Havergal Brian (born William Brian; 29 January 187628 November 1972) was an English composer. He is best known for having composed 32
symphonies (an unusually high total for a 20th-century composer), most of them late in his life. His best-known work is his
Symphony No. 1, ''The Gothic'', which calls for some of the largest orchestral forces demanded by a conventionally structured concert work. He also composed five
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...
s and a number of other orchestral works, as well as songs, choral music and a small amount of chamber music. Brian enjoyed a period of popularity earlier in his career and rediscovery in the 1950s, but public performances of his music have remained rare and he has been described as a
cult composer. He continued to be extremely productive late into his career, composing large works even into his nineties, most of which remained unperformed during his lifetime.
Life
Early life
William Brian (he adopted the name "Havergal" from a family of
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn ...
-writers, of whom
Frances Ridley Havergal was most prominent) was from the
Potteries district of Staffordshire. He was born in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
, a suburb of
Longton, one of the towns which make up what is now the city of
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surroun ...
. He was one of a very small number of composers to originate from the
English working class.
Brian's earliest musical education appears to have been as a
choirboy; he sang in the choir at
St James' church in Longton. In 1887 he and other choristers from his home town participated in a concert in
Lichfield Cathedral
Lichfield Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom with three spires (together with Truro Cathedral and St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh), and the only medieva ...
marking the
Jubilee of Queen Victoria. This experience gave the boy an interest in large-scale musical effects. At the age of 12, after leaving the elementary school attached to the church, he started work (he tried a variety of trades). In his spare time, he continued to study music including the organ for which he showed talent at a young age; as a composer he was virtually self-taught.
From 1896 he was organist of
All Saints', a
Gothic Revival church in Odd Rode, just across the county border in
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...
. The post involved playing at Sunday services; his main job at this time was with a timber company.
Around the time he started at All Saints', he was influenced by hearing ''
King Olaf'', a composition for soloists, choir and orchestra by
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
. Now one of the composer's lesser-known works, ''King Olaf'' was commissioned for the North Staffordshire Music Festival of 1896, where it was well received. Brian sent a sample composition to Elgar who gave him encouragement. Brian became a fervent enthusiast of the new music being produced by
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic music, Romantic and early Modernism (music), modern eras, he has been descr ...
and the British composers of the day. Through attending music festivals he began a lifelong friendship with composer
Granville Bantock (1868–1946).
In 1898, Brian married Isabel Priestley, by whom he had five children. One of his sons was named Sterndale after the English composer Sir
William Sterndale Bennett.
Full-time composer
In 1907 Brian was offered a yearly income of £500 (then a respectable lower-middle-class salary) by a local wealthy businessman, Herbert Minton Robinson, to enable him to devote all his time to composition. It seems Robinson expected Brian soon to become successful and financially independent on the strength of his compositions, and initially Brian indeed found success: his first ''English Suite'' attracted the attention of
Henry J. Wood
Sir Henry Joseph Wood (3 March 186919 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the The Proms, Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introd ...
, who performed it at the London
Proms in 1907. The work proved popular and Brian obtained a publisher and performances for his next few orchestral works, although this initial success was not maintained. For a while Brian worked on a number of ambitious large-scale choral and orchestral works, but felt no urgency to finish them, and began to indulge in pleasures such as expensive foods and a trip to
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
Arguments over the money and an affair with a young servant, Hilda Mary Hayward (1894-1980), led to the collapse of his first marriage in 1913. Brian fled to London and, although Robinson (who disapproved of the incident) continued to provide him with money until his own death, most of the allowance went to Brian's estranged wife after 1913. The affair with Hilda turned into a lifelong relationship: Brian and she began living together as man and wife, and after Isabel's death in 1933 they were married, by which point Hilda had already borne him another five children. No longer able to rely on Robinson's support, in London Brian began composing copiously whilst living in poverty. On the outbreak of World War I he volunteered for the
Honourable Artillery Company
The Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) is a reserve regiment in the British Army. Incorporated by royal charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII, it is the oldest regiment in the British Army and is considered the second-oldest military unit in the w ...
but saw no service before he was invalided out with a hand injury. He subsequently worked at the Audit Office of the
Canadian Expeditionary Force until December 1915. The family then moved to
Erdington, near
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
,
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
, until May 1919 and then spent several years in various locations in
Sussex. His brief war service gave him the material for his first opera ''The Tigers''. In the 1920s he turned to composing symphonies, though he had written more than ten before one of them was first performed in the early 1950s. Brian eventually obtained work of a musical kind, copying and arranging, and writing for the journal ''The British Bandsman''. In 1927, he became assistant editor of the journal ''Musical Opinion'' and moved back to London.
In 1940 he retired, living firstly in London, and then in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex. Freed from the requirement to work to make a living, he was able to devote all of his time to composition, and the bulk of his compositional output belongs to the last three decades of his life, including four of the five operas (composed between 1951 and 1957) and twenty-seven of the thirty-two symphonies (composed from 1948 onwards). Through most of the 1960s, Brian composed two or three symphonies each year.
This late flurry of activity coincided with something of a rediscovery, in part due to the efforts of
Robert Simpson, himself a significant composer and
BBC Music Producer, who asked Sir
Adrian Boult to programme the Eighth Symphony in 1954. A number of Brian works received their public premieres during this time, including the
''Gothic Symphony''. Written decades earlier between 1919 and 1927, it was premiered in a partly amateur performance in 1961 at
Westminster Central Hall, conducted by
Bryan Fairfax. A fully professional performance followed in 1966 at the
Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Boult. The latter performance was broadcast live, encouraging considerable interest, and by his death six years later several of his works had been performed, along with the first commercial recordings of Brian's music. For a few years after Brian's death there was a revival of interest in Brian with a number of further recordings and performances; two biographies and a three-volume study of his symphonies appeared.
Renowned conductor
Leopold Stokowski heard the ''
Sinfonia Tragica
Sinfonia (; plural ''sinfonie'') is the Italian word for symphony, from the Latin ''symphonia'', in turn derived from Ancient Greek συμφωνία ''symphōnia'' (agreement or concord of sound), from the prefix σύν (together) and ϕωνή (sou ...
'' (No. 6) and let it be known that he would like to perform a Brian work. The result was the world premiere in 1973 of the 28th Symphony, in a BBC broadcast produced by Robert Simpson in Maida Vale Studio 1, and played by the
New Philharmonia Orchestra.
Anthony Payne in his ''Daily Telegraph'' review wrote: "It was fascinating to contemplate the uniqueness of the event – a 91-year-old conductor learning a new work by a 91-year-old composer."
Music
Stylistically, Brian's music could broadly be described as being in a late romantic idiom, exhibiting the influence of
Gustav Mahler in his ambitious orchestration and
progressive tonality. A
Germanophile – the text of the
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
in his fourth symphony is sung in
German – Brian's main musical influences are primarily Germanic composers like
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
,
Bruckner,
Strauss,
Mahler and
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
, as well as
Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
. Brian's music is fundamentally tonal rather than
atonal and shows little or no influence of
dodecaphony
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
; however, it is often punctuated with violent and occasionally dissonant passages.
Brian's music has several recognisable hallmarks: the liking of extreme dotted rhythms, deep brass notes, and various uncharacteristic harp, piano and percussion timbres, and other unusual orchestral sounds and textures. Also typical are moments of stillness, such as the slow harp arpeggio that is heard near the beginning and ending of the Eighth Symphony. Arguably, his music's most notable characteristic however is its restlessness: rarely does one mood persist for long before it is contrasted, often abruptly, with another. Even in Brian's slow movements, lyrical meditation does not often structure the music for long before restless thoughts intrude. Although the fragmentary nature of his music militates against classical thematic unity, he often employs structural blocks of sound, where similar rhythms and thematic material allude to previous passages (as opposed to classical statement and recapitulation). However fragmentary Brian's music is, he maintains symphonic cohesion by long-term tonal processes (similar to
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen (; 9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) was a Danish composer, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer.
Brought up by poor yet musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he ...
's "progressive tonality"), where the music is aiming towards a key, rather than being in a home key and returning to it.
Like Bach and Bruckner, Brian was an organist, and the organ repertoire influenced his musical habits (and the organ appears in several of his symphonies). Other sources of influence are late Victorian street music, and particularly brass and military bands: although he composed little dedicated music for brass band,
brass instruments are often prominent in Brian's orchestral music, as are
marches
In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which d ...
.
Although he wrote music in a range of forms, Brian's most famous legacy is his cycle of 32 symphonies. His first canonical symphony – an earlier ''Fantastic Symphony'' was withdrawn – is the colossal ''
Gothic Symphony'', a performance of which last almost two hours and requires enormous orchestral and choral forces. It was completed in 1927. Although the ''Gothic'' is by far Brian's best-known work, and perhaps the work by which he has come to be defined, it is not representative of his symphonies as a whole. Few of Brian's symphonies call for larger forces than a typical 20th-century
symphony orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ...
– although No. 4 (''Das Siegeslied'') calls for a large choir and soprano soloist – and a typical Brian symphony lasts approximately twenty minutes in performance. Brian usually alludes to the classical four-movement structure of the symphony, even in single-movement works. His sixth symphony was composed at the age of 72, and the majority of Brian's symphonies were composed in rapid succession in the last two decades of his life, in his 80s and even into his 90s. Most were unperformed during Brian's own life, although all thirty-two have since been recorded.
In addition to symphonies, Brian also composed several large
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...
s in the 1950s. In 1997, Brian's 1951 opera in eight scenes ''The Cenci'', based on
the 1819 play by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his ach ...
, was premiered in a concert performance by the Millennium Sinfonia, conducted by James Kelleher, at the
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
Reception and legacy
Brian's musical influence was limited by the fact that so little of his music was performed or recorded until after his death, by which time his stylistic idiom could be considered anachronistic. Nonetheless, he was held in high regard by composers such as
Robert Simpson and some of his contemporaries, such as
Granville Bantock. His music has generally been championed by a small number of enthusiasts rather than enjoying a more general popularity, and continues to divide opinion. To Mark Morris, writing in his ''Guide to Twentieth Century Composers'', in the ''Gothic Symphony'' Brian achieved "one of the world's artistic masterpieces, in vision, grandeur, and in the combination of complexity and luminosity worthy to stand alongside the great cathedrals of the age that inspired it...
tis arguably, more than any other late-Romantic work, the climax of the Romantic age.". Writing in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
'' in 2016,
Damian Thompson claimed that if Brian's thirtieth symphony were premiered today as the work of a 25-year-old composer, it "might even be hailed as the triumphant reinvention of tonality".
Others have been more critical, however. Reviewing the 2011 performance of the ''Gothic Symphony'' at the
BBC Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Ha ...
David Nice of ''The Arts Desk'' described the work as a "terrible, inchoate mess" and "Big, long, and very short on great ideas"; writing in ''The Guardian'', Andrew Clements described it as featuring "moments of striking originality, particularly the sparer, more spectral ideas, but much more is either entirely unmemorable or simply grotesquely odd, and often hopelessly over-scored. Ideas come and go; for a work that lasts nearly two hours, the music is surprisingly short-winded."
In 2022 Brian's ''Legend'' for violin and piano was featured in the BBC Proms.
List of works
These lists follow the Havergal Brian Society's Extant Works (ordered by type):
Operas
* "
The Tigers" (1917–29)
* "Agamemnon" (1957)
* "The Cenci" (1951–52)
* "Faust" (1955–56)
* "Turandot, Prinzessin von China" (1951)
Symphonies
*
Symphony No. 1 in D minor (''The Gothic'') (1919–27), for SATB soli, children's choir, two double choirs & orchestra
* Symphony No. 2 in E minor (1930–31)
* Symphony No. 3 in C-sharp minor (1931–32)
* Symphony No. 4, "Das Siegeslied" (1932–33), for soprano, double choir & orchestra
* Symphony No. 5, "Wine of Summer" (1937), for baritone & orchestra
* Symphony No. 6, "Sinfonia Tragica" (1948)
* Symphony No. 7 in C major (1948)
* Symphony No. 8 in B-flat minor (1949)
* Symphony No. 9 in A minor (1951)
* Symphony No. 10 in C minor (1953–54)
* Symphony No. 11 in B-flat minor (1954)
* Symphony No. 12 (1957)
* Symphony No. 13 in C major (1959)
* Symphony No. 14 in F minor (1959–60)
* Symphony No. 15 in A major (1960)
* Symphony No. 16 in C-sharp minor (1960)
* Symphony No. 17 (1960–61)
* Symphony No. 18 (1961)
* Symphony No. 19 in E minor (1961)
* Symphony No. 20 in C-sharp minor (1962)
* Symphony No. 21 in E-flat major (1963)
* Symphony No. 22, "Symphonia Brevis" (1964–65)
* Symphony No. 23 (1965)
* Symphony No. 24 in D major (1965)
* Symphony No. 25 in A minor (1965–66)
* Symphony No. 26 (1966)
* Symphony No. 27 in C major (1966)
* Symphony No. 28 in C minor (1967)
* Symphony No. 29 in E-flat major (1967)
* Symphony No. 30 in B-flat minor (1967)
* Symphony No. 31 (1968)
* Symphony No. 32 in A-flat (1968)
Other orchestral music
* Abend, from "Faust" (1956)
* Burlesque Variations on an Original Theme (1903)
* Concerto for Orchestra (1964)
* Doctor Merryheart, Comedy Overture No. 1 (1911–12)
* Elegy, Symphonic Poem (1954)
* English Suite 1 (?1902-04)
* English Suite 3 (1919–21)
* English Suite 4 "Kindergarten" (?1924)
* English Suite 5 "Rustic Scenes" (1953)
* Fanfare, from "The Cenci", Banqueting Scene (1951)
* Fanfare, from "The Cenci", Scene 7 (1951)
* Fantastic Variations on an Old Rhyme (1907) – Derived from the withdrawn ''Fantastic Symphony''
* Festal Dance (1908) – Derived from the withdrawn ''Fantastic Symphony''
* Festival Fanfare (1967), for brass
* Flourish, from "The Cenci" (1951)
* For Valour, Overture (1902, rev 1906)
* Gargoyles, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
* Green Pastures, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
* In Memoriam, Symphonic Poem (1910)
* The Jolly Miller, Comedy Overture No. 3 (1962)
* Lacryma, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
* Legend "Ave atque vale" (1968)
* Night Ride of Faust and Mephistopheles, from "Faust" (1956)
* Prelude, from Faust Act 2 (1956)
* Preludio Tragico, Overture to "The Cenci" (1951)
* Shadow Dance, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
* Symphonic Variations, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
* The Tinker's Wedding, Comedy Overture No. 2 (1948)
* Three Pieces from Turandot, from "Turandot" Act I (1950-51/1962)
* Turandot Suite, from "Turandot" Acts II & III (1950–51)
* Wild Horsemen, from "The Tigers" (1921–22)
Concerti
* Cello Concerto (1964)
* Violin Concerto (1935)
Chorus, with or without piano
* Introit (1924), unaccompanied
* 27 unaccompanied partsongs
* 36 accompanied partsongs, with piano, one with flute & harp; 7 of which are unison songs
Voice and orchestra
* Cathedral scene, from "Faust" Act 3 (1956), soprano, bass, choir & orchestra
* Gretchen songs, from "Faust" (1956), soprano & orchestra
* Herrick songs (1912), soprano, alto & orchestra
* Psalm 23 (1901, reconstructed 1945), tenor, choir & orchestra
Voice and piano
* 32 Songs
Chamber ensemble
* Legend (1919?), violin & piano
Piano
* Double Fugue in E-flat (1924)
* Three Illuminations (1916), with speaker
* Four Miniatures (1919–20)
* Prelude "John Dowland's Fancy" (1934)
* Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1924)
* Prelude and Fugue in D minor/major (1924)
Transcriptions
* Various on works by Arne, J.C. Bach, J.S. Bach, Berlioz, Elgar Glinka, Gluck, Handel, (Basil) Maine, Spontini and Wagner
Recordings
The first commercial recording of Havergal Brian's music was made by the
Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra in 1972, when Symphonies Nos. 10 and 21, conducted by
James Loughran and
Eric Pinkett
Eric Pinkett O.B.E. (1910–1979), was the founder of the internationally famous Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra. He established the Leicestershire County School of Music in 1948 and continued to conduct the orchestra (as well as being ...
respectively, were recorded at the
De Montfort Hall
De Montfort Hall is the largest music and performance venue in Leicester, England. It is situated adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park and is named after the "Father of Parliament", Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Simon ...
,
Leicester. The producer was
Robert Simpson. The LP was released by
Unicorn Records in 1973. A special edition of the television programme ''Aquarius'' called ''The Unknown Warrior'' gave considerable coverage to the recording session and a camera crew joined members of the orchestra during a visit they made to the composer's home in
Shoreham.
During the 1970s a number of unofficial releases of Brian symphonies were made. These generally were of BBC recordings, and the recordings were released under fictitious names. Several have now had official releases.
In 1979, Cameo Classics embarked on a project to record all of Brian's orchestral music in collaboration with the Havergal Brian Society. It started with the ''English Suite No. 1'', ''Doctor Merryheart'', and ''Fantastic Variations on an Old Rhyme''. In 1980 came the second LP containing ''In Memoriam'', ''For Valour'', and ''Festal Dance''. The project was completed in 1981 with the recordings of ''Burlesque Variations on an Original Theme'', and ''Two Herrick Songs'', ''Requiem for the Rose'' and ''The Hag''. The recordings were produced by David Kent-Watson with the Hull Youth Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Heald-Smith. For the recording of Brian's complete piano music, Cameo Classics employed digital technology.
Peter Hill's performances on a
Bösendorfer
Bösendorfer (L. Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH) is an Austrian piano manufacturer and, since 2008, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corporation. Bösendorfer is unusual in that it produces 97- and 92- key models in addition to instru ...
Imperial at the Northern College of Music earned high praise from
John Ogdon in his review for ''
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
''.
More of Brian's works have been published since the 1980s and '90s, and the scarcity of well-rehearsed performances or mature interpretations that had previously made the quality of his music difficult to assess has been partially corrected through the series of professional recordings of many of Brian's symphonies that have been issued by the
Marco Polo record label on CD. Many of the original recordings on various labels are being reissued, and by the end of 2018 all of Brian's symphonies had at least one official recording, although not necessarily in print.
In August 2010, the Dutton CD label issued three works taken from 1959 BBC broadcasts: the Comedy Overture ''
Doctor Merryheart'' and 11th Symphony (with Harry Newstone conducting the London Symphony Orchestra) and the 9th Symphony (Norman del Mar and the LSO). This release followed on from Testament's reissue of the live recording of the 1966 Boult performance in the Royal Albert Hall of Brian's
''Gothic Symphony''. In the 2011 Proms concert season the symphony was conducted by Martyn Brabbins in the Royal Albert Hall; the performance is now available on a commercial recording.
In July 2012, a documentary film, "The Curse of the Gothic Symphony" was released in Australian cinemas. Directed by Randall Wood, it is a dramatised documentary of the trials and tribulations of staging Brian's Gothic Symphony in Brisbane, Queensland. Filmed over five years, the enormous task of gathering 200 musicians and 400 choristers came to fruition in 2010 in a triumphal performance and standing ovation in Brisbane's Performing Arts centre.
Recordings of the symphonies
Here is a partial list of known recordings for Havergal Brian's symphonies; many are out of print, others have never been released commercially; some have been released in bootleg format or exist in BBC archives:
&=out of print LP
&&=released on a pirated LP with apocryphal attributions to Horst Werner (conductor)/ Hamburg Philharmonic
&&&= released in a (pirated) LP box-set with (presumed) apocryphal attributions to John Freedman (conductor)/ Edinburgh Youth Symphony Orchestras
&&&&=recording from original BBC broadcast exists, not commercially released
&&&&&=recording from BBC radio 3 exists, not commercially released; a pirated LP (Aries LP-1607) with apocryphal attributions to Horst Werner (conductor)/ Hamburg Philharmonic is reported and refers to this Stokowski performance
d=cd was made, but is now deleted from catalogue
e=recording is in the public domain and is available from the Havergal Brian Society webpage
Both the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra recordings have been remastered and rereleased.
Many of the BBC recordings are freely available for download with registration.
Footnotes
References
Books
* Eastaugh, Kenneth. ''Havergal Brian, the making of a composer''. London: Harrap. c 1976.
* MacDonald, Malcolm. ''The Symphonies of Havergal Brian'' (Discussion in 3 volumes—volume 1: Symphonies 1–12; volume 2: Symphonies 13–29; volume 3: Symphonies 30–32, Survey, and Summing-up.) London: Kahn & Averill, 1974–1983. .
*
MacDonald, Malcolm, ed. ''Havergal Brian on music: selections from his journalism.'' London: Toccata Press, c 1986. (v.1).
* Nettel, Reginald. ''Ordeal by Music: The Strange Experience of Havergal Brian.'' London and New York:
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. c 1945.
* Nettel, Reginald (also Foreman, Lewis). ''Havergal Brian and his music''. London: Dobson. c 1976. .
* Matthew-Walker, Robert. "Havergal Brian: Reminiscences and Observations". DGR Books 1995. .
External links
Havergal Brian Society websiteInformation and short audio extracts from the LSSO 1970s recordings.
Havergal Brian myspace
Videos
''The Unknown Warrior'' A documentary featuring the LSSO recording session of symphonies Nos. 10 and 21 and an informal interview with the composer
*
*
*
Rehearsal of Symphony No.10 by the LSSO reunion orchestra in 1998
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brian, Havergal
1876 births
1972 deaths
20th-century classical composers
20th-century English composers
English classical composers
English male classical composers
People from Longton, Staffordshire
20th-century British male musicians
British Army personnel of World War I
Honourable Artillery Company soldiers