Reginald Nettel

Snob Alert: The author of this book is one of those extraordinarily obnoxious people who equates "music" with "classical music." The music ordinary folk music that people at this time sang and listened to, or the popular songs found in broadsides, or the lowbrow entertainment of the music halls... does not exist. Was folk music sung in the pottery towns that are now Stoke-on-Trent? We know -- no thanks to author Nettl -- that a few folk songs were later collected there. Were there music show more halls? Got me; you can't find out from this book.

If you accept that limitation -- which is only a limitation because Nettl abuses his terminology; if he'd called it Classical Music in the Five Towns, so that people like me would know it wasn't for us -- this is a very detailed and informative book. One learns how a few enterprising choral directors put together high-quality choirs, how they competed and won prizes around England, how they gradually expanded their scope. We also find out quite a bit about the men (of course they were all men) who organized these choirs, and how gradually big names like Sir Edward Elgar and Frederick Delius discovered the musicians of the pottery towns, and began to bring new works their way and to employ their musicians.

Yet even in the discussions of those events, there are things that weren't very clear to me. Elgar was known to conduct big musical events in the Five Towns, e.g. -- but was this because he really liked their musicians, or because he had some sort of pity for these musically deprived people? Did they encourage him, or did he tolerate them? I simply can't tell. This book reminds me of a chronicle more than a history: It traces events, but it doesn't give them an overall interpretation.

For the people of what were then the Five Towns, this seems like an honorable memorial: Despite being a set of industrial villages, without much money or strong institutions, they managed to create musical ensembles that garnered national attention. But as a book about what was actually going on there, musically, I found it profoundly disappointing. show less

William Havergal Brian was born on 29 January 1876 into a working-class Potteries family in Dresden, Staffordshire. He gained his first musical experience in church choirs and after leaving school at the age of 12 he was in some demand as a church organist. He learned the violin and cello, and played in local bands and orchestras. A local teacher gave him a thorough theoretical grounding, but he was virtually self-taught in composition. Nevertheless he rapidly acquired an invincible desire show more to be a composer and in the first decade of the twentieth century began to make a name for himself.

Some of his music was admired by Elgar, works of his were performed by conductors such as Henry Wood and Thomas Beecham, and for a number of years he and his family were supported by a wealthy Staffordshire businessman so that Brian would be free to compose.

All this came to an abrupt end, however, just before the outbreak of World War 1, when various personal crises forced him to leave his home and family. In London he failed to consolidate such musical reputation as he had gained, and for many years he supported a growing second family with a series of menial jobs, often in some poverty.

With the death of Bantock in 1946, Brian lost his last advocate for performances of his music until the early 1950s, when his work came to the attention to a young BBC music producer named Robert Simpson, himself destined to become one of Britain's foremost symphonists. Starting with Brian's eighth symphony in 1954 (the first time that Brian, already 78, heard any of his symphonies), Simpson gradually brought about over the next quarter of a century a growing number of performances, mostly in radio broadcasts, which began to initiate a recognition of Brian's achievement.

The composer moved from London to Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, in 1958, where he embarked upon a final, immensely rich, ten-year Indian Summer of composition which included no fewer than 20 symphonies.

This book is a biography of Brian, the strat of his rehabilitation. show less