British ballet music - unsung and undanced

[alberto]

A post from an outsider.
As it is not often recorded, I don't know how often is performed, so I don't know if I may add Walton Facade (ballet-orchestral version). I could see the ballet in Torino some years ago (by the way the conductor was Andrea Quinn, who later conducted in my city Elgar Second Sym. , and later recorded a Raff CD).
The music of Facade (orchestral version) is for me occasion of a little "nostalgia trip" as I bought a recording by Fistoulari on my first visit to London (1967); and , years later, again in London another LP by Kostelanetz (only one suite).
Lord Berners: by chance I could attend a ballet evening at the Royal Opera House, C.G. (1982 or 1983) featuring also "A wedding bouquet". (Star of the evening -and not in the Lord Berners ballet- was the famous Merle Park).

[albion]

Another composer we've missed out is Rutland Boughton (1878-1960):

Death Dance of Grania (1912) - extant in manuscript parts
Mystic Dance of the Grail (1913) - lost
Snow White (1914) - extant in manuscript score
Pandora's Box (1914) - lost
The Death of Columbine (1918) - extant in manuscript score
May Day (1926-27) - published by Curwen, 1929

His exquisite Symphony No.2, Deirdre (1926-27) started life as a three-act ballet for Ninette de Valois before the idea was dropped. He completed the original ballet version on 17th March 1926, marking the score "St. Patrick's Day, and an end of all my romantic music". Luckily this wasn't to be the case.

[eschiss1]

A reviewer of a symphony release of Sallinen remarked that the music (as sometimes used to be said of Tchaikovsky) sounded balletic; this seemed to be - nothing negative, just descriptive - true in some way - if not balletic, at least somehow dramatic, programmatic, unusually narrative - about the Boughton Deirdre symphony (having heard it- quite a few times- before I learned its genesis...)
(Definitely not negatively meant; I was and remain enthralled- enraptured?-... quite taken... by the piece.)

[albion]

What is remarkable about Deirdre is that Boughton conceived it in (loosely) symphonic form and only had to cut 67 bars - so the metamorphosis results in a highly satisfying independent concert work.

To add to the list of desiderata, I'm always glad to hear more Cyril Scott and there are ballets in his catalogue too -

The Incompetent Apothecary, A Breughel Comedy (1923) - published Schott (1923)
Masque of the Red Death (1930) - ms?

Josef Holbrooke wrote 6 ballets:

Pierrot & Pierrette (the suite has just been recorded by Cameo)
Coromanthe (lost)
The Moth and the Flame
The Red Masque
Pandora
Aucassin and Nicolette

seven, if you include the ballet (3 dances) from the opera Bronwen.

Also two Opera-Ballets: The Enchanter and Tamlane

I've got scores for The Wizard (aka The Enchanter), The Moth and the Flame and The Red Masque - all this music looks and sounds fascinating in piano reduction. Let's hope that more will be revived!

[albion]

Just come across the ASV two-disc set entitled Tribute to Sir Fred which has Rawsthorne's complete 44-minute score for Madame Chrysanthème played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Barry Wordsworth ...



... and ordered it from Amazon

There is a companion volume to this release -



this tribute to Dame Ninette de Valois contains the complete ballets Checkmate by Arthur Bliss, The Prospect Before Us by Constant Lambert (arranged from the music of William Boyce), The Rake's Progress by Gavin Gordon and The Haunted Ballroom by Geoffrey Toye.

[TerraEpon]

Just come across the ASV two-disc set entitled Tribute to Sir Fred which has Rawsthorne's complete 44-minute score for Madame Chrysanthème played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Barry Wordsworth ...

I absolutely love this, though of course three of the four composers aren't British....still, I just adore the lavish piano and orchestra arrangement of the Liszt...

[albion]

I've just ordered the all-Arnold Cooke Lyrita CD, so I might also have to add Jabez and the Devil (1959) - slap-bang in the middle of the most productive period for British ballet.

Well, it came in the post today - what a splendid disc it is! I was immediately taken with the Concerto for String Orchestra with its vigour and muscularity (why are there so many great British works for strings alone?) and the ballet suite from Jabez and the Devil makes me really want to hear the whole score complete. I enjoyed the 3rd Symphony (on the Havergal Brian Lyrita disc) as well, but this particular CD is a must-have, I would say.



Oh, forgot to mention, Tribute to Sir Fred also came today (in the fastest delivery from an Amazon trader I've ever experienced) - so it's ballet-mania here (must get the Arnell, Arnold, Lambert and Bliss discs out again as well ...)

[Dundonnell]

Think that I might try my hand at an 'Arnold Cooke' thread

[albion]

Rawsthorne's original score for the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1955 was 40 minutes long. The Ballet Suite arranged by the composer is a mere 8 minutes worth..that is as recorded by Dutton on CDLX 7203(RLPO/David Lloyd-Jones).

Just come across the ASV two-disc set entitled Tribute to Sir Fred which has Rawsthorne's complete 44-minute score for Madame Chrysanthème played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Barry Wordsworth ...

The full ballet score is highly enjoyable - Rawsthorne at his most appealing with strong melodies, bright scoring (xylophone, celeste and piano prominent at times) and plenty of vitality. Unfortunately, I don't think that Sanctuary Classics are with us any longer, but copies seem to be available from traders on you know where -  it's well worth seeking out, and not just for Rawsthorne or British Ballet completists, even though the couplings may not appeal to some.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tribute-Sir-Fred-Alan-Rawsthorne/dp/B0000Y37N8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317918161&sr=8-1

[albion]

[Rutland Boughton's] exquisite Symphony No.2, Deirdre (1926-27) started life as a three-act ballet for Ninette de Valois before the idea was dropped. He completed the original ballet version on 17th March 1926, marking the score "St. Patrick's Day, and an end of all my romantic music". Luckily this wasn't to be the case.

According to the (customarily) excellent notes that Dutton supply with their discs, Erik Chisholm went the other way and his 1939 Ossian Symphony (No.2) -

was quarried by the composer for his wartime ballet The Earth-Shapers ('a symphonic ballet in a prologue and two acts'), which was premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Glasgow, on 28th [...] of November 1941.

Any other examples (in British ballet) of the composer making similar genre-bending transcriptions from symphonic to ballet or vice versa?