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1946 In British Music
This is a summary of 1946 in music in the United Kingdom. Events *February – Kathleen Ferrier's recording contract with Columbia Records expires, and she transfers to Decca. *21 March – Swedish premiere of ''Peter Grimes'', the opera's first performance outside the UK, in Stockholm. *June – George Formby is awarded the Order of the British Empire in the 1946 King's Birthday Honours List. *5 July – Michael Tippett arranges the first British performance of Monteverdi's ''Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610, Vespers'' at Morley College, adding his own organ ''Preludio al Vespro di Monteverdi, Preludio'' for the occasion. *6, 7 & 9 August – Leonard Bernstein conducts the first US performance of ''Peter Grimes'' at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood. Popular music *Geraldo (bandleader), Geraldo and his Orchestra – "We'll Gather Lilacs" (Ivor Novello) *Archie Lewis and The Geraldo (bandleader), Geraldo Strings – "I Dream of You (More Than You Dream I Do)" *"It's A Pity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born into a musical family, and his first successes were as a songwriter. His first big hit was " Keep the Home Fires Burning" (1914), which was enormously popular during the First World War. His 1917 show, ''Theodore & Co'', was a wartime hit. After the war, Novello contributed numbers to several successful musical comedies and was eventually commissioned to write the scores of complete shows. He wrote his musicals in the style of operetta and often composed his music to the libretti of Christopher Hassall. In the 1920s he turned to acting, first in British films and then on stage, with considerable success in both. He starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, '' The Lodger'' and ''Downhill'' (both 1927). On stage, he played the title charact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I See A Dark Stranger
''I See a Dark Stranger'' – released as ''The Adventuress'' in the United States – is a 1946 British World War II spy film with touches of light comedy, by the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard. As the film was made during the war the final section of the film "Peace" is clearly either an additional or alternative ending. It is a strange movie to judge where the empathy of the British audience is meant to lie. Bridie herself, who is Irish and openly anti-British is willing to help the Germans at the outset and through most of the film. Plot In May 1944, during World War II, a young Irishwoman, Bridie Quilty, turns 21 and sets out to fulfil a lifelong dream born in listening to her late father's stories of the Irish Revolution. She leaves her rural village and goes to Dublin. On the way, she shares a train compartment with J. Miller, but believing him to be English, she is very brusque with him. On arrival, she se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Alwyn
William Alwyn (born William Alwyn Smith; 7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985), was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher. Life and music William Alwyn was born William Alwyn Smith in Northampton, the son of Ada Tyler (Tompkins) and William James Smith. He showed an early interest in music and began to learn to play the piccolo. At the age of 15 he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London where he studied flute and composition. He was a virtuoso flautist and for a time was a flautist with the London Symphony Orchestra. Alwyn served as professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1926 to 1955.Mervyn Cooke, "Alwyn, William", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001). Alwyn was a distinguished polyglot, poet, and artist, as well as musician. In 1948 he became a member of the Savile Club in London. He helped found the Composers' Guild of Great Britain (now m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rape Of Lucretia
''The Rape of Lucretia'' (Op. 37) is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, written for Kathleen Ferrier, who performed the title role. Ronald Duncan based his English libretto on André Obey's play '. Performance history The opera was first performed at Glyndebourne in England on 12 July 1946. It is the first work to which Britten applied his term "chamber opera." The opera debuted in the United States on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre in a production staged by Agnes de Mille which opened on 29 December 1948 and closed on 15 January 1949 after 23 performances. The cast notably included Giorgio Tozzi as Tarquinius, Kitty Carlisle as Lucretia, Lidija Franklin as Bianca, Brenda Lewis as the Female Chorus, and Adelaide Bishop as Lucia. In 1996 the opera was presented at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis directed by Britten expert and friend, Colin Graham. It also appeared in the Opera Company of Philadelphia's 2009 season. In 2013, the opera was performed for the first time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantata ''Belshazzar's Feast'', the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches ''Crown Imperial'' and '' Orb and Sceptre''. Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, ''Façade'', which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, but later became a popular ballet score. In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife Susana on the Italian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a moderni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Cooper (broadcaster)
Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper, OBE (7 October 1912 – 4 August 2001) was a British pianist and broadcaster, best known as the chairman of the BBC's long-running television panel game '' Face the Music''. Early career Cooper was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, England. He was educated at Clifton College, and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar. During the 1930s he worked initially as a church organist and piano teacher before joining the GPO Film Unit, where he wrote incidental music for documentaries, including ''Mony a Pickle'' (1938) and ''A Midsummer Day's Work'' (1939). Here his colleagues included W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten. Cooper had already embarked on career as a concert pianist when the outbreak of World War II forced him to give up performing for the duration of hostilities. He resumed his career in 1946, studying briefly with Egon Petri and making his London debut in 1947. As a concert pianist, Cooper made a number of succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concerto For Two Pianos And Orchestra (Vaughan Williams)
The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra is a piano concerto by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. He wrote his solo Piano Concerto in the years between 1926 and 1930, which was first performed in 1933 under Adrian Boult. The piece gained a reputation for being too difficult and demanding, so Vaughan Williams reworked the piece for two pianos with the assistance of Joseph Cooper. This revised edition premiered in 1946. The piece is difficult, and the piano parts are often percussive and dissonant. It is in three movements: #Toccata: ''Allegro moderato'' #Romanza: ''Lento'' #Fuga chromatica (''Allegro''), con finale alla tedesca The piece lasts about 25 minutes. Footnotes Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ... Piano, two 1946 co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra (; 23 May 190114 February 1986) was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The most famous of his pieces are his eleven symphonies. Although he was active at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to write in this idiom himself. Instead he devised his own distinctive style. His later works were not as popular with the concert-going public as his previous ones had been, although he never lost the respect of his colleagues. Therefore, his output as a whole is less celebrated today than would have been expected from its early popularity. He was the brother of the engineer Arthur Rubbra. Early life He was born Charles Edmund Rubbra at 21 Arnold Road, Semilong, Northampton. His parents encouraged him in his music, but they were not professional musicians, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm Arnold
Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. His style is tonal and rejoices in lively rhythms, brilliant orchestration, and an unabashed tunefulness. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (1957), for which he won an Oscar. Early life Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, the youngest of five children from a prosperous Northampton family of shoemakers. Although shoemakers, his family was full of musicians; both of his parents were pianists, and his aunt was a violinist. His great great grandfather was the composer William Hawes, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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