Early One Morning in Kensington: British Flute Music from the Later 19th Century

Description

Flautists are inclined to lament the shortage of repertoire for their instrument. It is surprising, therefore, that the considerable British repertoire remains relatively unexplored. This disc looks at some of the music written in England in the later 19th century, though one of the composers has his feet firmly planted in earlier times.
A major driving force in the creation of a repertoire of British flute music was Rudall, Carte & Company. In 1822, the professional flautist George Rudall (1781-1871) combined with the flute-maker John Mitchell Rose (1793-1866) to set up a workshop, Rudall & Rose, in London. They were later joined by Richard Carte (1808-1891) and took out a British patent for the Böhm flute – still the standard flute – in 1847. The firm became Rudall, Carte & Company in 1872 and Carte was sole owner from 1878. His eldest son, Richard D’Oyly Carte (1844-1901), was the impresario of the Savoy Operas and the business genius behind Gilbert and Sullivan. Most leading British flautists until well beyond the middle of the 20th Century used Rudall Carte wooden flutes, including Gareth Morris, whose playing is a notable feature of Klemperer’s Philharmonia recordings.
Not satisfied with making flutes, Carte also addressed the fact that flautists did not have a great deal of music to play. From the 1850s through to 1955, when the business was bought by Boosey & Hawkes, the company had a large catalogue of wind music. In the later Victorian period, works were issued by numerous British, and some foreign, composers. Only one item on the present CD, the German Intermezzo, was not published by Rudall Carte (it was issued by Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co.).
Ebenezer Prout was the son of a Congregational minister. Apart from a few piano lessons from the governess of a “young ladies’ school”, twelve with an elderly organist and, later in London, twelve more in piano technique, he was entirely self-taught as a musician. He nevertheless achieved professorships at the National Training School (forerunner of the Royal College of Music), the Royal Academy of Music (at the request of Sullivan), the Guildhall School of Music and Dublin University. He also held various positions as organist and choral conductor and was active as a journalist, critic and writer of textbooks on music. He was noted for his phenomenal memory and was described as “a rare linguist, a chess player, a great smoker [high praise in those days!], a raconteur of exceptional interest, somewhat Bohemian in dress, a genial and sympathetic friend”. His profound knowledge of the Bible led to his naming his two dogs Huz and Buz.
In 1862, Prout won a prize for his first String Quartet and had the honour of hearing a performance led by none other than Joseph Joachim. His works include four symphonies, though his obituarist admitted that “perhaps he exercised a wider and more permanent influence over his generation by his luminous theoretical works than he did by his music, sound and scholarly as that is” (all information is from an article in the Musical Times of April 1899 and the obituary in the same journal of January 1910).
The Flute Sonata, at least, has a good deal of melodious charm in addition to the qualities described above. It is true that, though written in 1882, it contains nothing that could not have been written in 1832, but by taking Haydn and Schubert as its models, it avoids heaviness. It treats the performers as equal partners, with plenty of dialogue between them. The first movement is strictly, but not severely, classical, while touches of romanticism invade the Romanza, a somewhat operatic scena, and the central section of the otherwise infectiously exuberant Finale.
Until the age of eight, Frederic Archer had (according to the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 23/III/1878) a “strange dislike for music”. Something in him then clicked. After a year of lessons with his father, “he could read at sight anything that was within the capacity of his childish fingers”. His first appointment as organist came when he was fourteen. By 1878, he was organist of Alexandra Palace and a highly popular recitalist. “The extraordinary value of this reputation,” the article noted, “cannot be otherwise than enhanced by the fact that the possessor of it has never in his life received a single lesson on the organ.” In 1880, Archer transferred to the USA, firstly to New York, but in 1889 it was reported that he had moved to Milwaukee, “where he finds a more general musical intelligence than in the East”. “The ripe musical knowledge of the people of Manitoba is simply amazing”, he stated (Musical Times 1/IV/1889). He established there a Choral Union whose aims testified to his faith in his new public. “Under no circumstances will any concession be granted to what is called popular taste” (MT 1/I/1890). In 1895 he was a founder member of the Pittsburgh Orchestra and led its first concerts until 1898, when his place was taken by Victor Herbert. This caused speculation that he was leaving “this smoky city” and he assured the Musical Times that “I have ceased to wander; I came here with the fixed intention of remaining; my work is entirely congenial, and the position in all respects most desirable” (MT 1/VII/1898). He remained the much lauded organist of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall until struck down by cancer only three years later.
The Duo Concertante was dedicated to Oluf Svendsen (1832-1888), a Norwegian flautist who settled in London and was considered a leading player. In 1861 he was appointed first flute in the Queen’s private band, and was a professor at the RAM (MT obituary 1/VI/1888). It seems likely that Archer wrote this piece before his removal to the USA. It has a similar form to the French Morceau de Concours – a fairly extended first section in which the soloist displays his legato and a brilliant second part in truncated sonata form (without a development). Unlike many of the French competition pieces, it provides, true to its name, opportunities for genuine dialogue between the performers. While not exactly modernistic, a certain boldness gives it a more recent feel than the Prout sonata.
The best known of these three composers, Edward German, spent a boyhood in which his future seemed poised between engineering and music. By 1880, music prevailed and he enrolled at the RAM. His principal subjects were violin and organ, but he studied composition and orchestration with Prout for seven years. Towards the end of his time, a chance meeting with on the Academy steps with the singing professor Alberto Randegger set him on his career. “Can you conduct? Mr. Mansfield has taken the Globe Theatre, and he wants a conductor. Will you go?” (MT 1/I/1904). He could and he did. The engagement was only for seven months, but long enough to produce incidental music for Richard III, the overture to which became a popular concert item. It caught the ear of Sir Henry Irving, leading to regular commissions for the Lyceum Theatre. German became increasingly heard in the concert hall, but a snide remark by Bernard Shaw to the effect that his Second Symphony was not really a symphony led him to concentrate on suites and symphonic poems. Another turning point came after the death of Sullivan in 1900, when German was asked to complete The Emerald Isle, an operetta Sullivan had left largely unfinished. The Emerald Isle (1901) was a considerable success, leading to the operettas, notably Merrie England (1902) and Tom Jones (1907), for which he is mainly remembered. Like Sullivan, he resented being classed as a “light music” composer. In later years, finding himself out of sympathy with more modern trends, he composed little.
One of the players in the Globe Theatre orchestra was the Welsh flautist Frederic Griffiths (1867-1918), a student of Oluf Svendsen (and later Taffanel in Paris) who became a leading performer on that instrument – in 1902 and 1904 he was chosen to accompany Dame Nellie Melba on tours of the UK and Australia. All German’s flute pieces were dedicated to Griffiths and the composer often took the piano part in performances. The most substantial is the Suite. A contemporary review found the first two movements “remarkable for melodic interest and freshness, and the third is appropriately wild and frolicsome” (MT 1/IX/1893). The first two movements at least show that the dividing line between “easy listening” backed by real substance and “serious” music expressed through distinctive melody is too specious to be worth making.
The Romance, Intermezzo and Saltarello, though written separately, could well make up a second Suite. The first two are notable for their wistful charm, alternating with moments of greater passion. The Saltarello – really a Tarantella, I am assured by Italians – anticipates the exuberance of the Gypsy Dance in the Suite.
Old English Melody is a spin-off from Nell Gwyn of the same year, the Overture to which makes prominent use of Early One Morning. After a simple statement, the flute plays a counterpoint similar to that in the orchestral version, but thereafter, the two pieces go their separate ways. After a dramatic chord, German seems to anticipate Percy Grainger in “dishing up” the tune with saucily inappropriate treatment.
A Princess in Kensington (1903) was not one of German’s more successful operettas, though it achieved a run on Broadway, where the New York Times (13/IX/1903) found it “in the best traditions of the English stage”, with songs of “considerable spirit and variety”. No information has come to light about Henri Leclaire. His selection begins near the end, with the Wedding March. He then makes extensive use of the operetta’s biggest hit, “Seven o’clock in the morning”, which has a pastoral lilt similar to the first Nell Gwyn dance. This is followed by “He was a simple sailor man”, in hornpipe style, and a snatch of “Twin Butterflies” leading to a vivacious coda.

Christopher Howell © 2025