The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum
March 28, 2024, 07:26:58 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Here you may discover hundreds of little-known composers, hear thousands of long-forgotten compositions, contribute your own rare recordings, and discuss the Arts, Literature and Linguistics in an erudite and decorous atmosphere full of freedom and delight.
 
  Home Help Search Gallery Staff List Login Register  

George Butterworth - Fantasia for orchestra

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: George Butterworth - Fantasia for orchestra  (Read 643 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
britishcomposer
Level 3
***

Times thanked: 36
Offline Offline

Posts: 225


View Profile
« on: February 08, 2015, 02:39:37 pm »

George Butterworth, who died in WWI, left a tantalisingly small amount of music. He stopped composing altogether when he volunteered in August 1914.
His last compositional project was a Fantasia for orchestra. Michael Barlow, Butterworth's biographer, suggests that it was begun in 1914 "since a Bayswater address is written on the score, and here Butterworth was living before war broke out."
(Michael Barlow, Whom The Gods Love: The Life and Music of George Butterworth. Toccata Press 1997. p. 177)

Barlow continues:
"A short score is referred to in these sketches, but there is no trace of it. A hushed, dark-coloured opening, on bassoons and divided violas and cellos, leads to an andantino section in which one basic theme, first heard on oboe and violas is developed, but the score is too fragmentary for constructive comment. A vivace section of only a few bars includes a promising figure on trumpets, but there the music stops." (ibid.)

Barlow quotes two fragments of the music and acknowledges the folksong idiom but "there are also changes in Butterworth's compositional style, with not a few influences from European composers." (ibid.)

According to Barlow Vaughan Williams's "A London Symphony" has had some influence on his orchestral writing. The fragment "is scored for a large orchestra, including triple woodwind." (ibid., p. 178)

Now the indefatigable Martin Yates has attempted a completion of the work. It is to be premiered at the opening concert of the 2015 English Music Festival.
http://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/programme.html

Apparently the conductor Kriss Russman has also realised a performing version, already premiered (in piano score) in November 2014.
A performance and recording of the orchestral version is planned for 2016.
http://krissrussman.com/

More information on Butterworth:
http://musicbehindthelines.org/composers/featured-composers/george-butterworth/
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

chill319
Level 3
***

Times thanked: 1
Offline Offline

Posts: 156


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2015, 11:50:31 pm »

Bravo, Yates. Can't wait to hear this.
Report Spam   Logged
jimfin
Level 4
****

Times thanked: 21
Offline Offline

Posts: 496



View Profile
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2015, 06:07:17 am »

Gosh, I thought I'd heard all there was ever going to be of Butterworth's surviving music. Martin Yates is wonderful
Report Spam   Logged
britishcomposer
Level 3
***

Times thanked: 36
Offline Offline

Posts: 225


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2016, 02:16:46 pm »

Now that the Yates version has been recorded it is fascinating to hear that Kriss Russman's version will be available too very soon. This is from Russman's website:


In 2014, Kriss Russman completed George Butterworth’s Orchestral Fantasia which was left unfinished before the composer was killed in the First World War. He is currently recording the work for BIS Records on a Butterworth CD with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to be released in April 2016. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under Martyn Brabbins gave the public world premiere of the Orchestral Fantasia at Glasgow City Halls on 19th November 2015.  London's The Telegraph hailed the completion as 'a considerable achievement' and 'convincingly Butterworthian'. 


http://www.krissrussman.com/about/
Report Spam   Logged

Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy