John Gardner: British Composer 1917-

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John GARDNER on his 80th Birthday by Dr David C.F. Wright

© David Wright Ph.D
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It is some achievement for a composer to write a successful Symphony No. 1 as his Opus 2; that two famous and revered conductors took it up, namely Sir John Barbirolli at the 1951 Cheltenham Festival, and, later, Paul Kletzki, may be further evidence of its success. And this success brought immediate commissions, the ballet Reflections, for the Edinburgh Festival (1952), and Cantiones Sacrae for the Three Choirs Festival (1952).
By the time the composer was 35 he therefore had three major successes to his name and shares the same distinction as Sir William Walton with his Viola Concerto, Belshazzar's Feast and Symphony No. 1. But, as yet, Gardner has not been afforded the same acclaim as Walton.
John Gardner was born on 2 March 1917 in Manchester, the only child of Dr. Alfred Linton Gardner and Emily Muriel (née Pullein-Thompson). He spent his childhood in Ilfracombe where, for three generations, his family had practised medicine. He began to learn the piano from the age of five and later took up the cello. He was educated at Eagle House, Sandhurst, and at Berkshire’s Wellington College (1925-1935), after which he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, for four years where he was the Sir Hubert Parry organ scholar. He was influenced by Theodor Weisengrund Adorno who had studied with both Schoenberg and Webern and had come to Oxford as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
At the age of 22, in reply to an advertisement, he became director of music at Repton School. He joined the RAF in 1940 where in turn, he was a dance-band pianist, a Warrant Officer bandmaster, and aerial navigator. Upon demobilisation he joined the staff at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as a répétiteur. During this time he composed his Symphony No. 1, which was completed in 1947.
Perhaps the consequences of its great success decided him to leave Covent Garden and become freelance as a composer, teacher, pianist and conductor. But even before the triumph of the Symphony No. 1, his Piano Sonata No. 2 had been premiered in London in 1934, as had his Rhapsody for oboe and string quartet, in 1936 and French Radio had broadcast his String Quartet No. 1 in 1939.
Part of his freelance work took him to Morley College which has had adventurous directors of music since its foundation in 1889, including Holst, Tippett and Fricker, as well as one of the most distinguished teachers of all, Mátyás Seiber. Here between 1952 and 1976 Gardner conducted the choir and lectured on musical appreciation. He became director in 1962. Concurrent with part of his time at Morley he conducted a choir of St Paul’s Girls School, thus again following in the footsteps of Holst. This was a happy time for him and further encouraged his innate ability to compose for voices. Cantiones Sacrae was the first of his choral successes. It is an absorbing and very beautiful work and one recalls a telling performance with Heather Harper as the soloist. If music is beyond words, inspires and consoles grief, then this is marvelous soul therapy as well as beautiful music. Vocal and choral writing in a secular mode is also shown in his powerful and enormously entertaining opera, The Moon and Sixpence (1957), which has that rarest of qualities, the ability to convert someone to opera, but, regrettably, such new converts would be disappointed to find few other works as immediate as this. The same year, 1957, saw the appearance of another accessible and hugely enjoyable work, the Piano Concerto. This follows in the tradition of the grand, romantic, melodic and exciting concerti that people still love today. And there is nothing wrong with that. It deserves a revival and would be universally well received. The opera Tobermory, premiered at the Royal Academy in 1977 under Steuart Bedford, is instantly and durably enjoyable and perhaps fares better than his opera, The Visitors, written for Aldeburgh in 1972 although many professionals rank it highly.
Gardner is greatly drawn to polyphony and has a high regard for the Baroque composer Adam Gumplezhaimer, a canon by whom stands behind his setting of Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse (1959). Far more successful is the Herrick Cantata for tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra (1961), which, although slightly uneven, has many splendid moments of exquisite sensuality and is another example of how attractive and singable his music is. But that certainly does not suggest that it is bland, monotonous or trite. It is not. Gardner’s music is never extreme or angular; it is never ugly or strained, and yet its very acceptability poses an inherent challenge to its performers to achieve a perfection that is within their grasp. The use of frequent canonic devices in this piece, and in many other works, is never obtrusive. What we hear is music not mechanics. His music may not always possess obvious spontaneity, rhythmic drive or striking energy, but it has a popular style and attraction. The Overture: Midsummer Ale, however, answers any criticisms thus hinted at. A performance conducted by the splendid Bryden Thomson realised all the vitality, colour, fun and high-spirits of this piece which is as good as anything Walton produced in the same genre.
On 19 February 1955 in Lewes, East Sussex, Gardner married Jane, daughter of Nigel Abercrombie, the leading expert on Jansenism in the English-speaking world and Secretary-General of the Arts Council. There are three children: Christopher (b. 1956), Lucy (b. 1958) and Emily (b.1962).
One of the striking facets of Gardner’s work is that his short pieces are not slight - an excellent example of this is his Jubilate Deo for unaccompanied chorus (1957). It takes consummate skill to write an effective short work which lingers in the mind. Webern is the outstanding example of this.
Gardner has a fascination for rich harmony and enthuses about harmony in jazz. He enjoys many jazz pianists, particularly Bill Evans (1929-1980) but it does not mean that he employs it merely to copy. Constant imitation or plagiarism is not the stock in trade of an honest composer.
He is not a musical snob. He has written some excellent light music. He has composed a splendid setting of the traditional song We Wish You a Merry Christmas and his recent Waltzsongs pays direct homage to Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes of 1874. For a children’s concert in 1977 he wrote Everybody Sing, a gloriously infectious song for audience and organ. Wonderful fun! The children’s opera Bel and the Dragon (1973) has a rousing rock finale.
Among his finest choral works are the secular cantata A Latter Day Athenian Speaks (1962) which, as Hamish Milne points out, ‘displays a remarkably skilful and imaginative gift for unaccompanied choral writing’, the Mass in D (1983) and the Stabat Mater (1993). The Mass is a concert work employing a contralto, chorus and orchestra, with a prominent solo alto saxophone which I am not convinced works. Nonetheless, it is a splendid work containing a rousing Gloria and the Credo’s vocal parts are all on one note and that does work! It has an exciting, indeed breathtaking climax. But, for me, the Stabat Mater is his masterpiece. It was written for the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis and first performed under Phillip Brunelle who has championed Gardner’s music. The soprano was Maria Jette, whose top register is perfection itself.

Here is a work which stirs and lifts the discerning listener onto an almost ecstatic spiritual plain and in the serene moments to a tender glow and profound sense which only great music can give. A Shakespeare Sequence is another of Gardner’s very best pieces. It dates from 1964 and is scored for women’s voices, piano duet and percussion. Its deceptive simplicity and Elizabethan textures make the work compelling
and effective. Gardner has an excellent feeling for brass instruments, as shown, for example, in his Trumpet Concerto (1962), Sonata Secolare (1973), English Dance Suite (1977) and the Sonata da Chiesa (1979).
Chamber music is an important part of Gardner’s work. There are three string quartets of which the Quartet No. 2, like Chopin’s Opus 24, is a set of twenty five preludes in all the major and minor keys. In Gardner’s case the first and last being in C major and thematically the same. There is a highly successful Oboe Sonata No. 2 (1986), which was followed four years later by the Oboe Concerto.
If the form of the symphony is the pinnacle of compositional achievement Gardner has scaled it. The Symphony No. 2 (1984) was written for the Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra whereas the Symphony No. 3 (1989) has a leisurely first movement, an exceptionally beautiful slow movement, and a finale of restrained fun with a humorous Shostakovich bassoon part but without the sardonic element.
Gardner taught harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music for thirty years up to 1986. He has held many other posts including a Director, and later Deputy Chairman, of the Performing Rights Society from 1965 to 1992. He was made a CHE in 1976.
What are we to make of Gardner’s neglect? It cannot be that his music is inferior, for it is not. His best orchestral music is as good as Walton’s; his choral and vocal music is probably more immediate and durable than that of Britten and Rubbra. Perhaps people think he is dead! In fact there was one such false report in 1973. The dead are sometimes quickly forgotten. It may be that because success came so early for him that people have had an unreasonable expectation of him. He has written a vast amount of music (Opus 230 to date), and some of it may be flawed, but his oeuvre includes some pieces that are so good that no discerning music lover would want to be without them.

© David C.F. Wright 2.10.96

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