'one can hear the far too numerous twiddly bits'

Liszt: Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themes S123 

Arthur de Greef, piano &

The Royal Albert Hall Orchestra

 conducted by Landon Ronald

HMV D523 & D528

(Matrix Nos. HO 4573af; Ho4574-2af; HO 4575af & HO 4576-3af)

Wednesday 27th October 1920

FLAC file 16bit [91Mb] or FLAC File 24bit [167Mb]

(If you are not familiar with FLAC I can recommend Foobar2000 player)

I have always had a fondness for Arthur de Greef's playing and don't mind posting something that has been reissued before. A few months ago APR produced a 3CD set of de Greef's recordings that included the 1927 electric remake of the 'Hungarian Fantasia.' This post is partly to supplement and advertise their reissue available here but also to test out an alternative method of making a transfer [more of which below]. I don't think I could add much to the excellent notes by Jonathan Summers for the APR issue that can be had here

The 1927 recording runs to 16m.12s. whereas the acoustic version is faster at 15m. There is in fact plenty of room left on three of the four sides so it was not a case of rushing the performance. The month before the recording de Greef had given a performance at the Proms with Henry Wood and the New Queen's Hall Orchestra on Saturday 11 September 1920.

Wood was contracted to Columbia and De Greef to HMV so there was no way they would have been able to make a recording together. The standard practise was for extended classical works to be issued over several months hence the numerical gap between the record numbers D523, issued in February, 1921, and D528 issued in March. In the May 1921 issue of Musical Times 'Discus' reviewed the records in his Gramophone Notes column :- 

'Another old friend turns up in Liszt's ' Hungarian' Fantasia, with de Greef at the pianoforte, and Landon Ronald and the Albert Hall Orchestra, H.M.V., two d.-s. records. The pianoforte tone is especially well reproduced - so well, in fact, that one can hear the far too numerous twiddly bits with patience. What a long while Liszt is getting under way in this work! One feels inclined to say, with Macbeth, 'Come, fellow, leave thy damnable faces, and begin.' Of these two records the first is the more enjoyable, not because it is a better record, but because the musical interest is on the whole greater. But the pair should be in the cabinet of all who want a particularly good sample of pianoforte-cum orchestra.'

I have taken a somewhat different approach to this transfer than others on the blog, the sound is slightly noisier but I hope it is also a lot clearer and more balanced. This 'new process' is a work very much in progress, so any comments on it would be appreciated. I have the usual version of FLAC file at 44.1Khz 16bit but the 24bit version is better sound a lot better with less surface noise, although the downside is it is almost twice a large.

Complicated lives

Robert Coningsby Clarke: Desert Love Songs - song cycle

1) I will await thee  2) My heart's desire  3) The burning hours 

4) The dove  5) The hawk  6) Yellow slippers

Hubert Eisdell - tenor

Unnamed orchestra cond. by Hamilton Harty 

Columbia D1421 & D1422

(69690, 69691 & 69692)

Recorded February/March 1920

Ernest Bristow Farrar: Brittany Op. 21 No. 1

Hubert Eisdell - tenor

Piano accomp. by Hamilton Harty

Columbia D1422

(69709)

Recorded March 1920

Link to FLAC files (about 37Mb)

My copies of these two discs are a bit worn in places but I have patched them up as best I can. 

Robert Coningsby Langton Clarke has almost sunk without trace as a composer. He was born in 1879 at Old Charlton in Kent, now a suburb engulfed in South-East London.  His father was Col. F.C.H. Clarke, Surveyor General of Ceylon (1842-1894) and a writer of military books etc. Educated first Marlborough, Clark became a pupil of Sir Frederick Bridge at Westminster Abbey in 1898 and then went up to Trinity College, Oxford where I think he studied the organ. As a back up to his musical proclivities he also took a BA in jurisprudence, which may account for his becoming a partner in the Carron Iron Works. He enlisted in 28th County of London Regt. (Artists’ Rifles), in 1914; was Lieut the Worcestershire Regt, 1915; and then with the Salonika Field Force, 1916–17. After the war he continued writing music but really by this time his output started to decline until his death in 1934. A bad year on the whole for British Composers with the death of Elgar, Delius and Holst.

Radclyffe Hall  'John'

As far as I can judge Clarke composed these songs containing the text of Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall's poems because, together with his wife Dolly, they all lived at the same house at No. 1 Swan Walk, Chelsea, opposite Chelsea Physic Gardens. 

No. 1 Swan Walk, Chelsea (too the right with the garden)

Clerke's wife, Dorothy Diehl, was Radclyffe Hall’s Pennsylvanian cousin. Dorothy, or Dolly as she was called, arrived in the UK about 1906 adged 18 and swiftly became Radclyffe-Hall's lesbian lover. However Radclyffe-Hall's affection then turned to Mabel Batten, a well-known amateur lieder singer. It was Batten who introduced Radclyffe-Hall to Coningsby Clarke as a composer to help set some of her poems.Mabel gave Radclyffe-Hall the nickname 'John' a name she was generally known by and so I will use this symbolic re-christening hereafter.

Dolly was dependent on John financially, John had inherited £100,000 from her father so could do pretty well what she liked. When John and Dolly broke up Dolly first returned to the USA but was back by July 1909 and quickly decided to marry Clarke. The marriage took place at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge on 19th October 1909 with John as their witness. That they where all living in the same house seems to indicate some sort of interesting arraignment. Who’s Who lists Clarke’s hobbies as croquet, bridge, fishing, reading, sea-bathing, and travelling, maybe he had other interesting hobbies too. Anyway it seems to have been an unconventional life as Dolly occasionally became John's lover from time to time. R. Coningsby Clarke, as he preferred to be called on his musical compositions, also wrote many songs set to poems by John Masefield and W.E. Henley but the only song he is remembered today by is The Blind Ploughman.Something I can't quite fathom is why John continued to pay Dolly after her marriage, she had a couple of children by Clarke and he left some £21,000 on his death so money was not really a problem. Maybe it was a form of control that John wished to maintain over Dolly.This then is the connection between John and Clarke, however there is another. 

John's mother Mary Jane Hall, after a messy divorce from John's father Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall (a great lack of imagination by his parents I feel), remarried Alberto Antonio Visetti a singing teacher with a reputation as a ladies' man, he also made indecent advances on John who thereafter referred to him as 'My disgusting old step-father.' He was a founding professor of the Royal College of Music and included among his pupils Louise Kirby-Lunn, Muriel Foster, Keith Faulkner and Agnes Nicholls.  John in her teens used to hang about the room next to Visetti's studio where students met before and after lessons. This room became her hunting ground for lovers. In 1898 the 22 year old Agnes Nicholls became the 18 year old John's lover, not sure who seduced who, but they became an 'item.' This intense relationship lasted until about 1901 by which time Agnes was starting on her professional career. Now in 1904 Agnes married none other than Hamiton Harty the conductor of these records. It is very likely that he would therfore arranged the piano score of the songs for orchestra. Harty and Nicholls marriage was a bit of a failure and they lived apart after about 1928.

Hubert Eisdell

The only other other connection I can find, as if we don't have enough for one recording, is one between Clarke and Eisdell. Eisdell was in some respects a protege of Gervase Elwes and both sang very similar repertoire, He recorded several other of Clarke's songs a number of which may have been dedicated to, or at least first performed by him. I have not been able to find a concert he gave including this particular cycle, indeed the cycle was not given very often, the first two songs featured at the Proms in 1915 and 1916 but do not appear to have been lastingly popular. Eisdell did sing at other proms, in 1913 and from 1921 to 1923, other of Clarke's songs. Hubert Eisdell was well known and rather me write his biography a thoroughly good one can be found here

I’m sorry to say I have yet to locate the full text for the cycle, I did however find a contemporary review published in the The Music Trade Review Vol. LVIII No. 20, p. 50: May 16 1914. when the work was issued in the US.

Desert Love Songs by Clarke. Brilliant Cycle of Six Song by Robert Coningsby Clarke, the Young Composer, Published by Chappell & Co. 

Perhaps when the young composer [actually 34, so there is hope for us all] of these Desert Love Songs gets a little older he may be unable to write music so spring-like and expressive only of youth and the halcyon days of love. His landscape is aglow with budding flowers and the emerald of opening leaves, yet there is a note of plaintiveness in these songs, a tone of longing. Robert Coningsby Clarke, however, is not a musical trifler. His expression is earnest and his style is elevated. Such a song as "My Heart's Desire," for instance, is dignified as well as impassioned. "The Burning Hours" has an Oriental touch and is full of romance. "I will await thee." the first song of the volume, is delightfully tender; and the last song, "Yellow Slippers," is the exuberance of youth at its best. In "The Dove" the composer has an easy and spontaneous melody with a rippling accompaniment suggestive of light wings and airy flight. "The Hawk" has a more insistent rhythm and a melody of stronger character, as befits the predatory nature of that bird that killed the swallow. This album of six songs, with words by Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall and music by Robert Coningsby Clarke, is published by Chappell & Co., New York.

Ernest Bristow Farrar

As a filler Columbia recorded Brittany by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885-1918) a native of Lewisham in London, I only mention this as I live in thjis neck of the woods, his biography can be found on wikipedia. He managed to produce a fare amount of work before being killed on the Western Front. Farrar is perhaps best remembered as the teacher of Gerald Finzi. 

Coincidentally Gerwase Elwes also recorded this song about June 1917 but this recording was held back until 1921. Columbia was not to know that Elwes would be killed in a tragic accident in January 1921 and so issued his version in March as a sort of tribute. This duplication could not have helped the sale of the Desert Love Songs much.

The words by E.V Lucas formed the third poem in a series on Easy Lessons in Geography that was published as part of the anthology called Another Book of Verses for Children in 1909. A pretty book which a later issue of which can be seen here.

In Brittany the churches
All day are open wide,
That anyone who wishes to
May pray or rest inside.
The priests have rusty cassocks,
The priests have shaven chins.
The poor old bodies go to their.
With lists of little sins.

In Brittany the churches
Are cool and white and quaint,
With here and there a crucifix
And here and there a saint;
And here and there a little shrine,
With candles short or tall
That Bretons light for love of Him
The Lord who loveth all.

'That brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder ... that brute Coates'

Scriabin:  Le Poème de l'extase, Op. 54

London Symphony Orchestra 

conducted by Albert Coates

Columbia L1380-L1382

(74060-2, 74061-2, 74081-1,74082-2, 74062-1)

Recorded Saturday 25th April 1920 & Wednesday 5th May 1920

Lecocq: La Fille de Madame Angot - Entract Act III

Sir Thomas Beecham's Light Opera Orchestra

Conducted by Eugene Goossens III

Columbia L1382

(76569-2) 

Recorded July/August 1919

Link to Flac file (about 70Mb)

The Scriabin is a bit noisy I'm afraid but then I don't want to loose the little dynamic that has survived the recording process, might have another go sometime but this is the best I can manage for now - the Lecocq is much less of a problem.

Although Scriabin's Le Poeme d'Extase had been given a first hearing in the UK under Serge Koussevitzky at the Queens' Hall in 1910 but it was not until after the First War, when Albert Coates returned to conduct in the UK, that the work was given its next outing. Unfortunately Scriabin was becoming decidedly unfashionable, Compton Mackenzie writing but a few years later in The Gramophone probably voiced a general sentiment 'Opinions may differ about Wagner. I am only just emerging from a decade of hating Wagner and everything that Wagner ever did; a hatred I have now transferred to Scriabine. No doubt, in another 20 years, if God will and if His Master's Voice issue (perhaps) a special Scriabine supplement, I shall have reached a final opinion about him.' Not a very favourable endorsement for anyone wishing to buy this set of three records issued by Columbia in November 1920.

Albert Coates in 1932

Coates personally knew Scriabin and probably through the Siloti concerts at St Petersburg conducted a number of his work. When he returned to London Albert Coates became conductor to London Symphony Orchestra at the end of 1919. He had already announced his arrival from Russia with a series of concerts at the Queen's Hall, the orchestra is not mentioned in the publicity but was likely to be the Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra.

Second London Performance

The Sciabin was one of the pieces then played. 'A third concert, given by Mr. Coates on May 6, 1919 was devoted to Russian music. Tchaikovsky loomed rather largely in the scheme, being represented by his 'Romeo and Juliet' and B flat minor Pianoforte Concerto, played by Miss Katharine Goodson, but it was interesting to hear Rimsky-Korsakoff's Suite from 'The Legend of Tzar Saltan' with its invigorating rhythms, and Scriabin's ' Poeme de l'extase.' This latter work had been heard only once before in London, if memory serves correctly, and had made a strong impression with its richly woven design. Intervening years have enabled us to perceive the strands of the texture more clearly, and to know them as harmonies which, once considered exotic, are now becoming typical of Marylebone and Kensington. The skill of Scriabin's weaving is however none the less open to admiration.' (Musical Times for 1 June 1919) Even at this juncture Scriabin was thought by this critic to be on the side of being a bit passée.

Scriabin

This series of concerts changed the course of Coates' career as they where so well received that he decided to stay in Britain. The LSO was then trying to re-establish itself after the war and Coates was quickly appointed their conductor. He decided to forgo any payment for the first six concerts when he was trying to knock the orchestra into shape. A member of the orchestra of that time described his rehearsal methods 'Coates had a lot to give – and he gave it all' (Pearton LSO at 70, p. 60)

Disaster

The effort to get the orchestra up to scratch caused other problems. The initial series of concerts contained a lot of music new to the LSO and this may account for at least one disastrous premier.

'The concert of the 27 October 1919 included the first performance of Elgar's cello concerto, conducted by composer, 'the rest of the programme was conducted by Albert Coates, who overran his rehearsal time [by an hour it seems] at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder ... that brute Coates went on rehearsing”. The critic of The Observer, Ernest Newman, wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself'' (Wikipedia).

I can't actually find a balanced opinion on this concert as both Elgar and Coates supporters seem to be at odds over what happened that evening. My own speculation is that it was probably Coates being over ambitious in his programming and the orchestra not being yet strong enough to cope and things just got a little bit scary. 

To Liverpool

Still, Coates persisted with the Scriabin, taking the LSO on a tour they played the piece again at Liverpool. 'The second Philharmonic concert on November 11th, was in the nature of a personal triumph for Mr. Albert Coates, who likes to remember his early experiences as a schoolboy at the Liverpool Institute—a school which has turned out many clever men—and later as a student of chemistry at the University of Liverpool, under Sir (then Prof.) Oliver Lodge. Mr. Coates's fame as a conductor was clearly upheld on this occasion, when he had drawn up a programme largely of Russian music, with which he has such intimate acquaintance and evident sympathy. It contained his master, Rimsky-Korsakov's, 'Procession of Princes,' from 'Mlada,' Liadov's 'Eight Russian Folk Songs,'characteristic trifles, and Scriabin's ' Poeme de l'Extase,' which was kept to the last and overtopped all else. Mr. Coates secured a performance of this extraordinary music which will long dwell in memory. He certainly managed to convey to his listeners much of the marvel, mystery, and mastery of the amazing score, which requires seven horns and five trumpets, gong, bells, celesta, with extra harp, and organ. It is without doubt a stupendous creation, but ordinary people will find little comfort in it as music. More pleasure, if less psychology, was found in Cyril Scott's two 'Passicaglias,' (Musical Times 1 December 1919)

Ezra Pound having an opinion

The Scriabin was programmed yet again for a performance at the Queen's Hall on the 17^th December 1919 and was again reviewed with some condescension. 'The starred number was the Scriabin "Poeme d'Extase." Here, as in the Korsakov, Coates showed his realisation of the capacities of his orchestra, but the extase is senescent; it is manifestly not the extase of youth; the long beginning is like the prose of its era, heavy as Henry James or as Charles Louis Phillippe, fin de siecle, of an extreme and laborious sophistication, Coates doing admirably, Scriabin conscientiously avoiding the obvious in everything save the significance, and treating one of the oldest topics with anatomic minuteness, though possibly unconscious of his humour, anatomic even to the notes given on the triangle, spurring one to quotations from Gamier's "Carmen." The double basses superb, but one longed, possibly, for the older spirit of English May-day. It is too late to emend the title; we quarrel with no work of art because of title lightly or sarcastically given, but we think Scriabin would have been kinder to his audience if he had labelle this poeme "Satire upon an Old Gentleman," or possibly "Confessions of Trouble," supposing all the time he "knew." We entertain doubts, however, as to just how far his awareness extended. (Ezra Pound The New Age 15 January 1920, p. 175)

Belfast unimpressed

By this time the LSO must have know the piece very well indeed. For a concert at Belfast on the 16^th February 1920 Coates attempted the Scriabin with another orchestra. 'Chief among these … was the appearance of the Beecham Symphony Orchestra, with Mr. Albert Coates conducting, when Belfast musicians and music-lovers had a treat such as they had not known for a long time. The first part of the programme was of Wagner numbers, while the second part comprised Cyril Scott, Liadoff, and Scriabin. The selection was admirable, although there were probably not many auditors who could honestly say that they appreciated the ' Poeme de Extase' of the last-named composer. (Musical Times 1^st April 1920)

On his return to London the LSO took to making the recording. I think the recording has given us a performance both very well rehearsed and still new enough not to have become routine. I have listened to several other performances and the energy and subtlety that the LSO and Coates has given us is quite special.

The recording

I confess I was at first slightly confused by sides 1, 2 & 5 being recorded on the 24^th April 1920 and sides 3 & 4 on the 5^th May 1920 with each session having consecutive matrix numbers. I believe that the first intention was to market it as a three sided set with a filler piece. This original intention was changed when it was thought to try for a complete, or near complete version. Unfortunately a miscalculation was made when it was found that the music for the central section could not be fitted onto two sides, and worse,  if the music was stretched to three sides then the records would look a bit short and buyers would feel short changed. The only expedient way to avoid making all the sides again was to make a cut,  thus a minute of music between sides 4 & 5 is missing, unfortunately they also managed to loose a couple of bars between sides 2 & 3. I would think that these points would not be noticed much when playing the original  consecutively, but does cause a bit of a problem when the whole work is joined together. Still I have done what I can.

Perils of Recording

Pearson in his book on the LSO at 70 gives an account of a Coates recording session from the diary of the principle violinist of the LSO, H. Wynn Reeves. This appears to recount a recording session for the either the 8^th or the 11th December 1922 or the 18^th July 1923 or at least a conflation of two different events.

'Most of the recording took pace in a small room, the orchestra being reduced to its lowest possible limit, and we were crowded together in the endeavour to propel whatever we had to play into one or two recording bells. Occasionally we did excerpts from the Ring – this was sheer murder.

'I remember a series we undertook in midsummer one year, the strings were reduced to 2 × 1sts, 2 × 2nds, 1 va. 1 cello, 1 bass, the minimum of woodwind, brass and percussion; Billy Reed and I were playing into No. 1 bell (or horn), our bows being not more than 2 inches from the rim. The music being away back under the bell necessitated stooping down to see what we had to play; it was my job to turn the pages; woe betide me if the music rustled or if my bow touched the bell. Standing behind us with their music stands leaning on our shoulders, were the woodwind blowing into our ears as loudly as possible; behind them again were the brass.

LSO Brass 1922

'High up on my left was Albert Coates conducting. Immediately below him stood Florence Austral, as Brünnhilde. Coates quickly discovered that some of her notes jarred the bell, so grabbed her hair, pulling her forward into the bell for some notes, and pushing back for the dangerous ones. Try to imagine interpreting Brünnhilde under these circumstances!

'On the right was another bell for the male chorus of six and two principles, Robert Parker as Wotan and Robert Radford as Hagen, the routine being the principles ducked when the chorus had to sing and vice versa. There was constant pushing and shoving to make way, all this causing repercussions on the bow arm. High up was an electric fan on a block of ice perfectly useless as the temperature registered 95° Fahrenheit!'

This was a more complicated recording arraignment than that used in the Scriabin which I think had two horns – one for the main orchestra, strings to the front, brass to the back, and another side horn for the woodwind. If any of you are still reading this I give another note, a brief one, below re the the filler side and why the recordings sound different.

 The very Leninism of music

The last contemporary review I shall give of this composition, again from Musical Times, perhaps best of all sums up the sheer excitement that the LSO under Coates bring.

'During last Whitsuntide [week beginning 24 May 1920], Mr. Cyril Jenkins, who is the moving spirit of the Welsh Musical Festival,. temporarily took the matter into his own hands by holding a two days' competition at Mountain Ash and, by engaging the London Symphony Orchestra to give two concerts in that town and concerts at Cardiff,Swansea, and Newport. The five days' Festival, organized on a lavish scale, was devoted almost exclusively to contemporary music, and among the British composers represented were Sir Edward Elgar, Granville Bantock, Julius Harrison, Cyril Jenkins, Dr. Vaughan Thomas, Delius, Josef Holbrooke, and Dr. Vaughan Williams, the first five of whom conducted their own works; in addition there was music by Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Scriabin (^'Le Poeme d'Extase'), Dukas and others. These composers, familiar enough to every concert-goer in London and in the larger provincial towns of England, are little known in Wales ; so novel were they indeed, and so incomprehensible to the only partially educated musicians of Wales were the idioms employed, that one heard on all hands, both from the Press and the public, that adjective of execration 'revolutionary.' What to us is familiar daily food is to Wales the very Leninism of music.

But not all the music proved caviare to the general, for an overwhelming surprise awaited us at Mountain Ash. The huge pavilion there accommodated an audience variously estimated at from 5,000 to 7,000 people, most of whom were of the so called working classes - miners, engineers, and the like. One would have expected that so novel and hectic a composition as Scriabin's 'Le Poeme d'Extase' would leave such a gathering bored and contemptuous; but the exact contrary proved to be the case. Mr. Albert Coates's interpretation whipped his listeners to an enthusiasm that found vent in a physical demonstrativeness such as the Albert and Queen's Halls can never have witnessed: at one point it appeared as though the complete work would have to be played a second time. It was this demonstration that made those of us interested in the musical welfare of Wales feel that we had underestimated the capacity of the working man in that country to assimilate and understand the more difficult compositions of modern times; and it was this demonstration which indicated that, if orchestral music were supplied with some approach to regularity, Wales would provide the necessary support. (Musical Times for 1 July 1920)

Charles Lecocq

Lecocq Daughter of Madam Angot 

The question of what to put on the 6^th side looks an odd choice. An abridged recording of Lecocq Daughter of Madam Angot was cut by Columbia in August 1919. Seventeen sides were made, the matrix numbers of these records running from 76568 to 76584. Of these, sixteen sides were issued in an album containing eight records numbered L1370-1377 in February 1921. This left matrix 76569 without a coupling so some wag thought to put it as the coupling to the Scriabin – probably giving the purchaser some light relief, certainly this side has been played a bit more than the other five. This recording is a very good example of what appears to be a one horn recording – very clear and well balanced – the album of records where almost all ensemble pieces so other horns would have been attached for these but for the orchestra alone they would have been removed. It would have been more complicated and time consuming to rearrange the orchestra just for a couple of orchestral sections so the recording room was set up with the orchestra facing one horn and the singers and chorus other horns. As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog if you play into one horn some of the sound goes towards cutting the disc but also a certain amount comes out of the other horns - this is not a problem here and so the sound is not as fuddled or unbalanced as that of for the Scriabin.

Eugene Goossens III

The God of Scarborough

Ran off to Vienna for a week with my Mrs to stuff ourselves with cake, culture and music, thus have been a bit dilatory with fluff. I'm inflicting some more light music on you too, but promise some more 'serious' stuff next time

The 'God' here is not Haydn Wood but Alick Maclean another of those all but forgotten British conductors.

Alick Maclean, Scarborough 1932 - Pathe Films 

Haydn Wood:  Variations founded on Durandeau’s 
“If you want to know the time as a p’liceman”
[Variations on a Once Popular Tune]

New Queen's Hall Light Orchestra
cond. by Alick Maclean

HMV D 52 

[HO 4252 af, and HO 4253 af]
Recorded: Monday, 26th January 1920

1 Flac  file HERE at Mediafire. [about 23Mb].

Alick Maclean (b Eton, 20 July 1872; d London, 18 May 1936). English composer and conductor, father of organist Quentin Maclean. He was educated at Eton where his father, Charles Maclean, was director of music. In 1891 he resigned his army commission to resume musical studies. He won the Moody-Manners prize for the best one-act British opera in 1895 with Petruccio, an early example of verismo in England. His sister, writing under the pseudonym S(heridan) R(oss), was his librettist. Maclean was the musical director of Wyndham’s theatres (1899–1912), and subsequently conducted the Scarborough Spa Orchestra to great renown, until his death. In addition he conducted the Chappell (initially Ballad) Concerts from 1916 to 1923 and in the winter months of these years the New Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra. He conducted concert versions of his operas Quentin Durward and The Hunchback of Cremona and scenes from his oratorio The Annunciation in Scarborough in 1920. (Grove)

I strongly recommend watching the 1932 Pathe film of Maclean in all his glory performing in the specially built miniature seafront auditorium of Scarborough HERE. The illustration above is a still from this Pathe short.

If you can get hold of a copy, I recommend the reading of K.Young: Music’s Great Days in the Spas and Watering Places (London, 1968), which has a chapter on this conductor ‘Alick Maclean: the “God of Scarborough” ’, pp.78-107, and much else besides of this sadly diminished seaside tradition.

Haydn Wood

It is difficult to exactly date Haydn Wood's composition although I think it must be roughly of the same vintage as the recording. The score was not published until 1927 by which time it had acquired the new title ‘Variations on a once popular humorous song’. Haydn Wood conducted a performance of the piece at the Proms in 1926 under this latter title and this may have prompted the works publication.

The record names the work as ‘Variations founded on Durandeau’s “If you want to know the time as a p’liceman” - a somewhat cumbersome title that probably accounted for it being renamed. The record had a very short catalogue life. Issued by HMV in April 1920 it was deleted as soon as December 1921 although it did get into second and third stampers so initial sale may have been quite good. I don't recall actually seeing another copy of the disc and my pressing is not exactly in the first flush of youth having had various scuffs, scratches and a 2 inch crack inflicted on it. The label, as can be seen from the illustration, does not have the usual music copyright stamps affixed which points to the composition being played from an unpublished score, or maybe even from a manuscript fair copy.

The music critic W.R. Anderson spoke of the work after hearing it on the radio in his round up article for Musical Times published in January 1941 ‘Haydn Wood's Variations on a Once Popular Tune had long escaped me. I am glad to renew acquaintance with "If you want to know the time, ask a policeman" which makes just over ten minutes of ripe Robertian fun, with the authentic rolling gait of dignity, and an old-time opulence of frame that does not disable the constable from running to a horse-down, a fight or a fire. The piece would make a capital gramophone record.’ I don’t really have an idea what ‘Robertian fun’ means, does anyone?

This suggestion of a new recording was not taken up as far as I can see and the work languished until the Marco Polo label issued a series of CDs on British light music performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under Ernest Tomlinson. The original music hall song that the variations derive from was composed in 1889 by Augustus Durandeau with words by E.W. Rogers and originally performed by James Fawn.

Something from the East

Landon Ronald:  The Garden of Allah 

1. Prelude 2. In an Eastern Garden

3. Kyrie Eleison 4. Dance of the Ouled Nail

Royal Albert Hall Orchestra cond. by Landon Ronald
(Violin solo in '2' by Arthur Beckwith)

HMV D 488 & D 489 

[HO 4496'-1 af, HO4497-2 af, HO4498-2 af and HO 4499-1 af]
Recorded Saturday,17th July 1920

Piano Score 

4 Flac files in a .rar file, HERE at Mediafire. [about 48Mb].

In 1920 Drury Lane put on one of its best and most spectacular melodramas. The bare bones of this ludicrous story that had been adapted from Robert Hichens book The Garden of Allah are thus.

A Trappist monk, Father Antoine, after nineteen years in a Tunisian monastery, breaks his vows and, under the name of Boris Androvsky, goes off in search of love and adventure. He meets a devout Catholic Englishwoman, Domini Enfilden, and, following a clumsy wooing, made more difficult by a remnant of religious scruples, be marries her and retires to the desert, where he and she live an idyllic life until Count Anteoni, himself in love with Domini, comes to trouble things. Anteoni discovers that Androvsky is the recusant monk and persuades him to tell the truth to Domini, who, although she is to become a mother, conducts her husband back to the monastery and leaves him there. Whatever the silliness of the plot the play was a great hit and three films came out in 1916, 1927 and the last in 1936 which starred Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer and Basil Rathbone. However by this time the music of Ronald would have seemed outdated and a new score was composed by Max Steiner.

The play included sheep, goats, donkeys, a white horse, five camels, and a baby camel for prancing about the stage, all apparently purchased in North Africa especially for the performance. Lasting four hours and included a sandstorm, the first night they forgot to bring down the gauss netting and the front ten rows had to be dug out and brushed down before the play could continue. Later in the run  the  RSPCA took the theatre to court over cruelty to camels but lost the case.

Landon Ronald was commissioned to write the incidental music for the play and the close proximity of dates  between the plays début on the 26th of June 1920 and the recording on the 17th of July may mean the music is actually much the same. A first concert performance was given at the Proms with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra on 14th September 1920, roughly about the same time as the records were issued by HMV. The music, to tell the truth, was a bit of a pot boiler and although the records would have had an initial success I would think sales dwindled once the play was no longer being staged. The records remained in the catalogue and where deleted in 1925.

Dutton have issued the second number 'In an Eastern Garden' but the other three sides I don't think have ever been reissued and the only other recording of the work I am aware of is this same excerpt played by Dan Godfrey & The Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra.

Only the last side needs some elucidation as it takes place in a Dancing House in the Street of the Ouled Nails in Beni-Mora.

The Dancing House from  the 1911 play

According to a synopsis of the play from 1911 the music accompanied the scene when a 'dancing woman had observed Father Antoine, and presently she began slowly to wriggle towards him between the rows of Arabs, fixing her eyes upon him and parting her scarlet lips in a greedy smile. As she came on, the stranger evidently began to realize that he was her bourne. A dark flush rose on his face and even flooded his forehead to his low-growing hair. His eyes were full of a piteous anxiety and discomfort, and he glanced almost guiltily to right and left of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to condemn his presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to it. The dancer noticed his confusion and seemed pleased by it, and moved to more energetic demonstrations of her art. She lifted her arms above her head, half closed her eyes, assumed an expression of languid ecstasy and slowly shuddered. Then, bending backward, she nearly touched the floor, swung round, still bending, and showed the long curve of her bare throat to the stranger, while the girls, huddled on the bench by the musicians, suddenly roused themselves and joined their voices in a shrill and prolonged twitter. The Arabs did not smile, but the deepness of their attention seemed to increase like a cloud growing darker. All the luminous eyes in the room were steadily fixed upon the man leaning back against the hideous picture on the wall and the gaudy siren curved almost into an arch before him. The musicians blew their hautboys and beat their tom-toms more violently, and all things, Domini thought, were filled with a sense of climax.'

Well that all sounds pretty amazing.