1923 in British music

This is a summary of 1923 in music in the United Kingdom.

List of years in British music
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Events

• 12 June – William Walton's Façade, a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, is given its first public performance at the Aeolian Hall, London.[1] The critics' reception is unfavourable.[2]
• 4 July – Ralph Vaughan Williams's English Folk Song Suite is premièred at Kneller Hall, conducted by Hector Adkins.[3]
• September–October – Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) and E. J. Moeran tour East Anglia in search of original folk music.
• 11 November – The première of John Foulds's A World Requiem is held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with soloists including Herbert Heyner.[4] It is repeated on that date each year until 1926.
• 23 December – The Beggar's Opera by John Gay and Dr Pepusch, with score restored by Frederic Austin, ends its record run of 1,463 performances at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith; Austin himself plays Peachum, with Frederick Ranalow as Macheath and Sylvia Nelis as Polly.
• date unknown
  • The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society is founded by Jean Milligan and Ysobel Stewart.[5]
  • The moving coil microphone is developed by Captain H. J. Round and is adopted by the BBC's London studios.[6]
  • Edward Elgar moves to the village of Kempsey, Worcestershire, where he will live until 1927.[7]
  • Arthur Bliss's father retires to California. Arthur goes with him to work as a conductor, lecturer, pianist and occasional critic.[8]
  • Eugene Aynsley Goossens becomes conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the United States.
  • Henry Tippett agrees to support his son Michael Tippett's studies at the Royal College of Music, where Michael is accepted despite lacking the entry qualifications.[9]
  • The Savoy Orpheans is formed as a resident dance band at the Savoy Hotel, London, by Debroy Somers.

Classical music: new works

• Kenneth J. Alford – Cavalry of the Clouds
• Granville Bantock – Suite from Cathay (words by Ezra Pound)
• Arthur Bliss – String Quartet
• Gerald Finzi – A Severn Rhapsody[10]
• Constant Lambert – 2 Songs (words by Sacheverell Sitwell), for soprano, flute and harp
• Roger Quilter – "The Fuschia Tree", Op. 25 No. 2[11]
• Cyril Scott – The Incompetent Apothecary (ballet)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams – Sea Songs
• William Walton – Toccata for Violin and Piano

Opera

• Gustav Holst – The Perfect Fool[12]

Musical theatre

• London Calling!, a revue produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward,[13] co-starring Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, opens at the Duke of York's Theatre on 4 September and runs for 367 performances.

Births

• 21 April – Ronald Cass, film composer (died 2006)
• 15 May – John Lanchbery, composer and conductor (died 2003)
• 4 August – Arthur Butterworth, composer (died 2014)
• 19 August – Dill Jones, pianist (died 1984)
• 30 September – Donald Swann, musician (died 1994)
• 5 October – Glynis Johns, actress and singer
• 10 November – Anne Shelton, singer (died 1994)

Deaths

• 18 January – Kate Santley, German-born actress, singer and comedian (exact age unknown)
• 10 July – Albert Chevalier, actor, singer, songwriter and music hall performer, 62[14]
• 27 August – Letty Lind, singer and burlesque performer, 61[15]
• 12 October – John Cadvan Davies, poet and hymn-writer, 77[16]
• date unknown – Nicholas Kilburn, choral conductor and composer, 80[17]

See also

• 1923 in the United Kingdom

References

1. Kennedy, Michael. "Walton, Sir William Turner (1902–1983)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2008, retrieved 27 September 2010 (subscription required)
2. "Futuristic Music and Poetry", The Manchester Guardian, 13 June 1923, p. 3
3. Timothy Reynish, notes for British Wind Band Classics, Chandos Records 9697, 1999 – PDF Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
4. Cover of programme reproduced in Chandos CD booklet.
5. Knight, Peter, ed. (1996). Scottish Country Dancing. Collins. ISBN 0-00-472500-X.
6. Hennessy, Brian 2005 The Emergence of Broadcasting in Britain. Devon Southerleigh
7. Reed, W.H. (1946). Elgar. London: Dent. p. 134. OCLC 8858707.
8. Obituary, The Times, 29 March 1975, p. 14
9. Lewis, Geraint. "Tippett, Sir Michael Kemp". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online edition. Retrieved 22 August 2013. (subscription required)
10. "Finzi, Gerald: A Severn Rhapsody op. 3 (1923)". Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
11. Smythe, David K.,The Fuschia Tree, The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive, Access date: 6 June 2012
12. Head, Raymond (July 1999). "The Hymn of Jesus: Holst's Gnostic Exploration of Time and Space". Tempo. New Series. Musical Times Publications Ltd. 209 (1576): 7–13. JSTOR 957953.
13. Morley, Sheridan. Coward, p. 27, Haus, 2005 ISBN 1-904341-88-8
14. Burns Mantle; John Arthur Chapman; Garrison P. Sherwood; Louis Kronenberger (1924). Burns Mantle Yearbook. Dodd, Mead. p. 457.
15. Who's who in the Theatre. Pitman. 1930. p. 1432.
16. Edward Tegla Davies. "Davies, John Cadvan (Cadvan; 1846-1923), Wesleyan minister". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
17. Robert Evans; Maggie Humphreys (1 January 1997). Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-4411-3796-8.