English Dances, Op.33
Allegro non troppo
Con brio
Grazioso
Giubiloso
Sir Malcolm Arnold, who celebrates his 80th birthday later this year, is probably the most popular living British composer and certainly one of the most widely performed. Born in Northampton, records of Louis Armstrong inspired him to take up the trumpet, and by the age of 21 he was the youngest ever Principal Trumpet in the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1947 he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship and turned to full-time composition, since when he has produced some of the most colourful, tuneful and original music of our time. As a symphonist in the tradition of Vaughan-Williams and Walton, his major concert works include 9 symphonies and concertos for instruments ranging from harmonica to piano-duet. A master of light music – with scores such as the English and Scottish Dances, "The Padstow Lifeboat" and the "Grand, Grand Overture" for four vacuum-cleaners and orchestra – he has naturally been an outstanding film composer, writing for films such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Whistle Down the Wind". Every amateur musician in Britain has at some time played one of his shorter works; the "Little Suite", for example, or the "Three Shanties" for wind quintet.
Arnold wrote his first set of English Dances, Op.27 in 1950, at the request of his publisher Lengnick who wanted companion-pieces for Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances. This first set proved so successful that Lengnick immediately requested another, and a further four dances, Op.33, were published in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain. With their tunefulness, fresh harmonies, and bracing, out-of-doors orchestration they perfectly captured the optimistic mood of the time. In 1957, the choreographer Frederick Ashton used them as the score for his ballet "Solitaire" and soon afterwards the first dance of the second set received the ultimate modern accolade when it was adopted as a TV theme tune. Arnold’s English Dances had already become the rarest thing in modern music – a genuine popular classic - and Scottish (1957), Cornish (1966), Irish (1986) and Welsh (1989) dances have followed, in the same tuneful vein.
Like the Dvorák dances that inspired them, Arnold’s Dances contain no actual folk tunes; the composer simply took inspiration from the general style of English folk-music. With his trumpet-playing background he clearly felt that this included brass-band music, of both the military and the seaside varieties, and this shows through in his exuberantly colourful orchestration. The first dance is a whimsical piccolo-led march with a heroic central section; the second begins as a playful jig in the manner of Holst but Arnold’s characteristically brilliant brass and percussion writing soon takes the foreground, ending the dance in high spirits. Next comes a tranquil interlude, the most obviously "folksy" dance of the set – the lilting melody is coloured by orchestral bells and a hushed string accompaniment. The final dance is pure celebration. Arnold unleashes the full orchestra at a gallop and plays all sorts of rhythmic tricks before ending the suite with a march, in a mood of jubilant optimism.
R.G. Bratby 2001
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
CLICK HERE for a wide and diverse selection of contemporary music and standard repertoire programme notes.