitlock's 'Organ Symphony',uploaded by our good friend Albion,I immeadiately bought the Hyperion recording of his 'Organ Sonata'. I must admit I always had some idea he was a Northerner. Maybe I'd been watching to many hovis adverts,but the name just had this Northern 'ring' to it. Kent doesn't seem like a Percy sort of place to me,but then again it probably isn't these days. Of course Percy Whitlock died before his time,but I wonder if he would have done allot better if he had been a Ralph,a William or a Benjamin?
Or,conversely, what if Benjamin Britten had been Percy Britten,or William Walton had been Archibald Walton?

[albion]

I have recordings of music by 18th-century composers named Pichl and Titz, so things could always be worse...

Then again, one could always organise a programme of Schytte and Scheidt - I wonder why Andre Rieu hasn't thought about it yet. 

[dafrieze]

Oh Fux...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Positively schoolboyish! Surprised at you all.

Worth remembering that first names are prone to fashion and cultural change. It would have been pretty unlikely that Britten and Walton would have been called Percy and Archibald for the simple reason that at the time of their births these names had gone out of fashion. They were reasonably common 19th century names - hence Shelley for example.

Anyone spent 30-40 years in education? I suffered from 34 years of it, and even in that relatively short space of time it was quite fascinating to see how names come and go. Once had a student who would have been born circa early 1970s. Poor lad had been dumped with the name of 'Hendrix'. Very hard to look at him and keep a straight face. Mind you, he was a bit dense. I saw him once ambling off campus, rucksack and guitar strapped across his back. The following dialogue took place:
Tutor "Hi, Hendrix, where are you off to?"
Hendrix "Er, Glastonbury. Ace."
Tutor "But that took place last week"
Hendrix "Oh, errr, did it? Fux, Titz and Schytte. I really thought it was this week".

Apologies. Blimey, I shall be struck off by the administrator. (If he is with male offspring, wonder if the poor lad is called Joachim?)

[JimL]

If Percy Bysshe Shelley was given his middle name after his mother's maiden name, would that make him a son of a Bysshe?

[eschiss1]

...
oi, that was horrible (though I usually think of a late-Romantic Styrian composer and teacher with a similar and similar, if some't Foxy, name rather than a Baroque composer and author, in that connection.)

[Mark Thomas]

Edward, since you ask Peter. A good, solid Anglo-Saxon name that embarrasses neither parents nor child 

[albion]

I work in six inner-city Primary schools and any composers arising from the present pre-teen generation are much more likely to have eye-catching, ear-tickling (and stomach-churning) names such as Chardonnay, K-J, Gage, Delacy, Kobi or (my all-time favourite) Colon. 

However, it would be a grave mistake to assume that this is a modern phenomenon: for anybody wishing to extend their historical knowledge of the long-standing British tradition of giving children strange and downright bizarre names I can heartily recommend Potty, Fartwell & Knob, by Russell Ash (http://www.russellash.com/pottyfartwellandknob_whatsinaname.htm), culled from census records and parish registers - some random examples include

Hula Beanland (born Burnley, Lancashire, 1871)
Faintnot Isaday Bourne (born Rye, Sussex, 1878)
Farting Clack (born London c.1863 - Walthamstow, Essex, 1871 census)
Lovely Budge (born Chard, Somerset 1881)
Philadelphia Bunnyface (Laneast, Cornwall, mentioned in a will 1722)
Fluffy Heaver (born not prior to 1901; died Kensington and Chelsea, London, 1998)
Virus Wheelhouse (born Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, c.1839 - Hebden Bridge 1901 census)
Porndance Powell (born Blackwell, Worcestershire, c.1841 - Sedgley, Staffordshire, 1871 census)
Bamlet Neptune Switzer (married Ada Charlotte Prince, Uckfield, East Sussex, 1890)
Soapy Crooks (married at Bosmere, Suffolk, 1891)
Zealous Faraginous Mullard (born Bedwelty, Monmouthshire, 1892)
Creamaleanouss Thompson (married Liverpool, Lancashire, 1874)

Perhaps Percy Whitlock doesn't seem so strange now! 

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Albion, I propose to all that, without any qualification whatsoever, you are awarded Top Prize for the most hilarious posting of the year - if not the decade. Wonderful stuff!!!!! Dear me, people are going to think me odder than usual. Some of these names have become instantly memorised, and right out of the blue, I find myself thinking of, e.g. Fluffy Heaver, and exploding with merriment. Just hope I don't do so right in the middle of a piano recital.

[Pengelli]

Okay,let's start again. What if Benjamin Britten had been named Farting Britten? WOULD we have taken him SERIOUSLY?

[albion]

Thanks to jimmattt there is now a recording of the first Organ Concerto by Ebenezer Prout, first performed at the Crystal Palace by John Stainer in 1870, in Folder 1. This is taken from a deleted and very hard-to-find 1988 disc featuring the oldest three-manual organ in the United States at Round Lake in New York. 

[Mark Thomas]

Who'd have thought it? Thanks to you both!

[albion]

Further fascinating additions to the archive (and the subject of a recent composer thread) have been provided by jimmattt: two piano concertos by Frank Merrick (1886-1981), written in 1905 and 1936 respectively and played by the composer himself in the mid-1970s. Originally issued by Rare Recorded Editions, these are transfers from the original LPs. Thanks Jim!

These can now be found in Folder 5.