Britain’s forgotten genius

Thanks to pressure from Edward Elgar the Three Choirs Festival of Britain offered Samuel Coleridge-Taylor his first commission in 1898, launching his career. The work produced by the 19-year-old in response to this opportunity was his Ballade for orchestra Op.33. It’s a youthful work, full of wonderful high-spirits, passion and warmth, and with tenderness and pathos too. Above all, the expression is genuine and the work is a harbinger of what might come, given time and opportunity. Prior to its first performance, following a rehearsal of the work in London’s Queen’s Hall on a very hot summer afternoon in 1898, with the composer himself conducting, Coleridge-Taylor was surprised and delighted when following sustained applause from the orchestral players he noticed two gentlemen coming forward to offer him a warm handshake for his achievement. They were Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir Hubert Parry (at the time two of England’s most well known composers).

That same year, 1898, Coleridge-Taylor would write Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast, his most popular work, sealing his future. But today his legacy is still undefined, partly because the successful trilogy of Hiawatha cantatas has overshadowed the rest of his large output, and partly because his tragically early death robbed the music world of a still developing talent. Most importantly the seriousness of his musical expression seems to have been overshadowed by the exaggerated success of Hiawatha as an entertainment piece on the one hand, and the popularity of some of his lighter works on the other. Coleridge-Taylor is a composer in the tradition of Dvořák and Elgar, and his music is sincere and deeply emotional (and not as sentimental as it is sometimes played). The composer’s ‘ideal’ is as far removed as it is possible to get from the contemporary musical trends that were sweeping Europe in France (Debussy) and Germany (Schoenberg) as well as America (ragtime and early jazz) at the beginning of the 20th century. In his lifetime Coleridge-Taylor survived (and even triumphed against) the huge obstacle of being the only black classical composer in a white man's world. Today his legacy faces another massive challenge, this time for ‘idealistic’ reasons, because his music is not (by some critics) seen as fitting in to the expected pigeon holes of early 20th century composition. Coleridge-Taylor was brought up in the European tradition of classical symphonic form as represented by Schumann and Brahms, a great tradition in which he felt completely at home and fully able to express himself. Later in life he began to express a stronger desire to develop the African side of his heritage in his music (hoping to mirror Dvořák's interest in his Bohemian roots, or Grieg’s interest in Nordic culture) but it was still within the framework of his European upbringing. His published letters and essays on music demonstrate his profound thoughts on the state of music in the world, and confirm his idealistic musical approach:

"...few recent compositions really move one - though many of them astonish. It seems as if the composers would wish to be classed with the flying man in his endeavours to 'go one better' than the last, somehow or other, and in many ways much of the music of the period reminds one of the automobile and the airship. It is daring, clever, complex, and utterly mechanical. The question is: should an imaginative Art follow such lines? Should it not rather come from the heart as well as the brain? Of course, a fine technical equipment is a very desirable thing, and nothing of worth can be accomplished without it; but should 'What do you think of my cleverness?' be stamped so aggressively over nearly every score that we hear? The lack of human passion in English music may be (personally I think IS) merely transitory. It is being pushed aside only while the big technical Dreadnought is in its most engrossing stage of development. Soon the builders will have the time to love again - when the turmoil is hushed somewhat - to give the world a few tender and personal touches amidst the strife, which will 'make us feel again also.' "

[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: "Is Technique Strangling Beauty"
published in the magazine 'The Etude', January, 1911]

Those words have even more meaning today than when they were written 100 years ago. What on earth would Coleridge-Taylor make of Stockhausen, Boulez, and others (talk about 'What do you think of my cleverness?'). Sadly Coleridge-Taylor's admirable optimism turned out to be misplaced.

Coleridge-Taylor’s early death at 37 has left the music world today unsure of how to estimate his talent. Do we judge it for what it was, or what it promised? And it promised a great deal. I am of the strong opinion that we have been robbed of a truly great composer by his early death (had Elgar died at the same age he would have been but a foot note in musical history). Listening to the early Ballade Op.33 it is not an exaggeration to say 19-year-old Coleridge-Taylor was showing more promise than Elgar at the same age (no wonder Elgar was so excited by Coleridge-Taylor's talent). It's also worth remembering, when Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade sounds 'Elgarian' in places, that Elgar had yet to fully develop his own style (having not yet penned the work that would put him on the musical map, the Enigma Variations, let alone works such as his Symphonies and Concertos).

Coleridge-Taylor once said “I want to be nothing in the world except what I am – a musician”. Nevertheless it's impossible to ignore the aspect of his race given the climate of the times he grew up in. Fortunately he encountered few obstacles in his career in England, where the establishment was by and large on his side and within his lifetime he achieved considerable fame and adulation. Of course it would have been a very different story in the United States, and his three visits to the US (in 1904, 1906 and 1910) helped to politicize him, as he witnessed the horrors of institutionalized racism first hand. Before visiting America for the first time in 1904 Coleridge-Taylor had prepared himself for the prejudice he expected to encounter, while at the same time telling his American hosts (the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, an all black choir founded in his honour) that if they could endure these things, so could he. But he insisted there should be an orchestra available for all his US concerts, which by necessity meant he would be conducting white musicians (something that had never been a problem in England, but in the States it was a different matter). When it came down to it only two white Americans walked out on him, letting it be known that it was beneath them to be conducted by a black man! Other examples of racism were encountered, such as the refusal of the New York printer to put his name in the programmes once it was discovered that Coleridge-Taylor was black! But none of this prevented the tour from being anything but a great success, and Coleridge-Taylor was feted by both black and white Americans, was treated as a star wherever he went and hailed as the 'black Mahler', was even invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt (who made a good impression on him in his attitude to race) and most importantly, he was embraced by the black community in America as a hero to be placed alongside Frederick Douglass. But Coleridge-Taylor was still shocked by what he saw in the States, particularly some of the conditions endured by black Americans (he describes in his letters the segregation south of Washington, the way people are thrown out of railway carriages, etc.). As a musician Coleridge-Taylor may have had his head in the clouds, but as a person of mixed race living in a predominately white environment he was not under any illusions politically, nor was he anything but proud of his African heritage, and happily joined forces with the likes of W. E. B. Du Bois (author of 'The Souls of Black Folk', a book Coleridge-Taylor devoured as soon as it was published in 1904) and the black American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar who he had met in London in 1896. Coleridge-Taylor played an active role in the Pan African conference in London in 1900 (a conference aimed at demonstrating to European governments the evil of colonization and racism in Africa and the West Indies, promoting the cause of self-government in the colonies, and demanding political and civil rights for African Americans). Coleridge-Taylor was an avid reader, but away from politics he would much rather spend his time reading poetry, about which he was extremely knowledgeable. He also had a tremendous passion for the countryside and wildlife, and whenever he could he would take advantage of the beautiful country walks around where he lived south of London (it wasn't built up in those days and must have been exquisite). As with many composers his long walks seemed to help him find musical ideas. He would also write down (in his music note books) particular bird songs that fascinated him. It goes without saying that he was a devout family man, and many people commented on the particularly close relationship he enjoyed with his daughter Gwendolen [the video at the foot of this blog contains many beautiful photographs of his family].

It would be naïve to assume from all the above that all was idyllic in England and that Coleridge-Taylor didn't encounter racism in his native country; he did, and stories from his daughter make painful and distressing reading today. Most distressing for him was the fact that his (Caucasian) wife Jessie was also a target of abuse. Jessie was the love of his life, he having courted her against mild opposition from her family, finally winning her parents over and receiving their blessing for the union (they married in 1899). But daily life still contained many trials, even with his increasing success. His daughter Gwen records his response to the groups of local youths who would repeatedly shower him with insulting comments about the colour of his skin: “When he saw them approaching along the street he held my hand more tightly, gripping it until it almost hurt".

All that I have read about Coleridge-Taylor shows that not only was he a remarkable musician, he was also a remarkable human being, with not an ounce of malice or hatred to those who abused him. Perhaps if he had lived longer he would have become more active in politics and civil rights. He tended to be shy in character, but he was confident of his musical abilities and he lived more than anything else for his music. Coleridge-Taylor had been a workaholic all his life, his wife saying that he couldn't bear inactivity. The thought of leaving this world while still so young was clearly a huge torment for him (judging from the desperate comments he said to Jessie in the last bed-ridden days of his life) not because of a fear of death, but because of the awareness that he still had so much to say. On the day he died, September 1st 1912, he insisted on looking through his recently completed Violin Concerto, checking the parts and trying to conduct portions of the piece before he finally collapsed. It's a sobering tale today, when so many people sit out half their lives in passive gaze at a television screen.

In the end Coleridge-Taylor's talents transcend both race and epoch: it's time that musicians looked anew at his familiar name and delved a little further beneath the surface of his music, and away from the 'light music' image that has unfairly dogged him for years. His reputation is beginning to grow again, particularly in the United States where the colour of his skin is now an inspiration to a whole new generation of musicians. But when all is said and done, in the words of Coleridge-Taylor scholar Dr Catherine Carr, "the significance of his worth as a composer was over and above such elements as colour, race, gender etc.”.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Ballade for orchestra Op.33 (1898)
played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Grant Llewellyn

An English composer who burned out too soon...

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of England's most promising composers. Born in London in 1875 his remarkable musical talent emerged very quickly, the violin becoming his main instrument as a child. While a student at the Royal College of Music in London he began composing works that to this day are regarded as beautiful and skillful compositions. Having already caught the attention of composers such as Sullivan and Stanford his big break came when the composer Elgar began supporting his talent, convincing the Three Choirs Festival to commission the young composer. Coleridge-Taylor went on to achieve enormous popularity in the UK for his series of 3 cantatas, 'The Song of Hiawatha' (a setting of Longfellow's poem) while at the same time writing music for the concert hall and theater, and becoming a professor of composition at London's Trinity College of Music and Guildhall School of Music.

Yet he never had the chance to fully develop his remarkable talent. He died tragically young from pneumonia complicated by exhaustion from overwork, at the age of just 37. In the last months of his life he had completed a violin concerto which he never lived to hear, and which showed a new maturity and sense of expression in his style which was never fulfilled. His early death was a huge loss to the musical life of Great Britain, and a potentially important voice had been silenced at a crucial time in classical music as the philosophy of Schoenbergian theory, which would eventually destroy the careers of many composers with outlooks similar to Coleridge-Taylor's, was beginning to emerge.

Despite Coleridge-Taylor's enormous popularity in Britain (for many years hardly a school or college missed the opportunity of performing his Song of Hiawatha) his talent is still undervalued today, with many of his works still awaiting their first recordings. Coleridge-Taylor himself made very little money from his success, having sold the royalty of his Hiawatha trilogy to his publishers for a small one-off payment. The circumstances of his death, leaving behind an impoverished family (for whom King George V took the unusual step of awarding an annual pension) contributed greatly to the subsequent adoption of a system of royalties for composers in the UK.

A short tribute to the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) with contributions from his daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor (recorded in 1974), and excerpts from Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast, The Death of Minnehaha and the Violin Concerto, Op.80.

Brain food

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart was born this day, 27 January, 257 years ago. His incomparable music continues to inspire long after his short (and largely unappreciated) life ended.

Just over 231 years ago Mozart and Josepha von Auernhammer gave the first performance of Mozart's Sonata for 2 pianos K.448 in Vienna. In 1993 two less intelligent people at the University of California conducted an experiment that concluded that listening to this piece for 10 minutes was better for the brain than listening to a piece of rubbish, or nothing, for 10 minutes - duh! (and so began the craze for making babies listen to Mozart!). So go ahead, listen, and improve your IQ right now. And read on for a little bit more fun...

[Mozart Sonata for two pianos K.448 (1st movement
played by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Malcolm Frager,
written and first performed in 1781 (1964 recording)]
... below is Mozart's highly unflattering portrait of Josepha von Auernhammer (who apparently had a huge crush on the 25 year old Mozart):

22 August, 1781
Vienna
Dear Friend
You may be surprised to know that I am getting married! Well let me tell you - when I walk down the street and hear this news - so am I! It seems that once again gossip is spreading across town. This time that I am to be married to one of my pupils - do you recall my student Fraulein Auernhammer? - and everywhere people are asking why would he take someone with a face like hers? Truly this is no idle comment... Michelangelo himself would have used her face as a model to portray the visage of hell in his Last Judgement! She is as fat as a farm pig and perspires so readily that it makes one quite sick to think about. To make matters worse, she dresses so scantily as to say plainly "look right here". True, there is plenty to see - but who would want to look! The sight is enough to strike one blind! One is truly punished if they let their eye wander! Let me assure you that there is no truth in the rumour - though it seems that the poor girl has fallen in love, longing, lust with me, and impresses herself on me at every occasion in an attempt to be attractive! She hogs my day and makes me squeeze next to her at the piano going over some tedious fingering. When I confronted her about these rumours she denied it with a laugh - but I know for a fact that she herself is responsible for spreading them. And I have it from a reliable source that she has even embellished our post wedding plans!!!!! Eventually I got mad at her and thus had to endure her tender reproaches. What is a poor composer to do? Though she has much promise as a pianist I will not be taken advantage of and I have resolved to see her less and less - so hopefully this thing will eventually die. All this after I have dedicated to her a set of sonatas and had Papa send from Salzburg some of my piano duets for us to play (though only ones written for 2 pianos for sure we could not play together on one!). Now I must rest. Relaying my trials exhausts me as much as if I had to endure them again in the flesh. Pray for me that I am not beset by nightmares. Good night dear friend - 1000 wishes to you and your family.
W. Mozart

Memories of 2012

A look back at some of the musical highlights of 2012 as posted on my Facebook page

January:

Welcomed in 2012 with a performance of Rhapsody in Blue with the last chord of the work being struck on the first stroke of midnight at the beginning of the new year (thanks to friends in Ireland who first persuaded me to do this fun stunt many moons ago).

[Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, played by Jack Gibbons and transcribed by Gibbons from Gershwin's 1925 piano roll recording]
February:

Finally fulfilled a long held promise to Edward Jablonski to set some of Edna St Vincent Millay's beautiful poems to music

Immerse the dream.
Drench the kiss.
Dip the song in the stream.

[Edna St Vincent Millay, Vassar College 1914,
photo by Arnold Genthe]
March:

Attempting to justify reaching the milestone age of 50 on March 2, I turned down all invitations to celebrate and instead spent a week in self-imposed isolation in order to complete this piece.

[Gibbons: Nocturne in B flat minor, Op.93,
completed 13 March 2012]
April:

With a feeling of spring in the air this piano duet (with its deliberately easier top part for younger piano students) was finished in the early hours of the first day of the month.

[Gibbons: Song Prelude, Op.94, completed 31 March/1 April 2012]
May:

Began a new series of pre-summer concerts ('Halliehurst Classics Piano Series') at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia which hopefully will become an annual event, the first concert being entitled "Beethoven - troubled genius".

[Beethoven: Moonlight sonata, opening movement, Adagio sostenuto, played by Jack Gibbons, recorded live, Oxford, England, 15 July 2007]
June:

A visit to America's historic triangle (Jamestowne, Williamsburg and Yorktown), as well as Monticello, inspired me to become immersed in American history, find out a little more about the authentic music of that momentous period, and enjoy a rare opportunity to escape the bustle and 'noise pollution' of the 21st century.

[Exploring America's historic triangle: authentic music from the era of America's founding and early history, accompanied by slides and video from Jamestowne, Williamsburg, Yorktown and Monticello.]
July:

A novel way of advertising my 25th annual Oxford Summer Piano Series.

[The Beast with Ten Fingers: trailer for Gibbons' 25th annual Oxford Summer Piano Series, 2012.]
August:

Celebrated Debussy's 150th birthday (and my 50th) on August 22 in a joint Debussy/Gibbons concert during my 25th annual Oxford Summer Piano Series.

[Debussy: Prelude 'La cathédrale engloutie', played by Jack Gibbons, recorded live, Oxford, England, 22 August 2012.]
September:

Performed on Gershwin's birthday, September 26, at the Lincoln Center, Washington DC, on behalf of Davis & Elkins College, including in the concert the world premiere of my transcription of this recently discovered Gershwin performance recorded in 1934.

[Gershwin plays My Cousin in Milwaukee: rare recording, recently discovered and preserved by Peter Mintun, of Gershwin's April 9 1934 'Music by Gershwin' radio broadcast, recorded off the air thanks to jazz harpist Casper Reardon, who appears with Gershwin in this broadcast.]
October:

Discovered this recording of Brahms playing Josef Strauss's Polka-Mazurka 'Die Libelle' ('The Dragonfly'). On 2 December 1889 Brahms recorded two pieces on an Edison cylinder: a short version of his Hungarian Dance no.1 and an extract from Josef Strauss's Polka-Mazurka 'Die Libelle' Op.204. The voices of both Brahms and the engineer, Theo Wangeman, can be heard at the beginning of these remarkable historic recordings (as later documented by the son of Dr Fellinger, at whose Viennese house the recording session took place). The following video contains 4 versions of each piece of music, to help decipher the sound on what are now extremely deteriorated, though remarkable, recordings.

[An audio aid to deciphering the famous 1889 Brahms recordings.]
November:

Just a few days after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy I came across this unpublished recording from my archives of the soprano Ann Mackay singing one of my songs composed in 2002 to words by Christina Rossetti.

[Gibbons: 'Oh What Comes Over The Sea', Op.32, composed in 2002, sung by Ann Mackay, accompanied by the composer, recorded London, November 2003.]
December:

First performance of my new Romance, Op.96, written as a thank you gift for Davis & Elkins College, where I am artist-in-residence. The music in the following video is accompanied by a slide show of beautiful photographs of Derbyshire, England from the excellent blog Uphilldowndale

[Gibbons: Romance, Op.96, composed at the end of November 2012 and first performed by the composer at Davis & Elkins College, West Virginia, USA, on 3 December 2012) .]

Paris Sonata, Solar Eclipse and Revolution

An alignment of events on different continents...

[John Trumbull: Presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress]
Towards the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, almost 15 months after the Continental Congress had courageously declared their independence from the British Crown, the British attempted to deal a fatal blow to the rebels' cause by taking their capital Philadelphia on September 26 1777.

Three days earlier, on a different continent, a 21-year-old Mozart, having resigned from his employment in Salzburg, had boldly set out, accompanied by his mother, on an extended European trip in the hope of securing musical and financial success in Paris and other European cities (an endeavour that ended in tragedy and failure).

In March 1778, while tensions between America and Britain escalated to a new level following the decision by France to take the American side, the Mozarts arrived in Paris. Mozart's mother Anna Maria noted with interest in her letter to her husband on 29 May 1778 the tense political situation (with the likelihood of war between France and Britain). Following France's support of the United States the British were forced to change tactics, evacuating Philadelphia on June 18 1778 in favour of defending New York from the French.

[24 June 1778 Solar Eclipse by Antonio de Ulloa]
Six days later, another dramatic event took place with the first ever recorded total solar eclipse in the US on June 24 1778. The event was keenly anticipated by none other than Thomas Jefferson, whose astronomical enthusiasm was only curtailed by the weather, as he wrote to his astronomer friend David Rittenhouse (while congratulating him on the recovery of Philadelphia): "We were much disappointed in Virginia generally on the day of the great eclipse, which proved to be cloudy. In Williamsburgh, where it was total, I understand only the beginning was seen...".

Back in France the young Mozart had more pressing concerns with the sudden and unexpected decline in his mother's health. Anna Maria Mozart had only reluctantly agreed to accompany her son on this extended European trip while Mozart's father, Leopold, and sister, Nannerl, stayed behind in Salzburg. Exhausted after the long journey to Paris, and living in poor accommodation in order to save money, Anna Maria Mozart's health became dramatically worse in June 1778. On June 19, the day after the British evacuation from Philadelphia, she became bedridden and within days was given last rites, dying on July 3 and leaving her son to convey the dreadful news to his father back home in Salzburg. The Paris trip had been so unsuccessful financially that Mozart was forced to use his mother's precious amethyst ring to pay for the nursing expenses. The dysfunctionality of Mozart's relationship with his father is typified by the way Leopold, for the rest of his life, blamed his son for Anna Maria's tragic death.

[Johann Nepomuk della Croce: the Mozart family c.1780, showing Mozart and his sister Nannerl at the keyboard, with his father Leopold holding a violin, and his deceased mother Anna Maria represented in the portrait on the wall.]
Mozart's Sonata in A minor K.310 was written during the bleak summer of 1778 and has long been thought to be a reflection of the composer's dark mood during those terrible weeks. Music was such a dominant force in Mozart's life that it's also very likely he sought refuge in it, becoming more focused than ever on his art, as the music clearly shows.

[Mozart Sonata in A minor K.310 (1/3: Allegro maestoso),
Jack Gibbons (piano), recorded live in concert, July 1989]
[Mozart Sonata in A minor K.310 (2/3: Andante cantabile),
Jack Gibbons (piano), recorded live in concert, July 1989]
[Mozart Sonata in A minor K.310 (3/3: Presto),
Jack Gibbons (piano), recorded live in concert, July 1989]

"Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!"

[Edward Elgar (1857-1934) photographed by Charles Grindrod in 1903, the year of the first sketches of the 2nd Symphony.]
The Symphony no.2 Op.63 of Edward Elgar, completed on 28 February 1911, is one of his of greatest works. To his close friend Alice Stuart-Wortley (nicknamed 'Windflower' in his correspondence) Elgar wrote: "I have written out my soul in the concerto, Symphony No. 2 and the Ode and you know it ... in these three works I have shewn myself". At the heart of the 2nd symphony is an epic slow movement, sometimes described as a funeral march, a deeply moving piece filled with so many amazing moments too numerous to mention in this short post. Like the whole symphony it's a piece of music that repays constant relistening. In today's world of short sound bites I worry about people's ability to appreciate and enjoy something of this length and complexity, though the music and emotion is so direct and heartfelt I would be amazed if after a few listenings anyone new to this work was not drawn in to Elgar's wonderful world. The form of the movement is fairly straightforward, a kind of sonata form where the 'march' forms the main theme and a more lyrical and impassioned melody forms the second big theme and which leads to two big climaxes, the second even bigger than the first. In between these themes there are many magical episodes. The return of the funeral march (before the movement reaches it's second big climax) is hauntingly transformed by a meandering solo oboe lament played above the march (at 7:26 in the video below) with a pulsating string accompaniment. In the video Elgar's work receives a truly inspired performance from the the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (recorded in 1964).

[The slow movement (Larghetto) from Elgar's Symphony no.2 Op.63, with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (recorded 1964) with rare video of Elgar conducting at the Empire (later Wembley) Stadium, London on April 23 1924 and at the opening of the Abbey Road Studios, London, on November 12 1931, as well as other home movies of the composer.]
The video also includes various rare films of Elgar. You can see Elgar conducting at the opening of the Abbey Road studios in 1931 [for the whole unedited sound recording of this occasion see the video at the foot of this blog]. Also seen are excerpts from various home movies featuring Elgar, Vera Hockman, his daughter Carice and her Cairn terrier, and his own two dogs Marco (a spaniel) and Mina (a Cairn terrier). Rarer still is the brief movie shown at the beginning of the video, of Elgar conducting at the opening of the British Empire Exhibition in London on 23 April 1924. This was not a happy occasion for Elgar who detested all the jingoistic ceremony and military displays (coming only a few years after the appalling slaughter of the First World War). He was conducting his Pomp and Circumstance March no.1 and his arrangement of Parry's Jerusalem. When he arrived at the rehearsal the choir that was present "cheered the veteran conductor as he mounted the steps" though he seemed a "lonely figure in black poised in his lofty pulpit". Afterwards Elgar wrote to Alice Stuart-Wortley describing the event as having "no soul & no romance & no imagination".

Over the top of the score of the 2nd Symphony Elgar has quoted the first two lines of an 1821 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley: 'Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!' [you can read the full poem below]. The 'Spirit of Delight' theme is presumed to be the first movement's passionate opening E flat theme. It makes a beautiful and hushed re-appearance towards the end of the slow movement (at 12.10 in this video). Knowing of Elgar's constant battle with depression this is a very moving and deeply personal moment. Back in the 1980s I and the composer Lionel Sainsbury were able to spend a whole afternoon with the original manuscript of Elgar's 2nd symphony (unsupervised!) at the Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcestershire. We didn't tear out any pages (alla Mr Bean, see Mr Bean - Library destruction), but handled it as the precious artefact it is. And just to show that Elgar didn't always take himself so seriously, on the very top of the first page of his manuscript, underneath the 'Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!' quote, Elgar had drawn one of his characteristic doodles: a gleeful little man in the form of a treble clef (the 'Spirit of Delight'), cycling along the staves with great panache!

* * * * *

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822):
Rarely, Rarely, Comest Thou (1821)

[Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Amelia Curran, Rome, 1819.]
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love—though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee—
Thou art love and life! Oh, come,
Make once more my heart thy home.

* * * * *

Elgar conducts Pomp and Circumstance March no.1

Below is a video of Edward Elgar conducting the trio of his Pomp and Circumstance March no.1 at the opening of the Abbey Road Studios, London, on November 12 1931. His words, spoken to the orchestra at the beginning of this short film clip, are as follows: "Good morning gentlemen. Glad to see you all. Very light programme this morning. Please play this tune as though you've never heard it before".

Dreams of a composer

Some self-indulgent reflection inspired by my 50th birthday

From a very early age I have had a huge passion for music, greatly encouraged by my parents who created an environment where I and all my brothers and sisters were involved in making music in one way or another. It must have been quite a noisy household as all 5 of us would compete to get time on the piano; I being the 2nd youngest had to fight for my place against my older sisters who were already accomplished pianists. At the age of 8 or 9 my mother took my older brother and I to the local music shop and picked out two scores for us: 'First Year Handel' and 'First Year Haydn'. It was quite random who got which book but to my delight I was given the Handel. Handel quickly became my favourite composer as I pounded my way through arrangements of the Messiah, and his famous Largo. As long as I can remember I would get completely absorbed by music, whether listening or playing, and often at the cost of those around me! To illustrate the point: when I was 10 a close school friend of mine was returning to the States with his family, they having spent a sabbatical year in my home town of Oxford England. On the eve of their departure my friend invited me to walk back with him to his house one last time, but I turned down the invitation because I was itching to play the piano. After a few minutes at the instrument, with my friend walking the mile back to his house for the last time, alone, the callousness of my action suddenly hit me and I rushed out of the house after him, but it was too late, he had long gone. The next time I saw him was nearly 20 years later.

Around the same time I was singing regularly in various church choirs, including the choir of Pembroke College Oxford. It was there, at the age of 9, that I first discovered the music of Bach, when we sang his beautiful chorale from the St Matthew Passion, ‘Oh sacred head, sore wounded’. It made a very deep impression on me.

[Pembroke College Chapel Oxford, where I was first introduced to the music of Bach:]

[J.S. Bach: O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded, Kings College Choir Cambridge, David Willcocks, 1973]
At the same time I anxiously showed off my own composition to the Pembroke College organ scholar; it was a Sonata in C for piano, one of my earliest pieces, written when I was 9, the manuscript destroyed, I'm sorry to say, by my own hand a few years later!

I continued with both my singing and my composing and at the age of 11 wrote my first choral work, a setting of Christina Rossetti's Christmas carol ‘Before the paling of the stars’. I still have the manuscript – for some reason this piece did NOT get destroyed! It was first performed by the choir of St Aldates in Oxford and I also incorporated the carol into a lengthy semi-improvised composition for choir and organ which was also performed on the same occasion.

Around that time my piano skills were dramatically improving and at the ripe old age of 12 my piano teacher suggested I might consider becoming a concert pianist, such was my enthusiasm for performing even then. I was so excited by her confidence in me that I remember skipping all the way home after the lesson singing to myself "I'm going to be a concert pianist, I'm going to be a concert pianist". For the next few years I continued composing mainly piano pieces, most of which tended to me of a virtuoso nature, culminating in a 30 minute three movement piano concerto (which I also orchestrated). Though these are obviously juvenile works when I look at them today I can see they showed promise. Below is an early (undated) recording of my improvisation on themes from my Piano Concerto (one has to feel sorry for my sister whose bedroom was directly above the piano room - in those days most of my composing and playing was done early in the morning before I went to school, beginning at 5.30AM!).

[Gibbons: Improvisation on themes from Piano Concerto (1976) (undated early recording)]
Unfortunately my psyche at the age of 13, when I wrote my piano concerto, was not what it is today. After I completed it I decided it was all rubbish. At the same time I was becoming aware of some of the less savoury trends in 20th century classical music, including the work of Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, and I became very self-consciously aware that the music I was trying to write would not be considered acceptable (the brain-washing had already begun). Consequently I experimented very briefly by writing a couple of semi-atonal pieces. Thankfully the experiment was unsuccessful, but the psychological damage of this new self-conscious awareness would have far-reaching and very negative consequences.

Finally, at the age of 14, I made a ridiculously dogmatic decision to completely stop writing music. I decided my skills lay in performing, not composing, and that I should devote 100% of my energies to improving my piano playing.

By the time I went to music college at 15 these views were even more cemented in my mind. Though I studied composition as well as piano at college I didn’t take my composing seriously anymore. My own sense of self-deprecation was reinforced by my composition professor who, upon examining my youthful piano concerto, declared it to be completely worthless ("what gets me is why you bothered to finish it" were his actual words, forever burned into my memory as he flicked through the pages). So that was that, the decision I had made at 14 to stop composing was given the stamp of approval at college. But here’s a strange thing: notwithstanding my self-doubts, when I played the music written by my contemporaries at college I felt sure that had I stayed with my composing I would have written something better myself, yet oddly this still wasn't enough to push me back into composing. I was in a hyper-critical phase (composers such as Beethoven and Mozart didn't escape my criticism either!). I now realize how wrong I was to make that ridiculous decision at 14, how bad the advice was I received from my professor, and how badly let down I was by all my music teachers at the time. If I could return as my own composition professor it would be so easy to offer the advice and encouragement I so badly needed then. It would be so simple to point out what was good and what was bad in my music, and to show myself how I could fix things and develop what was good – my enthusiasm for music would have made me an excellent pupil. How I would have enjoyed studying carefully the works of the composers I loved (as opposed to the ones I didn't), and I might have been surprised to realize that even the greatest of them had serious doubts about their own abilities.

In my teens and early 20s my prospects as a concert pianist continued to improve with each new success, but all the while, as I grew older, I felt something important was missing. I continued to reassure myself that I just didn't have the talent for writing music. Even so, I started to write down and record any musical ideas I had – what I intended to do with them who knows, for they were just shoved all the way to the back of a cupboard. But one day all that changed: facing a serious identity crisis, I took the plunge and started writing a song. It was my first serious attempt at composition since my 1976 piano concerto 25 years earlier. I took a Christina Rossetti poem ‘Remember Me’ and started trying to fit the words to one of the ideas I had scribbled down and pushed to the back of my cupboard but which always seemed to be in my head. While writing this song something dramatic happened which struck me like a lightening bolt: the more I got into the poem the more I felt I could express the words in my music. I began abandoning my initial idea and just started freely composing. In particular, at the passage that begins at 5:44 on the video below, I suddenly had this extraordinary feeling that the sky was the limit, that I could write ANYTHING. It was just like Elgar had said: “My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require”. This was the trigger that changed my life forever.

[Gibbons: Remember Me Op.12, first performance, February 2001]
But then another momentous event happened. Shortly after completing this piece I was very nearly killed in a serious car accident (in March 2001). If I had died, ironically, this one song of mine would have made a perfect epitaph!

[Newspaper cutting, Oxford Mail, March 2001]
During the long recovery process, when I was unable to play the piano, I became consumed with the urge to continue composing. I launched into song after song and many of my songs from Opp. 15-29 stem from this time, the summer of 2001, including this one.

[Gibbons: The Bourne Op.27, composed June 2001]
Once I recovered from my injuries I resumed my performing career. I was extremely fortunate to be able to return to piano playing considering the severity of my injuries (thanks to the superb treatment I received from the doctors and nurses of the British National Health Service). But now I had a new obsession and a constant desire to get back to composing. I was aware it was a bold, even foolhardy, thing to harbour the thought of abandoning a successful performing career in favour a very uncertain composing career. It didn't help that I still felt very much a novice when it came to composing, with 25 year lost years of not honing my craft! Now my stubbornness, which had been so destructive to my creativity at the age of 14, was working in my favour, as I was determined to write music whatever the cost. And ‘cost’ was certainly something I was forced to consider, as I happily let my earnings disappear in favour of my new found dream. But with every new composition I gained increased confidence, and more and more felt I was making the right decision and moving in a direction that I should have been in 25 years ago.

A few years later another very fortunate turn of events played a big rôle in the direction of my music. While visiting Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia in May 2010, performing an all-Gershwin concert on behalf of a Highlands Scholarship initiative at D&E, part-financed by philanthropist Doris Buffett, I had a series of conversations with the staff of the college. I talked about my ambitions to stay in one place and devote more time to writing music, and to my astonishment the president of D&E, Buck Smith, asked on the 2nd day of my visit if I would consider becoming the college's artist-in-residence. Taking the position would mean an even bigger change of direction in my life: now, in addition to my performing, I would also be expected to write music, which is a very different kettle of fish to writing music when you 'feel like it' (the president had been very taken with some of my own pieces which I had included in my concert at D&E, and was anxious to provide me with an environment that would inspire me to write).

So here I am now, sitting in my study in Elkins, West Virginia, with a beautiful view of the Appalachian mountains from my window, just down a lovely tree-lined road from Davis & Elkins College, which itself has a most scenic and inspiring campus, set in the hills and woods of Appalachia.

[The campus of Davis & Elkins College, Elkins, West Virginia]
In front of me on my desk are page after page of musical ideas I have been accumulating for the composition of a mass, which I very much hope the D&E choir can one day sing. Unfortunately also in front of me is my waste paper basket, filled to the brim with rejected music sheets. Right now I am staring at an ominously blank page of manuscript paper, and finding other things to do to distract me, such as writing this blog! But it's a great privilege I find myself in now, and one I am determined to make the most of with the production of good music. Only time will tell whether I have justified all the faith that has been placed in me, but I am gradually building a portfolio of compositions, many of which would not exist but for the faith and optimism shown me by the D&E College president Buck Smith. Below is one of those pieces: my Ave Verum Corpus Op.90, written for the 2011 West Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts, an important annual event for encouraging the arts in the youth of West Virginia, which is being held at Davis & Elkins College for the three years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

[Gibbons: Ave Verum Corpus Op.90, West Virginia GSA Choir, first performance, July 2011]
I still feel I have a lot to do to catch up, with all the lost years when I wasn’t writing music. My inexperience seems daunting at times. I often think I need to recalculate my age in terms of years spent writing music, which would make me a young and inexperienced 25 year old composer, rather than an aging 50 year old! Of course I know that nothing worth having or achieving in life is free or comes easily, and the things one works at the most have a wonderful way of rewarding one the most. Reading constantly about composers as I do (I have been enthralled by the lives of the great composers ever since I read my first book on the life of Mozart when I was 11) one thing that I come across again and again is description of just how hard they all worked, even to the point perhaps (in Mozart's case) of working themselves into their graves. Johann Sebastian Bach is quoted as saying: "I was obliged to be industrious; whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well" (quoted in the earliest biography of Bach, written by Forkel). Chopin’s addiction to work is mockingly described by George Sand in one of her letters when she talks of Chopin not feeling he is working enough unless his back is breaking. Elgar's daughter Carice, writing about her father's life, emphasized just how hard her father worked, a point that she felt many people did not fully appreciate. I truly believe that the difference between the output of people like Bach, Chopin and Elgar and the rest of us is not the result of some magical inspiration from the ether, but largely a matter of perseverance, dedication, and hard work. One only needs to study Chopin’s sketches, those that survived his massive censorship, to see how a seemingly crude or unpromising idea could be gradually transformed into something of great beauty (just as a rough piece of unformed marble is gradually transformed by the wonderful hand of Michelangelo into a breathtaking Pietà). Studying Chopin’s drafts and seeing how he was able to transform his first sketches into great masterpieces has taught me more about composition than anything else I have ever done. It's about not accepting anything you’re not happy with, and never giving up. Of course there is a negative side to this method: if one is not careful one might never finish a single piece of music. Bach and Mozart lived in a different age where people were much less concerned with posterity. Mozart in particular had a laissez-faire attitude and if a piece of music did somehow escape his critical eye he wasn’t one to agonize over it once it was written – he simply moved on to the next piece. That's also something I am trying to learn from, as I pull music sheets out of my waste paper bin and wonder if I should have thrown them away so quickly!

[A playlist of some of my compositions (in reverse chronological order)]

Visit the website of Davis & Elkins College, Elkins, West Virginia