Cyril Scott - Symphony No. 1 (1899)/Symphony No. 3 (1937)

Cyril Scott

 

(27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, and poet.

Symphony No. 1 (1899)

I. Allegro Frivolo - 00:00
II. Andante Con Moto - 6:43
III. Allegretto - 13:07
IV. Finale - Theme and Variations - 18:09

Symphony No. 3 (1937)  

IV. Finale - Fuga - 26:01

I. Melpomene: Muse of Epic Poetry and Tragedy - Andante sostenuto - Molto maestoso - 00:00
II. Thalia: Muse of Comedy and Merry Verse. Allegro con spirito - 14:32
III. Erato: Muse of Love and Poetry. Molto tranquillo - 20:13
IV. Terpsichore: Muse of Dance and Song. Molto moderato e ritmico - 26:58

Scott was essentially a late romantic composer, whose style was at the same time strongly influenced by impressionism. His harmony was notably exotic. If in his early works it was perhaps over-sweet (Alban Berg dismissed his music as 'mushy'), it became steadily more varied and more refined in his later years. Indeed it is his late works (written between 1950 and his death) that are the most individual, with their ever-shifting harmonic colours and wayward inflections of phrase and mood, capturing perfectly the way the mind shifts, backwards and forwards, between reminiscence, regrets, and self-assertion.

Scott wrote around four hundred works (though the number is deceptive, since more than half of these were short songs or piano pieces). These include two mature symphonies, four operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, cello, oboe and harpsichord, and three double concertos (of which the scores are now lost), several overtures, four oratorios (Nativity Hymn (1913), Mystic Ode (1932), Ode to Great Men (1936), and Hymn of Unity (1947), as well as a mass of chamber music (four mature quartets, five violin sonatas, three piano trios, and many others). Between 1903 and 1920 Scott wrote copiously for the piano. Most of these pieces were harmonically adventurous for their time and easy to play; they circulated widely in many countries of the world, in contrast to his more ambitious works, none of which received more than a handful of performances.

Scott was called the "Father of modern British music" by Eugene Goossens, and was also admired by Debussy, Ravel, his close friend Percy Grainger, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. His experiments in free rhythm, generated by expanding musical motifs, above all in his truly revolutionary First Piano Sonata of 1909, appear to have exerted an influence on Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'. He used to be known as 'the English Debussy', though this reflected little knowledge of Scott and little understanding of Debussy.
Among the orchestral music, arguably finer than any of the symphonies are the First Piano Concerto (1913-4), Disaster at Sea (a tone poem on the sinking of the Titanic, composed in 1918-26, and published in a revised version with the title Neptune in 1935), the Violin Concerto (1928), and Neapolitan Rhapsody (published 1959). The shorter piano works suffer in the main from unimaginative form and texture, though the five 'Poems' (1912) are an important exception; more worthy of revival are the piano sonatas, especially the innovatory first (1909) and the intricate, wayward third (1956). The largest body of successful work is to be found in his chamber music, the Clarinet Quintet and Trio and the five violin sonatas being especially notable.