1914 in British music explained

This is a summary of 1914 in music in the United Kingdom.

Events

• 21 January – Edward Elgar makes the first recordings of his music, including the miniature "Carissima" prior to its public premiere.^[1]
• February – Regal Recordings issues its first records.
• 2 February – The restrictions on performances of Wagner's opera Parsifal outside of Bayreuth having been withdrawn, the first staged British performance opens at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.^[2]
• 27 February – George Butterworth's The Banks of Green Willow is premièred at West Kirby, Liverpool, conducted by Adrian Boult.
• 16 March – A new concert hall, the Usher Hall, opens in Edinburgh.
• c. June – First publication of Orchestration, the classic book by Cecil Forsyth.
• 26 August – Rutland Boughton's "fairy opera" The Immortal Hour is premièred at Glastonbury Assembly Rooms as part of the inaugural Glastonbury Festival, co-founded by the socialist composer.^[3] On August 5, the first concert concluded with the choral song "The Last Post" by Charles Villiers Stanford in lieu of the Grail Dance from Parsifal "owing to the outbreak of war."^[4]
• 24 October – Italian-born Welsh-resident operatic soparano Adelina Patti gives her final public performance, in a Red Cross concert for the benefit of First World War veterans, at London's Royal Albert Hall.^[5]
• 31 December – English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, aged 42, volunteers for war service, initially as a private with the Royal Army Medical Corps.^[6]

Popular music

• Paul Rubens – "Your King and Country Want You"

Classical music: new works

• Kenneth J. Alford – Colonel Bogey March
• Granville Bantock – The Song of Liberty
• Frederick Delius – Violin Sonata No. 1
• Edward Elgar – "The Shower" and "The Fountain", SATB unacc., words by Henry Vaughan, Op. 71 Nos.1 and 2
• Herbert Howells – Piano Concerto No. 1
• Roger Quilter – A Children's Overture
• Ralph Vaughan Williams
  • The Lark Ascending (original version completed)
  • Symphony No. 2, A London Symphony

Opera

• Rutland Boughton – The Immortal Hour (see Events)

Musical theatre

• 4 November – Revival of The Earl and the Girl by Seymour Hicks, with lyrics by Percy Greenbank and music by Ivan Caryll, at the Aldwych Theatre.^[7]

Births

• 11 March – William Lloyd Webber, organist and composer (died 1982)
• 24 May – Harry Parr Davies, composer and songwriter (died 1955)
• 23 August – Harold Truscott, composer, pianist, broadcaster and writer on music (died 1992)
• 14 December – Rosalyn Tureck, pianist (died 2003)

Deaths

• 7 January – Patrick Weston Joyce, historian and musicologist, 86
• 23 July – Harry Evans, conductor and composer, 41
• 13 September – Robert Hope-Jones, inventor of the theatre organ, 55 (suicide)^[8]

See also

• 1914 in the United Kingdom

Notes and References

1. Web site: Feature Review: Elgar conducts Elgar – The complete recordings, 1914-1925. Quentin. James. Classical Source. 17 January 2012 . 2022-12-28.
2. Web site: Parsifal at Covent Garden in 1914. Monsalvat. 2023-05-21.
3. Web site: Hurd. Michael Hurd (composer). Michael. 1983. Rutland Boughton (1878–1960), The Immortal Hour. Hyperion. 2014-09-01.
4. News: Glastonbury Musical Festival. Central Somerset Gazette. Glastonbury. 7 August 1914. 5.
5. News: Metropolitan Gossip – The King and Queen at a Patriotic Concert. The Grantham Journal. 31 October 1914. 5.
6. Stephen. Connock. The Edge of Beyond. Journal of the RVW Society. 16. October 1999. 3–6.
7. "The Theatrical Week", The Times, 8 February 1915, p. 10
8. "Death of Robert Hope-Jones" (19 September 1914) Music Trade Review