Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).
Less well known is the fact that two Englishmen were also approached.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both men so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, it isn’t really possible to do justice to either in the time allotted.
Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.
His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.
Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lie all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter, and a writer, nonetheless he never lost sight of the fact that life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.
Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and keeping a horse and a giraffe to invite to his indoor and outdoor tea parties.
Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always sure to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.
For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.
That’s a heady mix of hornpipes and pas de deux. I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
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PHOTOS: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache (right); and Lambert pushing Berners car
Tag: Margot Fonteyn
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“England à la Russe” on “The Lost Chord”
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Constant Lambert A Gifted Composer’s Birthday
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
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