James Friskin 1886 - 1967

[giles.enders]

James Friskin  Born 3.3.1886 Glasgow  -  Died 16.3.1967 New York City 

Now almost forgotten. The eldest of three children¹.  He was a very promising composer of chamber music. Cobbett thought very highly of him.
He initially studied in Glasgow under Alfred Heap and then at the age of fourteen won a scholarship to The Royal College of Music in London, Studying under Edward Dannreuther, Frits Hartvigson and Sir Charles Stanford.  Between 1909 and 1914 he taught at The Royal Normal College for the Blind (South London).  In October 1914 he left for New York on the liner Minnetonka, having been invited by Frank Damrosch to become a founding teacher at The Institute of Musical Art (the forerunner of the Julliard School) where he spent most of his working life. In 1939 he was joined in New York by his widowed mother. He had a parallel career as a recitalist.  In 1944 he met by chance the composer Rebecca Thatcher Clarke (1886-1979) with whom he had been at college and they married soon after.

Orchestral

Concert Overture
Suite in D minor
Piano Concerto  presumed lost
Romance for violin and orchestra

Chamber

Piano quintet in C minor  Op.1  1907  Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Phantasy quintet for piano and strings  1912  Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Piano quartet in G minor 
Phantasy for piano trio in E minor  Pub. by Novello
Phantasy for string quartet in D.   winner of a Cobbett prize  1906  Pub. by Novello
Violin sonata in G major  Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Romance for violin and piano
Cello sonata in F major
Impromptu for cello and piano   Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Romance for cello and piano   Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Scherzo for cello and piano   Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Elegy for viola or clarinet and piano  1912  Pub. by Stainer & Bell

Piano

Ballade in C major   Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Nocturne in E flat   Pub. by Stainer & Bell
Sonata in A minor
Three pieces   Pub. by Stainer & Bell

Vocal

Three sacred motets for five part chorus, unaccompanied.  pub. by Stainer & Bell

1.
James Friskin  1886-1967
William Frederick Friskin 1888-1966
Catherine Friskin  1891-1977



If any one has information about the piano concerto which was left in manuscript, I would like to hear from them.

[dafrieze]

Is a "mutet" a very, very quiet choral piece?

[Alan Howe]

No, it's totally silent 

[Gareth Vaughan]

If any one knows the whereabouts of the piano concerto which was left in manuscript, I would like to know.

So would I. Could it be at the Juilliard?

[eschiss1]

... oh, so that's why when I look Friskin up in the Molcat.BL catalog the entries I get are mostly "Friskin, Rebecca née Clarke"- I'd entirely forgotten about that (I think I knew or anyway read it at one point...)

The description of the archive of Friskin's teacher Dannreuther does say that it has some manuscript music of his, but not what.

[eschiss1]

Re the piano concerto, is there any account of its having been performed, anything other than the MusicWeb article?

(Hrm. checked SMC - they have 39 items of his, not sure if any of them are ms. unpublished, none seem to be for piano and orchestra though.)

[Gareth Vaughan]

Peter Horton, Deputy Librarian at the RCM, assures me the Piano Concerto is not among the Dannreuther papers. He suggests the Rebecca Clarke Archive.

[semloh]

There is a Nimbus disc devoted to Friskin's chamber work, and there are many excellent reviews available. The only weakness is generally said to be the playing of the normally reliable Rasumovsky Quartet, and it seems worth considering in order to hear something by Friskin.

He also features on YouTube, playing Bach, mostly in what seemed to me to be a lush, rather romantic style. I particularly like his account of the Goldberg Variations.  Oh to hear that missing Piano Concerto!