Beard of the Week XXVI: Unjustly Neglected Beards
Gosh but it has been a long time since we've had a beard of the week. I suppose I've been preoccupied by finishing some projects for Ars Hermeneutica and by our production of "Kiss Me, Kate!". Fortunately the latter is now over with and some level of schedule flexibility returns.
Let me introduce the beard of British composer Sir Granville Bantock; not a household name, not even particularly familiar, but for no obvious reason. Bantock was born in London (1868) and died in London (1946), a little after Sir Edward Elgar, roughly contemporary with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Why he is nowhere near so well-known as those two is not obvious. He wrote a number of quite listenable pieces in a late romantic style that took some influence from Wagner, apparently. Here is a detailed list of his works. (The same site, on other pages, groups the major works by date of composition or title.)
As an assessment along these inexplicably neglected lines, I quite like the following by one Vincent Budd, from his very informative and comprehensive essay "A Brief Introduction to the Life and Work of Sir Granville Bantock". Clearly Mr. Budd is a strong supporter of this neglected composer.
Sir Granville Bantock probably has the unenviable distinction – with less than a handful of other arguable challengers – of being the most unreasonably neglected composer in the whole pitiable chronicle of neglected 20th century British music. He is truly the supreme musical Ichabod of our Isles and the almost complete disappearance of his works from the repertoire of his country is one of the strangest and perhaps saddest musical biographies of recent times. The winds of cultural opinatry and the gravities of critical mythologising have condemned him to a limbo of fabled ingloriousness and he is left as nothing much more than a fleeting footnote in the histories of British music: his foibles and idiosyncrasies have been exaggerated and his gifts minimised, misjudged, and precondemned; characteristic idioms glibly recast into mannerisms, influences reduced to imitation, and critical marginalisation all too easily transfigured into musical fault in the shallow doctrines of accepted musical historiography.
Yet, for all the unfounded, beggarly, and ignominious inscriptions cast upon his name down the years, as our century passes into another the music of Granville Bantock, like that of Herbert Howells, could well be on its way to becoming another prized rediscovery from our wasted musical treasures.
You may make your own assessment by noting how familiar to you is the name of Herbert Howells.
I recently came to know Sir Granville, a little at least, through his 'cello music. Since I am a long-time amateur cellist, my ear is tuned to noticing unfamiliar music for cello when it turns up on the radio, as his "Pibroch" for 'cello and piano did one day. It was pleasant to listen to, and it also sounded not so difficult as to be beyond my own modest capabilities to perform. Something new to play!
It seems that Bantock had a warm fondness for the 'cello, since there are a number of pieces in his catalog for my instrument. The chamber music conveniently fits on one CD. There are three sonatas for 'cello and piano, in g minor, b minor, and f# minor; an "Elegaic Poem" for 'cello and piano; "Hamabdil" for 'cello and harp, and the aforementioned "Pibroch". The "Elegaic Poem" and "Hamabdil" also appear in versions for 'cello and orchestra; with orchestra are three other poems for 'cello: "Sapphic Poem" (my interest is piqued), "Celtic Poem", and "Dramatic Poem". These, by the way, constitute his entire output of works for solo instruments with orchestra.
But all this is by and by, really. Yes, it was his 'cello music that attracted my attention initially, but it was this picture of him looking all Edwardian with his lush but attractively styled beard and bristly head of hair that really cemented my lasting interest.
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on Friday, 30 March 2007 at 06.54
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Fine work. Remarkable beards do not get the attention they deserve. My lawyer Richard spent most of 2005 wearing an Edward VII and my business partner Martyn Shiner is threatening to tailor his into a "Philip of Spain". I also enjoyed your post on Philip Ball's "Critical Mass" and the debate that followed. I will add a link to you blog on my nascent "Positive Churn" so that if anyone ever reads it they may find their way to you.
on Friday, 6 April 2007 at 12.04
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Thanks for dropping in, Clive, and for the link. I would willingly bet that you're in Great Britain someplace, mostly because most American men can't distinguish between a goatee and a VanDyke, let alone imagine what an "Edward VII" or "Philip of Spain" might be. Is there any reason to encourage Mr. Shiner not to go the "Philip of Spain" route? On the whole I'm usually happy to see some adventurousness in facial hairstyle.