Inspirations

Over the weekend I spent some time at the English Music Festival. It's a delightful festival that has been running for the last thirteen years in the Oxfordshire Countryside. William Alwyn's works are often a feature of the Festival, and this year there were two opportunities to hear his music with a selection from his Fantasy Waltzes on Sunday, and a love scene from his film score for The Fallen Idol during the final concert.

The Fantasy Waltzes featured in a programme that concentrated primarily on piano duets, with some other great names involved including Sir Arthur Bliss' own arrangement for one piano, four hands, of his orchestral work, Rout, Francis Routh's stirring Roumanian Dance, and Tovey's decadent Balliol Waltzes.

It was an excellent programme from pianists, Lynn Arnold and Charles Matthews, who gave some fascinating insights into their own thoughts about the works. When introducing the Alwyn, Lynn mentioned that as far as she knew there were no piano duets composed by Alwyn, or if they were, they were as yet undiscovered. As far as I was aware at the time, she was quite correct.

When I thought about it post-concert that was actually rather odd. William composed extensively for piano from works for early years (see my last post on exam music) to the complexities of the Fantasy Waltzes. Surely he must have composed something for piano duet? And indeed he had, albeit for two pianos - the Two Intermezzi were composed for pianist friend, Vivien Langrish, and Vivien's wife, Ruth Harte. Vivien and Alwyn were old friends, both having taught at the Royal Academy of Music. Both William and Doreen knew and liked Vivien and his first wife, the violinist Helen Cavell, and, following her death, were delighted when he met pianist, Ruth Harte, who like Doreen Carwithen, had studied at the Royal Academy.

Alwyn was often inspired by friends and family. Many of his earlier works were inspired by his first wife, Olive Pull, a talented pianist and composer in her own right.

Clifford Curzon, a contemporary at the Royal Academy was the dedicatee of Alwyn's first piano concerto (he also gave the premiere of the work), and another work, presumably for piano, Sea surge, though sadly nothing remains of this save its title page and dedication. Some years later, a chance encounter with young New Zealand pianist, Richard Farrell, led to the composition of the Fantasy Waltzes. Alwyn was deeply shocked when Farrell was killed in a car accident not long after the radio recording of Fantasy Waltzes, and went on to dedicate the fifth of his 12 preludes for piano to Farrell.

Another old friend, and near contemporary was the viola player, Watson Forbes, for whom Alwyn wrote several pieces. Ballade for viola and piano (1937) was dedicated to Forbes and his accompanist Myers Foggin, while the Sonata quasi Fantasia (also known as the Sonata Impromptu) for violin and viola was dedicated to Frederick Grinke and Watson Forbes.  Forbes also enthusiastically edited and arranged some Alwyn works to add to the viola repertoire including re-arranging Alwyn's own arrangement of Bach's Sleepers Wake for cello and piano for violin, viola, and cello.

Alwyn's path into music was the flute, and not surprisingly, he wrote a number of works for the instrument, and it was while working on a recording of his flute Divertimento with Christopher Hyde-Smith, that Alwyn was inspired to enter a rather different sound world, inspired by the musicality of Hyde-Smith and his wife, the harpist, Marisa Robles. Alwyn wrote one of his most popular works, the Fantasy Sonata (Naiades) for the couple. An earlier harpist, Sidonie Goossens, had been an inspiration in the writing of Crépuscule, and went on to premiere Lyra Angelica. 

Of the first run of Alwyn's string quartets (there were fourteen composed before the Second World War, which were later disowned by Alwyn despite many receiving good reviews at the time), one was dedicated to "Peter", i.e. Olive Alwyn, while quartet no. 6 was dedicated to William's mentor and employer at the Royal Academy of Music, J.B. McEwen. Quartet no. 10 "En voyage" is enchantingly dedicated "To the ship". This was the R.M.S. Rangitiki, on which Alwyn took passage on his way back from his Australian examining tour. His 12th string quartet was dedicated to fellow composer Alan Bush. The Bush and Alwyn families had become close friends. Indeed for much of the war, Alwyn's wife and children lived with the Bush family, who had children of a similar age, in the Hertfordshire countryside.

Music as an act of remembrance was important to William. His moving Three winter poems were dedicated to the memory of J.B. McEwen, and another work for string quartet, the third of the new sequence, was dedicated to his friend, and frequent correspondent, Sir Cecil Parrott. Sir Cecil was a former diplomat, who found common ground with Alwyn in a shared love of Janacek and art.

Art and music had a central place in William's heart, but people were very important too. And nowhere is this more clear than when looking at his dedicatees, the people who inspired him.