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First Performance - Notes (1933) FARRAGO 1932 Orchestral Concert Friday 21st April 1933 8.0 pm, National Programme, BBC Orchestra (Section c) led by Marie Wilson. Conductor Julian Clifford. [Suite Capriol - Peter Warlock] Farrago - E. J. Moeran The composer calls his work Farrago, which the Pocket Oxford tells us means medley or hotch-potch - harsh words for what is really a sequence of four short movements: Prelude, Minuet, Rondino and Rigadoon, joined together by association, but by no particular spirit of affinity one with another; it is dedicated to D.B. Wyndham Lewis, and is scored for a moderate orchestra. [Puck's Minute - H. Howells] Proms - Programme Notes
(1934) PROM CONCERT Thursday, 6th September 1934 First concert performance in London of
Suite FARRAGO 1. Prelude E. J. Moeran began his first attempts at composition during his school days at Uppingham. But although he left school in 1912, it was not until after the war that he seriously took up the art of writing music, although he had spent a few months under the guidance of Sir Charles Stanford prior to joining the army in 1914. Thus it was that at the age of twenty-four he settled for a time in London and proceeded to study composition under John Ireland. Like many others others of the younger generation of English composers, his original work goes hand in hand with an enthusiasm for native folk music, that of Norfolk, where a good part of his life has been spent, has always attracted him specially, and much of his best-known music has a distinctively English flavour. All his work, whether owing anything to that influence or not, is instinct with the fresh wholesomeness which the rest of the world recognizes as typically English. This Suite owes its title to the fact that when it was written, close on two years ago, - it was actually completed at the end of 1932 -, it was not originally the result of setting out to compose a homogeneous work. The last movement was composed specially for an amateur orchestra in Norwich who had asked Mr. Moeran for a piece of their own, and it was laid out with a view to the orchestra's rather modest attainments. The Minuet was not intended to be anything more than a pianoforte duet; it was composed in the first place for a friend and neighbour with whom Moeran plays four-handed music on the pianoforte. Although the Suite was written at odd times and with different purposes in view, eventually the four movements were put together for the Hastings Municipal Orchestra. It is scored exactly for their numbers, which accounts for there being only one oboe and two of the other wood-winds. It did not have its first performance at Hastings, however; an illness of Julius Harrison's had to postpone that. The first performance was actually at the B.B.C. studio concert under Julian Clifford, last year, and it was repeated there some three months ago. It was performed in Hastings, under Julius Harrison, in February of this year. Laid out for the moderate-sized orchestra of Beethoven's day, with only two horns and two trumpets and neither tuba nor harp, as the Suite is, the Minuet dispenses with trumpets, trombones and percussion, calling only on strings, wood-wind, and horns. Timpani are not used until the third movement, although in the Prelude there are tambourine, cymbals, side drum and xylophone. More than that the Suite cannot well need by way of introduction; the names of the movements give sufficient clue to what an audience may look forward to hearing. Reviews There has been little to listen to lately, apart from public B.B.C. concerts and the opera relays. As far too many concerts continue to be broadcast, most of them are routine affairs, with rarely any distinction; sometimes even the orchestral playing is poor... Moeran's Farrago Suite is good fun, though not his best work; too much playing about with a few patterns and those modalities which are still the bane of a lot of our native music. Wireless Notes by 'Audax' M/T July 1934 Critical attention tends naturally to be concentrated upon the work after the interval, for on practically every evening something new or unfamiliar or difficult is provided for our serious consideration after the unchallenging classics of the first part... The actual works have all been slight: a tiny homely suite by Moeran with a captivating finale. F.H. M/T Oct 1934
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