THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 932, 21 June 1957, Page 5

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS

"AND what of the artist? Is he to go on fiddling while Rome burns? Why does he fiddle at all? Is he to seek for an ivory tower in the hope that he will escape the world’s turmoil? Or is he to play to anyone who will listen, in the hope and faith that his art may help at least to relieve the distraction of his fellowmen?" These questions. do not sound’ like* those of an aloof person nor those of a conservative, and those who know George Dyson only as a reputable English composer in the traditional idiom may be surprised that the words come from him. As much an educationist as a composer George Dyson, whose best-known work, The Canterbury Pilgrims, is to be performed in Wellington on June 29, has throughout his life been vitally concerned with all the problems that affect the musician. He has taught at many schools and colleges and at the Royal College of Music, has. written on the more extreme revolutions in contemporary music, on the social background of music, and in his last book, Fiddling While Rome Burns, has put forward ideas on education which have a special relevance in an increasingly mechanised and passive society. "Music should carry us into a world of imagery and sensitiveness of sound which at its lowest is a respite and at its highest a revelation and a renewal," he writes. The arts "are a potential way of life for everyone, a part of our social sanity and the foundation of our active and recuperative leisure. . . If we could make the arts a conscious and integral part of our whole social structure, we should have achieved at least a potent contribution to the sanity and permanence of our civilisation. We should have provided a balance, a sense of proportion, a release and freedom, both mental and spiritual, which might well mitigate the strains and anxieties of political and national strife. We might even persuade men that the fellowship of the arts, which transcends all the barriers of race and language, is a not too fanciful model of what human relations might become in other spheres, . . These considerations should appeal to the musician, for his is essentially a Social art." George Dyson was born in 1883, served in the Great War, and after various posts at schools in England, went to Winchester College as music master in 1924. There in the leisure time from an exceptionally active life

he began to write The Canterbury Pilgrims, a musical. setting of 13 porttraits from the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It took two years to write and was first performed in 1931 at the annual Winchester Festival. "This work is the basis of such repute as I possess," writes Dyson. "My repute is that of a good technician, happy with words, but not markedly original. I am familiar. with modern idioms, but they are outside the vocabulary of what I want to say. I am really what the 18th century called a kapelimeister, an untranslatable word which means a musician equipped both to compose and ptoduce such music as is needed in his position or environment. He and his patrons looked on musical composition, not as a remote and exceptional activity, but as a matter of everyday use and wont." James Robertson has a special interest in this work, having attended Winchester College when Dyson was music master. "He was my piano and organ teacher," said Mr Robertson, "and has taken a great interest in my musical life since. The work was written at school and I heard it as a boy. Isobel Baillie, Steuart Wilson and Roy Henderson took part, with Dyson himself conducting. "Some time after the first performance Henry Wood said, ‘Give it 25 years then. all England will be singing it.’ Time has proved him right, for since then the work has gone around the English-speaking world and is very popular in Erigland." Dyson is a_ traditionalist and The Pilgrims is in the direct line of the English oratorio school which started with Handel and continued on through Mendelssohn, Parry and Elgar to Dyson. "He is a perfectly frank exponent of this school," said James Robertson. "The work exhibits a faultless technique, both harmonically and contrapuntally." To suit his purposes, Dyson has in parts adapted and translated the archaic language of Chaucer to make it more generally intelligible. "Archaic forms have been freely modified," says the composer. "More serious is the loss of Chaucer’s metre, but music can add a metre of its own which offers some compensation." Although regular barlines are inserted the composer, in certain parts of the work, directs that there should be no accents other than those suggested by the words and

phrases. "In certain ways he harks back to the madrigal era," says James Robertson. The soloists in the Wellington performance will be the celebrated English tenor Richard Lewis, with Sybil Phillipps and Donald Munro. The choir will be the Phoenix Choir. "I wish I could be there to hear them," said the composer in a letter to James Robertson. The Work The work opens with the prologue, and like many of Dyson’s works, starts with his own mottor theme G-D. A bustling scene illustrates the Tabard Inn at Southwark. The atmosphere is set at once, then the tenor takes Chaucer’s place and explains what is about to happen, The portraits of the Pilgrims are as follows: The Knight-‘"a very perfect gentle knight," has a large chorus and boisterous music. The Squire-"A lover and a lusty bachelor, With locks a-curl as they were laid in press." The Nun-Madame Eglantine (a soprano solo); "Full well she sang the services divine, Entunéd in her nose full seemily." In this section the motto on her brooch, "Amor Vincit Omnia," is sung by a chorus of women’s voices. The Monk-‘a bold rider that loved hunting." The Clerkan ingenious section, which begins with a fugue, purposely dry, made up of two

ascending fifths. Dyson relents near the end and shows the Clerk’s humanity as he comes to the lines, "And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach." The Haberdasher and his Fraternity and The Mer-chant-The first of these is a tenor solo and the second a solid mock semi-Han-delian chorus, The Sergeant of the Law and The Franklin are run together as two pieces for the baritone. The Ship-man-Here the music, extremely rhythmical, suggests the heaving of the sea, only to end quietly with the line "His barque was calléd the Magdalen." The Doctor of Physic-here Dysom has written in a dissonant, modern idiom, a purposely acrid piece of music, The Wife of Bath-the most popular section of all and often performed at _ the Proms. ("Husbands at church door she had five, Beside other company in youth.") The Poor Parson of a Town -"Christ’s lore, and his Apostles twelve he taught, but first he followed it himself." L’Envoi-The original bustle returns and the tenor tells how they start off. The baritone takes the part of the innkeeper, the motto theme from the beginning returns as do some of the other mottos, such as "Amor Vincit Omnia." The Knight starts his tale, the music gets softer and softer, a horn sounds offstage and the Pilgrims are on their way.

National Orchestra, Phoenix Choir and Soloists