Today is the birthday of Constant Lambert, a composer perhaps too gifted, and certainly too much in love with women and drink.
Lambert was the enormously talented conductor of the Vic-Wells ballet. Like Leonard Bernstein, he believed, with justification, that his conducting duties diluted his achievements as a composer.
Nevertheless, he managed to craft some very interesting works. He was the first English composer to be commissioned by the Ballet Russes, for which he wrote “Romeo and Juliet” (1928). Perhaps more memorable is his ballet “Horoscope” (1938), based on astrological themes. The work propelled to fame the dancer Margot Fonteyn, with whom Lambert enjoyed a long, on-again, off-again affair.
His choral work, “Summer’s Last Will and Testament” (1932-35), after the Elizabethan poet Thomas Nashe, is a grim, remarkable achievement, a fatalistic meditation on plague, disease and death.
He may have been down on symphonic jazz (he assessed “Rhapsody in Blue” as neither good jazz, nor good Liszt) and neoclassicism, yet both color his Concerto for Piano and Nine Instruments (1931).
His most enduring success is “The Rio Grande” (1928), a work for vocal and piano soloists, chorus and orchestra. The text was by his friend, Sacheverell Sitwell. Lambert achieved fame, in part, as one of the speakers of Sacheverell’s sister Edith’s nonsense poems, set to music by William Walton as “Façade.”
His book, “Music Ho!,” is a quirky, entertainingly subjective piece of music criticism, in which he praises Sibelius, Liszt, Chabrier, Duke Ellington and the Marx Brothers, while taking swipes at the superficiality of “time travelers” like Francis Poulenc (who embrace all styles without achieving any depth), the neoclassicism of Stravinsky (who misapprehends the classical style), and the Russian nationalists and English pastoralists (whose music is reduced to incessant repetition of folk tunes).
You don’t have to agree with Lambert’s opinions to be delighted by his wit or stimulated by his observations.
Michael Kownacky will be presenting two hours of Lambert’s music this evening, on his program, “A Little Night Music,” which begins at 10 ET. You can hear it at http://www.wwfm.org.
Happy birthday, Constant Lambert!
Lambert conducts three numbers from his ballet “Horoscope”:
PHOTO: Lambert flaunting his fashion sense and philosophy for healthy living