Frankfurt Group

For other uses, see Frankfurt Group (disambiguation).

The Frankfurt Group, also called the Frankfort Group, the Frankfurt Gang or the Frankfurt Five, ^[1] was a group of English-speaking composers and friends who studied composition under Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main in the late 1890s. ^[2] The group included H. Balfour Gardiner, Norman O'Neill, Cyril Scott and Roger Quilter, who were all English, and Percy Grainger, who was born in Australia and established himself as a composer in England between 1901 and 1914 before moving to the United States. ^[2] They remained close friends from their student days onwards. ^[3]

Knorr, though German-born, was strongly influenced by Russian music and was a believer in fostering the individuality of his pupils. ^[2] The Frankfurt group were united more by their friendship and their non-conformity than by any common aim, ^[4] though they did share a dislike of Beethoven, ^[5] and a resistance to the musical nationalism of the self-styled English Musical Renaissance of Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford, and of the later English Pastoral School of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. ^[2] All of them had a predilection for the music of Frederick Delius, ^[6] although there remains some doubt as to when the individual members first became aware of his music, which was certainly later than when they were a group in the 1890s. ^[7] The group was distinguished by its rebelliousness, ^[8] and by studying abroad they stood apart from the conservative wider English musical establishment. ^[3]

Grainger described the group as Pre-Raphaelite composers, ^[9] arguing that they were musically distinguished from other British composers by "an excessive emotionality ... particularly a tragic or sentimental or wistful or pathetic emotionality", reached through a focus on chords rather than musical architecture or "the truly English qualities of grandeur, hopefulness and glory". ^[8] Most rebellious were Grainger and Scott, whose music often crossed the boundaries of accepted musical convention. ^[8] Scott's work for a time gave up the use of bars and time signatures, while employing dissonant harmonies and highly individual orchestration. ^[2] The music of Quilter, O'Neill and (sometimes) Balfour Gardiner, shows an influence derived from Delius. ^[10]

Legacy

Writing in 1977 Stephen Banfield argued that "today [the Frankfurt Group] is difficult to regard as anything other than a damp squib in the history of English music". Of them all, he said, only Roger Quilter is remembered not as a name but for his music - although only his songs have made an impact. ^[11]

References

1. Langfield 2002, p. 15.
2. Howes 1966, p. 192.
3. Lloyd 2005, p. 15.
4. Langfield 2002, pp. 15–16.
5. Langfield 2002, p. 14.
6. Payne, Anthony. 'Classical: On the Air' in The Independent, 26 November, 1999
7. Banfield, Stephen. Sensibility and English Song (1985), p 107
8. Lloyd 2005, p. 16.
9. The Pre-Raphaelite Cello, Somm Recordings SOMMCD0685 (2024), reviewed at MusicWeb International
10. Delius and his Circle, Stone Records (2011)
11. Stephen Banfield. 'Roger Quilter: A Centenary Note', in The Musical Times, Vol. 118 No. 1617, November 1977, pp. 903-906

Literature

• Peter Cahn, Das Hoch'sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main (1878–1978), Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1979. p. 140ff.
• Howes, Frank (1966). "Tributaries from Frankfurt, Birmingham and Elsewhere". The English Musical Renaissance. London: Secker & Warburg. pp. 192–202. OCLC   930472265.
• Langfield, Valerie (2002). Roger Quilter: His Life and Music. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN   0-85115-871-4 . Retrieved 2017-11-28.
• Lloyd, Stephen (2005). H. Balfour Gardiner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-61922-X . Retrieved 2017-11-28.