Fauré in London

A long introduction before I get to the point I’m afraid on W.H. Squire's recordings of Fauré!

Sicilienne for Cello & Piano Op. 78 [1898]

William Henry Squire cello & [Hamilton Harty?], piano

Columbia L1759

(ⓦAX 1225)

Recorded: Wednesday, 23rd December, 1925

Issued September 1926 & deleted August 1931

FLAC file 16bit [15Mb]

Papillon for Cello & Piano Op. 77 [1898]

William Henry Squire, cello & [Hamilton Harty?], piano

Columbia L1977

(ⓦAX 1248)

Recorded: Friday, 15th January 1926

Issued June 1927 & deleted August 1930

FLAC file 16bit [13Mb]

(If you are not familiar with FLAC I can recommend Foobar2000 player)

During March and the beginning of April 1898 Gabriel Fauré spent a vacation with his friend and music patron Leo Frank Schuster (1852-1927). ‘Schuster was a music-lover and patron of the arts in the United Kingdom. His home overlooking St James's Park at 22 Old Queen Street, London, part of which now contains offices of The Spectator magazine, became a meeting-place for artists, writers and musicians, including Siegfried Sassoon, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir Adrian Boult. He was a particular patron of Edward Elgar, and also did much to make Gabriel Fauré's name known in England’ [Wikipedia]

Film of Fauré having a smoke in 1913

It was on this visit that a meeting was set between Fauré and Mrs Patrick Campbell by Schuster. Mrs Campbell had been rebuffed by Debussy when asked if he could provide incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s  Pelléas et Mélisande which she wanted to be produced in London in a translation by Jack Mackail. Mrs Campbell must have heard Fauré’s work and immediately set forth to commission Fauré to provide music in the places she felt most called out for music in the play. 

Mrs Patrick Campbell

Fauré composed some nineteen numbers very quickly and ‘On 21 June 1898 Fauré himself conducted the orchestra of the Prince of Wales' Theatre, Piccadilly (Coventry Street) for the premiere of the English version of Pelléas et Mélisande. In the audience were Maeterlinck, Charles van Lerberghe, Reynaldo Hahn, the Princess Edmond de Polignac (who was to be the dedicatee of the orchestral suite), the painter John Singer Sargent and all Fauré's London friends. The production was a great success with the public and the critics. Maeterlinck himself wrote an enthusiastic letter to Mrs Patrick Campbell which finished: in a few words, “you... filled me with an emotion of beauty the most complete, the most harmonious, the sweetest that I have ever felt to this day.”’ [See Jean-Michel Nectoux: Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life.]

Today only the Suite Pelléas et Mélisande of four of the nineteen pieces is regularly played: Prélude-Fileuse-Sicilienne-La mort de Mélisande.

The Sicilienne had been originally written in 1892 as part of the incidental music for a production of Molière’s Le Bougeois Gentilhomme that never reached the stage.

The question, which is open to a lot of conjecture, is this. Had Fauré sent Squire the scores of both Papillon and the Sicilienne prior to Fauré’s stay in London from March 1898. I can’t be sure of this as I have not tracked down a programme for a concert given on the 12th February 1898 at the Queens Hall in which ‘Mr W.H. Squire produced three little violoncello pieces by Godard and Fauré with much success’ [The Musical Times, March 1898]. Another notice of the concert appeared in The Observer ‘Three graceful little pieces for violoncello and orchestra, by Godard and Fauré respectively, were brought forward by Mr. W. H. Squire, for the first time in London. Their value is not great, but as played by that talented artist and the Queen’s Hall orchestra they were pleasant enough to hear.' [The Observer,13 February 1898]. 

This asks another question, was Squire playing the Sicilienne in its Le Bougeois Gentilhomme form, and did it even have a title yet, or was he playing just the Elégie Op.24 which had been arranged for orchestra in 1895 and the other two pieces were by Godard? At least one of these pieces would have been played, one hopes anyway. Another anomaly is this, did Squire play them again at Schuster’s house from which Mrs Campbell approached Fauré to compose the incidental music? Squire is known to have played at the Schuster house frequently.

Schuster's house at 22 Old Queen St., London

One fact from this mountain of hypothetical conjecture was that Fauré, on his return to Paris, dedicated the score of the Sicilienne and inscribed the manuscript 'To Mons. W. H. Squire Sicilienne pour Violoncelle et piano Paris 16 avril,1898, Gabriel Fauré’. [This is now held in the Eugene Istomin Collection, New York]

I’m not wholly sure when Squire first met Fauré but they had met by 1896 for in a concert of the 1st May 1896 included Fauré’s piano quartet Op. 15 with the composer at the piano together with Adolph Brodsky, violin, Alfred Hobday, viola, and W.H. Squire, cello.

William Henry Squire

Now as far as I can judge Squire had not previously recorded any Fauré and was not to do so again. Were these two early electrically recorded Columbia sides made as homage to the composer who died the previous year? Did he think that the subtleties of the work could be brought out better with this new process? Had he just decided that Faure might just become popular! Very little of his work, appart from the songs, were recorded by the mid 1920s.

Also single potpourri pieces that Squire had so often recorded for both HMV and Columbia had by this time begun to give way to longer concertos and chamber works. With a new generation of cellists competing for gramophone recognition, Squire’s was, with his ‘old fashioned’ playing style, being slowly being ousted from the studios.

These two recordings can probably be regarded as ‘creator version.’ The Papillon, although written in 1884 was not published until 1898, is played so much slower than cellist play it today. In fact most cellist take it as some sort of exercise in prowess, rather than the delicate butterfly hovering about on a sunny afternoon. The Sicilienne too is also played quite slowly and both recordings use what today would be thought excessive portamento, but then I  like portamento and I don’t think that it's a dirty word. The piano accompaniment is excellent and although the pianist is unknown it may well be Harty as he was the de facto accompanist for most of Squire's pre-electric recordings.

Both these recordings are not in the best condition the Papillon appears to have a pressing problem, this was noted in The Gramophone and so was not given a review and may also account for the delay in issue - both recordings are a bit noisy.

I should mention what is on the 'B' side of each of these pieces: L1759 has W.H. Squire's Slumber Song and L1977 has Herbert Hughes' arrangment of The Sally Garden.

Fauré and Mrs Patrick Campbell,1898

Complicated lives

Robert Coningsby Clarke: Desert Love Songs - song cycle

1) I will await thee  2) My heart's desire  3) The burning hours 

4) The dove  5) The hawk  6) Yellow slippers

Hubert Eisdell - tenor

Unnamed orchestra cond. by Hamilton Harty 

Columbia D1421 & D1422

(69690, 69691 & 69692)

Recorded February/March 1920

Ernest Bristow Farrar: Brittany Op. 21 No. 1

Hubert Eisdell - tenor

Piano accomp. by Hamilton Harty

Columbia D1422

(69709)

Recorded March 1920

Link to FLAC files (about 37Mb)

My copies of these two discs are a bit worn in places but I have patched them up as best I can. 

Robert Coningsby Langton Clarke has almost sunk without trace as a composer. He was born in 1879 at Old Charlton in Kent, now a suburb engulfed in South-East London.  His father was Col. F.C.H. Clarke, Surveyor General of Ceylon (1842-1894) and a writer of military books etc. Educated first Marlborough, Clark became a pupil of Sir Frederick Bridge at Westminster Abbey in 1898 and then went up to Trinity College, Oxford where I think he studied the organ. As a back up to his musical proclivities he also took a BA in jurisprudence, which may account for his becoming a partner in the Carron Iron Works. He enlisted in 28th County of London Regt. (Artists’ Rifles), in 1914; was Lieut the Worcestershire Regt, 1915; and then with the Salonika Field Force, 1916–17. After the war he continued writing music but really by this time his output started to decline until his death in 1934. A bad year on the whole for British Composers with the death of Elgar, Delius and Holst.

Radclyffe Hall  'John'

As far as I can judge Clarke composed these songs containing the text of Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall's poems because, together with his wife Dolly, they all lived at the same house at No. 1 Swan Walk, Chelsea, opposite Chelsea Physic Gardens. 

No. 1 Swan Walk, Chelsea (too the right with the garden)

Clerke's wife, Dorothy Diehl, was Radclyffe Hall’s Pennsylvanian cousin. Dorothy, or Dolly as she was called, arrived in the UK about 1906 adged 18 and swiftly became Radclyffe-Hall's lesbian lover. However Radclyffe-Hall's affection then turned to Mabel Batten, a well-known amateur lieder singer. It was Batten who introduced Radclyffe-Hall to Coningsby Clarke as a composer to help set some of her poems.Mabel gave Radclyffe-Hall the nickname 'John' a name she was generally known by and so I will use this symbolic re-christening hereafter.

Dolly was dependent on John financially, John had inherited £100,000 from her father so could do pretty well what she liked. When John and Dolly broke up Dolly first returned to the USA but was back by July 1909 and quickly decided to marry Clarke. The marriage took place at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge on 19th October 1909 with John as their witness. That they where all living in the same house seems to indicate some sort of interesting arraignment. Who’s Who lists Clarke’s hobbies as croquet, bridge, fishing, reading, sea-bathing, and travelling, maybe he had other interesting hobbies too. Anyway it seems to have been an unconventional life as Dolly occasionally became John's lover from time to time. R. Coningsby Clarke, as he preferred to be called on his musical compositions, also wrote many songs set to poems by John Masefield and W.E. Henley but the only song he is remembered today by is The Blind Ploughman.Something I can't quite fathom is why John continued to pay Dolly after her marriage, she had a couple of children by Clarke and he left some £21,000 on his death so money was not really a problem. Maybe it was a form of control that John wished to maintain over Dolly.This then is the connection between John and Clarke, however there is another. 

John's mother Mary Jane Hall, after a messy divorce from John's father Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall (a great lack of imagination by his parents I feel), remarried Alberto Antonio Visetti a singing teacher with a reputation as a ladies' man, he also made indecent advances on John who thereafter referred to him as 'My disgusting old step-father.' He was a founding professor of the Royal College of Music and included among his pupils Louise Kirby-Lunn, Muriel Foster, Keith Faulkner and Agnes Nicholls.  John in her teens used to hang about the room next to Visetti's studio where students met before and after lessons. This room became her hunting ground for lovers. In 1898 the 22 year old Agnes Nicholls became the 18 year old John's lover, not sure who seduced who, but they became an 'item.' This intense relationship lasted until about 1901 by which time Agnes was starting on her professional career. Now in 1904 Agnes married none other than Hamiton Harty the conductor of these records. It is very likely that he would therfore arranged the piano score of the songs for orchestra. Harty and Nicholls marriage was a bit of a failure and they lived apart after about 1928.

Hubert Eisdell

The only other other connection I can find, as if we don't have enough for one recording, is one between Clarke and Eisdell. Eisdell was in some respects a protege of Gervase Elwes and both sang very similar repertoire, He recorded several other of Clarke's songs a number of which may have been dedicated to, or at least first performed by him. I have not been able to find a concert he gave including this particular cycle, indeed the cycle was not given very often, the first two songs featured at the Proms in 1915 and 1916 but do not appear to have been lastingly popular. Eisdell did sing at other proms, in 1913 and from 1921 to 1923, other of Clarke's songs. Hubert Eisdell was well known and rather me write his biography a thoroughly good one can be found here

I’m sorry to say I have yet to locate the full text for the cycle, I did however find a contemporary review published in the The Music Trade Review Vol. LVIII No. 20, p. 50: May 16 1914. when the work was issued in the US.

Desert Love Songs by Clarke. Brilliant Cycle of Six Song by Robert Coningsby Clarke, the Young Composer, Published by Chappell & Co. 

Perhaps when the young composer [actually 34, so there is hope for us all] of these Desert Love Songs gets a little older he may be unable to write music so spring-like and expressive only of youth and the halcyon days of love. His landscape is aglow with budding flowers and the emerald of opening leaves, yet there is a note of plaintiveness in these songs, a tone of longing. Robert Coningsby Clarke, however, is not a musical trifler. His expression is earnest and his style is elevated. Such a song as "My Heart's Desire," for instance, is dignified as well as impassioned. "The Burning Hours" has an Oriental touch and is full of romance. "I will await thee." the first song of the volume, is delightfully tender; and the last song, "Yellow Slippers," is the exuberance of youth at its best. In "The Dove" the composer has an easy and spontaneous melody with a rippling accompaniment suggestive of light wings and airy flight. "The Hawk" has a more insistent rhythm and a melody of stronger character, as befits the predatory nature of that bird that killed the swallow. This album of six songs, with words by Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall and music by Robert Coningsby Clarke, is published by Chappell & Co., New York.

Ernest Bristow Farrar

As a filler Columbia recorded Brittany by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885-1918) a native of Lewisham in London, I only mention this as I live in thjis neck of the woods, his biography can be found on wikipedia. He managed to produce a fare amount of work before being killed on the Western Front. Farrar is perhaps best remembered as the teacher of Gerald Finzi. 

Coincidentally Gerwase Elwes also recorded this song about June 1917 but this recording was held back until 1921. Columbia was not to know that Elwes would be killed in a tragic accident in January 1921 and so issued his version in March as a sort of tribute. This duplication could not have helped the sale of the Desert Love Songs much.

The words by E.V Lucas formed the third poem in a series on Easy Lessons in Geography that was published as part of the anthology called Another Book of Verses for Children in 1909. A pretty book which a later issue of which can be seen here.

In Brittany the churches
All day are open wide,
That anyone who wishes to
May pray or rest inside.
The priests have rusty cassocks,
The priests have shaven chins.
The poor old bodies go to their.
With lists of little sins.

In Brittany the churches
Are cool and white and quaint,
With here and there a crucifix
And here and there a saint;
And here and there a little shrine,
With candles short or tall
That Bretons light for love of Him
The Lord who loveth all.