GLCD 5121 Joyousness - The Music of Haydn Wood Reviews & Broadcast

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC Joyousness - The Music of Haydn Wood ORCHESTRE RAYMONDE Conducted by ROBERT PRESTON, LIGHT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Conducted by HAYDN WOOD, NEW CONCERT ORCHESTRA Conducted by JACK LEON, LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by RICHARD CREAN,PETER YORKE AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA featuring FREDDY GARDNER, saxophone, BBC VARIETY ORCHESTRA Conducted by CHARLES SHADWELL featuring REGINALD FOORT, organ, CHARLES WILLIAMS AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA,DEBROY SOMERS BAND Track 01 Horse Guards Whitehall Track 2 Joyousness

Contents:

Haydn Wood (his first name is pronounced Hay-den, rather than in the traditional way associated with the famous Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn, after whom he was named) was born in the Yorkshire town of Slaithwaite on 25 March 1882. When he was two the family moved to the Isle of Man, in the northern part of the Irish Sea off the north-west coast of England, where he spent his formative years. This obviously made a great impact on the young Haydn, because he later composed several important works which reflected his love of the island.

Like so many talented musicians he was a child prodigy, his instrument being the violin (encouraged by an elder brother), and at the age of 15 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he developed his expertise as a violinist under Enrique Fernandez Arbós, and studied composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. When the RCM’s new concert hall was opened on 13 June 1901, Haydn Wood was the featured solo violinist. This led to special training in Brussels with the world-renowned Cesar Thomson, following which Wood embarked on a world tour with Dame Emma Albani (the stage name for Marie-Louise Emma Cécile Lajeunesse [1847-1930]), one of the leading sopranos of the day. His association with the famous diva (she was the first Canadian singer to become an international star) lasted for eight years, but during this period Haydn Wood was developing more of an interest in composition.

Among the major works he completed during this period were a Piano Concerto and a Phantasy String Quartet, the latter coming second in the first Cobbett Prize competition in 1905. Scholars of his music have suggested that Wood might well have continued to pursue his musical skills in the classical sphere had he not met, and subsequently (in 1909) married, the soprano Dorothy Court. For her he began writing the kind of romantic ballads that were so popular at the time, and eventually they began to overshadow all his other works. In total, he wrote more than 100, with A Brown Bird Singing finding its way into the repertoire of many singers, both professional and aspiring amateurs. But the most famous is undoubtedly Roses of Picardy, which captured the public’s mood during the First World War, and is estimated to have earned him £100,000; the total figure today must be tenfold more, because the melody is still being performed, and it has been recorded by numerous singers – among them even Frank Sinatra.

Haydn Wood often appeared on stage with his wife, accompanying her on the violin in Music Halls and concerts around the country. Gradually he began writing longer, more serious works, and the BBC managed to persuade him to compose his Violin Concerto in B Minor (1933) and Philharmonic Variations for Cello and Orchestra. In common with many of his peers (notably Eric Coates [1886-1957]) he favoured suites comprising three or four miniatures and – apart from his ballads – these contain some of his most enduring works, the opening track in this collection being a prime example

He tried his hand at musical comedy: “Tina” (a collaboration with Paul Rubens in 1915), which spawned several gramophone recordings, followed by “Cash on Delivery” in 1917. In 1929 he contributed to Claude Hulbert’s show “Dear Love”, but a big hit in this area of popular music seems to have eluded him. Occasionally he was lured on to the conductor’s rostrum, and made a few commercial recordings of his own music, some of which have been located for this collection.

From 1939 onwards Wood served as a Director of the Performing Rights Society, and in 1949 the BBC commissioned him to write Festival March for its first Light Music Festival. Three years later, in 1952, the BBC honoured him with his own special programme on the occasion of his 70^th birthday. Thereafter he seems to have enjoyed a quiet life, and eventually died in a London nursing-home on 11 March 1959, just two weeks before his 77^th birthday.

It is tempting to speculate whether Haydn Wood might have achieved greater fame had Coates not been around at the same time, although it could equally be surmised that the various successes achieved by one acted as a spur to encourage the other. Happily there is ample room for them both in the history of the development of British Light Music during the first half of the 20^th century.

British music lovers who were radio listeners in the years following the Second World War will find the opening track very familiar. In those days there were people in broadcasting (both radio and television) who were adept at choosing just the right pieces of music as signature tunes (a particular art which seems to be sadly lacking today), with the result that the sound of a familiar and much-loved melody would put the listener or viewer in a happy frame of mind for the programme just beginning. Haydn Wood’s Horse Guards – Whitehall was composed in 1946 as one of three movements in a suite called “London Landmarks” – the other two are Nelson’s Column and Tower Hill, both also on this CD. The London publishers Chappell & Co. recorded all three for their Recorded Music Library and Horse Guards – Whitehall was chosen by the BBC for their radio programme “Down Your Way”, originally introduced by Steward MacPherson and later by Richard Dimbleby, Franklin Englemann, Brian Johnson and others.

The “Moods” Suite, dating from 1932, is larger than the average for such works at that time, with no less than six separate movements depicting Dignity, Allurement, Coquetry, Pensiveness, Felicity and Joyousness. The last named has become the most popular, no doubt assisted by the composer’s own recording for HMV; it virtually suggested itself as the sub-title for this collection. It takes the form of a grand concert waltz, and its pedigree rests firmly with the English fashion exemplified in many of Eric Coates’ creations, rather than the more ponderous Viennese style that had prevailed for so long. Our second dip into this suite reveals the composer’s impression of Coquetry, which he developed into a charming Caprice.

The Laughing Cavalier is one of “Three Famous Pictures”, and it seems perfectly suited as a piece of mood music from the 1950s era, which is the source of our rare recording. Longing is unashamedly romantic, probably harking back to the time in 1916 when Haydn Wood set to music Frederick E. Weatherley’s lyric for Roses of Picardy. It was certainly a milestone in the careers of them both, and the version selected for this CD from over thirty years later was also a major recording in its day. In the late 1940s arranger / conductor Peter Yorke (1902-1966) fronted a fine concert orchestra which performed regularly on radio, and made numerous recordings for EMI’s Columbia label. Some of them featured saxophone solos by Freddy Gardner (1910-1950), which have become highly regarded as among the finest examples of this style of popular music from the post-war period.

Suites tended to dominate Haydn Wood’s output during the 1930s, and “Cities of Romance”, composed in 1937, pays homage to Budapest, Venice and Seville, which is featured here in a fascinating arrangement for organ and variety orchestra. The conductor is the legendary Charles Shadwell, who is remembered for his periods at both the Coventry Hippodrome and the BBC. Reginald Foort was a leading figure in Britain’s theatre organ circles, and became a household name through his frequent BBC broadcasts.

The Nautical Rhapsody The Seafarer was composed early in 1940, and it contains many familiar sea shanties. The Charles Williams recording remained in the catalogue until almost the end of the 78rpm era. Another of the composer’s popular works is the march Montmartre from the “Paris” Suite. It enjoyed a revival of popularity from the late 1950s onwards, and some collectors were surprised to discover that it had been recorded as early as 1937 by Debroy Somers [1890-1952]. He could almost be described as a recording phenomenon of the 1930s. For a while his 78s occupied more space in the EMI Columbia catalogue than any other artist and, whether fronting a small ensemble or conducting a fairly large orchestra (as for this piece), the label always said ‘Debroy Somers Band’. A prolific broadcaster, he remained an important figure on the British musical scene until he died suddenly at the age of 62 from a stroke.

Haydn Wood was in his late sixties when he composed Soliloquy in 1947, and it wasn’t long before his publishers, Chappell & Co., engaged Robert Farnon to conduct it for their Recorded Music Library. At the time Decca held the contract to make 78s of mood music for Chappells, and they decided that a few of them should also be released on their own label – this being one example.

The march Homage was specially composed for the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935, and the composer conducted this souvenir 78 for HMV. Bird of Love Divine is another of Haydn Wood’s popular ballads, and is one of five ‘paraphrases for orchestra’ he made of some of his most popular songs.

The suite “Frescoes” may seem to contain surprisingly varied movements – Sea Shanties, The Bandstand Hyde Park, and Vienna. The explanation is that they were the subjects of paintings observed by Wood at the offices of his publishers.

There is no mystery regarding the inspiration for Mannin Veen which means ‘Dear Isle of Man’. In fond memory of his childhood years, the work (from 1932/33) was described by Haydn Wood as a ‘Manx Tone Poem’ and he dedicated it to Joseph Lewis, the conductor who introduced many of Wood’s works to radio listeners. It features four folk-songs in the style of a rhapsody, and the composer’s own version is one of the more important recordings of the 1930s.

I Hear You Calling Me was a favourite ballad not unlike Wood’s own style, and he was happy to pay its composer, Charles Marshall, the compliment of arranging it into a striking orchestral work, performed here by the famous London Palladium Orchestra. It was probably the best known of British theatre orchestras and it was also the most prolific, with almost 150 recordings made between 1927 and the early 1940s, most of them conducted by Richard Crean who was in charge from 1930 to 1937. The famous tenor, John McCormack, recorded the song (words by Harold Harford) as early as 1908, and it remained popular with many succeeding generations of singers.

Torch of Freedom is another title from a publisher’s library, specifically recorded for use by radio, television and films. Such outlets must have been welcomed by composers of the period, who were discovering that opportunities to get their works performed in the concert hall were becoming noticeably fewer.

The final work in this collection, the Stanford Rhapsody, was composed as a heartfelt tribute to Sir Charles Villiers Stanford under whom the young Haydn Wood studied composition. Once again we find the name ‘Debroy Somers’ on the record label, yet there must be a story behind this recording. It was the last he made, and survived only for a short time compared with his other records – it first appeared in the 1946-47 Columbia catalogue, and was marked for deletion just two years later, while several of his earlier recordings remained available until 1955, including one which had been in the catalogue since 1933! It appears to have been the only commercial recording of this work, although Boosey & Hawkes did commission a version for their mood music library. On this occasion the ‘Debroy Somers Band’ is a full concert orchestra, probably the largest he ever conducted on any of his recordings.

Mention has already been made of Haydn Wood’s success as a composer of ballads, but when this style of popular music fell out of favour he produced a considerable amount of orchestral music, much of it sadly no longer being performed on a regular basis. Rhapsodies, overtures, marches, orchestral suites and choral works are all there waiting to be re-discovered by a new generation of performers. It would be nice to think that the finely-crafted works contained on this compact disc might encourage music-lovers to investigate more fully the creations of this brilliant composer.                                      David Ades

Page revised 17.05.2006