Rutland Boughton

[albion]

To revive an old thread - the new uploads from Paul of extracts from Boughton's Alkestis and The Lily Maid have surely made a strong case for the recording of these two music dramas (especially the former). Unfortunately The Lily Maid was not published (the uploaded Love Duet between Lancelot and Elaine is glorious) but I do have a vocal score of Alkestis (or, as published by Goodwin & Tabb, Alcestis): the entire work has a certain stylised masque-like quality and is characterised by what Michael Hurd rightly called a classic nobility and calm resulting in a work that is utterly convincing. Perhaps, given the resounding success of Dutton's The Queen of Cornwall, it is a project even now closer to the top of the priority list for the Rutland Boughton Trust.

[Jimfin]

Oh yes, yes, please! One day the whole cycle, I pray! The last two have not even been performed, have they? I always imagined that 'The Queen of Cornwall' was a kind of prelude to the cycle, but recently I discovered that it was composed after the first two or three.
     Dutton rarely venture into opera, though...

[semloh]

Yes, I agree these are most enjoyable, especially in The Lily Maid. 

I think the question about why interest in Boughton's work declined so rapidly deserves some consideration. His sound world is one of pale romanticism, full of drama, mystery and imagination, and no less intriguing than say Bax or Moeran, so I don't really understand his comparative neglect. Maybe post-war social realism was to blame - certainly, the public didn't retreat into the spirit world, as they did after WW1. And, maybe his politics didn't go down well? Does Hurd's book have any explanation?

Many years ago, I picked up Hurd's other Boughton book Immortal Hour: The Life and Period of Rutland Boughton (1962) for 60c at a jumble sale. It includes a catalogue of his works and a commentary on key compositions, but it offers no explanations as to the decline of interest - except to say that his politics were sometimes problematic and that he was dismayed by what he regarded as the unwarranted popularity of The Immortal Hour, and that it was fuelled by the failure of audiences to understand its true message. He was rather put out because he thought his other compositions were undervalued as a result - although they generally received critical acclaim. Bax said The Immortal Hour was the best opera ever written by an English composer, Holst was very impressed, and so to were Goossens and Smyth....

In addition to the symphonic works and concertos, Hurd lists 17 music dramas (including 2 ballets), 11 works for chorus and orchestra, 16 chamber works (including 2 string quartets), and about a hundred songs and partsongs.  I do hope Dutton will make inroads into this, as far as the MSS will allow!

[eschiss1]

is that 2 string quartets including the ones from 1923 I (seem to?...) recall Hyperion Records released on CDA66936 (performed by the Rasumovsky Quartet, in F and A major (no.2 on Greek folk songs)?) or in addition to them?) (Interesting notes here http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA66936.)

[semloh]

Eric,
Yes, Hurd lists them as:
String Quartet No.1 in A major, comp. 1923
String Quartet No.2 in F major, comp. 1923

He also lists two quartets for oboe & strings, and four trios of various kinds.

[Jimfin]

I remember an Agatha Christie, not even an early one, quoting 'The Immortal Hour' in a way that suggested that the reader and the characters would definitely be familiar with it, which one certainly would not assume these days. The decline seems to have been pretty rapid.
     Slightly off topic, I have noticed a few similarities between 'Bethlehem' and Britten's 'Noye's Fludde': both set a mediaval mystery play, both are very suitable for performance by amateurs, and both use popular hymnody as interludes. Since Joyce Boughton, his daughter, was a friend of Britten's, would it be too fanciful to see some influence there?

[semloh]

......I have noticed a few similarities between 'Bethlehem' and Britten's 'Noye's Fludde': both set a mediaval mystery play, both are very suitable for performance by amateurs, and both use popular hymnody as interludes. Since Joyce Boughton, his daughter, was a friend of Britten's, would it be too fanciful to see some influence there?

Hurd's book mentions Britten only once, in passing, and it's actually in the section about Bethlehem. He says that Boughton's work is in the tradition of English opera - which is more like oratorio, where static lyricism is preferred to dramatic development - the operas of Britten being the sole exception. 

[Jimfin]

I see what he means, especially in 'The Immortal Hour', in which nothing much happens at all. It's a tedious story, redeemed only by the ravishing music.

[semloh]

I see what he means, especially in 'The Immortal Hour', in which nothing much happens at all. It's a tedious story, redeemed only by the ravishing music.

I agree totally, Jim, but I suspect that reaction maybe what ruffled the composer's feathers, because he was apparently trying to get some message across through the story... I need to read Hurd's book! 

[Sydney Grew]

An interesting article about Boughton, containing much information, may be read here: http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/nr/08_74.pdf

It was written by Bernard Stevens - himself a fine but now sadly unsung composer - and published in the Marxist journal The New Reasoner in 1959.

He suggests that Alkestis may be Boughton's finest work. And he goes on: "After his study with Ravel in Paris, and after he had made a close study of Sixteenth Century polyphony, Vaughan Williams's range widens and deepens without his becoming French or pseudo-archaic. His greatest work, the Fourth Symphony, shows clear signs of the influence of Hindemith and his late choral music that of the Stravinski of the Symphony of Psalms, but his utterance remains very English and personal. Boughton, more naturally gifted than Vaughan Williams, has even more strength of musical personality with which to resist any possible over-powering by such influences and his means of expression would have become more fully adequate for the realisation of his objectives had he allowed these influences to be felt. As it is, his music remains in the period of William Morris while his great soul reaches forward. Here lies the only negative aspect of the moral and spiritual courage and independence that Vaughan Williams admired in Boughton to the end of his life and gives some answer to the question why the rich personality of the man is not fully present in the music. Boughton places human loyalties above artistic considerations; art, for him, is forever at the service of humanity. In this he is greater as a man but less as an artist, in ironic contrast to his beloved Wagner, for whom no intrigue or dishonesty was too mean with which to serve his artistic ends. Here we are brought face to face with the central problem of the moral responsibility of the artist. Neither Wagner nor Boughton, from their opposed positions, would admit there is any problem at all. Wagner achieved his Bayreuth, Boughton did not but might well have done so if he had had some of Wagner's cunning and opportunism. Which is the more deserving of our admiration?"

[paul corfield godfrey]

Thanks for the response to my provision of the extracts from Alkestis, The lily maid and The Queen of Cornwall. I remember a lengthy discussion with Michael Hurd in the early 1980s when we discussed the possibility of a performance of The lily maid and I believe it was given some years later by a semi-professional company but I don't know if anybody recorded this. I agree that the extract from Alkestis suggests a work well worthy of revival if the rest of the score is anything like this chorus.

There remains the lamentable fact that almost nothing from the Arthurian cycle exists in any form. Since this is as far as I can see the largest single work (if you regard it as a whole) written in England in the twentieth century, this lack is even more deplorable. Hurd's book gives no extracts from either of the last two segments so it is impossible to judge their quality, but their Marxist overtones should surely present no problems to listeners today. (Incidentally I believe the two books by Hurd are really just one, the second being a revision of the first.) The scores are in the British Library I believe.

[vandermolen]

I enjoyed his Symphony No 2 (BBC Radio Classics) which I recently found reasonably priced second hand. Thanks for the recommendation here. The slow movement is the highlight.

[albion]

Hurd's book gives no extracts from either of the last two segments so it is impossible to judge their quality [...] I believe the two books by Hurd are really just one, the second being a revision of the first.

Hurd's Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festivals (1993) is a greatly revised and expanded version of Immortal Hour (1962) to the extent that it is effectively an entirely different and far more comprehensive study of the composer and his work: Galahad (1943-44) and Avalon (1944-45) are discussed (with seven musical examples) on pages 323-329.

The holograph full and vocal scores of the various music dramas are in the British Library (MS Add. 50960-50979).