Edward German
Sir Edward German (17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera. Some of his light operas, especially Merrie England, are still performed.
As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra of Whitchurch, Shropshire. He also began to compose music. While performing and teaching violin at the Royal Academy of Music, German began to build a career as a composer in the mid-1880s, writing serious music as well as light opera. In 1888, he became music director of the Globe Theatre in London. He provided popular incidental music for many productions at the Globe and other London theatres, including Richard III (1889), Henry VIII (1892) and Nell Gwynn (1900). He also wrote symphonies, orchestral suites, symphonic poems and other works.[1] He also wrote a considerable body of songs,[2] piano music, and symphonic suites and other concert music, of which his Welsh Rhapsody (1904) is perhaps best known.
German was engaged to finish The Emerald Isle after the death of Arthur Sullivan in 1900, the success of which led to more comic operas, including Merrie England (1902) and Tom Jones (1907). He also wrote the Just So Song Book in 1903 to Rudyard Kipling's texts and continued to write orchestral music. German wrote little new music of his own after 1912, but he continued to conduct until 1928, the year in which he was knighted.
Life and career
German was born German Edward Jones in Whitchurch, Shropshire, the second of five children and the elder of two sons of John David Jones, a liquor merchant, brewer, church organist and lay preacher at the local
In his mid-teens, German's parents attempted to apprentice him to a shipbuilding firm, as they believed their son had an aptitude for engineering. His studies at a boarding-school in Chester had been delayed by a serious illness, however, and so he was turned away as too old to begin an apprenticeship. In his teens he formed a second band, a quintette, including himself on the violin, his sister on the pianoforte or the bass, and three friends of the family. He prepared the orchestrations for this band. He also led the town orchestra, did some amateur acting, and sang comic songs in local village halls.[5]
The Royal Academy
At the age of 18, he studied privately with Walter Cecil Hay, the conductor of the Whitchurch choral society and director of music at St Chad's, Shrewsbury.[6][7] German entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he eventually changed his name to J. E. German (and later simply Edward German) to avoid confusion with another student named Edward Jones. He continued his studies of violin and organ, also beginning a more formal study of composition under Ebenezer Prout.[8] Many of German's student works were played at Academy concerts.[9]
In 1884, the Academy appointed German a sub-professor of the violin. During his time as an instructor, he was well regarded and won several medals and prizes, such as the Tubbs Bow for his skill with the violin. In 1885, he won the Charles Lucas Medal for his Te Deum for soloists, choir and organ, leading him to change his focus from violin to composition. He soon wrote a
During his time at the Royal Academy, German taught at Wimbledon School and played the violin in theatre orchestras, including the Savoy Theatre. He visited Germany in 1886 and 1888–89 and was impressed by its opera, particularly at Bayreuth.[11] His circle of close friends at the Academy included Dora Bright[12] and Ethel Mary Boyce from Chertsey, Surrey. He and Boyce became engaged. She was also a promising composition student and won the Lady Goldsmid scholarship in 1885, the Sterndale Bennett Prize in 1886 and the Charles Lucas Medal in 1889. Although the engagement was broken off, they remained friends.[13] German never married.[4]
Plays and orchestral music
After leaving the Academy, German continued to teach at Wimbledon School and to play the violin in orchestras at various London theatres, including the
At the same time, German was writing music for the concert hall, sometimes adapting music from his theatrical scores. His Gipsy Suite met with success similar to that of his overture to Richard III and his popular Henry VIII and Nell Gwynn dances. All were written in "a distinctive, if limited, 'olde English' manner, a species of musical mock
Comic operas
Though German had little experience with opera or choral music, Richard D'Oyly Carte invited him to finish Arthur Sullivan's The Emerald Isle for the Savoy Theatre after Sullivan's death in 1900.[15] He accepted, giving up his violin concerto commission for the Leeds Festival to meet the deadlines. The success of his score for the opera (which was performed into the 1920s) opened up a new career for him.[9] His next comic opera, in 1902, was Merrie England, with Basil Hood, the librettist for The Emerald Isle. This was perhaps German's greatest success, and its dance music was popular separately. It was revived frequently, becoming a light-opera standard in Britain, while several of its songs, including "The English Rose", "O Peaceful England" and "The Yeomen of England", remained popular until the middle of the 20th century.[5] Merrie England has been so frequently chosen by amateur groups in England that it probably has been performed more often than any other British opera or operetta written in the 20th century.[9]
After this, German and Hood collaborated again in 1903 to write A Princess of Kensington. This opera was unsuccessful, although it toured briefly and had a New York production. German turned to other endeavours, composing music to Rudyard Kipling texts, including the twelve songs in the Just So Song Book in 1903. He also received a steady flow of orchestral commissions, leading to works such as his Welsh Rhapsody for the Cardiff Festival in 1904, featuring as its climax "Men of Harlech".[8]
German returned to writing comic operas, achieving another success with
Later years
In the wake of the failure of Fallen Fairies and his unhappy experience with it, German effectively ended his career as a composer of new works, only returning to composition on a few rare occasions. In 1911 he became the first composer to write music for a British film; he was commissioned for 50 guineas to write 16 bars of music for the coronation scene in the film
Among the few works of his later years was the Theme and Six Diversions in 1919, and his final major work, the Othello-inspired tone poem The Willow Song in 1922.[8] After that, German all but ceased composing. Correspondence shows that he felt uncomfortable with the changing musical styles, such as jazz and modernist classical music. Like Sullivan before him, he regretted that his popularity stemmed mostly from his comic operas.[4] However, German was a perfectionist and continually revised his works and produced new arrangements for publication. He also recorded some of them and encouraged their production and broadcast on the radio.[8]
German lived, from 1886, in Hall Road, Maida Vale, near Lord's Cricket Ground, London, where he was an avid enthusiast of that game. He lived a quiet life, enjoying walking, cycling and fishing, though he often attended the theatre.[19] He developed a strong friendship with Sir Edward Elgar.[4] German was injured in a road accident during World War I, but continued to be a highly sought-after conductor, accepting many conducting engagements, until he suffered an eye condition that left him blind in his right eye in 1928. He was the first British conductor invited by Dan Godfrey to conduct his own music at Bournemouth.[9] Beginning in 1916, he was also one of the first composers to conduct his own music for recording, producing full renderings of Merrie England and Theme and Six Diversions.[5]
German was knighted in 1928, when the respect in which he was held by fellow musicians was shown by the number of eminent musicians who attended the celebratory dinner, including Elgar,
German died of prostate cancer at his Maida Vale home, aged 74.[22] He was cremated at Golders Green,[23] and his ashes are interred in the Whitchurch cemetery.[5] He left an estate valued at £56,191.[24]
Legacy
German lived long enough to witness the beginning of a decline in the popularity of his orchestral works. A note found after his death bears this poignant message: "I die a disappointed man because my serious orchestral works have not been recognised".[9] However, his best-known orchestral pieces continued to see occasional performances, and his light operas Merrie England and Tom Jones were kept alive by the productions of amateur companies. Beecham recorded his Gipsy Suite in 1956.[25] A recording of his Richard III, Theme and Six Diversions and The Seasons was released by Naxos in 1994, conducted by Andrew Penny.[9] The first complete professional recording of Tom Jones followed in 2009.[4] Dutton Epoch released a selection of German's music, including his Symphony No. 2, in 2007,[26] and a recording of some of his incidental music for plays, together with two marches and a hymn in 2012.[27]
Analysis
The music scholar
German's music often reflected a romanticised Shakespearian or semi-mythical English merry-making past. This appealed to contemporary taste, as his Three Dances from 'Henry VIII' (1892) was the most frequently performed English orchestral work in the first decade of
Edward German Festival
The first Edward German Festival was held in 2006 in German's birth town, Whitchurch, Shropshire. Events included performances by festival patron and cellist,
Works
Operas
Incidental music to plays
Orchestral
Choral works and part songs
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Songs for solo voice
Piano
Violin
Woodwind, chamber music and organ
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References
- ^ Links to information about German's orchestral works and recordings of them at the Edward German Discography, accessed 16 July 2009
- ^ Links to information about German's songs and recordings of them at the Edward German Discography, accessed 16 July 2009
- ^ Liner notes for recording of German's Symphony No. 1 and Welsh Rhapsody Archived 22 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, beille Musique AMCD, 2006, accessed 15 June 2012 (French)
- ^ a b c d e f g Prince, John. From liner notes for the 2009 recording of Tom Jones Archived 5 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Naxos 2009
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Rees, Brian. "German, Sir Edward (1862–1936)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 13 October 2008
- JSTOR 903292.
- ^ "Music Staff at St Chad's", St Chad's of Shrewsbury, 2012, accessed 9 February 2018
- ^ a b c d e f Scowcroft, Philip. "Edward German: Serious or Light?" MusicWeb-International, 1 December 2001
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hulme, David Russell. "German: Richard III / Theme and Six Diversions / The Seasons", Marco Polo/Naxos liner notes, 1994
- York Gate Collections(2004)
- ^ a b c d e Hulme, David Russell. "German, Sir Edward", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 14 October 2008
- ^ Rees, p. 35
- ^ Information about Ethel Mary Boyce[permanent dead link]
- ^ The Times, 18 March 1889, p. 7
- ^ Stone, David. "Edward German" Archived 27 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 2001
- ^ Morrison, Robert. "The Controversy Surrounding Gilbert's Last Opera", Archived 15 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine Fallen Fairies, The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive (2006)
- IMDb
- ^ Russell Hulme (2001), pp. 703–705
- ^ Irving, Ernest. Cue for Music (1959), pp. 47–51
- ^ The Times, 30 March 1928, p. 14
- ^ The Times, 20 April 1934, p. 12
- ^ "Deaths", The Times, 4 January 1937, p. 19
- ^ Rees, p. 282
- ^ Edward German in Wills & Probate 1858–1996: 1936, p. 521, Probate Search Service, UK.Gov, accessed 15 March 2018.
- ^ Woolf, Jonathan. "Review: Sir Thomas Beecham – English Music", (EMI reissue 2011), MusicWeb International, 11 August 2011, accessed 21 December 2020
- ^ Farrell, Scott. "Sir Edward German (Dutton Epoch)", Edward German Discography, 2007, accessed 3 June 2012
- ^ Farrell, Scott. " BBC Concert Orchestra" 2012 Epoch 2012 CDLX 7285, Edward German Discography, 2012, accessed 3 June 2012
- ^ The Times obituary, 12 November 1936, p. 16
- ^ Poston, Lawrence. "Henry Wood, the 'Proms', and National Identity in Music, 1895–1904", Victorian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 3, Spring 2005, p. 412
- ^ "All Performances of Edward German: Henry VIII at BBC Proms", BBC Proms, accessed 21 December 2020
- ^ "Whitchurch celebrates music of famous son", BBC Home 2006
- ^ "Sir Edward German Music Festival 2009" Archived 15 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Sir Edward German Music Festival 2009 website
Sources
- Russell Hulme, David (2001). "German, Edward". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. {{{volume}}} (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
- Rees, Brian (1986). A Musical Peacemaker: The Life and Work of Sir Edward German. Abbotsbrook: Kensal Press. ISBN 0-946041-49-0.
Further reading
- Dunhill, T.F. (1936). "Edward German 1862–1936". The Musical Times. lxxvii: 1073–7.
- Gänzl, Kurt. The encyclopaedia of the musical theatre, 2 vols. (1994)
- Hyman, Alan (1978). Sullivan and His Satellites. London: Chappell. ISBN 0-903443-24-4.
- Lamb, Andrew. "German, Sir Edward", New Grove Dictionary of Music
- Parker, D. C. "Sir Edward German", RAM Magazine, No 179, 1961, pp. 31–33.
- Scott, William Herbert (1932). Edward German: An Intimate Biography. London: Cecil Palmer.
External links
- Edward German at IMDb
- Edward German at Allmusic
- Edward German at the Internet Broadway Database
- The Edward German Discography
- Detailed biographical sketch from Naxos
- "Edward German. A Biographical Sketch", The Musical Times, Vol. 45, No. 731, 1 January 1904, pp. 20–24
- Hulme, David Russell. "Orpheus With His Lute: Sources of Edward German's Music for the Victorian and Edwardian Drama", Brio, Autumn/Winter 2000.
- Free scores by Edward German at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Free scores by Edward German in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)