Recital given by Martin Oxenham and Jonny Beatty on 5th June
“The Pageant of London Spectacle”. Crystal Palace 1911. Lost.
So started the list of compositions of Balfour Gardiner in the reference I was consulting. However all was not lost, as we were about to hear, in a long recital of 28 songs and piano pieces, not all by him, given by Martin Oxenham and Jonny Beatty at Jean Hathorn’s home. Seven and half years after he left the choir and his extensive accompaniment work, it was a great pleasure to welcome Jonny back to Hampstead.
By all accounts, Balfour Gardiner was a very nice man. He was well-off, and very willing to help other musicians, with whom he formed friendships as well. He did us a service in collecting almost 100 folksongs over several years – and there is such a rich tradition of folksong in England – and he organised, financed and conducted a series of concerts in Queen’s Hall (which was bombed in World War II). But he was hopelessly self-critical and he destroyed a great deal of what he wrote. By 1927 he felt he was (literally) out of tune with the times and he stopped composing. To be an honest reviewer, I think it was true.
Martin and Jonny began with a piece which made us regret all the more that Purcell only wrote one opera. If the story is true that Mrs P got tired of his going out for a drink or three with the Lay Vicars at Westminster Abbey and locked him out, with fatal consequences, we can only be very cross with her. He was brilliant at what are really arias for plays and “Ye Twice Ten Hundred Deities” suited Martin. Jonny supported him in fine period style, before they turned their hands to “Where’er You Walk”. The one piece from Handel’s “Semele” that people are sure to know, though the opera contains many more delights.
It was a pleasure to hear some Schubert, one of my personal Top Three Composers (If you want to know, the others are Handel and Monteverdi with Mozart, specially the operas, just behind). I do not know if Martin sings the whole of “Winterreise” but, again, “Der Lindenbaum” as I’ve remarked elsewhere, was the one Schubert’s friends liked, before they got used to this great cycle. Jonny had a couple of chances to show what he does – here in Schubert’s fourth Moment Musical.
It was a good idea to compose “Über allen Gipfeln” by Schubert (which I know has been sung at at least one German funeral) with Gardiner’s very British take on the same poem – and also to hear the English translation.
We then moved on to Percy Grainger. He came from Australia, he was a great collector of folksongs (good for him), very good-looking, and very attached to his Mum (there was, however, eventually, a Mrs Grainger). This brought one of my favourites of the evening – “The Golden Vanity”, that gallant ship which sailed in the Lowlands Low, and her even more gallant cabin boy, who sinks the enemy fleet by boring holes in the ships, and dies in the attempt. Martin really delivered this one.
We moved again, to Shakespeare settings by Roger Quilter and Gardiner himself – and of course, if you want words, Shakespeare’s your man!
Refreshed by wine and as many canapés as I could snaffle, we sat down for the second half.
Moving on just a little, we had “The Owl”by Richard Rodney Bennett. A fan of owls, let me make clear he is a white owl. Bennett and I were born one day apart (yes, really!) So it was contemporary music for me! At a snappy speed, both performers gave a picture of him perched in his belfry. (There is another setting, which I used to sing.)
What fun! Jonny played Shepherd Fennel’s Dance from an opera that never happened. It’s a pity it didn’t as if you were expecting a graceful pastoral prancing, forget it! It was positively a tap routine! Shepherd Fennel must have busted some moves! Jonny looked as if he were enjoying it too!
One of Gardiner’s songs which I think we all found entertaining was “The Stranger’s Song” – the blackest of humour from the local hangman! I suppose it is always good to know someone enjoys their job, but still ! We have heard Martin sing “When I was One and Twenty” in a previous programme and it was good to hear it again. “The Quiet Garden” after which the programme was named, was Gardiner’s last song, before he decided to retire. In case you are wondering what happened next, he went to live in the country, and grew trees. Whole forests of them. So he was very green (and Sir John Eliot Gardiner is his great-nephew).
The programme finished with a set of songs by Geoffrey Bush set to the poems of Robert Herrick. If you think the exposés in your morning Metro are a symptom of how nothing’s secret now, think again. Mr Herrick was a very busy boy. “Upon the loss of his Mistresses” must have taken him some time, as it would have been rude not to include all of their names……. One, Electra actually got her own song, and “Upon Julia’s Clothes” was more about when she wasn’t wearing them.
And so we came to the end of the programme.
I will own up and tell you a little secret. While I was writing this, Monteverdi’s “Il ritorno d’Ulisse” was pouring out of my radio. I do pop out from time to time, but I’d slipped back into my natural habitat. Sorry!
Balfour Gardiner The Complete Songs by Martin Oxenham and Jonny Beatty is available from Regent Records regent-records.co.uk / PO Box 528 Wolverhampton WV3 9YW – or probably from Martin himself at Choral Evensong any Sunday.
Balfour Gardiner
Suzanne Pinkerton