The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Any suggestion?

Amongst British composers the stand-out would, probably, be Stanley Bate :)

I suppose Ruth Gipps (who studied with him and is clearly influenced), Patrick Hadley and Arthur Butterworth (less obviously influenced, but a pupil)

Depends what you mean by "follower". I wouldn't have associated Bate's music with RVW. One composer who has been suggested as strongly influenced by RVW is actually Joly Braga Santos in Portugal.

Incidentally, my father once had tea with RVW.

The Stanley Bate Viola Concerto has been described(or criticised) as almost excessively VW-like. Bate was, of course, another pupil of RVW.

I would not have said the same about his symphonies or Piano Concerto, but I take your word for it.

Influenced by RVW is more proper?However thanks.
 :)

Having listened again to the Bate viola concerto, I would agree that it is certainly influenced by VW (especially the first two movements), and that the symphonies are not so far as I can hear.

An important event that has escaped most biographers so far, I regret to observe. Can you please tell us about it in some more detail?  :)


Completely agreed, though his influence in even the viola concerto appears exaggerated. I think some people refer to it as a 'tribute' to RVW and that might be the case, given their relationship. Musical references might be more unintentional - and RVW never wrote something for viola that could have served as a model, not even the Suite for viola and small orchestra of a few years before (I doubt whether Bate had ever heard it).

It would be rather extraordinary if the young Stanley Bate....and he was 29 years old in 1940 when he wrote his 3rd Symphony.....had not absorbed some of his influences from RVW, his teacher. There have been composers who have rejected their teachers' influences and have claimed that they learned nothing from them-including some famous British composers ;D

Having just re-listened to the Bate 3rd I can hear echoes of the RVW 4th and the influence of the Walton 1st. There are also some passages which are almost Rubbra-esque (although Rubbra had only composed three of his symphonies prior to 1940).

I am not criticising Bate or accusing him of being an RVW-epigone. Far from it :) But I would find it quite remarkable if one could assert that Bate was not influenced by the older composer.

Without a doubt...Ruth Gipps is certainly a gifted follower..and no political correctness please....

Gipps is certainly a follower and a great unsung one..

I know this was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but nevertheless, I would reflect that this is the sort of thing one regrets one didn't ask more about when it was still possible to do so.

I esteem highly Ruth Gipps but hope for some suggestion in Galles or Scotland for instance.

William Wordsworth was English but lived in Scotland for much of his life.

Vaughan Williams certainly admired Wordsworth's music and there may be something of the older composer in Wordsworth (as well as some Sibelius).

Ina Boyle was strongly influenced by Vaughan Williams.

Christopher Le Fleming - very RVW sounding in places. His biography, "Journey into music by the slow strain" shows him to have been a very nice chap too.

Douglas Lilburn above all the others.

Early and mid-period Lilburn only, though.

In later life he embraced electronic music.

Early and middle Lilburn is all that I can accept.  The poor man was virtually blind so I think he turned to electronics as his only creative option.  But from 1935-1960  it's pure RVW.  He was an RVW student in London.

Does anyone know if there's a line, somehow, leading from RVW to Mongolian composer Sembin Gonchigsumlaa [Gonchiksumla]? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sembiin_Gonchigsumlaa

Two of his symphonies are on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kXDpoBQsE4  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHY8vAKvi_g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fB0XtE5UZw Etc.

Amongst US composers Bernard Herrmann is probably a well-known Anglophile and admirer of RVW, but lesser-known perhaps is Herbert W Spencer (1905-1992). During an amateur orchestral rehearsal of the RVW London Symphony someone made a remark about the finale sounding like Star Wars. I replied that this was actually pretty near the mark - Spencer orchestrated JW's Star Wars score and went on to do likewise with the other great JW scores, probably adding quite a bit of interest too in doing so!

Healey Willan - Canadian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healey_Willan

especially this fine piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNK9BAfbmgA

The name of Willan is new to be but he certainly sounds worth exploring. The Wiki article shows that his formative years were spent in England but there is no mention of his composition teacher. Obviously the RVW influence is there, particularly his more personal style than a straight modal influence, though I can't find any documentation on this, only the influence of Brahms and Wagner.

This CD sounds so lovely that I have ordered it today! http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557734

Thanks Jolly Jumper for the lead to Willan's 2nd stmphony.
It's a fin work and I'm now searching for his other symphonies. I knew his  Piano Cto already, which is also a good one.

There is only one other symphony. It, and many other works, can be accessed at the Canadian Music Centre's website. The Overture to an Unwritten Comedy is also a delight.

Thanks Maris.
I'll give it try

Roelof

Thanks from me too for the link to the Willan Symphony No.2 :)

You are more than welcome..Wilan was most widely known and was prolific in liturgal music for chorus.
Unless you have an interest in that genre, you probably have not encountered him before.  
Wikipedia puts it this way

Willan composed some 800 musical pieces, the majority sacred works for choir such as anthems, hymns and mass settings. His non-sacred opus includes some 50 choral works, 100 song arrangements for voice with piano accompaniment, many works for piano solo, for voice with instrumental accompaniment, two symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber works, incidental music for stage works, ballad operas, and at least one important opera
(Deirdre).

As someone has pointed out, a good place to look is in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation archives.
http://www.musiccentre.ca/composers
You must register to listen, but it is free and well worth it..especially to hear more music by Hetu, Forsythe and a number of other gifted Candian Composers.

Was going to mention Gipps and am glad so many enjoy her music. At a greater distance, I hear the VW of minor chord organum (the Antarctic, for example) among the influences of Benjamin Lee's Symphony 4.

I listened again to Braga Santos's 1st symphony last night - the VW influence is very strong, especially in the first movement.

Braga Satos composed his First Symphony in 1946 at the age of 22. As far as I know he had never been out of Portugal. It is unlikely that he had ever heard any RVW in concert inside Portugal. Had he studied an RVW score ???  I have no idea.

I'd be a little more cautious in the first part of her production she was more linked to
a certain wiew of folk music (she had studied with RVW) meanwhile in the latter part i'd see more Britten or as in 2nd symphony the DSCH influx.

He could have heard it on the radio, perhaps? The influence of VW 4 is so strong it would be surprising if it were coincidence.

As far as I know (not that well, but I tried to find out, one day) he could hear British music on the radio. In that case, he might even have heard some Moeran - as the influences seem to be even stronger, there (e.g. the opening bars of Moeran's Sinfonietta compared to Braga Santos' Divertimento).

Stanley Wilson, who was largely self-taught and did not, as far as I am aware, study with RVW at all.  However, parts of his "Skye" Symphony (a Carnegie Trust winner - as were both RVW and Ina Boyle) read like VW.

More likely Mongolian folk music shares some modalities with English.

But another point: in the Youtube performance of the 1st, it seems to me the last two movements have been switched. Can anyone confirm?

Ina Boyle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKRAta9V22w

Well, ya know, whatever ... Braga Santos was no RVW. I mean, I like his music, but they aren't in the same tier as far as I'm concerned.

With respect, I am not sure that is the point. I think that is a legitimate exercise to identify and examine the influences of the music of composers on others but I find ranking composers against each other ultimately a somewhat futile enterprise. I enjoy the music of both RVW and of Braga Santos. Was RVW the greater composer? Yes, almost certainly he was; his range across so many musical forms, the depth and profoundity of his music has attracted and will continue to attract conductors, other musicians and listeners for generations to come. Braga Santos wrote some incredibly rich, romantic and beautiful music, particularly in his first four symphonies. I am happy to love both just as I am happy to love both Nielsen and Sibelius, both Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

....and I am happy to ignore Hugh Wood's sour observation that "the work of their (Vaughan Williams and Holst) imitators is already dead". With due respect to Mr.Wood (who is a composer of distinction), I suspect that more people listen to the music of those he calls "imitators" (but does not name) than to his.

It can work both ways: when I was listening to Moeran's Symphony recently I heard in it references to VW’s 4th Symphony (just new when M was composing his Symphony), but also passages that VW must have remembered when he composed his 5th Symphony!

In retrospect, it's rather obvious that the generation of these composers - Ruth Gipps comes to mind, but also Elizabeth Maconchy - was simply overtaken by the 'high modernism' that came in vogue - more so: in a powerful position - after the war. Now, finally hearing their music, I am so often struck by its quality. How many fine composers have we been neglecting for so long?  ::)

That must be a vast number I believe.
The modernists from the 50s and the 60s had a grip on the media. Everything less modern (in their eyes) was doomed to become hidden.
Still, later in their lifes they seemed to have found the symphony orchestra back, as they did the symphony.

De Frumerie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNFgUuWWb4w