The Music of Lennox Berkeley

As for so many of us for whom the music of Sir Lennox Berkeley continues to provide a mixture of constant admiration and affection, my earliest encounters began with some of the piano music – the last of the Five Short Pieces (those octaves outlining triads), the fourth and sixth Preludes (a Poulencian ‘Sarabande’ and a bluesey ‘Siciliana’).¹ These encounters occurred in my teenage years and in the context of the Associated Board piano examinations.

At about the same time, an aunt who lived in Bradford-on-Avon took me to a concert in the parish church as part of the 1970 (I think) Bath Festival. The players were Janet Craxton’s London Oboe Quartet and the programme included Mozart’s Quartet, K.370, some violin and viola duos and, most memorably, Berkeley’s Oboe Quartet, Op.70 (1967). My impressions were of craggy contrapuntal exchanges (Moderato-Allegro), lithe puckishness and adroit lyricism (Presto) and the oboe’s bitter-sweet lines, whilst everything was held together by the minor third implicit in the first movement’s opening viola monody. The oscillating, almost bleak low cello C/As of the last movement’s final bars still haunt me. As with so much of Lennox’s music, there is ambiguity here. The repetition of those two notes could, equally, be conciliatory – or are they?

Another, much shorter, work from 1967 is the deceptively simple carol I Sing of a Maiden. At a mere two-and-a-half or so minutes, this a cappella setting tends to be overlooked in Berkeley’s choral oeuvre. Tonal (G major) and subtly canonic (soprano and tenor parts), yet seemingly intuitive, this setting reveals Berkeley’s melodic and harmonic gifts for freshness and innocence; qualities that perfectly reflect the medieval text, which depicts Christ’s mother Mary.

G major is an oft-recurring key in Berkeley’s sacred music, namely the central setting of Herbert’s ‘The Flower’ in A Festival Anthem, Op.21 (1945), whose texture of smooth organ quavers (supported by longer pedal notes), plus vocal solo, appears to be an affectionate acknowledgement of Britten’s similar texture in Smart’s poem on flowers in his Rejoice in the Lamb. Both works were commissioned by the Reverend Walter Hussey. Thirty years later, Berkeley dedicated his setting of The Lord is my Shepherd to Hussey. Again, there is a mellifluous treble solo accompanied by serene organ figuration.

Berkeley’s empathy for (and sensibility in) setting religious texts so effectively and truthfully may, in part, have stemmed from his organ lessons (and attendance at Evensong services?) with W.H. Harris at New College, Oxford in the 1920s. Following in the liturgical traditions of Parry and Stanford, Harris (1883-1973) was a humble, yet masterly writer of anthems. His telling enharmonic modulations (often a third apart) and the ability to spring a logical yet surprising harmonic twist must have been an influence on the then young Berkeley – cf., the move from D♭ to A in Faire is the Heav’n (1925), the same year as Harris’ setting of the hymn King of Glory – to words by George Herbert. Examples of similar instances are plentiful in Berkeley’s settings – e.g. the phrase ‘Fast in thy Paradise’ (treble solo, Herbert section of Op.21 already mentioned, where E♭ replaces, albeit temporarily, the key of G). There are similar harmonic surprises in the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis Op.99 (1980) at bars 12-13 (‘All generations shall call me blessed’), and at the phrases, ‘… the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted …’, the latter words are prefaced by a second-inversion chord of E, the organ pedal’s B then rising to C sharp. As in so much of Lennox’s music everything flows, moving naturally to the next phrase. Roger Nichols commented on Berkeley’s choral oeuvre that ‘It is music written clean against the doubting, thrusting times we live in, but music instinct with faith, hope and love’.²

Whilst at music college, I discovered records of pieces such as the Serenade for Strings and the beautiful benediction that is the Four Songs of St. Teresa of Avila. The radiant, sensual (but never cloying) harmonies of the third song of the Avila cycle have their equivalent in the intense final movement of the Serenade whose harmonies (as in so much of Berkeley’s music) are always underpinned by a purposely-moving bass line. At this time, I also played the Sonatina for recorder/flute (1940) and the Sonatina for Piano Duet (1954), and saw a student performance of the witty one-acter, A Dinner Engagement. Both of these sonatinas, incidentally, complement to perfection Poulenc’s Sonatas for the same forces.

In the summer of 1973 I listened to a broadcast from the Cheltenham Festival which featured Bernard Rands’ Wildtrack 2. Before this, however, was a performance of Berkeley’s Third Symphony (1968-9). This was my first encounter with the piece and its impact almost eclipsed the Rands work, exciting as that proved to be. From the dramatic opening bars, this immensely taut symphony spins out its material (two serial hexachords, the first juxtaposing triads of D minor/B major) in a succession of short, linked sections that culminates in a coda of great optimism. The final cadential chord (a D major seventh with added sixth) is prepared by timpani strokes (outlining a triad of B♭ minor) and serves to sum up all that has been heard in the previous fourteen minutes. It is a single movement of remarkably concentrated power and contrasts; for myself, it is one of Berkeley’s most memorable achievements and a personal favourite, to which I often return. I frequently advocate it to composition students as a model of both concision and clear, lucid orchestration.

What does Berkeley’s music mean to me? Clarity of texture and thought, always a logical unfolding of the ‘grand line’ leading us on to the next event, no wastage of notes and a quasi-Mozartian elegance of phrase construction – and, no less importantly, an ability to move the listener. All of this allied to a personal humility, exemplary integrity and sturdiness of faith. As Yehudi Menuhin commented, ‘Lennox is his music’.³