Havergal Brian facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Havergal Brian
Havergal Brian, around 1900
Born	William Havergal Brian (1876-01-29)29 January 1876 Dresden, Staffordshire, England
Died	28 November 1972(1972-11-28) (aged 96) Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, England
Years active	1917 – 1968
Notable work	Symphony No. 1, The Gothic The Tigers

William Havergal Brian (born January 29, 1876 – died November 28, 1972) was an important English composer. He also wrote stories for operas (called librettist) and played the church organ.

He is most famous for writing 32 symphonies. That's a lot! He wrote 25 of them after he turned 70. His most well-known work is his Symphony No. 1, The Gothic. This symphony needs a huge orchestra and choir to perform.

Havergal Brian also wrote five operas and many other pieces for orchestras. He composed songs, music for choirs, and a small amount of chamber music (music for small groups of instruments). Early in his career, his music was quite popular. He was "rediscovered" in the 1950s. However, his music is still not performed very often. He kept composing big pieces even when he was in his nineties. Most of these were not performed until after he died.

Havergal Brian's Life Story

Growing Up and Early Music

William Havergal Brian was born on January 29, 1876. His hometown was Dresden, in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. This area is close to Stoke-on-Trent. He was one of the few composers from a working-class family in England. His middle name, Havergal, came from Frances Ridley Havergal. She was part of a famous family known for writing hymns.

Brian's first music lessons were as a choirboy. He sang in the choir at St James' church in Longton. In 1887, he sang with other choir members at a concert in Lichfield Cathedral. This concert celebrated Queen Victoria's 50 years as queen (her Golden Jubilee). This experience made him interested in big musical performances.

When he was 12, he left school and started working different jobs. In his free time, he kept studying music. He was very good at playing the organ from a young age. He mostly taught himself how to compose music. From 1896, he was the organist at All Saints' church in Odd Rode. This church was a Gothic Revival style building. His main job at this time was working for a timber company.

Around this time, he heard King Olaf by Edward Elgar. This piece was for singers, choir, and orchestra. Brian sent some of his own music to Elgar, who encouraged him. Brian became a big fan of new music by composers like Richard Strauss and other British composers. He met Granville Bantock (1868–1946) at music festivals, and they became lifelong friends.

In 1898, Brian married Isabel Priestley. They had five children together.

Becoming a Full-Time Composer

In 1907, a rich local businessman, Herbert Minton Robinson, offered Brian money. He gave him £500 a year so Brian could focus only on composing. This was a good amount of money back then. Robinson likely expected Brian to become famous and earn his own money soon. At first, Brian did find some success. His first English Suite caught the attention of Henry J. Wood. Wood performed it at the London Proms concerts in 1907.

This work was popular, and Brian found a publisher for his next orchestral pieces. However, this early success didn't last. Brian started working on big pieces for choirs and orchestras. But he didn't feel rushed to finish them. He also enjoyed expensive foods and a trip to Italy.

His first marriage ended in 1913. Brian then moved to London. Robinson, who didn't approve of the situation, still gave him money until he died. But after 1913, most of the money went to Brian's first wife. Brian started a new family with Hilda Mary Hayward. They lived together and later married in 1933 after his first wife passed away. Hilda and Brian had five children together.

Without Robinson's full support, Brian lived in poverty in London. He started composing a lot of music. When World War I began, he joined the Honourable Artillery Company. But he didn't see any fighting because he got a hand injury and had to leave. He then worked for the Canadian Expeditionary Force until 1915. His family moved to Erdington, near Birmingham, then to different places in Sussex. His short time in the war gave him ideas for his first opera, The Tigers.

In the 1920s, he began writing symphonies. He wrote more than ten before one was performed in the early 1950s. Brian eventually found music-related work, like copying and arranging music. He also wrote for a music magazine called The British Bandsman. In 1927, he became an assistant editor for Musical Opinion magazine and moved back to London.

In 1940, he retired. He lived in London first, then in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex. Now he didn't have to work for money. He could spend all his time composing. Most of his music was written in the last 30 years of his life. This includes four of his five operas (written between 1951 and 1957) and 27 of his 32 symphonies (written from 1948 onwards). Through most of the 1960s, Brian wrote two or three symphonies every year.

This burst of new music happened around the same time his work was "rediscovered." This was partly thanks to Robert Simpson, a composer and BBC Music Producer. Simpson asked Sir Adrian Boult to perform Brian's Eighth Symphony in 1954. Many of Brian's works were performed for the first time during this period. This included the Gothic Symphony. He had finished it decades earlier, between 1919 and 1927. It was first performed in 1961 by a mix of amateur and professional musicians. A fully professional performance happened in 1966 at the Royal Albert Hall. This performance was broadcast live, which made many people interested in his music. By the time he died six years later, several of his works had been performed. The first commercial recordings of his music were also made.

After Brian's death, there was more interest in his music for a few years. More recordings and performances happened. Two books about his life and a three-volume study of his symphonies were published.

The famous conductor Leopold Stokowski heard Brian's Sinfonia Tragica (Symphony No. 6). He wanted to perform one of Brian's works. So, in 1973, the 28th Symphony was performed for the first time in the world. It was a BBC broadcast, produced by Robert Simpson. The New Philharmonia Orchestra played it. Anthony Payne wrote in his review: "It was amazing to think about how special this event was – a 91-year-old conductor learning a new piece by a 91-year-old composer."

Havergal Brian's Music Style

Brian's music can be described as being in a late romantic style. This means it has big, rich sounds, similar to Gustav Mahler. He used many instruments in his orchestra and often changed the main key of a piece. Brian loved German music. He even used German words for the choir in his fourth symphony. His main musical influences were German composers like Wagner, Bruckner, Strauss, Mahler, and Bach. He was also influenced by Elgar.

Brian's music usually has a clear key (it's tonal), not atonal (without a clear key). It doesn't use the twelve-tone technique. However, his music often has sudden, strong, and sometimes clashing sounds.

Brian's music has some special features. He liked using very short, sharp rhythms and deep brass notes. He also used unusual sounds from the harp, piano, and percussion instruments. His music often has quiet moments, like the slow harp sounds at the start and end of his Eighth Symphony. But perhaps the most noticeable thing about his music is that it's always changing. One mood rarely lasts long before it's suddenly replaced by another. Even in his slow pieces, calm, flowing parts are often interrupted by restless ideas.

Brian was an organist, like Bach and Bruckner. Playing the organ influenced his music. The organ even appears in some of his symphonies. Other influences came from old street music and especially brass and military bands. Even though he didn't write much music specifically for brass bands, brass instruments are often very important in his orchestral music. Marches are also common.

Brian wrote music in many different forms. But his most famous works are his 32 symphonies. His first main symphony is the huge Gothic Symphony. It takes almost two hours to perform and needs a massive orchestra and choir. He finished it in 1927. While the Gothic is his most famous work, it's not like all his other symphonies. Most of Brian's symphonies don't need a bigger orchestra than a typical 20th-century symphony orchestra. Symphony No. 4 (Das Siegeslied) does need a large choir and a soprano singer. A typical Brian symphony usually lasts about 20 minutes.

Brian often used the classical four-movement structure for his symphonies, even in pieces that were just one long movement. He wrote his sixth symphony when he was 72. Most of his symphonies were written quickly in the last two decades of his life, when he was in his 80s and 90s. Most of them were not performed during his lifetime. However, all 32 symphonies have now been recorded.

Besides symphonies, Brian also composed several large operas in the 1950s. In 1997, his 1951 opera The Cenci was performed for the first time in a concert. It was based on a play from 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

List of Works

Here are some of Havergal Brian's works, grouped by type:

Operas

• The Tigers (1917–29)
• Turandot, Prinzessin von China (1951)
• The Cenci (1951–52)
• Faust (1955–56)
• Agamemnon (1957)

Symphonies

• Symphony No. 1 in D minor (The Gothic) (1919–27)
• Symphony No. 2 in E minor (1930–31)
• Symphony No. 3 in C-sharp minor (1931–32)
• Symphony No. 4, "Das Siegeslied" (1932–33)
• Symphony No. 5, "Wine of Summer" (1937)
• Symphony No. 6, "Sinfonia Tragica" (1948)
• Symphony No. 7 in C major (1948)
• Symphony No. 8 in B-flat minor (1949)
• Symphony No. 9 in A minor (1951)
• Symphony No. 10 in C minor (1953–54)
• Symphony No. 11 in B-flat minor (1954)
• Symphony No. 12 (1957)
• Symphony No. 13 in C major (1959)
• Symphony No. 14 in F minor (1959–60)
• Symphony No. 15 in A major (1960)
• Symphony No. 16 in C-sharp minor (1960)
• Symphony No. 17 (1960–61)
• Symphony No. 18 (1961)
• Symphony No. 19 in E minor (1961)
• Symphony No. 20 in C-sharp minor (1962)
• Symphony No. 21 in E-flat major (1963)
• Symphony No. 22, "Symphonia Brevis" (1964–65)
• Symphony No. 23 (1965)
• Symphony No. 24 in D major (1965)
• Symphony No. 25 in A minor (1965–66)
• Symphony No. 26 (1966)
• Symphony No. 27 in C major (1966)
• Symphony No. 28 in C minor (1967)
• Symphony No. 29 in E-flat major (1967)
• Symphony No. 30 in B-flat minor (1967)
• Symphony No. 31 (1968)
• Symphony No. 32 in A-flat (1968)

Concertos

• Violin Concerto (1935)
• Cello Concerto (1964)

Other Orchestral Music

• English Suite No. 1 (1902–04)
• For Valour, Overture (1902, revised 1906)
• Doctor Merryheart, Comedy Overture No. 1 (1911–12)
• The Tinker's Wedding, Comedy Overture No. 2 (1948)
• The Jolly Miller, Comedy Overture No. 3 (1962)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1964)

Music for Chorus

• Many unaccompanied and accompanied songs for choirs.

Music for Voice and Orchestra

• Cathedral scene, from "Faust" Act 3 (1956)
• Gretchen songs, from "Faust" (1956)
• Herrick songs (1912)
• Psalm 23 (1901, reconstructed 1945)

Music for Voice and Piano

• 32 Songs

Chamber Music

• Legend (around 1919–24), for violin and piano

Piano Music

• Double Fugue in E-flat (1924)
• Three Illuminations (1916)
• Four Miniatures (1919–20)
• Prelude "John Dowland's Fancy" (1934)
• Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1924)
• Prelude and Fugue in D minor/major (1924)

Transcriptions

• Brian also arranged works by other famous composers like Bach, Handel, and Wagner.

Recordings of Brian's Music

The very first official recording of Havergal Brian's music was made in 1972. The Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra recorded Symphonies Nos. 10 and 21. James Loughran and Eric Pinkett conducted these pieces. The recording was released in 1973. A TV show called Aquarius even covered the recording session. A camera crew visited Brian's home in Shoreham with members of the orchestra.

In the 1970s, some unofficial recordings of Brian's symphonies were made. These were usually from BBC broadcasts and released under fake names. Many of these have since been officially released.

In 1979, Cameo Classics started a project to record all of Brian's orchestral music. They worked with the Havergal Brian Society. They started with pieces like English Suite No. 1 and Doctor Merryheart. They also recorded all of Brian's piano music using new digital technology.

Since the 1980s and 1990s, more of Brian's works have been published. It used to be hard to hear his music performed well. But now, many of his symphonies have been professionally recorded. The Marco Polo record label has released many of these on CD. By the end of 2018, all 32 of Brian's symphonies had at least one official recording.

In August 2010, the Dutton CD label released three works from BBC broadcasts in 1959. These included the Comedy Overture Doctor Merryheart and the 11th Symphony. This followed another release of the live recording of the 1966 performance of Brian's Gothic Symphony. In 2011, the Gothic Symphony was performed again at the Proms concert season. This performance is also available as a commercial recording.

In July 2012, a documentary film called "The Curse of the Gothic Symphony" came out in Australia. It was about the challenges of putting on a performance of Brian's Gothic Symphony in Brisbane, Australia. The film showed the huge effort to bring together 200 musicians and 400 choir members. This big performance happened in 2010 and ended with a huge standing ovation.