Felix Harold White

Felix Harold White (27 April 1884 – 31 January 1945) was an English composer, music teacher and pianist.[1]

Felix Harold White pictured in the 1930s

White was born in London into a Jewish family originally called Weiss.[2] He was the oldest of five children, and initially worked with his coal merchant father and his brothers transporting coal around Surrey. But his mother had taught him piano from the age of five and he made rapid progress, and soon developed a career as a music teacher. Other than that he was largely self taught, though Hubert Parry took an interest in his work and helped secure some early performances. An early success as a composer was a performance of his orchestral overture Shylock under Henry Wood at the Proms on 26 September, 1907.[3] The composer described it as "a little 'Straussy' here and there", but it was well-received by the Proms audience, with White called back to the platform three times. His Romance in D for cello and piano was also performed in December 1907 at the Bechstein Hall alongside pieces by George Dyson, Joseph Holbrooke and Hubert Bath. [2] And the orchestral tone poem Astarte Syriaca, a musical commentary on a sonnet by Rossetti, secured its first performance at a Queen's Hall Patron's Fund concert on 23 January, 1911.[4]

In 1914 White married Marta Scholten, a Swiss-German, and in 1916 he registered as a conscientious objector. For the rest of the war he was sent off away from his family to work on a farm in Cornwall, and then to another farm in Hemel Hempstead. His Fanfare for a Challenge to Accepted Ideas of 1921 was inspired by his resistance to the war and militarism.[5] During the 1920s, White and his family were living at 28, Hilldrop Crescent, London N7.[6]

Further orchestral works followed the ending of the war, including the orchestral Impressions of England (written for the 1918 Proms, but seemingly not performed), a tone poem The Deserted Village (1923, unperformed), and the first performance of Meditation, first planned in 1911, revised in 1920 and given by Dan Godfrey at Bournemouth in 1923.[7] White also contributed a movement to Captions: Five Glimpses of an Anonymous Theme (1923), a suite with other movements by Herbert Bedford, Arthur Bliss, Eugene Goossens and Gerrard Williams.[8] But chamber music and songs were his primary focus after the war.[2] Two chamber works won the Carnegie Trust award and were published in the Carnegie Collection of British Music series: * The Nymph's Complaint (1921) and Four Proverbs (1925). His (second?) String Quartet was performed by the Lyra Quartet for the first time in 1935 and broadcast by the BBC.[9] Up to 250 songs and vocal works were composed but only 50 or so published and the rest mostly lost. Between 1933 and 1935 White played with the London Philharmonic Orchestra as piano, harpsichord and celeste player, and as a répétiteur at Covent Garden under Sir Thomas Beecham. There was some renewed attention to White's orchestral output from the BBC in the late 1930s, but then came the Second World War and his composition tailed off. He became somewhat embittered about the lack of interest in his serious works.[2]

Works

Orchestral

• Shylock, overture (1907)
• Polonaise (1908)
• Astarte Syriaca, tone poem (1909)
• Meditation (1911, revised 1920)
• Suite (1913)
• Impressions of England, suite (1918)
• Fanfare for a Challenge to Accepted Ideas, brass (1921)[10]
• The Deserted Village, tone poem after Goldsmith (1923)
• To Miranda, serenade for string orchestra (1928)
• Arietta (1929)
• Nocturne (1936)
• Rhapsody on English Airs (1936, first broadcast 29 October, 1937)[11]
• A Revel (broadcast 30 October 1936)[12]
• Overture (1937)
• Rhapsody No 2 (based on Irish airs) (1938)
• Two English Dances
• Cakes and Ale: suite

Chamber

• Romance in D for cello and piano (1907)
• Cello Sonata (1910)
• The Nymph's Complaint for the Death of her Fawn, poem (after Andrew Marvell) for oboe (or violin), viola and piano (1921)
• Dawn for 12 Cellos (1922, written for Herbert Waleau's cello school)
• Trio for oboe (or violin, viola) and piano (1922)
• Four Proverbs for flute, oboe, violin, viola, and cello (1925)
• Romance for violin and piano (1928)
• Habanera for flute and piano (1929)
• Suite for four horns (1934)
• String Quartet (1935)
• Orison for four cellos (1937)
• Poem for cello and piano
• Three piano quintets
• Trio in C minor for flute, viola and harp (1942)

Piano

• Thereby hangs a Tale (1913)
• The Tangles of Neaera's Hair (1914)
• Cajolery (1917)
• Time's Bitter Flood (1923)
• The Blossoming Idyll (1925)
• Diversions, suite for piano (1929)
• Off for the holidays, suite for piano (1930)
• Neptune and Amphitrite
• Robinson Crusoe Suite
• approximately 100 pieces and six suites for piano[9]

Vocal

• I look into the eyes I love, solo song (1911)
• New life, new love, solo song (1911)
• Golden Slumbers, solo song (1921)
• The Northern Star, song (1921)
• Stephano's Song from "The Tempest", solo song (1922)
• The Song of the Minutes and Little Bo-Peep for children's chorus and piano (1923)
• We cobblers lead a merry life, part song for men's voices (1923)
• The Cockle-Boat, a musical vision for children in one act (1923)
• From the mountains to the champaign, unison chorus and piano (1928)
• also many choral pieces, part songs, solo songs - 250 composed, 50 or so published

References

1. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
2. Craggs, Stewart R. 'Felix White, a centenary note' in Musical Times, April 1984, p 207-8
3. BBC Proms performance archive
4. Musical Times March 1911, p 187
5. 'Felix Harold White' from The Men Who Said No, conscientious objectors, 1916-19
6. Musical Times, October 1926, p 934
7. Radio Times Issue 740, 5 December 1937, p 88
8. 'Captions' in The Land of Lost Content, 14 March, 2012
9. Radio Times Issue 612, 23 June 1935, p 24
10. Score at IMSLP
11. Radio Times Issue 734, 24 October 1937, p 78
12. Radio Times Issue 682, 23 October 1936, p 74

External links

• The Nymph's Complaint, soloist Pauline Oostenrijk