Messages

My apologies for not posting for so long - health issues have distracted me for much of 2017. Let's hope 2018 turns out to be better. I do have half a dozen or so copies of Cliffe 2 if any members wish to contact me (cgfifield@btinternet.com). There has been a flurry of activity recently from UK, USA, Japan, Germany, Belgium with most buying it as Xmas presents for themselves (and why not?!), demonstrating how good it is that though we are scattered around the world, we share a common interest in Unsung Composers. I have always read your views with interest and have a mighty high respect for your knowledge and enthusiasm. Long may it thrive!

I am most grateful for the positive responses which my book 'The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms' has elicited from members. My only regret is that the book is so expensive but I suspect the number of music examples is the reason, while the publishers probably target libraries rather than individual purchasers is another.  My best wishes for a happy and healthy 2018 go out to you all.

I have only a few cds left. Please email me your email address; mine is cgfifield@btinternet.com

Both errors have now been corrected.

There are two errors in Rob Barnett's review, which I shall ask him to correct.  The performance of the Coronation March took place in December 2014 not 2015. The orchestra is not Ealing but Lambeth !

I should have added Sterling's email address -

sterling@mbox301.swipnet.se

Get emailing!

Martin (27 October).  I got my sound engineer to run me off a copy with the scherzo as the second movement and the slow movement third. This gives it a bit more of slow-quick-slow-quick structure. I'm not sure I would record it that way though - what do you all think?

Thanks Alan for your last posting - heartwarming to read.  ALL of you could email Bo Hyttner at Sterling records and beg him to set up a recording. He emailed me his very positive response to the cd and asked me for players' numbers which I duly sent him.  Encouraging but regular prods are needed please.

If there is a P M Gregory out there please email me (cgfifield@btinternet.com)

In my posting I should have given an email address to receive any request for a cd:  cgfifield@btinternet.com Proceeds from the Cliffe cd will go to the Lambeth Orchestra's running costs.

I would welcome more opinions about the symphony - it has all gone a bit quiet after some very positive and detailed comments.

I was encouraged by several requests from my players that we should programme the symphony next season and I intend to do so as a result.

If anyone wishes to purchase a cd, I have a few copies left at £20 with a stamped self-addressed envelope from the UK. Overseas requests please send £20 in cash plus an amount to cover postage and a self-addressed envelope. 

I have been sent a taster by my recording engineer, namely the last six minutes of the first movement ('Night'), and I can report positively even though it's a rough cut.

I am happy to report that yesterday (Saturday July 18th) I finally played and recorded Cliffe's Symphony No.2 in E minor with full orchestra. This was not a public performance, though we were delighted to have Forum member John White present for the afternoon session. Sixty of my friends in the Lambeth Orchestra met at All Saints, West Dulwich for a full day of recording. In the morning we started with the slow movement ('Night') followed after the break by the scherzo ('Fairy revels'); after a picnic on the lawn in front of the church and in perfect summer weather, we resumed with the last movement ('Morning') and then the first ('At sunset'). This was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time since 1902 that the symphony had been heard. It had a life of ten years, having been commissioned by the Leeds Festival in 1892, performed under Cliffe on Thursday October 6th (in the second half of a concert in which Mozart's Requiem formed the first!) August Manns then did it (with some revisions to the 2nd and 4th movements by the composer) at the Crystal Palace on October 29th.

'Hearing with the eye' as you have to when studying a score which has never been played in living memory, proved a revelatory exercise. When Cliffe wrote it in 1892, Bruckner had four years to live, Brahms five. Also this was barely three years after Cliffe's own first symphony which took the musical press and public by storm at Crystal Palace in 1889. Members will know my recording for Sterling, and I consider that to be a great work. The harmonic idiom of the second symphony is not straightforward, indeed when we had a strings-only rehearsal two weeks ago (we had one with full orchestra except timpani, harp and tuba two days before the recording) it sounded more 1950 than 1890, a lot of fussy writing and player-unfriendly passage work with no obvious sense of shape and direction. Adding the wind and brass made (obviously) a clearer picture. A string player wrote to me this morning. "What a lovely day it was yesterday. I really enjoyed it and came away feeling exhilarated. It also turned out to be quite a social event. I hope that you will be pleased when the final recording is released. I must say however that after the first string rehearsal I was wondering what on earth I had let myself in for but after that things just got better and better", while a wind player wrote, "I hope you enjoyed yesterday as much as we did? It goes against all my principles to admit, but I really enjoyed playing the Cliffe, and those around me did too! It was really refreshing to be able to rehearse and record in such detail and I think the orchestra really benefited from the whole experience".

How to pin-point influences...  Well Cliffe certainly was Wagner-influenced (Tristan) but then few weren't! His rhythmic energy is often Dvorak (popular in England at the time), his musical angst is that of Tchaikovsky, who died the following year. Some of his melodies have an Elgarian flavour but we must remember that the second symphony appeared seven years before the Elgar explosion with Enigma Variations in June 1899. 'Fairy Revels' is pure Mendelssohn and has tunes a-plenty which are quintessentially English in character and it's no surprise that it was encored on occasion. The slow movement 'Night' features those nocturnal sounds which so obsessed Bartok half a century later in his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. The opening movement sets a stall out with melodies and rhythmic motifs which will reappear later in the work. The finale was problematic at the time and subjected to cuts, which caused editorial headaches when, several years ago, we played it through at a rehearsal but from the original handwritten parts, producing many a car crash. Patrick Meadows and Lionel Harrison produced a cleaned-up score, I proofread the result and pointed out errors and inconsistencies. I was still doing that the night before the recording. It never ends...

I conclude by thanking those members of the Forum who contributed to the fund which paid for the hire of the churches (rehearsal and recording venues) and extra players. I stayed within budget and find myself in profit to the tune of £18, which will be used to post out cds.

I am assured the music is all 'in the can' and will be in touch when cds are available in particular to those who contributed to the project.  Please let Alan Howe have your addresses; he has kindly agreed to manage that distribution.

Warmest wishes

Christopher Fifield

I am happy to report that, after another generous cheque, we now have £900 either given or pledged towards the Cliffe 2 Project. I look forward to reporting that the last £100 has been donated!

I am most grateful. This brings the project within touching distance of going ahead - just £200 more to find.

Regarding information about Cliffe and his music, there is also my essay in the cd booklet of my recording for Sterling of the first symphony.

As far as I have been told, the total stands at £550 in cheques received and a further £100 pledged, so we are two thirds of the way there.

Cliffe left very little - barely half a dozen works. Three are already recorded, the first symphony, the tone poem Cloud & Sunshine (both on Sterling) and the violin concerto on Hyperion. What is left are two vocal works, the first for chorus called Ode to the Northeast Wind, the other a scena for contralto (actually Clara Butt) called The Triumph of Alcestis. I have a vocal score of the choral work but have never seen the orchestral material or a full score (nor any format of the scena). Which leaves the second symphony and the Coronation March ...