Características y estrategias para ser verde

woman of religious conviction, backed many good causes. During World War 1, she arranged concerts and dramatic performances for troops at the front (thus anticipating the work o f E.N.S.A. in the second war), an enterprise that she later extended to embrace performances given for a nominal fee at local venues in London. She was appointed an OBE in 1917. For further information see “Ashwell, Lena”

Oxford DNB 2, 700-701.

12 Granville Bantock to Learmont Drysdale, 4 February 1893, CblO-x.17/153

13 MT notes that A.D. Amott was the first Bachelor o f Music at the University o f Durham. See Percy A. Scholes The Mirror o f Music: A Century o f Musical Life in Britain as Reflected in the Pages o f the

Musical Times 2 vols (London: Novello and Oxford University Press, 1947) 2, 675.

14 Granville Bantock to Learmont Drysdale, 8 February 1893, CblO-x.17/154 1 5__________________________________ , 11 February 1893, CblO-x.17/155

Financial considerations such as the expense o f acquiring shares in the scheme, and funding travel and subsistence expenses might have also dissuaded Drysdale from involvement. However, there might have been further reasons for declining. Drysdale saw himself chiefly as a composer and he may have decided that contributing to such an erudite project would be unsatisfying and irrelevant to his needs. Furthermore, his limited professional experience as a composer may not have provided him with the necessary insight to realise either the true manner in which the critics evaluated his works or the broader aims o f Bantock and his colleagues.

The first issue o f the New Quarterly Musical Review, with Bantock as its editor, appeared in May 1893, the introductory statement outlining its rationale thus:

While we shall feel bound to mention serious faults, or what seem to us, in works here reviewed, we shall do our best to remember that to criticise is to judge; and that to judgement sympathy is essential, prejudice fatal, that a work can only be understood by looking at it from the author’s point o f view.16

The periodical covered a wide variety o f subjects and attracted an array o f well-known figures including Frederick Corder, J. A. Fuller Maitland, [Sir] Alexander Mackenzie and Ernest Newman, with the younger generation o f men such as Orsmond Anderton and William Wallace also figuring. Wallace seems to have became involved after Drysdale’s refusal to join the group and there were lengthy periods during Bantock’s tours abroad when he was required to perform the duties o f editor.17 Considering Drysdale’s academic weaknesses, it is doubtful whether he could have coped with such responsibilities.

During the summer o f 1893, Drysdale accompanied his brother Andrew on a visit to Lord Rosebery’s estate in the Moorfoot Hills, an area o f outstanding natural beauty just to the south o f Edinburgh.18 One particularly lonely glen on the South Esk River where the ruined Hirendean castle nestles at the foot o f the imposing Blackhope Scar19

16 [Granville Bantock] “Introductory” New Quarterly Musical Review 1 (May 1893-February 1894): 2-3. The final issue of the journal appeared in February o f 1896, the collaborators apparently having decided that they were unable to continue with the venture because o f other professional commitments.

Unfortunately, this issue is not discussed directly in the correspondence between Bantock and Wallace held by the NLS.

17 Granville Bantock to H. Orsmond Anderton, 2 December 1894, 705:492/Box 12 (i), Bantock Archive, Worcester Record Office

18 Janey Drysdale “Learmont Drysdale” 15-16

19 This glen is the catchment area o f Gladhouse Reservoir, part o f the Edinburgh public water supply system. See Guide to Scottish Lowlands: Edinburgh, the Clyde, and Border Country (London: Geographia, [1975])

inspired Drysdale to begin work on the orchestral overture Herondean.20 Janey Drysdale notes that Sir George Kitchin, founder and long-standing conductor o f the amateur, but highly regarded London Stock Exchange Orchestral Society, wrote to her brother inquiring if he had a new composition which his orchestra might perform. Drysdale suggested that his still incomplete Herondean be performed, a proposition to which

2 j

Kitchen agreed and the performance date was set for February of 1894. For unknown reasons (though delays in scoring and a consequent lack of rehearsal time are suspected) this arrangement did not come to fruition and the work did not receive its first performance until 24 April at the St James’s Hall when it was given before an enthusiastic audience and generally favourable press. The Daily News noted that

Herondean was:

A new important work.... The two principal subjects are thoroughly Scottish.... A little compression would make the overture more effective; but alike in material and workmanship, it is highly interesting and Herondean will probably be considered the

22

best thing which this clever former student o f the RAM has yet done.

During Drysdale’s lifetime, Herondean received performances in Glasgow and Edinburgh whilst following his death it was given a number of times including twice at Bournemouth.

It was 1894 before Drysdale completed his cantata The Kelpie and in December Paterson published the piano/vocal score.24 The work received its first performance at the Music Hall in Edinburgh on 17 December given by the Scottish Orchestra, Kirkhope’s choir and the soloists Pauline Joran and Philip Brozel.25 The Kelpie was well received with the Scotsman noting:

Taken as a whole, the work is distinguished by richness and variety o f orchestral treatment. ... The vocal music is, in the main, dramatic in character. The opening and closing portions of the poem ... are treated with a certain rugged vigour o f rhythm and style which are thoroughly appropriate.26

20 Janey Drysdale “Learmont Drysdale” 15

21 Concert prospectus: “Stock Exchange Orchestral Society and Male Voice Choir for the Eleventh