Harold Truscott(1914 - 1992)Chamber Music With the death on7th October 1992 of Harold Truscott, one of the keenest intellects in Britishmusic, as well as one of its finest and most neglected of composers for thepiano, was lost. He had been born into a working-class family in Seven Kings, Ilford,Essex, on 23rd August 1914, with the deformity known as a ’club foot’. Since hecould not indulge in sports, despite the success of corrective surgery, hebecame a rather bookish child. In music he was mainly self-taught, largelythrough the examination of scores in the collections of local libraries.Frequently he would copy the music out for himself to learn how it worked fromthe inside. Later he did studypart-time at the Royal College of Music (1943-5) but for instrumental courses(piano and horn). For much of his life Truscott earned his living by teachingmusic, eventually retiring as Principal Lecturer in Music from Huddersfield Polytechnic College (nowUniversity) in 1979. Truscott first came to wider prominence in the late 1940sas a broadcaster on the BBC’s Third Programme (initially as a pianist, but moreusually giving talks, the last being in 1978) and as a regular reviewer for theground-breaking periodical Music Survey. Ultimately, he contributed topractically every British musical journal of importance as well as Penguin’shigh I y regarded symposium The Symphony. He was the author of books on Beethoven’sLate String Quartets (Dobson, 1968) and Franz Schmidt’s orchestral music(Toccata Press, 1984) and left unfinished at his death further volumes on thelatter’s chamber music, studies of the music of Korngold and Beethoven’s NinthSymphony and the substantively complete Schubert and the piano. Truscott’sknowledge, a tribute to the public lending-library system of the 1920s and1930s, was always of a practical nature, obtained in order to be put to gooduse. He possessed the facility to recall the music he knew through hishands, his intimate understanding of it lending his pronouncements a particular- and rare - authority. At times his learning proved unexpectedly inconvenient:on more than one occasion piano sight-reading examiners threw up their hands indespair because Truscott knew every score placed before him. The range of hisenthusiasms, very often for figures who at the time were totally unknown orforgotten, was legendary: Fritz Brun, Busoni, Clementi, Dussek, Holbrooke, Medtner,Reger, Schmidt and Tovey are just a few of them. His passionate advocacy forSchubert’s piano music led him to complete several of the unfinished earlysonatas for his own benefit (some were broadcast in the 1950s). Devotees of themusic of Havergal Brian (recordings of whose complete orchestral works arecurrently in progress on this label) have much to thank him for since it wasTruscott who brought Brian to the attention of the composer Robert Simpson,then a young BBC music producer. Without that introduction, Brian’s music mightstill be languishing unheard. Truscott’s mostenduring legacy is the music that he composed throughout his life, starting atthe age of twelve. In general, the language he evolved was cosmopolitan,vigorously contrapuntal and unashamedly but adventurously tonal. The structuraluse of key in his largest works derived ultimately from the music of Schubertand Mahler but in effect is not unlike the "progressive tonality"that is a feature of the latter’s music as well as that of Nielsen and Simpson.Although the challenge of orchestral composition fascinated him all his life,opportunities for performance were sparing enough for him to complete only ahandful of the pieces he so optimistically began. Three of these, the Elegy forstrings of 1943, the Symphony in E (1948-50) and Suite in G Major(1966) can be heard on Marco Polo 8.223674. The vast bulk of his output wasconcentrated therefore on chamber and instrumental forces, the most importantbeing the great sequence of twenty-two piano sonatas that is quite simplyunmatched in quality (although not in sheer quantity) in the music of GreatBritain and which does not suffer by comparison with those of any composersince Beethoven. The sonata as a form came to mean the most to him and thosefor piano spanned practically his entire career. Truscott also completed twelveother sonata works -three for violin with piano (1946-59) and at least twowithout (1946), three for clarinet (1959, 1965, 1966), others for viola (1946;on I y the solo part survives), oboe (1965), horn or cor anglais (1975-81) andcello (1982-7) -in addition to songs, a piano quintet (c. 1930), two stringquartets (1944, 1945) and much else besides. The reasons forthe neglect of Truscott’s music are complex. In spite of isolated broadcasts bythe BBC during the 1950s (including one by the composer himself) and in 1969(by John Ogdon of the Seventh and Tenth Piano Sonatas), histraditionally based sonata-form structures were too out-of-step with theprevailing post-war trends blowing in from Darmstadt to achieve lasting success in the fashion-conscious 1960s and 1970s. Theappearance of eight piano sonatas on three Altarus LPs in the mid-1980s did puthim back on the map, if on I y at its periphery, but public performances werenot to follow. The composer himself was secretive to an obsessive degree abouthis work and, while he might show individual pieces to particular people (the ThirdPiano Sonata, for example), he seems never to have made any concertedeffort to promote his own music. He did not even enrol as a composer-member ofthe Performing Rights Society. Not until after his death could any fullyinformed overview of his output be obtained, with the effect that the totalnumber of known works, collated by the present writer, has now more thandoubled. The root causes for Truscott’s mistrust of others’ reactions to hismusic may lie in a traumatic confrontation with his father that had occurredwhen the composer was a fifteen-year-old schoolboy. Ernest Truscott had refusedto accept that his son was composing his own music, believing him to be copyingpieces by long-dead masters, partly on the assumption that no-one was writing classicalmusic in 1930. The end result was an enforced ’curative’ spell in an asylumward that was as unsuccessful as it was misconceived -but which incidentallydeprived Truscott of any educational qualifications, something he remedied on Iy in 1956 as a prerequisite of an enforced teacher- training course. Truscott detailedmany of these events in an unfinished autobiography, entitled Laughter inthe Dark; (it is not known if there was any link in the composer’s mindbetween this and Nabokov’s identically titled novel) in which he also recountsthat he started writing chamber music in about 1928. Two string quartets and aD minor piano quartet followed during the next two years, but like almost (butnot quite) all of his pre-war output these early works have not survived. (ltis possible that in recalling these pieces in 1977, nearly five decades later,he misremembered details, so that an untitled four-movement piano quintet inC minor which still exists may be w hat was half-remembered as the D minorquartet. The manuscript appears to be of the right period as does theadolescent handwriting, but the title-page is missing, as is the signature, soits provenance must remain as yet unclear.) However, two further stringquartets from Truscott’s time at the Royal College were located amongst his papers, the single-movementsecond of which (1945) was dedicated to Robert Simpson. In 1946 Truscottset himself a demanding compositional challenge. He had observed how manycontemporary works for unaccompanied violin or cello contained so much double-,triple- and quadruple-stopping that at times they appeared to be conceived asstring quartets played by a single instrument. Accordingly, Truscott experimentedby writing an unaccompanied piece where the harmony, tonality and thematicdevelopment would all be conveyed by a sustained and almost unbroken single lineof notes. The fruit of this endeavour was the one-movement Sonata in C majorfor solo violin. The on I y chords as such that he allowed himself were aminor ninth, consisting of a G -on the open string -below an A flat, whichappears close to the end of the piece, plus two culminating stoppedoctaves of B and C. The Sonata is more than a ten- minute study insonata-form; the gravity of expression and the avoidance of conventionalvirtuosic writing make this piece a rather weightier proposition than is to beexpected from a simple study, not unlike, perhaps, the large-scale minor-keypiano studies of Alkan. A private recording of the piece was made in 1951 byLeonard Friedman, but the first public performance did not take place untilOctober 1989, when Pauline Lowbury played it in London at a 75th birthdayrecital for the composer. After Truscott’s death, the present writer discoveredthat this work was but the first item in a larger complex of five pieces,loosely gathered in a folder marked "Sonata(s) for solo violin". Thepiece recorded here is clearly marked "I", but its pages are numberedseparately (i.e. 1-7) from the remaining four movements; "11" startsagain on page 1 with nos. "III", "IV" and "V"numbered in sequence with it. A single work in five movements seems not to havebeen Truscott’s intention, but it is possible that a set of several sonatas washis original goal. In the event, at least two and possible three independentworks in one or more movements seem to have evolved, but the composer’suncertainty over the collective structure may explain his decision to releaseonly the first. The four unplayedpieces joined the two quartets from 1944-5 in the growing pile of works heldback from view. In later years, Truscott denied having written any stringquartets so that for long the Trio in A major for flute, violin and viola wasbelieved to be the only large-scale chamber work -the instrumental sonatasaside - that he had written. In the event, it was neither the first nor thelast to be composed, although his various attempts at a piano trio came tonought and only one movement was to be finished of the intriguing Trio fortwo oboes and cor anglais (1968). The A major Trio was composedbetween May and July 1950, possibly as a relaxation after the completion inJanuary of that year of the intense E major symphony. The initialinspiration came from the playing of the Dutch flautist. Johanns Feitkamp,allied to Truscott’s admiration for Reger’s two trios for the same combinationof instruments. Several of Truscott’s works exhibit a disarming and deadpanhumour: in a work such as the Fourth Piano Sonata of 1948-9. theClassical tradition is subjected to an almost monumental sequence of teasingindignities, while the seventh (1956) utterly transforms an innocuous,rather burlesque tune by way of a riotous ordeal-by-counterpoint until it assumesan heroic character out of all proportions to its humble origin. The Trio isone of those apparently artless compositions that is achieved only by theapplication of considerable artfulness (and craft). It breathes alate-Classical air, is full enough of conceits and quirks to have sated evenHaydn, but the music never descends to mere pastiche: Truscott is alwayspurposeful, even when wearing a wide grin. The sonata-form first movement, Allegrocon spirito, opens in C major, but only after much activity, with the musicplaying hide-and-seek with the listener’s expectations, is the real key of Amajor unfurled. The composer himself described the second movement, Andantecon moto, quasi allegretto, as "an ambling sort of intermezzo, neitherminuet nor scherzo, but with some dramatic moments." Thischaracteristically matter-of-fact description gives no hint at all of thecomplexities hidden within this short and entertaining interlude. The heart ofthe Trio is its third movement, an Elegy which began life as theslow movement for an earlier and unfinished Duo for violin and viola (1948;the completed first movement is extant). The finale is a typical Truscottcreation, a tricksy Minuet and Trio which plays tag withconventional notions of what this type of movement is supposed to be. Theminuet itself is varied on its reprise and is followed by a quiet, curtailedcoda, the sudden ending sneaking up on the music as if to catch it unawares.The Trio is one of the handful of Truscott’s pieces that was broadcast bythe BBC (on 25th Apri11955, played by Geoffrey Gilbert, Jean Pougnet andFrederick Riddle); it then lay ignored for thirty-four years until its firstpublic performance, in the same recital as that of the Sonata for soloviolin, by Ileana Ruhemann, Pauline Lowbury and Norbert Blume. The Sonata No.1in C major for clarinet and piano was written in the summer of 1959,during a hiatus in the composition of the Eighth Piano Sonata, which wasnot completed until the following year. The composer provided a typicallydisarming description of the work: "There is not a great deal to say aboutit. There are four movements: an opening sonata movement, Moderato, ma conmoto; a very rapid scherzo, Allegro, with no trio (it is again asonata movement); a slow movement, Adagio ma con poco moto, whichhas two main tunes, both initially stated by the clarinet, the second leadingto a clarinet cadenza and the first tune played by the piano alone. Whileworking on the Adagio I happened one day to look through an old music manuscriptnotebook, most of the contents of which went back to the thirties. My eyechanced to see an idea which I had at the time noted for possible symphony. Ido not think it would ever have worked that way, but it suggested a flow thatseemed right and so set off the Allegro finale of this sonata." TheFirst Clarinet Sonata (two more were to follow, in 1965 and 1966) iswithout doubt one of Truscott’s finest pieces, on a par with the best of hispiano sonatas, such as Nos. 6, 8 and 9 which date from this period. There is apower and resource in the writing that few other sonatas for the instrumentshave achieved, yet the soloist is never overpowered by the at time thicklyscored and full-bodied piano part. The music fits the clarinet like a glove - thisis one sonata that would not transpose effectively to the viola. The Sonata wasfirst performed in 1960 at a lunchtime recital in Huddersfield by Rodney Bass with the composer accompanying. The Sonata in Aminor for cello and piano was originally sketched in 1982 at about the sametime as the final two piano sonatas. For various reasons, the lack of anyprospect of performance not least, serious composition did not begin until thelatter part of 1986. The composer described its genesis thus: "I simplyhad ideas that suggested cello sound, with piano, and since I usually thinkalong sonata lines, a sonata for cello and piano it became." In parallelwith the careers of Havergal Brian and Elizabeth Maconchy, Truscott’s latterpieces moved away from his earlier, expensive style to a more compressed modeof thought. While the Cello Sonata was composed in this concentratedlate style, the Iyrical nature of the cello drew out more extended melodicwriting than in other works of his last years. The first movement begins withan Allegro introduction to the main Allegro danzando; theintroduction is in fact rather faster than w hat follows although the differentcharacter of the music obscures this fact to some extent. This is interruptedby a much slower passage (molto allargando subito). The movement is builtaround these three basic tempi, the second and third alternating throughout,the first reappearing on I y towards the close where a short quotation fromVaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony (1938- 43) rises so naturally out ofthe musical fabric that it would almost pass unnoticed were the phrase not sofamiliar at least to British ears. There follows a short Allegretto scherzandoin 214 and an Adagio third movement. This latter gave the composerso much trouble that he abandoned the piece until May 1987, a fact which causedthe original first performance to be postponed until the 75thbirthday recitalin October 1989. Once Truscott was able to resolve the musical crisis (notevident at all from the finished movement) the rest followed smoothly and rapidI y and the finale, with its recollection of the introductory Allegro towardsits end, was completed soon afterwards. The Cello Sonata was firstperformed by its dedicatees, Miriam Lowbury and Eileen Pearce. The brief Meditationon themes from Emmanuel Moor’s Suite for Four cellos is a straightforwardminiature for unaccompanied cello, simple without being simplistic. It wascomposed in just two days in April 1985 for Caroline Hobbs and was Truscott’sfirst completed work for solo cello. The present performance is the first ofany kind, the work never having been played in public. By a strange irony, the Meditationwas one of only two original compositions by Truscott to be commerciallypublished in his lifetime. This recording was made possible thanks tothe generosity and belief of many sponsors, including the Britten-PearsFoundations, the composers Robert Simpson and the late Andrzej Panufnik,Geoffrey Berry, Caveplace Ltd" the Havergal Brian Society, Martin Andersonand the late David Hewson. The author would like to express his thanks here tovarious people who have assisted with information and insights in thepreparation of these notes’ the composer’s widow, Margaret, Martin Anderson andnot least the composer himself’ requiescat in pace. Guy Rickards