Gustav Holst and Purcell's Fairy Queen
Post categories: Purcell
| 09:17 UK Time, Friday, 9 October 2009
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AtÌý we have postponed until Easter 2010 the performance of including 's Fairy Dream sequence. Although the date is slightly wide of Purcell's 350th anniversary, it more closely matches the centenary of 's 1910/11 revival of the work here for the first time since Purcell's day.
Holst was appointed Director of Music at the College in April 1907. The previous director, HJB Dart, had died suddenly in 1905 but Holst was only second choice after the Morley trustees offered the vacancy first to the charismatic . The latter, who, together with , had given an 'inspiring' series of lecture-recitals on English Folk Song at the college the previous year, said he was 'too busy' and turned down the offer, but proposed his friend Holst instead. The latter had recently become head of music at St Paul's Girls School and after giving a lecture on 'the horrors of music', the college awarded him the position.
Morley College was, and arguably still is, the leading provider of adult education in the country. In Holst's day students paid £1 a term for a choice of lectures on firstly scientific subjects, but later practical courses and the arts. It was founded by the social reformer and suffragette with money from the textile manufacturer and MP Samuel Morley. Cons also opened the in Waterloo as the Royal Victoria Music Hall and Coffee House in order to introduce 'working men and women to Shakespeare and opera'. The Old Vic was the first home of Morley College.
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Holst was full of energy. He lectured on music history and performance practice. He introduced private music tuition and gave his own services free. He increased the number of concerts presented by the college, discouraging the antiquated programmes of drawing room ballads in favour of a repertoire of Tudor polyphony. Vaughan Williams remained integral to the operation by giving an 'inspiring and constructive' series of lectures entitled 'From Haydn to Wagner'. In 1908, the two men staged a performance of extracts from , which the Daily Telegraph critic 'could not praise highly enough'. In 1909 they presented and in 1910, .
The manuscript score of Purcell's The Fairy Queen had been rediscovered in a dusty drawer at the Royal Academy of Music in 1901, but no one thought it necessary or even desirable actually to stage the work until Holst's and Vaughan Williams' interest in 1910. Holst set his students to work copying out the parts and transposing many of the numbers downwards to suit the drawing room ballad voices. There were no such things as counter-tenors then except in cassocks when they were called 'cock-altos'.
The date was set for 10 June 1911 at Victoria Hall, now the Old Vic. and apologised that they could not be present and sent their best wishes while even expressed his interest in the event. It was the talk of the town. On the day, Vaughan Williams introduced each of the numbers and Holst conducted. The performance was a revelation, not only for the quality of Purcell's forgotten work, but also for the 'remarkably high standard of musicianship' (The Times) at Morley College.
The present production at Morley College is yet in its planning and rehearsal stages but the level of enthusiasm for performing is as high now as it was in Holst's day. We have an abundance of choirs and instrumental ensembles. Harvey Brough's sequence is designed to fit in during the Masque of Seasons and was composed at the behest of for school children to sing. Morley College has long wanted to engage with schools in the borough and Brough's ingenuity provides that opportunity. The College hierarchy has committed the required funds to the enterprise so no one has to pester the public with collecting buckets - which is as it should be.
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Rick Jones is Radio 3's Purcell blogger for Composers of the Year 2009.
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Comment number 1.
At 13th Oct 2009, arenaprommer2 wrote:"no one has to pester the public with collecting buckets - which is as it should be"
Here we go again, Rick Jones continues his tiresome tirades against the Promenaders' Musical Charities. Yaaaawn. I wonder what exactly he's trying to achieve with this: £80,500 less in donations to musical charities? From a self-styled "singer" I find this attitude rather puzzling.
As an aside, so the Ö÷²¥´óÐã pays its bloggers to advertise their own productions? Interesting.
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