Havergal Brian
William Havergal Brian ( born January 29, 1876 in Dresden, Staffordshire, † November 28, 1972 in Shoreham- by-Sea, Sussex ) was an English composer.
Life and work
Brian earned a legendary reputation at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly because of the number of his symphonies: 32, an unusually large number of composers of the Viennese Classic, and unbroken creativity, despite the fact that he most of his life was almost completely forgotten. Even decades after his death is often performed none of his works.
William Brian ( he took the name " Havergal " from a family of poets hymn ) was one of the few composers who came from the British working class. After attending primary school, he had difficulties in finding a suitable job (among other things, he worked in a coal mine ), and taught himself some musical basics at. Temporarily he was organist at the Odd Rode Church in neighboring Cheshire. In 1895, he heard a choir rehearsal of King Olaf the work by Edward Elgar, was present at the premiere and was ardent supporter of the then modern music, especially that of Richard Strauss and the contemporary English composer. About attending music festivals, a lifelong friendship developed with the roughly the same composer Granville Bantock.
1898 Isabel married Brian Priestley, with whom he had five children. 1907 caught his first English Suite attention of conductor Henry Wood, who she performed at the London Proms. It was a sudden success, and Brian found both a publisher and performance opportunities for his next orchestral works. However, this success did not last phase, possibly related to his shyness towards strangers and lack of self-confidence in public occasions. Performance offers dried up again soon.
In the same year (1907 ) Herbert Minton Robinson, an annual income of £ 500 it was by a local wealthy businessman, offered the prospect of ( for the lower middle class at that time a respectable salary ), which should allow him to devote all his time to the composition. Apparently awaited Robinson, Brian would be rapidly successfully through the persuasion of his compositions and financially independent. To this end, it did not come. For a while Brian worked on ambitious, large- scale choral and orchestral works, but was in no hurry to finish it, and devoted himself increasingly expensive things such as food or a trip to Italy.
Money disputes and an affair with a young maid, Hilda Mary Hayward, could fail in 1913 his first marriage. Brian fled to London, and although Robinson the incident deeply disapproved, he put Brian's financial support until his own death continues; However flowed to most of Brian's contributions live separated wife. From the affair with Hilda was a lifelong relationship: First they lived in " concubinage " together, after Isabel's death in 1933 they were married ( Hilda had already borne him five more children).
In London, Brian began again plenty to compose and took - a life in very humble circumstances leader - any activity with a musical reference to, either as a copyist or arranger. He also wrote for the magazine The British bandsman and in 1927 co-editor of Musical Opinion.
Brian's service in the First World War was short and grotesque ( even before it came to a combat mission, he was retired with a hand injury ), however, gave him material for his first opera, The Tigers. In the 1920s, he turned to the symphony and had already composed more than ten works of this kind, before one of which was premiered in the early 1950s. This owed Brian its discovery by the composer Robert Simpson, at the same time music producer at the BBC, who asked Sir Adrian Boult in 1954 to take the 8th Symphony in his program. From this time Brian wrote another 22 symphonies ( many of the later are short, one - or two-movement works ), of which he made most after his 80th birthday, along with various other compositions.
1961 saw Brian's greatest surviving work, the Symphony No. 1, the so-called Gothic, originated in 1919 and 1927 its world premiere in the Central Hall, Westminster, part music played by laymen and conducted by Bryan Fairfax. The gigantic work contains among other things a complete Te Deum for four soloists, two large double choirs and brass four separate groups and calls for a huge orchestra apparatus that exceeds the most extreme demands of Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg. In 1966 there was the first purely professional performance at the Royal Albert Hall under the direction of Boult; both performances were largely driven by Simpson. The second performance was broadcast live, and many people heard that night for the first time the music of Brian. This aroused considerable interest, and until his death six years later saw several of his works their premiere, and first commercial recordings began to appear.
In the years after Brian's death, when Simpson still had influence at the BBC, there was an increased interest in his music, which expressed itself in a larger number of recordings and performances; two biographies and a three-volume study of his symphonies appeared. But the reputation of his music always remained on a circle of enthusiasts limited and never reached the popularity approximately to that of Ralph Vaughan Williams, although conductors such as Leopold Stokowski, Sir Charles Groves, Sir Charles Mackerras and Lionel Friend championed Brian's work. Only a few of Brian's works were published, which is why his music is still neglected; and the rarity of well- rehearsed performances or sophisticated interpretations makes it difficult to assess their quality properly.
The style of Brian uses a sometimes dissonant harmony, tonality is sometimes extended to close to the atonality (Brian valued among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Edgar Varèse and Paul Hindemith ).