Geoffrey Bush (1920-1998) was born in London and entered musical life early as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral. During the war he, registered as a conscientious objector. After the war he was based in the Extra-Mural Departments of Oxford and London Universities. He wrote extensively on English music, and also had a strong interest in editing and arranging, especially of neglected English composers. In composing, Bush had no formal training, but received much help and inspiration from John Ireland. He did much composition specifically for the amateur musical community, and concentrated to a large extent on music for voices, producing solo songs as well as choral works. However, he also wrote two symphonies (1954 and 1957) and works for chamber groups and other ensembles, including pieces for oboe, clarinet, cello and piano.
This collection consists primarily of two boxes of printed scores of the original music and transcriptions/arrangements of Geoffrey Bush, which the majority of his works appear to be represented (c 1951-1993). The collection also includes one box of music manuscripts, and an additional mini score for 'Two Schubert scherzos', c 1949.
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Olive Katherine Parr was born in Harrow-on-the-Hill on 05 July 1874. She took up the pen name Beatrice Chase as a novelist in 1914. Parr was strongly religious and, after moving to Devon with her mother in 1902 to improve her health - initially to the Dartmoor village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, and from 1908 on a farm at Venton - she built her own chapel, which she had consecrated by the Catholic Bishop of Plymouth. During the First World War, Parr formed a 'Crusade for Moral Living', which attracted a large following. Soldiers and their partners or relatives at home would write to Parr, pledging to be 'true to honour'. In return, Chase prayed for their souls in her small chapel. Parr's popularity continued to grow throughout the war years, and she received many visitors at Venton where she sold books from the window of her house. Her next attempt at the White Crusade at the outbreak of the Second World War was largely met with indifference. Parr is best known for her novels set on Dartmoor. In addition to novels, she also wrote poetry. Her first book 'The Voice of the River' was published under her birth name in 1903. She used her birth name for seven more books before starting to use the pseudonym, Beatrice Chase, with The Heart of the Moor' in 1914. From then on she tended to use her birth name only for factual and religious writings. Olive Katherine Parr died at Newton Abbot Infirmary on 03 July 1955 and was buried in the churchyard at Widecombe-in-the-Moor.
This collection includes three music scores with lyrics by Chase, two stories, a review, and one photo of her headstone on Dartmoor.
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Ronald Duncan (1914-1982) was a productive West Country author whose literary career encompassed journalism, fiction, poetry, libretti, film scripts and plays. Alongside The Horse, Duncan’s best known work is his libretto for Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Written for and first performed at Glyndebourne in 1946, this opera was the apex of Britten and Duncan’s musico-literary collaboration.Traces of Britten and Duncan's friendship and work together are abundant in the collection, and include photographs, drafts of libretti, copies of manuscripts and printed scores, letters, concert and opera programmes, and at least one brief sound recording. Duncan was also a farmer, horse breeder and pacifist who lived in Welcombe, Devon for most of his life.
Possible topics of research within the Duncan Collection are extremely wide ranging given the size and breadth of the collection. Some possible areas of interest to early career researchers are listed below, but if you have a particular topic in mind then contact Special Collections to chat about whether this collection would be suitable for your research.
Jan Nepomut Èaboun (also written as Czabaun, Caboun or Cabaun) was born the son of the organist Jakub Èaboun on 4 February 1839 in Prague. He studied organ at the Organ School in Prague, graduating in 1856, and subsequently became owner of the Piano School in Prague in 1862 together with his wife Pavlína (born 29 October 1827). He was organist for two churches in central Prague during the period 1862-1870. He was also a composer, and approximately 300 of his compositions survive in manuscript form. He concentrated on piano compositions and songs, but an opera 'Meluzina' ('The Wailing Wind') is also known. He received commissions for compositions from the Kaiser of Austria and the Kings of Belgium and Spain, as well as from other members of the aristocracy. He died in Prague on 10 February 1902.
This collection consists of one bound volume containing manuscript pieces for solo piano (op.158-179) 1889-90. Also included is the visiting card of Èaboun, with address amended.
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Abel Meeropol (also known as Lewis Allen, or Allan) (1903-1986) was born in Manhattan, New York. He earned a master of arts degree in English literaturefrom Harvard University in 1926, and then returned to DeWitt Clinton High School the following year as an English teacher. In addition to performing his teaching duties, Meeropol wrote poetry, plays, skits, and songs. Meeropol stopped teaching in 1945 and with his wife Anne moved to Hollywood, where he became a writer for Columbia and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Studios. The couple returned to New York in 1951. Abel worked for two years at James Melton's Ford Festival of NBC Television International Theatre, and then pursued a freelance writing career. He is, perhaps, best know for writing the lyrics to the anti-lynching song 'Strange fruit', made famous by Billie Holiday. Lehman Engel (1910-1982), was a well-known American composer for the stage (see Oxford Companion to Music, Grove's Dictionary etc.), as well as being an author and conductor. He collaborated with Meeropol on a number of scores.
This collection comprises a fair copy manuscript score, entitled 'The Malady of Love: a sham in one act', dated 1953, with words by Abel Meeropol and music by Lehman Engel.
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Nicholas Comyn Gatty (1874-1946) was born in the village of Bradfield near Sheffield. He read music at Downing, University of Cambridge (BA 1896 and DMus 1927) and at the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied under Stanford, and where he became a close friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was music critic/correspondent for several of the major London newspapers and was also Assistant Editor of 'Grove's Dictionary'. Early in his career he occupied the post of assistant conductor at Covent Garden, and was also organist to the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Chelsea. As a composer he specialised in opera. He also wrote for other musical forms, including orchestral works and choral works, and contributed two original tunes to 'The English Hymnal' (ed. Vaughan Williams 1905) and harmonised other tunes in that volume. His solo songs, which achieved some popularity early in the twentieth century, include 'A-Maying', 'Fain Would I Change That Note', 'Relieving Guard', 'Evening' and 'Touch Not The Nettle'. Gatty's instrumental output, though not large, maintained and even enhanced his reputation.
The collection contains Gatty's original i) unbound loose manuscript music scores and ii) bound manuscript music scores, consisting of the following:
i) 'Venice Preserved: an opera in 3 acts' (text from the 1682 play by the Restoration playwright and poet Thomas Otway (1652-1685);
ii) 'Scena from 'Greysteel' for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra' (1 volume), undated;
'First Come, First Served: a comedy opera in three acts' (text by Reginald Gatty) (3 volumes), undated;
'Gammer Gurton's Needle: an opera in two acts' (a setting of the 1575 play by 'Mr. Masters of Arts') (2 volumes), c 1940;
Gatty's original orchestral manuscript of 'Macbeth: a tragic opera in four acts' (text from Shakespeare by Reginald Gatty) (bound in 2 volumes), Jun 1924.
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Herbert Haufrecht (1909-1998), was a composer, pianist, folklorist and music editor. In 1939 he became a staff composer and arranger for the Federal Theater and composed incidental scores for several plays. He also organized an annual 'Folk Festival of the Catskills', in Phoenicia, New York in 1940 and composed several stage works for it, including a musical theater work 'We've come from the city' and a folk opera 'Boney Quillen'. He worked with several folk singers, including Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, The Weavers, and Judy Collins. Haufrecht's symphonic music reflected his folk interests, as well as an interest in jazz.
This collection comprises original and photocopied letters and postcards to Haufrecht from American composers and writers, including Abel Meeropol (also known as Lewis Allen, or Allan), Robert Russell Bennett, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Aaron Copland, Lehman Engel, Arthur Fiedler, Langston Hughes, Robert Kurka, Quincy Porter, and Virgil Thomson.
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Gustav Holst (1874-1934), composer and music teacher, was born in Cheltenham. He taught at St. Paul's Girls School, and composed many pieces, most notably 'The Planets'. His daughter Imogen was educated at St. Paul's and the Royal College of Music, and was among other appointments Director of Music at Dartington Hall, Devon. She wrote on a number of musical themes, but most significantly her father and Benjamin Britten, she being musical assistant to Britten for a number of years.
The document is a single page of the composer's holograph manuscript of the piano redaction of 'Beni Mora'. It relates to the beginning of the second movement. Accompanied by a note from Dr Imogen Holst recording the presentation.
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Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953) was born into a musical family in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was a composer chiefly of orchestral and chamber music, and a pioneer of American symphonic music. Although he studied music in Paris, he was most influenced by the German classical and romantic tradition, and trained in European theory, composing in a conservative style modelled mainly on the early Romantic era. He was also a well-published author and critic, contributing to the 'New Grove Dictionary', and also publishing works which focused on the Romantic era, especially Brahms and Beethoven. He was also Professor of Music at Columbia University, New York, where he taught throughout his career between 1905 and 1942.
This small collection contains a variety of printed sheet music, original manuscript scores and copied (blueprint) scores with handwritten annotations and additions added by the composer.
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Dr John Ferris Tozer (1857-1943), organist, tenor vocalist and composer was born in Exeter in 1857, the son of John Ferris Tozer, organist of Exeter Cathedral, one of whose musical books appears in this collection. He was a chorister at Exeter Cathedral, and a pupil of Alfred Angel and D.J. Wood. At the age of eighteen he was appointed organist of St. David's Exeter, and in 1882 at St. Michael's, Heavitree, Exeter. He graduated Mus. Bac. from Oxford in 1891, and in 1895 graduated with a Doctorate in Music from Oxford on the strength of his oratorio, 'Baalam and Barak'. He later became organist at Exeter Cathedral. His day job was as an employee at the Devon and Cornwall Bank, Exeter.
Most of Tozer's works are present in manuscript and printed form. There are besides several manuscript works by other composers, and a small notebook diary for the year 1922.
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The collection comprises a copy of a signed music score by Vaclav Zahradnik setting Charles Causley's lyrics to music. It also includes a covering letter explaining the history of the commission.
This work was commissioned by two prominent members of the Truro Three Arts Society, Tim and Catriona German, both former members of Welsh Opera and living and working in Truro in 2011. The Society had established close relations with the Herold Quartet of the which Vaclav Zahradnik was a member and the commission to Zahradnik to write this Charles Causley setting grew out of that close relationship.
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