Rutland Boughton

Rutland Boughton ( born January 23, 1878 in Aylesbury ( Buckinghamshire ); † January 25, 1960 in London) was an English composer.

Life

Boughton was born the son of a merchant in modest circumstances. Although he showed early musical talent, for financial reasons, no such training was possible. In 1892 he was apprenticed to a London concert agency. Self-taught, he attracted attention with his compositions and had the pleasure of a scholarship, the 1898-1901 study at the Royal College of Music in London with Charles Villiers Stanford and Henry Walford Davies him (1869 - 1941) enabled.

1902-1904 worked Boughton at the Haymarket Theatre. In 1905 he got a job at the Midland Institute of Music in Birmingham, which was led by Granville Bantock. Together with the writer Reginald Buckley, he sat down with the magazine The Music Drama of the Future for a ' British Bayreuth " one that should be based on cooperation according to socialist principles. In 1914 he founded with the premiere of the opera The Immortal Hour Festival in Glastonbury. These should primarily devote music dramas from the world of King Arthur, who is the Sage buried to there. 1922 saw The Immortal Hour with great success its London premiere. In 1926 it came to the liquidation of the festival ensembles. Boughton moved in 1927 to a low of a farmhouse in Gloucestershire back and earned his living as a farmer. In addition, he wrote, was active politically and conducted the London Labour Choral Union. Attempts to initiate new in Bath Festival 1934 in Stroud and 1935 respectively, were unsuccessful.

Work

The music of Boughton is melodious and is in the tonal tradition of the English late Romanticism; occasional echoes of Edward Elgar are noticeable.

In the center of Boughton's work was the opera. He was guided by Richard Wagner, but expanded the proportion of the choir, and referred to his stage works as "Choral drama ". Between 1908 and 1945 he worked on a cycle of five music dramas based on the Arthurian legends. In 1909, the first opera The Birth of Arthur or Uther and Igraine was completed. 1916 followed with The Round Table of the second part, which was premiered in 1916 as the first work of the series ' in Glastonbury. 18 years later the third part of The Lily Maid came to the performance; the last two parts Galahad and Avalon emerged 1943-45, Boughton did not live to their first performance.

In addition, Boughton wrote three symphonies (the first he later withdrew ), solo concerts, chamber music, choral works and songs.

Discography

More discs, see here:

Others

Boughton's biographer Michael Hurd ( b. 1928 ) died in 2006.

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