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English Musical Renaissance Posted by John France on May 31, 2007, 8:05 am 217.196.232.225 Conventional wisdom (and Michael Trend in The Music Makers) posits that Charles Hubert Hastings Parry's Scenes Scenes from Prometheus Unbound (Shelley) for chorus & orchestra which was first performed at Gloucester on 7 Sept 1880, as the beginning of the English Musical Renaissance. And I suppose it is a convenient reference point. But can we push the date back further than 1880? Or is the true symbol of renewal actually Sir Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations? Do readers feel that that this is fair? Do they know of any works anterior to Parry that may be seen to be strong claimants to the title? For example, what about Sir Arthur Sullivan's thoroughly enjoyable Irish Symphony (with all its faults and nods to Mendelssohn) of 1866? I would be interested to hear.  Post a Response

Re: English Musical Renaissance Posted by chris howell on June 1, 2007, 7:09 am, in reply to "English Musical Renaissance" 213.215.159.50 It's probably useless to look for a specific date on the assumption that everything written before was bad and everything written afterwards is good. Some nice things were written during the post-Handelian decline if you don't expect striking originality or masterpieces, and things picked up gradually from Wesley senior through Sterndale Bennett then Sullivan, leading to Parry and Stanford. In one sense 1880 is a nonsense since Parry's Prometheus didn't stick in the repertoire (and is not high in priorities among Parry works that should perhaps be reinstated) whereas the Stanford Te Deum was written in 1879 and has been sung in churches up and down the country ever since. I think certain dates stick because they caught the public consciousness. 1879 didn't because the Te Deum was simply published, choir masters found it was rather good and word got around. Prometheus in 1880 drew critical and public attention to the fact that British composers were updating their styles compared with foreign composers and could match all but the greatest of them. It was news. Even 1899 is a pointless date in the sense that Elgar wrote several fine and characteristic works in the previous decade. It has some utility though, since Enigma is perhaps the first British piece since Purcell that got into the international repertoire and stayed there. But even there, we have to remember that several earlier British works - Field's Nocturnes, Balfe's Bohemian Girl, Cowen's Scandinavian Symphony, Stanford's Irish Symphony, even Sydney Jones's Geisha - got into the international repertoire and stayed there for quite a long time. 1880 will probably stick as the date when things were seen to be on the mend, but life is never that simple. Chris Howell  Post a Response

Re: English Musical Renaissance Posted by Ian Harvie on June 26, 2007, 2:15 pm, in reply to "Re: English Musical Renaissance" 193.62.128.1 It would be nice to have a chance to listen to it so as to assess its merits. For a work that has come to represent a pivotal moment in British music (no matter whether justified or not) it's shameful that no recording is available. Or is there?  Post a Response

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