4. Whims and Manuscripts
Betty was remarkably supportive of my wayward enthusiasms, and I do not think she could have realized what seeds were being sown. It is strange how a casual remark can have far-reaching consequences. I am thinking back to a concert at the Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone, which a group of us attended under her supervision. It was the first professional orchestral concert I ever went to. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Alfred Wallenstein and the symphony was Dvořák’s “New World”. It was called no. 9 on the programme, and any concertgoer younger than me will say “of course”. But the record in the Music Room cupboard, conducted by Toscanini, called it no. 5, and in fact it was about this time that Dvořák’s Symphonies were renumbered to include four early ones. David Dear was sure it was a misprint – “I don’t think he wrote nine symphonies”. Betty Rayment said, “Well, if he did write nine, I’d like to know what happened to the other eight”. This excited my curiosity. I loved this symphony and I wanted to find more about the composer. Even this needs explaining today, when many of Dvořák’s works are widely performed and practically everything can be heard on record. In the 1960s, he was known only by about half a dozen pieces. For the rest you were dependent upon records from then-Czechoslovakia, which could be unavailable for months, as political relations between the UK and the Soviet bloc seesawed up and down. Betty was fortunately interested herself. She obtained a biography of Dvořák, which she lent me and which I read many times over, and the Music Room cupboard was enriched by a couple more records.
This is only the beginning of a chain of events. I read in a book by Eric Blom that “Stanford narrowly missed, no one quite knows why, becoming an Irish Dvořák”. Surely I would like the music of this Stanford! I was then in my mid-teens and allowed to take the bus to places like Folkestone and Canterbury that had second hand music shops – another lifelong habit dating from my Caldecott years. I see that I bought, on 2 November 1968 in Folkestone, a volume containing Stanford’s Ballade op. 170. I see, too, that I played it at a Musical Evening on 20 July 1969. I also contributed it to a “Chiaroscuro” at the Ashford Grammar School, but I cannot find the programme for this. Many teachers in Betty Rayment’s place would have been sniffy. “Learn proper repertoire like Chopin, Schumann and Brahms before you start delving into this stuff” might have been the line. Fortunately, Betty was happy for me to play it. The chance remark this time, though, came from the music teacher of the Ashford Grammar School, Adrian Dorey: “Shed new light on Stanford!” Faint praise for the composer might have dampened my enthusiasm. Instead, I was launched on a path that continues to this day.
A skill that I perhaps took for granted until now and which, thinking back, I realize had its origins in my Caldecott years, was that of copying and arranging music. Betty Rayment was herself quite industrious, though not for the same reasons. She wrote out the music for the junior and senior hymn books, which were compilations drawn from many sources. Three hymns for the service might mean carrying three hymn books into the chapel, but Miss Leila was reluctant to waive her right to choose a different hymn mid-service if the inspiration took her. This meant having another dozen tune books handy just in case. Betty copied out all the hymns to have them in one place. Nowadays, an afternoon with the photocopier or the scanner would have solved the problem. I do not know when Caldecott acquired its first photocopier, but I never saw one before I went University. I will set down my memories of the Caldecott Hymn Books in a postscript. Betty was also prodigal in writing out the necessary parts for her Musical Evenings – recorder ensembles and sometimes a small orchestra when there were sufficient budding musicians to put one together.
My own interest was in getting to know pieces better by writing them out, or having my own copies of music that was hard or expensive to get. I think the first piece I copied out was an arrangement of Rossini’s “Thieving Magpie” overture. Venturing into the relative unknown, I still have my manuscript copy of sections of Rutland Boughton’s opera “The Immortal Hour”. I made organ arrangements of the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and movements from Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater”. Betty usefully advised me not to try to include every note of the original in my arrangements since the result would be unplayable. Branching out, I made a number of arrangements for the school orchestra. From my conserved programmes I see these included the “St. Antoni” theme of the Brahms Haydn Variations (transposed into D to make it easier for the violins) (18 December 1966), the Farandole from Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne” (19 March 1967), the Mazurka from Delibes’s “Coppélia” (16 July 1967) and the so-called “Haydn Toy Symphony” (12 December 1968). There was also an arrangement of the Overture to Handel’s “Royal Fireworks Music” – some programmes are missing. It was an interesting challenge to provide third violin parts on just open strings or at least only first positions, allowing even virtual beginners to enjoy the experience of playing in a group.
All this has borne its fruits over the years. My interest in lesser known composers has led me to record the complete works for piano, violin and piano, cello and piano and clarinet and piano by Stanford, the complete works for piano by Mackenzie, songs by Stanford, Coleridge-Taylor, Cowen and some rare Italian composers, and much else, many of them first recordings (some even first performances). My ability to copy, transpose and arrange swiftly came into its own here, since I had to edit some of the unpublished Stanford works from his spidery manuscripts. If Betty Rayment can hardly have imagined the seeds that were being sown, sown they were. I have a very complimentary letter from her, dated 11 December 2013, after hearing my CD set (with an Italian violinist) of Stanford’s violin and piano works. Incidentally, I discovered quite recently that a little-remembered composer, Mabel Saumarez Smith, who had some sort of association with the Community years back and dedicated at least one piece to it, studied with Stanford at the Royal College of Music, so there is a tenuous Caldecott thread here.