Rutland Boughton facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Rutland Boughton (born January 23, 1878 – died January 25, 1960) was an English composer. He became famous in the early 1900s for his operas and choral music. He was also an important activist for the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

Boughton wrote many different kinds of music, including three symphonies, several concertos, songs, chamber music, and operas. He called his operas "music dramas," similar to the style of the famous composer Wagner. His most well-known work was the opera The Immortal Hour. His Christmas opera Bethlehem (1915), which used traditional Christmas carols, also became very popular with choirs around the world.

Among his many works, Boughton composed a full series of five operas based on the Arthurian legends. He worked on these for 35 years: The Birth of Arthur (1909), The Round Table (1915–16), The Lily Maid (1933–34), Galahad (1943–44), and Avalon (1944–45). Other operas by Boughton include The Moon Maiden (1918), Alkestis (1920–22), and The Ever Young (1928–29).

Thanks to the Boughton Trust (which you can read about below), many of his major works have been recorded and are available to listen to. These include The Immortal Hour, Bethlehem, his first three symphonies, oboe concertos, string quartets, and various other pieces.

Boughton is also remembered for trying to create a special music festival in Glastonbury, like the famous Bayreuth Festival in Germany. He started the first Glastonbury Festivals, which were very successful from 1914 until 1926. Support for his music activities stopped after he joined the CPGB.

Rutland Boughton's Early Life and Music

Rutland Boughton was the son of William Boughton, a grocer in Aylesbury, England. From a young age, Rutland showed amazing musical talent, but he didn't get formal training right away. In 1892, after leaving school at 14, he started working for a concert agency in London. Six years later, important musicians like MP Ferdinand de Rothschild noticed him. They helped him raise enough money to study at the Royal College of Music in London.

Boughton believed strongly in socialist ideas. He was influenced by thinkers like William Morris, John Ruskin, George Bernard Shaw, and Edward Carpenter. He became lifelong friends with Edward Carpenter.

While at the Royal College of Music, Boughton studied with Charles Villiers Stanford and Walford Davies from 1898 to 1901. After that, he took on various jobs. He worked in the orchestra pit at the Haymarket Theatre and later became the official accompanist for the singer David Ffrangcon-Davies. David's daughter, Gwen, later became famous for her role as Etain in Boughton's opera The Immortal Hour at the Glastonbury Festivals. In 1903, Boughton married Florence Hobley, a girl from his old neighborhood in Aylesbury.

In 1905, the same year he finished his first symphony, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Granville Bantock asked him to join the staff at the Birmingham and Midland Institute of Music (now the Birmingham Conservatoire).

Teaching and New Ideas in Birmingham

While working in Birmingham from 1905 to 1911, Boughton found many new opportunities and made many friends. He was an excellent teacher and a fantastic conductor for choirs, which earned him a lot of praise. During these years, he also met Christina Walshe, a young art student. She later became his partner and an important helper for his projects in Glastonbury.

Boughton's friendship with the writer George Bernard Shaw began when Shaw first turned down Boughton's idea to work together on an opera. Boughton didn't give up, and eventually, Shaw realized they had similar ideas that would last.

Through his own learning and discoveries, Boughton developed artistic goals that would guide him for his entire life. When he was young, he dreamed of creating a 14-day series of plays about the life of Christ. The story would be acted out on a small stage in the middle of an orchestra, while singers and a choir would comment on the action. This specific idea didn't happen, but the thought stayed with him. By 1907, Boughton had discovered the ideas of Richard Wagner, a famous German composer. This, combined with his feeling that the church's view of Christianity wasn't working, led him to a new topic: King Arthur.

Inspired by Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Boughton aimed to create a new kind of opera, which he later called "choral drama." He worked with the poet Reginald Buckley and Christina Walshe to create a national festival of drama. They realized that London's Covent Garden opera house wasn't right for their plans. They decided to build their own theater and create a community or cooperative using local talent.

At first, Letchworth Garden City was considered a good place for the project. However, they later chose Glastonbury in Somerset, a town full of legends and said to be the resting place of King Arthur. Meanwhile, Sir Dan Godfrey and his Bournemouth orchestra were known for supporting new English music. It was in Bournemouth that Boughton's first Arthurian opera, The Birth of Arthur, was first performed. His 2nd Symphony and The Queen of Cornwall were also first heard there. The famous writer Thomas Hardy, whose poem the opera was based on, even attended the performance of The Queen of Cornwall.

The Glastonbury Festivals

By 1911, Boughton had left his job in Birmingham and moved to Glastonbury. There, with Christina Walshe and Reginald Buckley, he started working on creating England's first national annual summer school of music.

The first production wasn't an Arthurian opera, but Boughton's new choral-drama, The Immortal Hour, which he composed in 1912. They raised money from people across the country, and important figures like Sir Granville Bantock, Thomas Beecham, John Galsworthy, Gustav Holst, Dame Ethel Smyth, and Shaw supported it. Sir Edward Elgar even promised to lay the first stone for their new building, and Beecham offered to lend his London orchestra.

However, in August 1914, the month the first festival was supposed to open, World War I began. Their big plans had to be put on hold. But Boughton was determined to continue. The Festival started, and instead of Beecham's orchestra, he used a grand piano. Instead of a new theater, they used the local Assembly Rooms. These rooms remained the center of activities until the Festivals ended in 1926. By then, Boughton had put on over 350 staged works, 100 chamber concerts, many exhibitions, and a series of lectures and recitals – something never seen before in England. In 1922, Boughton's Festival Players went on tour and performed in Bristol and Bournemouth.

From 1911, Boughton also worked as a music critic, writing for newspapers like the Daily Citizen, Daily Herald, and later the Sunday Worker.

The most famous and successful of Boughton's works is the opera The Immortal Hour. It's based on a play by Fiona Macleod (whose real name was William Sharp) and uses Celtic myths. After being successful in Glastonbury and Birmingham, Barry Jackson, the director of the new Birmingham Repertory Theatre, decided to take the Glastonbury Festival Players' production to London. There, it had an amazing run of over 600 performances! When it arrived at the Regent Theatre in 1922, it ran for over 200 shows in a row, and another 160 in 1923. It was also successfully brought back in 1932. People, including members of the Royal family, came to see the opera multiple times, especially to see and hear the young Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. Her performance as Etain launched her professional acting career.

Besides The Immortal Hour and Bethlehem, his other operas were also very popular. These included The Queen of Cornwall (1924), based on a play by Thomas Hardy, and Alkestis (1922), based on Gilbert Murray's translation of the Greek play Alcestis by Euripides. Alkestis was performed at Covent Garden by the British National Opera Company and was even broadcast by the new British Broadcasting Company in 1924. These later works haven't been performed publicly since the mid-1960s.

Why the Glastonbury Festival Ended

The Glastonbury Festivals ended quickly when Boughton showed his support for the miners' strike of 1926. He insisted on staging his popular Christmas opera Bethlehem (1915) at Church House, Westminster, London. In this version, Jesus was born in a miner's cottage, and Herod was shown as a rich capitalist, surrounded by soldiers and police. This play was strongly criticized by the Daily Mail newspaper, causing a big public outcry.

Boughton also joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and made his membership widely known. These events embarrassed the people of Glastonbury, who then stopped supporting Boughton. This caused the Festival Players group to close down.

Beavans Hill, Kilcot, where Rutland Boughton lived later in life.

A plaque at Kilcot remembering Rutland Boughton.

Rutland Boughton's Later Years

From 1927 until he passed away in 1960, Boughton lived in Kilcot, near Newent in Gloucestershire. There, he finished the last two operas of his Arthurian series, Avalon and Galahad, which have never been performed. He also created some of his best works during this time, whose quality has only been truly appreciated in the last 20 years.

These later works include his 2nd and 3rd symphonies. The 3rd symphony was first performed in London in 1939, with famous composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams in the audience. He also wrote several pieces for the oboe, including two concertos. One was dedicated to his talented daughter Joy Boughton, and the other to the famous oboist Léon Goossens. He also composed chamber music and other orchestral pieces.

In 1934 and 1935, Boughton tried to repeat his earlier successes in Glastonbury by holding festivals in Stroud and Bath. These festivals featured new works like The Lily Maid (the third opera in the Arthurian Cycle) and The Ever Young. However, Boughton's reputation was affected by his political beliefs in Communism, and his music was largely forgotten for the next 40 years. In 1956, Boughton left the Communist Party of Great Britain, but he remained a strong believer in socialist ideas for the rest of his life. Rutland Boughton died at his daughter Joy's home in Barnes, London, in 1960.

What Famous People Said About Boughton

"I believe that Boughton's works will eventually be regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements in the story of our music." – Charles Kennedy Scott, 1915
"The Immortal Hour is a work of genius." – Sir Edward Elgar, 1924
"... The Immortal Hour enchants me. The whole thing gripped me." – Dame Ethel Smyth, 1922
"Now that Elgar is gone, you have the only original personal English style on the market...I find that I have acquired a great taste for it." – George Bernard Shaw, 1934
"I remember vividly how Boughton made his characters live, and the masterly effect of the choral writing." – Sir Arthur Bliss on The Immortal Hour, 1949
"In any other country, such a work as The Immortal Hour would have been in the repertoire years ago." – Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1949

The Rutland Boughton Music Trust

The Rutland Boughton Music Trust was started in 1978, which was 100 years after the composer was born. Its goal is to encourage performances and help record his musical works. Many of these recordings, including some that were heard for the very first time, are now available on the Hyperion Records label.

His Oliver Cromwell symphony, first heard in 2005, and three of his Songs of the English (last heard around 1904/05) have been released by Dutton. Dutton has also released the first-ever recording of Boughton's opera The Queen of Cornwall, which was supported by the Trust.

Selected List of Rutland Boughton's Compositions

Dramatic Works

Music-Drama

The Birth of Arthur (1909)
The Immortal Hour (1912–13)
Bethlehem (1915)
The Round Table (1915–16)
Alkestis (1920–22)
The Queen of Cornwall (1923–24)
The Ever Young (1928–29)
The Lily Maid (1933–34)
Galahad (1943–44)
Avalon (1944–45)

Shorter Dramatic Works

The Chapel in Lyonesse (1904)
Agincourt (1918)
The Moon Maiden (1918)

Ballet

Death Dance of Grania (1912)
Snow White (1914)
The Death of Columbine (1918)
May Day (1926–27)

Incidental Music

Dante and Beatrice (around 1902)
The Land of Heart's Desire (1917)
Little Plays of St Francis (1924–25)
Isolt (1935)

Orchestral Music

A Summer Night, symphonic poem (1899, revised 1903)
The Chilterns, symphonic suite (1900)
Britannia, symphonic march (1901)
Variations on a Theme of Purcell (1901)
Imperial Elegy: Into the Everlasting, symphonic poem (1901)
Troilus and Cressida (Thou and I), symphonic poem (1902)
School for Scandal, overture (1903)
Symphony No. 1, Oliver Cromwell (1904–05)
Love in Spring, symphonic poem (1906)
Three Folk Dances, for string orchestra (1912)
The Round Table, overture (1916)
The Queen of Cornwall, overture (1926)
Symphony No. 2, Deirdre (1926–27)
Three Flights for Orchestra (1929)
Winter Sun (1932)
Overture to the Arthurian Cycle (1936)
Symphony No. 3 in B minor (1937)
Rondo in Wartime (1941)
Orchestral Prelude on a Christmas Hymn (1941)
Reunion Variations (1945)
Aylesbury Games, suite for string orchestra (1952)

Concertos (Music for Solo Instrument with Orchestra)

Concerto for oboe and strings No. 1 in C (1936)
Concerto for oboe and strings No. 2 in G (1937)
Concerto for flute and strings (1937)
Concerto for string orchestra (1937)
Concerto for trumpet and orchestra (1943)

Chamber Music (Music for Small Groups of Instruments)

Celtic Prelude "The Land of Heart’s Desire" (1921)
Violin Sonata (1921)
String Quartet No. 1 in A, The Greek (1923)
String Quartet No. 2 in F, From the Welsh Hills (1923)
Trio for flute, oboe and piano (1925)
Oboe Quartet No. 1 (1932)
Three Songs without Words, for oboe quartet (1937)
String Trio (1944)
Oboe Quartet No. 2 (1945)
Piano Trio (1948)
Cello Sonata (1948)

Choral Music (Music for Choirs)

The Skeleton in Armour, for chorus and orchestra (1898, revised 1903)
Sir Galahad, for chorus and orchestra (1898)
The Invincible Armada, for chorus and orchestra (1901)
Two sets of Choral Variations, for unaccompanied chorus (1905)
Midnight, symphonic poem for chorus and orchestra (1907)
The City, motet for unaccompanied chorus (1909)
Six Spiritual Songs, for unaccompanied chorus (1910)
Six Celtic Choruses, for unaccompanied chorus (1914)
The Cloud, for chorus and orchestra (1923)
Pioneers, for chorus and orchestra (1925)
Child of Earth, cycle for unaccompanied chorus (1927)

Songs

Songs of the English (1901)
Four Faery Songs (1901)
Six Songs of Manhood (1903)
Five Celtic Songs (1910)
Songs of Womanhood (1911)
Songs of Childhood (1912)
Symbol Songs (1920)
Four Everyman Songs (1922)
Three Hardy Songs (1924)

Where to Find Rutland Boughton's Music Scores

Most of Boughton's original handwritten music scores can be seen at the British Library, Euston Road, London.

A large collection of Rutland Boughton's printed music and other materials is kept in the library of the Royal College of Music.

If you want to perform his music, you should ask The Rutland Boughton Music Trust or, in some cases, the music publisher.