RICHARD HALL 1903-1982 (British composer) by David Wright

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RICHARD HALL

by Dr. David C.F. Wright

© David Wright Ph.D
This article, or any part of it, must not be reproduced in part or in whole in any way whatsoever without prior written consent of the author.

Richard Hall was an extraordinary character. He is probably best known as a teacher and among his pupils were the famous ‘Manchester Five’ ... Arthur Butterworth, Harrison Birtwhistle, Alexander Goehr, John Ogden and Peter Maxwell Davies. Arthur Butterworth has told me that Hall’s real interest, which permeated his teaching, was the philosophy of music. It was this ever-evolving fascination with philosophy that led him into many ‘religious byways’. He was a ‘liberal’ Anglican vicar at Bardsley near Leeds for a short while but left the church under a cloud in 1936. He objected to traditionalism and the attitudes of the established Church; he was an ecumenicalist believing that the gods of Eastern religions and philosophy were one and the same as the Christian’s God. His liberal attitudes extended to his many alleged relationships with women ... this predilection extended through many of his years as professor of composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music between 1938 and 1956 and he could be a volatile character.

But to continue his religious quest. In 1959, he was ordained as a liberal Catholic priest and this was during his period as director of music at Dartington Hall. Six years later he became a minister of the Unitarian chapel in Moretonhampstead in Devon. In 1967 he was inducted as the Unitarian minister in Horsham and the following year took on the responsibilities at the Unitarian Church at Billinghurst as well, before retiring in 1976.

He was something of an untidy or disorganised composer. For example there are nineteen numbered piano sonatas between Op 42 and Op 69; there is another one designated as Op 20, sometimes referred to as Op 35, and five other piano sonatas; Op 97, 102, 105, 108 and 111 without numbers. The symphonies are also confusing. There is a Symphony Op 34 of 1933 of which the slow movement was used as a separate piece, Nightfall, in 1934. A Symphony in B minor Op 101 precedes the Symphony No 1 of 1944-8 which began life as ideas for two separate symphonies hence there is no Symphony No 2 and yet Symphony No 1 is really number 3! However, the Symphony No 3 dates from 1953 as does the Symphony No 4. There is also some talk of a Symphony No 5 recently discovered.

There are three numbered string quartets. No 1 dates from 1942, No 2 from 1956-7 and No 3 from 1957 and yet there are four unnumbered string quartets, Op 7 of 1930, Op 31 of 1932, Op 87 of 1938 and Op 110 of 1942.

Hall used opus numbers between 1929 and 1942 and that constitutes 119 works in 13 years which indicates his prolific output. No less than 19 piano sonatas were written in the two years 1934-5. After this he neither numbered his works nor gave them opus numbers and so, for example, the two cello and piano sonatas of 1953 and 1955 respectively can only presently be known by the year of composition. But what do we do about the two separate cello and piano sonatas both written in 1945 and without a number, opus number or any such thing?

Hall was born in York on 16 September 1903 and was the eldest of five children. He was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh as a boarder. He largely taught himself music but had a few lessons from Sir Edward Bairstow some years later. Bairstow was the organist at York Minster from 1913 until his death in 1946 and, like Elgar, he was a most arrogant and difficult man. Bairstow was not only always right but he could never be wrong, and if you disagreed with him, even on a trivial point, you were not forgiven. In addition, Bairstow had that inane attitude that music without a clearly defined and often-repeated melody was not music at all. All ‘modern’ music was not music and not to be tolerated.

Towards the end of the First World War, Hall’s father died and Richard had to work in the family’s leather business. In his spare time he studied both the cello and organ. He joined an amateur orchestra and was organist at a local parish church. Such was his skill that he became organist at Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire in 1923 and won an organ scholarship to Cambridge but could only financially survive there for about a year. His next post was as organist at All Saints, Leeds but he was unsettled. The church had a different interest for him. He was ordained in 1926 after brief training for the Anglican ministry. He became precentor at Leeds Parish Church where he remained for ten years.

His disillusionment with the established church led him to take up teaching. At the time he was a close friend of Phillip Godlee who was a Council Member of the Royal Manchester College of Music and was the driving force behind Hall succeeding Arnold Cooke as professor of harmony and composition. But the college attracted very few musical students and it was steeped in traditionalism, the same ‘fault’ that Hall saw in the Anglican Church, and the College was hostile to ‘modern’ music.

Hall’s fascination with both creativity and philosophy turned him to painting and to writing poetry as well as music. His musical compositions reveal many influences ... the earlier works may suggest Delius or Bax and later works, Hindermith and, perhaps, Scriabin. Eventually, he absorbed the influences of Schöenberg and Berg.

Performances were hard to come by. After the Second World War the Barbirollis took up the Idylls for oboe and strings and The Sheep Under the Snow. The pianist David Wilde performed the Piano Concerto of 1951 and both the Symphony No 3 and Symphony No 4 had a few performances. Perhaps the ‘untidiness’ I referred to earlier was due to a combination of Hall’s urge to compose coupled with his doubts as to performances of his work.

After 18 years in Manchester he became director of music at Dartington Hall until 1962. He founded the Dartington String Quartet and sought to inspire students to activity and commitment. As a teacher he did not have much to say about each student’s work in progress, style or technique. It was the philosophy of music that intrigued him. For example, he would say to a student, "Why did you put A flat there?" and leave the student to consider it.

I met Richard Hall in Horsham in 1975 and was able to make notes of our interviews which form the basis of this short portrait. By now, he was a quiet, sensitive man and possessed of a modesty or indifference to his work. He was concerned that he had not been recognised for his services to music although he had become a Fellow of Trinity College, London (Hon Causa) in 1965. Perhaps it was this that led him to write seven books of poetry in which he expresses his philosophical concepts.

Hall was not a snob. He was always giving a helping hand to amateurs, notably the Pipers Guild. He lectured for the WEA in Crewe during the 1940s and always sought to encourage music making. In addition to the cello and organ he could play both the flute and violin and this meant that he knew how to write for instruments. In this he followed the noble example of Hindermith. After his ‘wild’ years he settled down to promoting the works of his composition students and some impressed William Glock at the BBC who took up Birtwhistle and Maxwell Davies in particular.

I was present at a concert conducted by Bryden Thomson in which the Third and Fourth Symphonies were performed along with the Piano Concerto with David Wilde as soloist. All works were played with devotion and dedication.

The Symphony No 3 is in four movements and follows classical proportions and structure. It has a thematic cell of three notes ... B sharp, C sharp and D. The opening allegro is in sonata form. This is followed by a chaconne, a scherzo and a rondo which has a slow introduction. The first movement is robust, the second eventually develops into the realm of beauty, the scherzo is busy and memorable and shows European influences while the finale is very accomplished.

The Symphony No 4 was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Michael Gielen on Radio on 3 May 1964. The composer said that ‘it was inspired by the Pennines and invokes the atmosphere and ethos of this part of the world which can sometimes be bright or gun-grey’. The work is in seven ‘chapters’ beginning with a short preface in which the falling major sevenths and the repeated G is prominent. The ‘chapters’ are in effect variations, of which the final one is in sonata form with two ideas, the second of which is dominated by the percussion. The composer said that this work was a statement of human experience prompted by natural events. It has a relaxed Schöenbergian intensity, if that is not a contradiction, with some glowing string writing and beautifully integrated woodwind which often gives it the mood of an intimate chamber work. It is a work worthy of a commercial recording; it has a lot to offer. It is curious that Hall described it as being akin to a novel with chapters. The work ends with an epilogue.

Richard Hall died in Horsham on 24 May 1982. A concert to celebrate the 90th anniversary of his birth was given by the Rasumovsky Quartet and Alan Rowlands and the Royal College of Music on Tuesday 16 November 1993 and Continuum Records brought out a CD of songs and chamber music.

My memories of Richard, and of his wife Ella (he was married three times) are happy ones. He was so intellectual that every sentence he spoke to me was peppered with some unusual word, phrase or philosophical comment. However, he did compose a work for me which I recorded and which pleased him greatly.

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