Neil Starling
Much of Brian’s output immediately after the composition of By the Waters of Babylon consisted of solo songs and part-songs. 1906 saw the appearance of his next large-scale work, Carmilhan. The score of this work is now lost, and the only information about it which is now available is that it was a setting of a poem by Longfellow, and that it was scored ‘for contralto solo, chorus and orchestra’ [1]. Brian called the work a dramatic ballad and, in a list of his works which he produced in 1907, Carmilhan was listed as Opus 14. If the first setting of Psalm 68, “Let God Arise”, was ever written, it must have appeared very soon after Carmilhan, as it is listed as Opus 15. [2]
Later, The Vision of Cleopatra appeared in its place as Opus 15. Brian’s setting of The vision of Cleopatra began life as an entry for a competition for composers as part of the Norwich Festival of 1908. The festival of the previous year included a competition for a cantata libretto on the subject of Anthony and Cleopatra. The winning entry was that of Gerald Cumberland, a critic and poet, and was entitled The Vision of Cleopatra. The competition for composers in the following year was to set Cumberland’s libretto.
By coincidence, the subject of Cleopatra had already been on Brian’s mind for some time. In the spring of 1906 he had become captivated by an English translation of a book by Théophile Gautier entitled Suits des Cleopatre. Brian contacted Arnold Bennett, the novelist from the Potteries, with regard to the origins of this book, and in the ensuing correspondence on the subject, Bennett said that he had written a libretto for an opera, based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, originally intended for a French composer [3]. He suggested that Brian might like to use the libretto himself. This suggestion came to nothing, however, and Brian’s attention was soon diverted by the Norwich Festival competition.
Work did not go smoothly on the composition, due to domestic difficulties which caused him to have to work during the night [4]. The finished score reached the secretary of the Norwich Committee on the closing date [5] of the competition. Brian’s setting was one of 70 [6], and the works (with the mss. not bearing the composers’ names) were judged by a panel consisting of Bantock, Delius and Ernest Walker. Bantock withdrew from the panel, however, to be replaced by Coleridge-Taylor. The reasons for Bantock’s withdrawal are not clear. Eastaugh [7] states that it was simply because he knew too many of the entrants. Nettel [8] however, claims that Bantock retired after a dispute with Delius over Brian’s setting, and adds that Delius later stated that had he known that the setting was by Brian, he would have been in agreement with Bantock. The competition’s first prize was won by Julius Harrison, for which he received a cheque for 50 guineas. Brian also received a cheque, however, for which Henry Wood was a generous contributor. The publishing firm of Bosworth paid Brian £40 for the right of publication, and the vocal score subsequently appeared in print. In the following year, 1909, the work received its first and only performance. This took place at the Southport Triennial Music Festival, to which event the work is inscribed. The conductor was Landon Ronald, who, at around that time, began to gain recognition as an important interpreter of Elgar’s music. The soloists included some of the leading singers of the day, the main role of Cleopatra being sung by the contralto Phillis Lett. The part of Antony was sung by John Coates (tenor), with Maud Phillips (soprano) as Iris and Lillie Whiteside (mezzo-soprano) as Charmion [9].
Rehearsals did not go smoothly, and the conductor was not satisfied with the amount of rehearsal time made available, and threatened to give up the attempt to conduct the work. He did go ahead, however, and the subsequent performance left both the critics and the audience a little bewildered. It was around this time that Continental audiences were hearing for the first time works such as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Strauss’s Elektra, so it is little wonder that the rather conservative British public should be somewhat baffled by a work which has a similar harmonic language to these two Teutonic masterpieces. The critic for the Daily Mail did his best to grasp the meaning of the music, stating that: “He naturally enough favours the ultra-modern school, and The Vision of Cleopatra is perhaps one of the most intricate pieces of choral writing in existence. The setting is frankly oriental in texture, but Mr Havergal Brian has not contented himself entirely with the production of strange noises from uncouth percussion instruments. There is, of course, a good deal of this, and some of his discords can only be described as ear-splitting, but at the same time the composer has been wonderfully successful in attaining the true atmosphere surrounding Mr Gerald Cumberland’s libretto, and the chorus ‘Great Silence is o’er everything’ is amazingly clear in conception.” [10]
The Musical Times critic saw in the work much hope for the future, with his claim that: “... no one can deny that the composer has constructed a very clever superstructure upon a foundation that demands dramatic treatment. In listening to the music, one has a feeling that Mr Brian has yet to come into his own; and if ‘his own’ should prove to be a better seeking after melody, a greater regard to form, and a less strenuous use of the orchestra, he should in due time arrive at that goal which has immortalized the great masters. [11]
Arnold Bennett, the novelist from the Potteries, was fully aware of the degree to which both text and music were flavoured by a sensual element. He said of the performance: “If the good people of Southport only realize what they are listening to, they will assuredly walk out, pained and shocked.” [12]
Bennett must have taken a particular interest in Brian’s music, and in The Vision of Cleopatra in particular, because one of his short stories, Why the Clock Stopped, included a discussion of this work. Although Bennett frequently put real people around him into his novels and stories, it was usually with a fictitious name, but here Brian’s own name was used. The story illustrates the difficulties which the work presented even to choirs as accomplished as those in Potteries. The following two extracts from the story illustrate the point:
“He began to talk about certain difficulties in the choral parts of Havergal Brian’s The Vision of Cleopatra, a work which he meant the Bursley Glee and Madrigal Club to perform, though it should perish in the attempt.”
“He opened the score for Eva’s inspection, and began to hum, and they hummed in concert, at intervals exclaiming against the wantonness with which Havergal Brian had invented difficulties.” [13]
A certain amount of controversy arose in the Press concerning the poem by Gerald Cumberland. Although by today’s standards the poem is rather tame and inoffensive, the critics of the day were shocked by the sensual nature of certain passages which rendered the poem “not likely to engender music that would carry on the tradition of Mendelssohn’s Elijah”. [14] This was exactly Cumberland’s intention, as he had grown tired of that tradition, and wanted to help to change the fashion. Sir Henry Wood was required by the Norwich Festival Committee to write to Cumberland, asking him to alter the poem so that a more acceptable version may be performed. Part of the letter read as follows: “Very much against my will, I am writing to ask you on behalf of the Committee of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival if it possible for you to make any alternative version of the ‘two objectionable lines’ (I fail to find them myself) in your libretto Cleopatra... from my polo of view, the whole thing is absurd and ridiculous.” [15]
Like Wood, Cumberland was unable to detect the offending lines, but was eventually informed by Julius Harrison, the composer whose setting was to be performed, that the Committee did not approve of the lines “her white breasts gleamed” and also of “Her lips, tired of tame kisses, parted with the expectancy of proud assault”. Cumberland altered these lines respectively to “her proud eyes gleamed” and “Her lips, curved into beauty, parted with expectancy of love’s quick pain”. A further passage was altered; where the original read “she was as one who lives for a last carnival of love, in which she may be stabbed and torn by large excesses of passion”, the censored version became “she was as one who walks, with dreams for company, such dreams as madden one with longing, fear and dread that love be vanquished.” In the performance of Brian’s setting of the poem the original lines were reinstated, and, as Cumberland records [16]: “the members of the audience did not leave their seats when the ‘objectionable’ lines occurred; rather did they seem to lean forward a little and listen more intently”. In the score the altered version is present.
The Vision of Cleopatra is yet another of Brian’s works which has become the victim of the loss of scores. The full score came into the possession of the publishing firm of Bosworth in London, and they published the vocal score. The full score was in Bosworth’s hands until the Second World War, when, in 1940, an incendiary bomb hit the store room where the score was housed, gutting the room and destroying its contents. The firm has since stated that the orchestral material was almost certainly never published, and added that 411 of their printing plates were destroyed during the War. [17]
The vocal score lists the instruments which Brian used in the orchestration of the work. The orchestra is large, consisting of the following: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, double bassoon, 4 horns (5th and 6th ad lib.), 3 trumpets (4th ad lib.), 3 trombones, bass tuba, harp, glockenspiel, timpani, bass drum, side drum, triangle, castanets, Indian drum, gong, large cymbals and small cymbals. Although Brian omits them from the list, we can safely assume that the orchestra included the normal string section. There are a few markings of instrumentation in the score, mainly for trumpet fanfares, such as at fig.21 and five bars after fig.26. Two important glockenspiel passages are also marked, at two bars after fig. 14 and seven bars after fig.49. Both passages include crotchet motion over the tonic and dominant of the respective keys, and both passages occur at the end of a choral section. An important horn melody is also marked (one bar after fig. 21), and the cor anglais has a lament over a timpani roll (four bars after fig.25), to introduce Cleopatra’s tragic solo “Now all is finished, all is done, my world is dead”.
The choral forces required for the work are a small chorus, which Brian states should be “seated in the orchestra or behind the scenes”, and a large chorus, which, one may assume, would be seated on stage as normal. The small chorus has the greater proportion of the choral passages, with several very short sections, while the main chorus is reserved for just two sections, the long chorus “Great silence is o’er everything” (which precedes Cleopatra’s lament “Now all is finished”) and the final section of the work, a Marche Funèbre which begins with the words “The sun has gone away to sleep”. Of these, the former contains a central section for the small chorus. In the libretto, the passages which Brian designated for the small chorus (with the exception of the central section of “Great silence is o’er everything”) are marked by Cumberland as “in the distance”, which explains Brian’s unusual placing of the small chorus.
The direct contrast in style between the psalms and the contents of this libretto required an equally direct change in style and form. One of the most obvious changes is in the move away from choral dominance. In the two psalm settings already discussed, the chorus has been the most important medium for the presentation of the text, with the soloists taking on a secondary role, providing a moment of contrast of timbre. The chorus was involved in the text in an active sense, whereas in The Vision of Cleopatra it takes on a passive role, commenting upon the events around it, but taking no part in them. A further change of style is apparent in Brian’s harmonic idiom. Although the two psalm settings have a harmonic language derived from Elgar and Wagner, and a thematic unity which gives the works a symphonic style, neither is so clearly flavoured by the chromaticism and motivic technique of Wagner’s Tristan as is evident in The Vision of Cleopatra. Whereas By the Waters of Babylon has one theme which is identifiable with an extra-musical idea, Cleopatra extends this to something approaching a Wagnerian “leitmotiv” technique, with themes associated with the characters of the poem, especially Cleopatra and Anthony. The use of these motives tends to make the music more contrapuntal than the previous works, with the vocal line usually quite independent from the melodic strands of the orchestra.
Footnotes: [1] EASTAUGH, K. Havergal Brian - the Making of a Composer. London, Harrap, 1976, p.319.
[2] Ibid., p.80
[3] NETTEL, R. Havergal Brian - the Man and his Music. London, Dobson, 1976, p.62.
[4] Ibid., p.63
[5] 1 December 1907.
[6] There were 70 entries according to Nettel (Op.cit., p.63). Eastaugh (Op.cit., p.91) puts the number at only 33.
[7] Eastaugh, Op.cit., p.91.
[8] Nettel, Op.cit., p.63.
[9] Ibid., p.65.
[10] Ibid., p.65.
[11] Ibid., p.65.
[12] Eastaugh, Op.cit., p.92.
[13] BENNETT, A. “Why the Clock Stopped”, from The Matador of the Five Towns, and Other Stories. London, Chatto & Windus, 1972.
[14] CUMBERLAND, G. Set Down in Malice - A Book of Reminiscences. Edinburgh, Riverside Press, 1918, p.193.
[15] Ibid., p.193.
[16] Ibid., p.I94.
[17] CHADWICK, W. “Investigations Officers’ Reports : 1, Havergal Brian Society Newsletter 39, January/February, p.4, 1982.
© 1985 Neil Starling
Newsletter, NL 57, 1985