1925 in British music

This is a summary of 1925 in music in the United Kingdom.

Events

• 3 April – Gustav Holst's opera At the Boar's Head is premiered in Manchester.
• date unknown
  • After a spell of ill-health, Gustav Holst returns to teach at St Paul's Girls' School. ^[1]
  • William Walton dedicates the score of his Portsmouth Point to his patron Siegfried Sassoon, who had recommended it be published by Oxford University Press. ^[2]

Popular music

• Mai Jones – "Blackbirds" ^[3]

Classical music: new works

• Frank Bridge –
  • "Golden Hair", for voice and piano
  • "Journey's End", for tenor or high baritone and piano
  • The Pneu World, for cello and piano
  • Songs of Rabindranath Tagore (3), for voice and piano, or voice and orchestra
  • Vignettes de Marseille, for piano
  • Winter Pastorale, for piano
• Eric Coates – 2 Light Syncopated Pieces ^[4]
• Walford Davies – Men and Angels, for chorus and orchestra, Op. 51
• Frederick Delius – A Late Lark, for voice and orchestra
• Edward Elgar –
  • "The Herald", part-song
  • "The Prince of Sleep", part-song
• Gustav Holst –
  • "God Is Love, His the Care", for choir
  • Hymns (4) for Songs of Praise, for choir
  • Motets (2), for choir
  • Ode to C.K.S. and the Oriana, for choir
  • Terzetto for flute, oboe and viola
• Herbert Howells – Piano Concerto No. 2
• John Ireland – Two Pieces for Piano (1925)
• Ernest John Moeran – Bank Holiday
• Ralph Vaughan Williams –
  • Concerto Accademico for violin and strings
  • Flos Campi , for viola, wordless choir, and small orchestra
  • Hymns (5) for Songs of Praise, for choir
  • Two Poems by Seumas O'Sullivan, for voice and piano
  • Three Songs from Shakespeare, for voice and piano
  • Three Poems by Walt Whitman, for baritone and piano
• William Walton – Portsmouth Point , concert overture
• Peter Warlock – "A Prayer to St Anthony"

Opera

• Armstrong Gibbs – Blue Peter
• Gustav Holst – At the Boar's Head

Musical theatre

• Betty in Mayfair, with music by Harold Fraser-Simson and lyrics by Harry Graham ^[5]
• Charlot's Revue of 1925 ^[6]
• Dear Little Billie, with music by H.B. Hedley & Jack Strachey and lyrics by Desmond Carter ^[5]
• Love's Prisoner with music, book and lyrics by Reginald Hargreaves ^[5]
• On with the Dance , written and composed by Noël Coward and Philip Braham ^[7]

Publications

• William Wallace – Richard Wagner as he lived

Births

• 17 February – Ron Goodwin, film composer (d. 2003)
• 8 March – Dennis Lotis, South African-born singer ^[8] (d. 2023)
• 22 March – Gerard Hoffnung, cartoonist, comedian, musician (d. 1959)
• 23 March – Monica Sinclair, operatic contralto (d. 2002)
• 18 June – Johnny Pearson, composer, orchestra leader and pianist (d. 2011)
• 2 September – Russ Conway, pianist (d. 2000)
• 20 September – James Bernard, film composer (d. 2001)
• 1 October – Alan Styler, operatic baritone (d. 1970)
• 11 October – David Hughes, operatic tenor (d. 1972)
• 30 December – Eric Wetherell, composer, conductor, musical author (died 2021)
• 31 December – Daphne Oram, composer and electronic musician (d. 2003) ^[9]

Deaths

• 1 March – Thomas Bidgood, conductor, composer and arranger, 66 (suicide) ^[10]
• 22 March – Marie Brema, concert mezzo-soprano, 69
• 1 April – Francis William Davenport, composer and music writer ^[11]

See also

• 1925 in the United Kingdom
• List of British films of 1925

References

1. Holst, Imogen (1981). The Great Composers: Holst (second ed.). London: Faber and Faber. p. 64. ISBN   0-571-09967-X.
2. Avery, Kenneth (1947). "William Walton". Music & Letters. 28 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1093/ml/XXVIII.1.1. JSTOR   854707.
3. Huw Williams. "Jones, Gladys Mai". Dictionary of Welsh Biography . National Library of Wales . Retrieved 3 June 2016.
4. Music on the Web – Eric Coates: Orchestral Works
5. "Love's Prisoner" (PDF). Over the Footlights. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
6. "Charlot's Revue 1925 (Revised)". A Guide to Musical Theatre. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
7. The Manchester Guardian, 18 March 1925, p. 11 "Great Showmanship"
8. "Dennis Lotis – Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
9. Davies, Hugh (24 January 2003). "Obituary: Daphne Oram". The Guardian .
10. "Thomas Bidgood". marchdb.net. 1 March 2007. Archived from the original on 2013-02-21. Retrieved 18 October 2009.
11. Stephen Banfield. "Davenport, Francis William (1847–1925), composer, writer on music". Oxford Index . Retrieved 18 February 2019.