October 2024 edition

The serious looking gentleman in this picture was at the time Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music in Australia (and I’m talking here of 1936, as you can probably surmise from the clunky antique telephone). 

His name? Edgar Bainton.  

Born in 1880 at Hackney, London, son of a Congregationalist minister, he rose through the ranks to become Principal of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conservatory of Music, and conductor of the Newcastle Bach Choir. Whilst an honorary Geordie, his visit to Germany to attend the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth in 1914 led to Bainton’s arrest as World War I broke out, subsequently being sent to a civilian detention centre near Berlin for four years, where was put in charge of the music. 

Music in a wartime detention camp? Yes, absolutely. Music has always been regarded in German culture as a necessity akin to food and drink. Indeed, after World War II Germany prioritised the rebuilding of opera houses and concert halls over domestic housing, so highly did the nation regard music as important to the restoration of public morale. Music was also considered by prison authorities as essential to the mental wellbeing of the prisoners – something which spilt over into World War II, during which the French composer Messaien composed and premiered with fellow inmates his Quartet for the End of Time at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz. 

Bainton’s face has a dauntingly judgemental look – indeed he turned down no less a candidate than Arnold Schoenberg for the post of professor in Harmony and Counterpoint at the above mentioned Australian musical academy. Needless to say, Schoenberg eventually went on to become a figure of pivotal importance in the history of 20th century music, whereas Bainton is nowadays largely forgotten, apart from his wonderfully inspired anthem And I saw a new Heaven, which we shall be singing at Choral Evensong on Armistice Day, the 11th November. (The service commences at 5pm.) Interestingly and very much to the point, Bainton had been a pupil of the legendary Charles Villiers Stanford, whose Evening Canticles in G we shall also be singing on the 11th. 

The name Stanford has already been cited in this column as being the teacher of several eminent UK composers, viz. Coleridge-Taylor, Holst, Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, and Herbert Howells, all of whom wrote music for the Church. Stanford was notorious for his critical severity. Indeed, in addition to the previously quoted counsel to a pupil: “Tear it up my boy, it’s no use” I can now pertinently add Bainton’s personal account of nervously awaiting Stanford’s verdict on one of his compositional exercises – just possibly “I like it, my boy” or more probably “It’s damned ugly, my boy”. 

I think we may confidently assume that the former would have been applicable in the case of And I saw a new Heaven.  

Still better, if you come to Evensong on the 11th November you can, among other important things, judge for yourselves…..