Basil Harwood was born on April 11, 1859, at the family estate called Woodhouse, near Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, England. He received an education that was broader than that of most British organists of the day. In his teens, he studied piano with J. L. Roeckel at Clifton College and organ with George Riseley at Bristol Cathedral, then, after attending Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, took theory and composition with C. W. Corfe while an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford. The youngest son of a wealthy Quaker banker, after graduation from Oxford and working briefly in the Bodleian Library there, he followed in the footsteps of other well off young British musicians, like Hubert Parry and Charles Stanford, taking lessons in composition briefly at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, Germany. His professors there were Carl Reinecke (who had been a pupil of Mendelssohn and Schumann), and Salomon Jadassohn (a past student of Liszt), of whom Harwood said "he taught me much."1 He then began his career as a church organist, occupying posts at St. Barnabas' Church, Pimlico, London (1883-87), Ely Cathedral (1887-1892), and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (1892-1909). His father died in 1907, and, being the sole surviving son, two years later he retired from church work in order to assume responsibility for running the Woodhouse estate, and so as to devote his undivided attention to composition. After his death in London on April 3, 1949, his ashes were buried beneath a memorial tablet in the church where his career began, St. Barnabas', Pimlico, London.
By the end of his long life, a significant body of solo organ music had been created, but most of it quickly fell out of fashion after his death. Thanks to Stainer & Bell's 1991 six volume The Complete Works for Organ Solo by Basil Harwood, edited by Kenneth Shenton, organists now have another chance to evaluate this music. Admittedly, some of the pieces have an old-fashioned air, but many of them, arguably retaining a timeless freshness and eloquence, may speak to many of us today.
Prior to examining his output, it might be helpful to mention the backdrop against which the compositions were written. When Harwood began to compose in the 1880s, two main influences were dominant in Victorian organ music. One of these was a home-grown quality, which might take the form of a familiar melodic turn of phrase derived from sources such as popular ballads or hymn tunes, or one might detect an indefinable Victorian atmosphere inherited from one or more of such older contemporary organ composers as Samuel S. Wesley (1810-76), William Best (1826-97), Henry Smart (1818-79) and John Stainer (1840-1901). The other influence frequently found was 19th-century Austro-German style, principally that of Mendelssohn, Rheinberger and Brahms, but also, occasionally, Wagner, Reger, and Karg-Elert.
Furthermore, British organ composers in Harwood's youth tended to write music that fell into two broad genres. One genre appealed primarily to the senses. Pieces in this group might have titles like toccata, postlude, grand choeur and fantasia, and were emotionally highly charged and flashy. Others in this category were in more moderate tempos and were sentimental, with names such as nocturne, andante cantabile, and cantilène. Pieces in the other genre--with such titles as sonata, prelude and fugue, and passacaglia--were more highbrow and reserved in tone. In both genres, but more often in the second, late Baroque or Classical forms and idioms might be blended with more recent features. Many composers did not restrict themselves to writing music in only one of the style groups.
Before he began to compose, the very well educated Harwood had had ample time to become well versed in both the native organ repertoire and in the Continental composers. Perhaps partly because of his upper-class family background, and partly through his being organist in High-Church cathedrals, he adopted a highbrow, stylish, often reserved tone in his music for the instrument.
Harwood established his reputation as a composer of organ music with his very first two works for the instrument, Sonata No. 1 in C-sharp minor, Op. 5, and Dithyramb, Op. 7. While the Sonata bears the hallmark of the composer's individual style, it also shares a number of features found in earlier works in the genre that were popular in Britain, including features of Mendelssohn's sonatas, but especially those of Gustav Merkel (1827-85) and Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901). Harwood's three-movement conception was favored by Merkel and Rheinberger. Similarly, the contents of various sonata movements by them anticipated the Englishman's: a preludial first movement, marked Allegro appassionato, with affinities to sonata form; mono-thematic, song-like Andante second movement; and Maestoso introduction and con moto double fugue finale. Like Merkel and Rheinberger's sonatas, Harwood's work is pervaded with religious fervor. It calls for a large three-manual Romantic organ with a tuba stop,2 and, to pull it off, requires a first class organist like the dedicatee, Walter Parratt (1841-1924), whom Harwood admired greatly.
Parratt was the champion of "orthodoxy" and "legitimate organ playing,"3 a school that stressed the playing of works originally written for the instrument, fastidious accuracy of the part-playing, clean phrasing, and simple registration. As a corollary of the "legitimate" approach to organ performance, Parratt argued that those who made the instrument an imitator, "a mere caricature of the orchestra" were corrupt,4 a view that led to heated exchanges in 1891 and 1892 with his chief adversary in this matter, Best.5 He would have approved of Harwood's Sonata, as would Merkel and Rheinberger, who were also not interested in writing for the instrument as an imitator of the orchestra.
The Sonata was completed in 1886, near the end of his tenure of the organistship at St. Barnabas', Pimlico, London, but the young composer, being unknown, had to wait until 1890--by which time he was organist at Ely Cathedral--before he could pursuade Schott to publish the whole work.6 It is still generally regarded as probably his best piece for the instrument, and, until about 1950, was seen as possibly the "finest organ sonata written by an Englishman."7 Was this a reasonable claim? British music critics of the day were not prone to make such extravagent claims for a new, native sonata,8 so one might well ask if there were any grounds for applying "finest" to the work. Probably not, unless one were to add certain qualifications. Thus, it might be tenable to assert that the work was the greatest organ sonata that was endowed with Christian conviction by a native son9 in the last two decades of the 19th century--with Elgar's Sonata in G (1895) possibly being its secular counterpart.
The composition is cyclical, the plainsong hymn tune Beata nobis gaudia,10 which is heard in the first and third movements, binding the work together. In the first movement, following the C-sharp minor first theme and second subject in the relative major, the ancient preexistent theme is heard in the unrelated key of B minor in place of the usual sonata-form development section. The sacred theme reappears as the second fugue subject in the finale, first in E major, then, at the end of the movement, in D-flat major (the enharmonic major form of the work's tonic, C-sharp minor).11 While the five-voice, technically polished, double fugue suffers from being a trifle academic and dull, this may soon be forgotten with the maestoso, fortissimo chordal entry of the Beata nobis gaudia plainsong hymn tune in the manuals, over the first fugue subject in the pedals, at bar 106. Harwood's religous fervor injects into this regal passage, and the coda that follows, such conviction that it is hard to imagine any spiritual person remaining un-moved by such a close.
The satisfaction one may feel from experiencing Sonata No. 1 in C-sharp minor's conclusion is in no small part due to the journey that we are taken on by Harwood. At the outset, he successfully juggles the uneasy mix in the first movement of the predominantly capricious, improvisatory style--that results in several inspired harmonic sparks--with Classical sonata form. Delicately balancing these disparate elements contributes to the troubled, pessimistic, dark mood of the minor-mode opening movement, which leads irresistibly along a Romantic path to the jubilant, brilliant light that shines out in the tonic-major close of the score.
Dithyramb, Op. 7 (composed 1892; published 1893), was also widely admired12 for many decades after its appearance. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the title "Dithyramb" has tended to be applied to music of a passionate, Dionysian character. Harwood's composition is passionate at times, but not Dionysian. Indeed, it had never been his intention to write a wild "Bacchanalian hymn."13 It was to have been the first movement of a second sonata, with the Interlude, Op. 15, No. 2, and Paean, Op. 15, No. 3, being the second and third movements. On the advice of Parratt,14 the composer published the three pieces separately instead.
As in the first movement of the Sonata, Harwood uses Classical first-movement form loosely in Dithyramb. There is an exposition with motivic, fragmented F major first theme and lyrical, legato second group of themes in D flat (bar 24); a development section (bar 65) which is concerned with the first theme and only one theme of the second group; and recapitulation with second themes now in tonic. The character of Dithyramb, however, is not related to the Viennese Classical molds. Almost Lisztian in character, there are Romantic vascillations between loud bombastic passages, and soft, tenderly prayerful ones, with the transitions often improvisatory recitatives or cadenzas that are studied with fluctuating tempo and dynamic markings. Thick-textured sections are juxtaposed with transparent, the latter with many rests and two-part writing. The work's rich ornamentation, and pianistic passage-work and high tessituras, not features of Sonata No. 1, are prophetic of the composer's manner over the middle years of his career.
At the time of its publication, Harwood announced that Dithyramb was to be the first of Twenty-four Original Compositions for the Organ, and he carried out this goal. Completed in 1931 and filling 245 pages, the 24 pieces are as follows:
1. Dithyramb, Op. 7 (1893).
2-7. Six Pieces, Op. 15 (1903).
Communion
Interlude
Paean
Short Postlude for Ascensiontide
Requiem Aeterna
Andante Tranquillo
8. Capriccio, Op. 16 (1904).
9. Two Sketches, Op. 18 (1905).
No. 1 in A major
No. 2 in F major
10. Concerto in D major for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 14(1910).15
11. Three Cathedral Preludes, Op. 25 (1911).
No. 1 in B flat
No. 2 in E
No. 3 in C
12. Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 26 (1912).
1st. mt. Lento ma non troppo
2nd mt. Allegretto serioso
3rd mt. Allegro moderato
13. Christmastide, Op. 34 (1920).
14. In an Old Abbey, Op. 32 (1923).
15. Rhapsody, Op. 38 (1922).
16. Wedding March, Op. 40 (1924).
17. Three Preludes on Anglican Chants, Op. 42 (1925).
No. 1 On a Chant by Benjamin Cooke (1734-1793)
No. 2 On a Chant by Matthew Camidge (1758-1844)
No. 3 On a Chant by Lord Mornington (1735-1781)
18. Voluntary in D flat, Op. 43 (1926).
19. Processional, Op. 44 (1926).
20. Three Short Pieces, Op. 45 (1928).
No. 1 in D
No. 2 in A minor
No. 3 in A flat
21. In Exitu Israel, Op. 46 (1928).
22. Toccata, Op. 49 (1930).
23. Lullaby, Op. 50 (1930).
24. Prelude, Larghetto and Finale, Op. 51 (1931).
Before his death, Harwood wrote five more works. Four of these were published in his lifetime:
Two Preludes on Old English Psalm Tunes, Op. 52 (1932).
I. Salisbury
II. Old 132nd
Two Meditations, Op. 57 (1935).
1. The Shepherd on the Mountainside
2. The Pilgrims nearing the Celestial City
Album of Eight Pieces, Op. 58 (1935).
I: Invocation
II: Eventide
III: Communion
IV: Rest
V: Prelude for Lent
VI: Diapason Movement
VII: Benediction
VIII: The Shepherds at the Manger
A Quiet Voluntary for Evensong, Op. 70 (1946).
The fifth work, Reverie, had been written in 1926 for the Canadian virtuoso organist, Lynnwood Farnam, and was planned for publication in Canada. It underwent revision in 1931, but remained unpublished until its inclusion in Stainer & Bell's 1991 Complete Works edition. This Reverie and the Sonata No. 1 were the only Harwood works for organ not originally published by Novello.
The composer was at the peak of his career as a Cathedral organist at the beginning of the 20th century, and some regard, with justification, the Six Pieces, Op. 15 (1903) as the high point of his organ output. The collection is a miscellaneous collection stylistically, there being pieces indebted to the Baroque, and others reminiscent of Brahms. Well settled into his organistship at Oxford by 1903, the stops specified in Opus 15 correlate almost exactly with those found on the Christ Church Cathedral Father Willis, four-manual instrument, so there seems no reason to doubt that he wrote with that organ in mind. The Oxford Cathedral instrument was a medium sized British cathedral organ, with 39 speaking stops, half of which were 8-foot stops; only two mixtures, three 2-foot ranks, and one mutation rank.17 Registrations for the Six Pieces, typical of his entire organ output, are mostly of a rather general nature, though there are a few registration features that might be singled out, because they appear in the Six Pieces and in many of the subsequent works. Harwood is precise in his indications as to the manual(s) to be utilized at any given place in a score, but only occasionally indicates where 8, 4, and 2-foot ranks (never mutations or mixtures) should be used. Full swell was marked, and fluctuations in dynamics were indicated by the appropriate symbols, so that he clearly looked for a fair amount of swell-box expression. Solo tuba lines were always indicated, while solos for clarinet and oboe, accompanied unobtrusively on another manual supported with pedal, remained a favorite combination in the ensuing years.
Four of the Six Pieces are based on sacred preexistent melodies. Nos. 1 and 4 are chorale preludes in the Bach tradition at a time when the German composer's music in the genre was not widely known in Britain,18 due partly, perhaps, to their being based on German hymn tunes that were hardly ever sung in Britain. In choosing hymn tunes with which native congregations were familiar, therefore, Harwood improved the chances of his two chorale preludes being appreciated. In No. 1, Communion (On the Hymn Tune "Irish"), the composer places the melody in a slightly embellished form in the soprano, and brief interludes separate the tune phrases. The simple approach is that taken by Bach in his Orgelbüchlein, but, while the hymn tune has Bachian embellishments here and there, Harwood's lower voices are essentially chordal, instead of polyphonic like Bach's. Again, Bach is the distant ancestor of Harwood's Short Postlude for Ascensiontide On the "Old 25th" Psalm Tune, the fourth of the set, in its pervasive counterpoint and presentation of the melody in the soprano in long tones like an ancient cantus firmus, but the rich late 19th-century harmonies and general style are pure Brahms.19
The last two of the Six Pieces are also founded on preexistent sacred themes and are also built on the chorale prelude principle. Harwood had been pleased with the use of plainsong at St. Barnabas, Pimlico,20 and this influence in his formative years led to his using the ancient themes from time to time in his music. The first occasion was in the Fifth of the Six Pieces, titled Requiem Aeternam, where three musical phrases from the Introit of the Roman Catholic Missa pro defunctis are quoted in the central section. A reflective work, suitable for performance on solemn occasions such as All Saints' and All Souls' Day, the composer wrote the piece after witnessing a Requiem in the church at Dinant, Brittany, France.21 Later, the composer tried to capture his impressions of this funeral service in Requiem Aeternam, including his recollections of the massive bells producing many harmonic effects in the cavernous Dinant church, and the priest singing the plainsong melody accompanied in unison by a euphonium. Harwood does not follow the centuries old tradition of converting the ancient chant into a barred, metric, tonal version. Instead, he leaves it untouched, to be played senza tempo, in an ethereal, atmospheric setting.22 Encompassing the central plainsong section are a solemn prelude and postlude, which are built over a pedal line that seems to be vaguely derived from the Gregorian chants of the middle. A repeated pedal E-flat resounds like funereal muffled drum beats, and the work closes with a reference to the opening of the Requiem aeternam chant in the tonic E minor. The last of the Six Pieces, the Lenten Andante Tranquillo on the Hymn Tune "Bedford," is, again, based on a Baroque chorale prelude form, but is Brahmsian in idiom.
Interlude, Op. 15, No. 2, marked Lento con espressione, has echoes of Bach and Mendelssohn. It is pervaded with syncopations and grace notes, and features a sweet clarinet solo that is similar in its shapely lyricism to an oboe solo at the end of No. 5. Modest in utterance, this meditation is perhaps as sublime as anything he wrote for the organ.
In Harwood's 19th-century organ music, notably the outer movements of Sonata No. 1, and Dithyramb, the composer demonstrated a taste for brilliance and bravura. The same characteristics are found in the third of the Six Pieces, Paean. Parratt premiered the work at the reopening of the newly rebuilt J. W. Walker organ at York Minster on April 15, 1903, having been handed the manuscript of the as yet unpublished work as he was leaving Windsor for York on the day of the recital. There does not appear to have been an eye witness report of the performance,23 but, when W. Henry Goss-Custard24 played Paean at the dedication of the new Henry Willis 168 speaking stop instrument in Liverpool Cathedral on October 18, 1926, a writer observed that:
In this work many tonal combinations were displayed; contrasts of one department with another; and a gradual working up of tone towards the exciting finale, until the cathedral was ringing with joyful sound; when, suddenly, the ear was arrested by a new tone. The mighty tuba magna, with its colossal and glorious voice, was heard for the first time.25
In 1949, Harwood's head boy chorister and soloist between 1900-02 at Christ Church Cathedral, recalled the composer playing Paean, which was composed in 1902, from manuscript. "One could hardly imagine that such a quiet and gentle person," who was affectionately nicknamed "Billy" behind his back by the boys in the choir, "a shortish man with sandy-coloured hair, a well-kept beard and a sprightly walk . . . could have produced and performed [as he did] such fiery music for the organ." He remembered Harwood more for his "reverent and devotional playing . . . his humility and charming old-world courtesy."26 This observation sums up fairly well Harwood as an organist. Despite the difficulty of a number of his organ works, it should not be assumed that this was a reflection of the composer's own technical prowess. Not a virtuoso, "Harwood was apt to be uneven though on occasions he could be very fine."27 From innumerable instances in the oeuvre, and because he was a cathedral organist where such ability is a sine qua non, one might guess that he was an excellent improviser.
In loose sonata form, Paean is characterized by the Harwoodian liking for chromaticism,28 in both terms of extensive modulation and coloring of common chords with chromatic embellishing tones. Like Wagner, however, he often accentuates the great moments by a return to diatonicism, as, for example, at the triumphal start of the Brahmsian first theme at the beginning of the piece, the recapitulation (bar 89), and its last appearance at the entry of the solo tuba at the close of the coda (bar 162). Symphonic in concept, Paean ideally calls for a Romantic, orchestral organ such as most British cathedrals possessed at the time of its composition.
Capriccio, Op. 16 (1903) was perhaps an expression of the composer's romantic feelings towards the dedicatee, his wife of four years, Mabel Jennings, who was, incidentally, an accomplished pianist and composer.29 The high flown, agitated, troubled atmosphere of the D minor thirty-second-note manual broken chords, to be played Tempo irresoluto, over a slower-moving pedal line in the opening and third sections, perhaps recapture the din of the mighty bells reverberating around the Dinant church mentioned above. Are these sections the outcome of Harwood's poetic improvising? Certainly this would account for the dramatic surprise at the end of the opening section, a quasi cadenza (bars 30-35). The passage passionately rises sequentially, stringendo, from the home key of D minor to a fortissimo tonally ambiguous pivot chord, which may be either seen as the supertonic chromatic ninth chord with the root omitted, or the dominant minor ninth with the root omitted in A major (the dominant of the D major next section). This dramatic effect finds release, after a general pause, in a lyrical, sunny, joyous, slower second section. After a return to the D minor flurry of the opening, Harwood's calm after the storm is a peaceful F major chorale prelude setting of Orlando Gibbons' hymn tune Song 13 .
Although Harwood was a church organist for less than a third of his long life, in his music for the instrument he never seems to have left the cathedral organ loft, at least in spirit. This may be seen in the Three Cathedral Preludes, which illustrate Harwood's church service prelude style at it best, it might be argued. Their composition was the result of his happy associations with southwest England. Born on the family estate in Gloucestershire, the composer's association with the Three Choirs Festival was lifelong, especially the Gloucester Festival, where first performances of several of his major choral works were given.30 In 1911, as a token of respect and gratitude for their friendship and assistance in his career, Harwood dedicated the Three Cathedral Preludes to the three Cathedral organists of the day, A. Herbert Brewer of Gloucester, G. R. Sinclair of Hereford, and Ivor Atkins of Worcester, respectively, There is nothing programmatic in them,31 except that they convey the impression of a cathedral organist improvising in a dignified, spacious building before a service.
No. 1 in B-flat is a microcosm of Harwood's peaceful, reflective type of prelude. Example 1 shows the theme on which the piece is based as it is enunciated at the outset. The composer's musical fingerprints here include a) triplets within the duple meter; b) expressive use of dissonance, as, for example, the suspension in bar 3 (F suspension in the solo clashing against G flat in the accompaniment), and cross relations in bars 3 and 4 (involving E naturals and E flats). (See Example 1.)
Two other characteristics of the first Prelude might be pointed out. First, there is extensive chromatic coloring. See, for instance, the use of the minor triad on the subdominant in a major key in bar 10, and the quite Wagnerian serpentine, chromatic unaccompanied solo cadenza at bars 12 and 13, marked with a series of indications for tempo and dynamics (poco accel. a piacere; rall. e dim.; lento; pp). Second, a keen sense of effective organ sonorities. In Example 2, a Brahmsian sense of nostalgia, and autumnal coloring, is partly the result of the low tessitura of all the parts, with crossing of hands and the final chord's top voice being played by the right foot.
The second of the Three Cathedral Preludes is also peaceful and reflective in atmosphere. The third gradually rises to a resounding fortissimo close. Like the first two, the principal theme of the last Prelude is heard at the start, and there follow several variations on the material, which are interspersed with bridge passages that continue to develop the theme. Harwood builds up from a restrained start to a coda in which he releases a torrent of noble, grandiose emotion that rises to a tense, forceful climactic close.
To believe that the Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 26 (1912), dedicated to Harwood's predecessor at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Charles Harford Lloyd, was composed for the thirteen-stop, three-manual instrument built by Bishop and Son for Harwood on his retirement home at Woodhouse defies reality, despite words to that effect printed in parenthesis under the title in the score.32 The lush harmonies and melodies, romantic moods, and symphonic demands of this sonata ideally call for a four-manual instrument along the lines of the Christ Church Cathedral organ, with which he was very familiar. The work, in four movements, the last two played without break, show his characteristic fondness for triplets and grace notes, which had first appeared in Dithyramb. What is new for Harwood in Sonata No. 2, especially in the monothematic sonata form first movement, though cropping up also in the other movements, are perhaps an excessive use of pianistic features associated with Chopin and Schumann, such as complex ornamental filigrees and extended right-hand octave passage-work. These, and Chopinesque frequent detailing of tempo changes that Harwood calls for in the shaping of phrases, may be seen in Example 3.
Other features of the work are the Romantic yearning in the Brahmsian first movement, the gentle, transparent-textured second movement, an Allegretto serioso scherzo in 7/4, and the slow fourth movement, Arietta. This last movement is placid except for a turbulent cadenza near the end, may remind one of the Brahms of the late Intermezzi, in the tonic major.
Eight years passed before the next organ work appeared. This was Christmastide, Op. 34, a fantasia written for the reopening of the Gloucester Cathedral organ in 1920.33 A large-scale programmatic piece that depicts parts of the Christmas story, the score is interspersed with Biblical and liturgical quotations. The first half, in which the text "What joy shall be in the midst of affliction"34 is expressed, is newly composed. The start of the second half is based on the plainsong Sarum Sequence for Christmas Day, much of which is unmetered, like his treatment of the plainsong in Requiem Aeternam, Op. 15, No. 5. The close of the work is based on the Office Hymn for Candlemas. There are the usual Harwood musical fingerprints. For example, there is writing for the instrument along lines similar to that of the contemporary symphony orchestra--fondness for soloing of melodies played on oboe and clarinet stops, and dramatic shifts in dynamics, sometimes involving crescendos achieved by skillful manipulation of the swell box, and, at climaxes, sometimes involving judicious use of the tuba stop. Another characteristic of the composer in Christmastide is the classical balance in the tonal scheme. He modulates from minor at the start to major half way through--F minor; B-flat minor; A-flat major; F major; B-flat major; F major--the music mirroring the uncertainty of the Old Testament prophecy of Christ's coming giving way to New Testament joy when the Messiah is born.
In an Old Abbey was first conceived for cello and organ in 1919, then arranged for cello and piano, before being finally arranged for organ in 1923. The dedication of the organ version, to Henry Ley, Harwood's friend and successor at Christ Church, Oxford, suggests that perhaps the "Abbey" the composer had in mind is the medieval monastery priory that became Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, in the 16th century.35 Perhaps he is inviting his listener to envisage the sturdy Norman arches, the fan tracery of the choir vault, and lovely stained glass of the east-end rose window of an ancient church of which he is very fond, Oxford Cathedral? Be this as it may, there is nothing archaic in the music: this is late Victorian soiree music.
A sentimental, idealistic mood characterizes In an Old Abbey. Sentimentality pervades the introduction (bars 1-14), which opens in the "wrong" key of E major (the work is in E-flat). Expressiveness in these opening bars is achieved mainly by means of embellishing tones and a chromatic, modulating, developing sequence. In bars 1 and 2, the sequential phrase features the major common chord on the flat submediant in the major key, approached by, and resolving to, the dominant seventh chord in E major. The next step of the sequence, in C-sharp minor, is approached by means of a common-tone modulation. Finally, after several more steps in the evolving, chromatically unstable sequence, tonal bearings are finally established, and expectations are aroused, with dominant preparation beginning at bar 7. The noble principal melody is long (bars 15-30) and, reflecting its cello origins possibly, is wide-ranging, with big romantic leaps. Harwood yanks one from the E-flat of the main theme to the opening B major of the middle section (bar 31) by means of another common-tone modulation, and follows this almost immediately with another abrupt modulation using the same technique in moving from B major to B-flat minor (bar bar 33). In the 1920s, the composer's pursuit of new chromatic colorings led to tolerance of greater, fleeting dissonances that are usually explained by his emphasis of horizontal consideration, of voice leading, rather than vertical outcomes. Such is the case at bar 35, where B-natural, C-sharp, G-sharp and both E-natural and E-sharp, collide simultaneously. Similarly, at bar 60, there is a harsh crunch when E-flat, C-natural, D-natural, and F-natural are heard together. Direct quotations and reminiscences of the work's introduction and principal theme, replete with suspensions, appoggiaturas, and upper and lower neighboring tones, make up the nostalgic coda of In an Old Abbey.
The inception of Rhapsody took place when Harwood was examining at the Royal College of Music, London, in 1922 with Walter Alcock (1861-1947) and Parratt. Themes that were used by the composer in the examinations were incorporated into the work, and it was dedicated to Alcock, who was already known for his magnificent performances of Harwood's organ music.36 Although a follower of Brahms in style, he does not follow the German's sonata form of the two famous piano Rhapsodies, Op. 79, as Harold Darke had done in his organ Rhapsody, Op. 4 (1908). Nor is there any apparent indebtedness to Herbert Howells' three organ Rhapsodies, Op. 17 (1919), which are loose in form but centered around one principal theme. Instead, Harwood casts his work in the style initiated by Liszt's 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies (1846-86) that was more commonly adopted by a number of European composers for subsequent 19th- and early 20th-century rhapsodies.37 Thus, Harwood's is in a loose, episodic form; has exaggerated mood contrasts; and quotes a preexistent theme, an untitled hymn tune by Thomas Tallis.38 Written only four years after the conclusion of the terrible loss of life in World War I, one might hypothesize that Harwood's Rhapsody is an elegy for that carnage. Harwood avoided talking in public about his music, and we know nothing of his thoughts on the matter. In any case, the work is funereal. A section near the beginning labeled Funeral March returns for a lengthy development later. Tallis' solemn hymn tune appears in a dignified, forceful manner in the second of three trio sections, with Joseph Addison's text, "When, rising from the bed of death," inscribed parenthetically under the melody in the score, and this melody reappears in the final bars of the piece. Although Harwood's craftsmanship is as fine as ever, one may wonder if it is, in fact, an artifice, a collage of six unrelated melodies used by the three examiners at the Royal College in 1922. This impression may be felt, for instance, when, near the end, out of the blue, a three-voice fugal exposition emerges on a thematic idea not heard before.
Among the people that Harwood met at the regular concerts and soirees held at his country home of Woodhouse shortly after 1909, was a highly gifted, young, likable pianist and organist named Douglas G. A. Fox. Shortly after completing distinguished studies by means of organ scholarships at the Royal College of Music College and Keble College, Oxford, Fox tragically had his right arm amputated just above the elbow in a battle in France in late August, 1917, during World War I. For this cocourageous musician, Harwood composed Voluntary in D-flat for left hand and feet.39
Among the remaining Harwood compositions for the instrument, it is harder to find works that rise above the bland. Was the well of inspiration running dry? Whether or not this is true, one may detect with assurance a change in Harwood's style at this time. Following the general trend in British organ music in the 1920s, and starting with the Three Preludes on Anglican Chants, he returned to the simpler, less chromatic voice leading of the First Sonata.
This may be seen in the Album of Eight Pieces, which were written between November, 1934, and March, 1935. Programmatic, technically easy miniatures, at the top of each, the title and a line or two from a hymn points to what Harwood is portraying. No. 3, Communion On a French Hymn Melody, cites the opening lines, "Therefore we, before Him bending, this great Sacrament revere," of the fourth verse of Thomas Aquinas' hymn text "Now, my tongue, the mystery telling" and is a chorale prelude on the hymn tune Grafton. First, the preexistent melody is presented in straightforward half and quarter notes as a baritone solo for the left hand, with equally unembellished right-hand and pedal accompaniment. Then the preexistent theme is soloed, slightly ornamented, in the treble register. It is in this varied treatment of the theme that Harwood rises, perhaps, above the average. Here, he captures exquisitely the Holy Communion sentiments associated with the text and melody, not the least through frequent expressive use of dissonance--appoggiaturas, suspensions, and chromatically inflected tones either singly or in combination--and eloquent little melodic twists in the soprano line. In No. 6, Diapason Movement, we catch a glimpse of the old noble, ebullient side in Harwood's response to the opening line of Henry F. Lye's hymn text based on Psalm 103, "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven," which he achieves without any reference to John Goss' famous hymn tune usually associated with this text. As with No. 3, though the mood in No. 6 is different, there are the same fleeting dissonant crunches created mostly by bold suspensions, appoggiaturas, and numerous cross relations. Unlike the third work, however, chromatic coloring is achieved quite frequently through secondary dominants and common-tone modulations.
The organ pieces of the later years have occasional moments of intuitive truth such as one may detect in Diapason Movement of the Album of Eight Pieces. By and large, though, Harwood, now over seventy years old, was unable, or unwilling, to break free of his Victorian/Brahms roots. Unfortunately, this left his last music sounding dated, at a time when the works of post-Victorians, such as Herbert Howells and Percy Whitlock, were emerging.
Notes
1. Lancelot G. Bark, "Basil Harwood, 1859-1949," The Musical Times, XC (May, 1949), 165.
2. Harwood's sole registration indication in the whole work is for a tuba on the last page of the score.
3. Walter G. Alcock, The Organ (1913), p. 101.
4. Walter Parratt, Music in the Reign of Queen Victoria (1887), Vol. 2, p. 604.
5. Recorded by Henry C. Lahee, The Organ and Its Masters (1902), pp. 219-22. See also W.T. Best's letter of May, 1892, printed as "Organ Arrangements," in The Organ, I (July, 1921), 58-61.
6. In 1887, Schott published the middle movement under the title Andante Pour Orgue.
7. Lancelot G. Bark, op. cit.
8. See William S. Newman, The Sonata Since Beethoven (2nd edition, 1972), pp. 575-92.
9. His use of a preexistent hymn tune here was the first of a number of times that he quoted hymn tunes in his organ works.
10. The melody is from a Constance Psalter titled Psalterium Chorale, printed at Mainz, Germany, in 1510. See Hymn 185, The English Hymnal (1933).
11. Harwood was clearly attracted to hymn tunes old and new. He wrote a number of them--the best known being Thornbury--and was editor of The Oxford Book (1908), he quoted them in several of his organ works.
12. Henry Ley, Harwood's successor as organist at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (1909-1926), said that Elgar much admired the work and wished to orchestrate it. See William H. Harris, "Basil Harwood--1859-1948 (sic)," English Church Music, XXIX, No. 2 (June, 1959), 44.
13. Wilfrid Mellers, "The IAO Jubilee at York," The Musical Times, CIX (October, 1978), 886.
14. Henry Ley, "Basil Harwood, 1859-1949," English Church Music, XIX, No. 3 (July, 1949), 40.
15. Omitted from this discussion, because it is not for organ solo. The work was performed at the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester that year with Harwood as soloist. For an account of it, see [no author] "Dr. Basil Harwood's New Organ Concerto," The Musical Times, LI (October, 1910), 641. The score calls for an orchestra of strings, brass, percussion, harp and celesta, but no woodwinds. Harwood does not write for soloist and orchestra as protagonists, as is usual in the genre, but requires both entities to play almost the whole time. There is a glissando on the pedals.
16. The last work published in his lifetime.
17. For the complete specification, see Andrew Freeman, "Organs of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford," The Organ, XI (July, 1931), 35-42.
18. Nicholas Temperley, Music in Britain: The Romantic Age 1800-1914 (1981), p. 448. As late as 1922, Ivor Atkins, "British Organ Music," The Musical Times, LXIII (October, 1922), 685, asserted that Bach's chorale preludes for organ appeared to have been "practically unknown to all but the most adventurous of Bach's English followers."
19. Over fifty years later, Healey Willan was still composing organ chorale preludes like these in his three sets of ten Hymn Preludes.
20. A Tractarian parish built on the edge of the parish of St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London, and consecrated in 1850.
21. R. Meyrick Roberts, The Organ at Liverpool Cathedral (1926), pp. 36-37.
22. George Oldroyd (1886-1951) was to follow this approach for his Three Liturgical Preludes (1938) and Three Liturgical Improvisations (1948).
23. Vernon Blackburn, "York Minister," The Musical Times, XLIV (May, 1903), 302, appends Parratt's program, but no critical commentary.
24. Organist of Liverpool Cathedral (1917-55).
25. R. Meyrick Roberts, The Organ at Liverpool Cathedral (1926), pp. 36-37.
26. Claude Williams, "Basil Harwood 1859-1949," English Church Music, XIX, No. 3 (July, 1949), 41.
27. Bark, op. cit., p. 166.
28. See C.V. Stanford, Interludes: Records and Reflections (1922), p. 96.
29. Harwood was to dedicate Wedding March to Mabel. It was written in 1923 and revised for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary the next year.
30. They included Inclina Domine (1898), Love Incarnate (1925), and Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem (1928).
31. Such as was the case with Richard Hall's Three Cathedral Voluntaries (1936), which bear the sibtitles York, Ripon and Durham.
32. For the instrument's specification, see Kenneth Shenton, "The Organ Music of Basil Harwood," The Organ, LXX (October, 1991), 208.
33. The work was, according to the note in the score, "composed for the reopening of the organ at Gloucester Cathedral, 1920." However, the Cathedral Organist, Herbert Brewer, to whom the work is dedicated, played Harwood's First Sonata at the dedication service on November 19. See [no author] "Gloucester Cathedral Organ," The Musical Times, LXI (December, 1920), 825. William Faulkes (1863-1933) had composed an organ piece along similar lines in 1907, Fantasia on Old Christmas Carols, Op. 103. Faulkes' style is fairly unsophisticated, and he focuses on three carols, rather than mainly reflecting on Biblical texts, like Harwood.
34. The text is not, in fact, a part of the Bible, but a prefatorial phrase provided by the translators of the King James Version (1611) for 28 Isaiah, IX.
35. There is no evidence, however, that Harwood had any specific church in mind.
36. Harris recalled Alcock playing "magnificently" the Sonata No. 1 around 1900 at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, London. See William H. Harris, "Basil Harwood--1859-1949," English Church Music, XXIX, No. 2 (June, 1959), 44.
37. For example, Vaughan Williams' orchestral Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 (composed 1905; published 1925).
38. No. 92, The English Hymnal (1906), which Vaughan Williams had used for his Fantasia on a Theme by Thoms Tallis (1910; revised 1925) for strings.
39. For a full obituary tribute to Fox, see David Willcocks, "Douglas Fox," Royal College of Music Magazine, Vol. 74, No. 3 (October, 1978), pp. 119-21.
