ENDNOTES, April Edition
The QR reviews Elgar’s masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius – and interviews conductor, Ronald Corp, who conducted the performance at St. John’s, Smith Square, with the London Chorus, on 26th March
“This is the best of me…” These were the words of Edward Elgar, the English composer who, in 1899 and 1900, emerged as our country’s most renowned composer with two works, the Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius – a setting of Cardinal Newman’s poem about the journey of the soul – “Jesu, Maria, I am near to death…” and on into heaven and eternity accompanied by an angel. Elgar is sometimes compared to Brahms or Richard Strauss, as an English version of those two Germanic composers, and Gerontius can certainly be likened at least to the idea of Strauss’s symphonic tone poem, Death and Transfiguration. But Elgar’s piece, which often seems operatic, or even in a visionary musical category of its own (rather than a tried-and-tested religious orartorio from the English provinces), uses for its near two hours of performance a large chorus, and three soloists: an English Parsifal, perhaps, or an element of William Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman in an intensely Roman Catholic form.
The Wagner conductor, Hans Richter – who championed Elgar throughout his life – conducted the first performance on the 3rd October 1900 and described the Worcestershire composer as “…. this English genius”, begging the performers at the 1900 Birmingham premiere to give their very best. Unfortunately, Elgar was plunged into one of his many depressions by the premiere: the performers were, by all accounts, under-rehearsed, and the mystical elation he craved eluded him – at least for a time. How Elgar would have loved to hear recent and modern recordings of his work, not least (for this reviewer) Sir Adrian Boult’s outstanding version with the poised, blazing brass and silky strings of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, caught by the EMI microphones of 1975 on what must have been a day of great form and energy. One hopes that people in 200 years time will still be listening to this music – and understand its tenderness, its awe-inspiring heights (and demonic depths), its Englishness – all projected from Elgar’s own emotional heartland, ridged by the Malvern Hills.
Last month, I discussed these very ideas – the genius of Elgar, of what makes Englishness in music, and whether enough is being done to educate people (particularly the young) in classical music – with the conductor, Ronald Corp OBE, who was at that time preparing for a performance of The Dream of Gerontius with one of his “house” ensembles, the London Chorus. We met at a coffee shop near Regent Street on a cold February mid-morning – Ronald Corp, immediately enthusiastic and very warm and outgoing in manner, plunging into a stream of ideas, answers to my questions, and with some very amusing observations about music and musical life in this country.
A composer himself and a great enthusiast for English music, he has written a lyrical Cello Concerto (conducting his own work alongside the Herbert Howells concerto on the Dutton record label), numerous choral works, motets and very beautifully-realised settings of poetry – some with a strongly contemporary theme. He sees a great bond with Elgar. “Our choir, the London Chorus, was actually formed to give the first complete London performance of The Dream of Gerontius, way back in 1903.* Our founding father was a conductor called Arthur Fagge, a name from the heyday of London musical life in the days of Henry Wood, but which seems to have been forgotten over the years.”
Ronald Corp
Corp is very much attuned to musical links and connections, and sees a symbolic value in his project with the London Chorus. Despite championing new music, he also expresses some scepticism about certain contemporary trends in the arts: “Our 2015 Gerontius is a return to that heritage of the era of Arthur Fagge and Elgar, and a bond with the past. Too often today, contemporary works that are given just one outing are hailed as ‘masterpieces’ by some in the arts media, and that could be true, but how do we really know until something has stood the test of time? The first performance of Elgar’s work was actually not a resounding success, and yet Gerontius has emerged over more than 100 years as a symbol of the English musical renaissance, and an immense and spiritual work almost unrivalled in the English repertoire.”
Ronald Corp is very active generally in London musical life, having founded the New London Orchestra (which has many fine recordings under its belt – not least a series of British light classics), and also conducting the New London Children’s Choir and the Highgate Choral Society. “I like to think that I run a permanent ‘Three Choirs Festival’,” remarks Ronald, “and I am immensely proud of all that we have done together. During the Diamond Jubilee, for example, we took over the Barbican for a concert celebration of our Queen’s reign, and I conducted the Highgate Choral Society in another Elgar work from the turn of the last century, the Coronation Ode, which was written for Edward Vll. Despite more than a century having elapsed since those works of days of Empire, the greatness of his music speaks much to the audiences of today as it did to those people who lived in the quite different world of Edwardian England.” Ronald was also inspired to write his own patriotic work for this concert, entitled This Sceptr’d Isle – a pageantry-filled setting of the famous speech made by John of Gaunt, from Shakespeare’s Richard ll.
Yet the maestro and his singers are very keen to involve themselves in the pulse of contemporary life. Ronald has also composed a choral work –Things I didn’t say – which explores the difficult theme of Alzheimer’s disease, setting the words of a friend, Steve Mainwaring, which describe in clear, straightforward, everyday language, the gradual realisation that a loved one is beginning to disappear in the fog with which this disease surrounds the recesses of the mind. This was performed in the magnificent setting of St. Martin in the Fields, just at the edge of Trafalgar Square, with the London Chorus taking centre stage.
Ronald Corp also commemorated the anniversary of the First World War, and the pity of war, setting the words of a German poet, Gerrit Engelke, injured in the fighting and defying death, but eventually leaving this world before his time, as the composer explains: “We know so much about Britain’s war poets, and we honoured them fully in our concert, especially in our inclusion of Elgar’s For the Fallen from his Spirit of England, and the setting which we chose for our performance, the Chapel of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. But little is known about what was going on in the trenches on the other side. I found the words of one German poet, and thought it would be interesting to show the war from another angle. It seems that war tends to have the same effect upon us all. I was very proud that my work formed part of our commemoration for the World War One anniversary.”
But what of music education – why are children not being told about classical music in schools? Why are the names, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, unknown to so many young people – why do they know no hymns or folk-songs? “I – and many others – are trying to counter this, and there are some fine schools and teachers doing great work. But yes, it is a pity, especially when music of every kind is now so easily available. As to folk music, perhaps some of the ideas in some folk-songs, which are by definition old-fashioned and of the countryside, are not liked today – perhaps the idea of a lady or maiden fetching water, or hanging washing on a clothes line upset some people?” An amusing point, which certainly added some laughter to our coffee-conversation!
And so we come to the performance at St. John’s, Smith Square, the conclusion of many rehearsals by the London Chorus and the New London Orchestra. It was clear to this critic and to the enthusiastic audience at St. John’s, that the players had given us a performance of complete integrity, and passion. Live classical music is as much a physical experience, for the eyes of the onlookers, as it is a “listening pleasure”, and throughout Ronald Corp’s evening at the helm of Gerontius, his orchestral players – in their expressions and movements – showed their total immersion in their work. The London Chorus, too, sang with a love of the work that I have seldom seen; and it is clear that their loyalty to Ronald Corp is not in question. They gave him their very best and how they soared and filled St. John’s in the passage which follows the first appearance of the bass (in this performance, the commanding Samuel Evans) – in part one of Gerontius:
“Go in the name
Of Angels and Archangels; in the name
Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name
Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the name
Of Cherubim and Seraphim, go forth!”
Rising operatic star, Peter Auty, sang the tenor part of Gerontius (who becomes the Soul, in part two of the work) bringing concentration and passion, especially in that passage of swelling power and overwhelming ecstasy which begins with the Angel (a beautifully-clear Madeleine Shaw) singing: “We have now passed the gate, and are within The House of Judgement” – the Soul passionately replying and exclaiming:
“The sound is like the rushing of the wind –
The summer wind – among the lofty pines.”
With such a moment to treasure and savour, it seems ignoble of me to say that during Part One, I felt that Mr. Auty (a truly fine singer) sounded – at times – as though his voice was not truly embedded in the role; and I have to say, that I missed the other-worldly, almost ghostly, Peter Grimes-like delivery of tenor Peter Pears – to my mind, the best Gerontius, and the jewel in the crown of the well-known London Symphony performance on Decca, under the baton of Benjamin Britten. But by the second half, Peter Auty gave what we had all come to hear, the passionate pilgrimage of a soul.
Ronald Corp conducted in a restrained, careful manner – always giving clear baton strokes and cues for his singers and performers: a fatherly, serious, priest-like performance, faithful to Elgar’s Englishness and his religious introspection. With 50 players, the New London Orchestra created a full symphonic sound, but I wondered if, perhaps, the ensembles ought to have been augmented – to give that extra dimension which such a large-scale work deserves, such as in the hammer-blow-like flash of percussion where the Soul sees “the glance of God”? However, the chamber-like delicacy of the front-desk strings of the New London Orchestra came into their own in the beauty of the introduction to Part Two. If we are approaching heaven, then we must also be with Elgar on the Worcester-Hereford border; with music and woodwind interpolations over the hushed strings, conjuring the Elgar and England of The Wand of Youth, or a scene by the Severn in Caractacus. This was playing of great quality by the New London Orchestra, with Ronald Corp seeing not just the great gestures of Gerontius, but the shadows and quiet corners of the church that are found throughout the score.
I attended this performance with my Editor, Dr. Leslie Jones – who shares my enthusiasm for Elgar, particularly this emotional and emotion-provoking piece and we compared notes in due course. This was a Dream of Gerontius, from Ronald Corp and his New London Orchestra and London Chorus that truly came from the heart. As I left St. John’s, breathing in the cool evening air of Smith Square, I felt fulfilled – the mark of a successful concert.
“How still it is!
I hear no more the busy beat of time…”
STUART MILLSON is Classical Music Editor of QR
Notes: * Prior to the first full performance of the work in London, Sir Henry Wood had conducted a performance of the orchestral Prelude to The Dream of Gerontius, and the Angel’s Farewell in an Ash Wednesday concert at The Queen’s Hall. Elgar’s friend, A.J. Jaeger, the publisher wrote in 1901:
“…this morning we went together to Queen’s Hall to hear Wood conduct the Gerontius Prelude and Angel’s Farewell… Wood conducted it with loving care, spent one-and-a-half hours on it & the result was a performance which completely put Richter’s into the shade”.
From Edward Elgar, A Creative Life, by Jerrold Northrop Moore, Oxford University Press, 1984.
Conductor Ronald Corp has made a number of recordings, principally for the Dutton label, including the Herbert Howells Cello Concerto (with Alice Neary, soloist) and the orchestral work, Merry-Eye, and a compilation of music by the American composer, Elinor Remick Warren. His collection of British light classics appears on the Hyperion Label.
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Strangeways Remembered
Strangeways Prison
Strangeways Remembered
Bill Hartley recalls the notorious prison riot
Twenty five years ago in April 1990 the worst riot in British penal history took place at Manchester’s Strangeways prison. Much has been written about the event notably the report by Lord Justice Woolf and doubtless more will appear during this anniversary year. The consensus was that the riot occurred because of the appalling conditions that prisoners had to endure. Well, as someone who was there I have an alternative theory to offer.
It was a very different prison system to the one we have today. Back then one cynic described the Prison Service as a working class organisation with middle class aspirations. And it was run with an iron fist by the working class; recruits tended to come in from the declining industries, for example the former trawler men who ran HMP Hull or the ex miners of HMP Leeds.
Conditions in the big northern ‘local’ prisons were squalid. Years of under investment had seen to that. I remember once going into the roof space above ‘I’ wing at HMP Liverpool to discover rubble from wartime bomb damage had been dumped there and forgotten about. Strangeways wasn’t the worst. For sheer awfulness Leeds topped the lot. Prisoners entered its reception area down a flight of steps plunging into a subterranean world designed by the Victorians to subdue new arrivals. Above was a soot blackened jumble of buildings whose silhouette was said to resemble Windsor Castle. There was a landing for psychiatric cases. Cell doors had been adapted and fitted with what officers called cat flaps. This allowed hospital staff to feed potentially violent prisoners without unlocking them. In a mildly humanitarian touch these flaps were left open to allow prisoners some sight of other human beings. For the newcomer it was an unnerving experience to have to walk a straight line along the centre of the landing. Deviate and you risked being grabbed by arms hanging out of the cat flaps.
The thing was that prisoners accepted these conditions as normal. It was assumed that if you went inside then you entered a decayed and overcrowded version of what the Victorians had created. Cells were larger than strictly necessary because their design envisaged single occupants who would need space to do whatever work was given them. In 1990s Strangeways three prisoners could find themselves in this space with no work to do. Rex Bloomstein’s famous 1979 documentary introduced the public to what life was like in the prison. Eleven years later things were starting to change and the clamour for reform had finally reached the ears of prisoners. I actually heard prisoners complain of being locked up for ‘twenty three hours a day’. Admittedly an unemployed prisoner was locked up for an awfully long time but simple arithmetic should have told them that the daily routine made twenty three hours in a cell impossible. Such was the power of propaganda.
My first inkling of how serious the situation was at Strangeways came during my time as duty governor at HMP Liverpool. I was called down to Reception to monitor the arrival of some prisoners. With the disturbance at its height many had surrendered before being moved to other jails. This group though were different. They were sex offenders freed by Strangeways staff who had the presence of mind to release them before withdrawing. I encountered a group of men white faced and shivering in shock and fear, conscious as I learned later that they had narrowly escaped a beating or worse.
Subsequently I was sent to Strangeways as negotiations advisor to assist the night commander of the incident. By then the hold outs were on the roof and the jail was a surreal place to be. Our operations room was the clothing store, close enough to manage the incident but protected from missiles flying down from the roof. At intervals claxons would blare, this being an attempt to keep the rioters awake and on edge. With care it was possible to approach the central rotunda of the prison. Here they had erected scaffolding for a painting job. One can imagine how lethal a scaffolding pole thrown from height could be. This inadvertent provision of ammunition for the rioters was one reason why it was decided not to retake the jail. The fact was though that the initiative had been lost in the first few hours. Lord Woolf chose not to blame the people on duty because presumably he knew a command and control failure running right to the top when he saw one.
A man like Lord Woolf would have been appalled by the conditions he found but working class prisoners were rather more accepting. Indeed a report around that time by the Chief Inspector of Prisons described HMP Liverpool as having ‘the worst levels of deprivation in any English prison but the highest morale among prisoners’. It really depended on how the staff ran the jail and the relaxed approach in Liverpool kept the place quiet.
It’s my belief then that what happened wasn’t a spontaneous protest against conditions but rather a quirk of northern working class culture. Liverpudlians and Mancunians don’t get on. Usually they are at opposite ends of the East Lancashire Road but there used to be many stories about friction in Warrington – Runcorn New Town, where sections of each tribe had been dumped.
Liverpool had its share of sex offenders: Rule 43s as they used to be called. Someone had the idea of locating them on the prison’s ‘H’ wing that would then be a dedicated unit managed for those classed as ‘vulnerable’. They certainly were. Exercising on ‘H’ yard had to be abandoned after the sniper on neighbouring ‘G’ wing struck once too often. He was an anonymous prisoner with a catapult who could fell sex offenders with considerable accuracy. No-one minded much until officers realised they too might be at risk.
The prison didn’t have enough Rule 43s to fill ‘H’ wing and it was unthinkable that ‘ordinary’ prisoners could remain there. An approach was made to Strangeways to take all their Rule 43s. This was accepted with alacrity since Rule 43s were considered a nuisance to manage. In exchange the prisoners from ‘H’ wing were sent to fill the vacant spaces at Strangeways and they were not happy about going there. A factor contributing to the stability of a local prison is the sense that though a man is incarcerated he is still close to home.
The prisoner who began the uprising in the chapel that Sunday morning was Paul Taylor from Birkenhead, a former Liverpool prisoner. Night after night I sat with the commander as the numbers upon on the roof slowly dwindled and noticed that the last hold outs were mainly Liverpool men. You won’t find any of this in Lord Justice Woolf’s report but it leaves me thinking that wrecking Manchester’s prison was a Liverpudlian thing to do.
Bill Hartley, who worked in the prison service, writes from Yorkshire
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