Benjamin Dale
Encyclopedia
Benjamin James Dale was an English
composer
and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music
. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works. His best known composition is probably the large-scale Piano Sonata in D minor he started while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, which communicates in a potent late romantic style. Christopher Foreman has proposed a comprehensive reassessment of Benjamin Dale's music.
, Islington, London, to Charles James Dale, a pottery manufacturer from Staffordshire
, and his wife, Frances Anne Hallett, daughter of a furniture manufacturer from Clerkenwell
. His father, who had migrated first to Derbyshire
and then to London, was a director of the Denby Pottery Company
and London manager of James Bourne & Son. He was also a self-taught but enthusiastic amateur musician, church organist and Methodist
hymn tune writer who nurtured the Finsbury Choral Association (attracting composers such as Sullivan
and Stanford
to come and conduct their choral works) and founded a Metropolitan College of Music in Holloway that would later become the London College of Music
.
Benjamin was the youngest of seven children. One of his brothers was Henry Hallett Dale
, a future Nobel Prize
-winning physiologist
and President of the Royal Society
(as well as isolating and describing histamine
and acetylcholine
, he helped uncover important mechanisms of the immune
and nervous
systems that would transform contemporary understanding of anaphylaxis
, allergy
, and immunity
). Although ten years Benjamin's elder, Henry always remained close to his younger brother and, like their father, both men had a reputation for being affable and approachable, irrespective of position and fame.
Despite an indifferent record at school, by the age of 14 Dale was already an accomplished organist and had written a small collection of compositions, including a concert overture called Horatius, inspired by Macaulay
. Dale's father arranged for the overture to be played at the Portman Rooms, Baker Street
(on 10 May 1900) and was rewarded by a positive review in The Musical Times
. Benjamin left school at the age of 15 to enroll as a student of the Royal Academy of Music
(RAM). He started at the RAM in September 1900, on the same day as Arnold Bax
, another promising pianist-composer, who became a lifelong friend. There he reunited with an early playground companion, the concert pianist and composer York Bowen
, who also remained an especially close friend for the rest of Dale's life. Like the others, Dale studied composition under Frederick Corder
, a supporter of Wagner
and biographer of Liszt
who epitomised the progressive musical climate of the RAM under the direction of Alexander Mackenzie (contrasting with the more conservative Royal College of Music
, where composition was Stanford's domain).
), the Concertstück
for organ and orchestra, and his first published work, the Piano Sonata in D minor.
Composed between 1902 and 1905 and dedicated to York Bowen, Dale's piano sonata is a large-scale virtuoso work in just two movements, the second of which melds slow movement, scherzo and finale in to a set of variations, a form apparently influenced by Tchaikovsky
's Piano Trio
. Commentators have discerned various other influences and echoes within this eclectic work, including Liszt's Sonata in B Minor
, Schumann
's Fantasie in C
, Balakirev
's Islamey, Glazunov
's first piano sonata and Wagner's Liebestod
. In the opinion of Francis Pott, "the swirling arpeggiation and rich variety of gesture imply an attempted pianistic parallel to Wagnerian and Straussian
orchestration, thus carrying the illusion of symphonic transcription to new places". According to Lisa Hardy, author of an extensive survey of British piano sonatas,
, Benno Moiseiwitsch
, Irene Scharrer
and Moura Lympany
, by the 1920s Dale's sonata had fallen out of fashion. In recent years, however, the work has been championed on CD by Peter Jacobs (on Continuum, 1992), Mark Bebbington
(SOMM, 2010) and Danny Driver (Hyperion
, 2011), contributing to a current revival of interest in Dale's music. It probably remains the single composition for which Dale is best known today.
Dale's next published work was his three movement Suite for Viola and Piano—another sonata in all but name—dating from 1906, the first of a series of compositions written expressly for the violist
and RAM professor Lionel Tertis
. This ambitious work stretched the boundaries of viola technique at the time and remains challenging even today: Tertis frequently played it either with Bowen at the piano, or in a later arrangement of the last two movements with orchestral accompaniment (first performed in a 1911 Royal Philharmonic Society
concert under Nikisch), which he had encouraged Dale to produce. The Suite was followed by the Phantasy for Viola and Piano (dated 1910) and an Introduction and Andante (1911) for the unusual combination of six independently scored violas, written for performance by Tertis’s pupils (one of whom happened to be Eric Coates
). A CD of Dale's viola chamber music is available on Dutton Epoch
.
By this time, Dale had established himself as a successful composer and teacher, having been appointed Professor of Harmony at the RAM in 1909. In 1912, Henry Wood
conducted Dale's Concertstück for organ and orchestra at the Proms
, with Frederick Kiddle
at the organ in what was probably its last performance to date. Wood was an admirer of Dale's music and described his once popular orchestral setting of Christina Rossetti
's Before the Paling of the Stars (composed in 1912) as "a choral gem."
on one of his holiday trips to Germany. While being kept under parole in Nuremberg
as an enemy alien, Dale wrote three song settings (including two part songs), his first new compositions since 1912. In November, Dale was interned in the Ruhleben Prisoner of War Camp near Berlin, along with several other prominent musicians, including fellow composer and RAM professor, Frederick Keel
, who was in the same barracks. Dale took part in the activities of the Ruhleben Musical Society, formed in 1915 in the wake of a muddy first winter. In particular, he joined forces with the Canadian Ernest MacMillan
(later to become the conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
), who gave lectures on each of the nine symphonies of Beethoven: at the end of each lecture, MacMillan and Dale would perform a four hand piano arrangement
of the symphony under discussion. Dale was also one of the musicians who helped MacMillan recreate the score of The Mikado
from memory for a full performance in the camp. In 1918, Dale was released early from Ruhleben after breaking his arm, being allowed to stay on a farm in Holland for the duration.
Despite deteriorating health after the war, Dale was able to travel round the world, examining in Australia and New Zealand for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
. He started composing again and became professor of harmony and later Warden at the Royal Academy of Music. He also worked for the BBC's Music Advisory Panel. In the post war period, Dale composed several chamber works for violin (recorded for Dutton Epoch), including a large scale Violin Sonata (1921–22). An anthem, A Song of Praise, followed in 1923. His last major work was the orchestral The Flowing Tide (1943), which has strong elements of Debussian
Impressionism combined with Romanticism. In 2002, The Flowing Tide was broadcast complete on BBC Radio 3
with Vernon Handley
conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra
in what presumably was the first performance of the work since Adrian Boult
conducted its 1943 première. In a detailed review of the event, Christopher Foreman hailed the work as a "major British orchestral masterpiece."
Dale died in July 1943 in London, aged 58, after collapsing during one of the final rehearsals for the première of The Flowing Tide.
Chamber
Violin
Viola
Keyboard
Vocal
Choral
Writing
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works. His best known composition is probably the large-scale Piano Sonata in D minor he started while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, which communicates in a potent late romantic style. Christopher Foreman has proposed a comprehensive reassessment of Benjamin Dale's music.
Early life and education
Benjamin Dale was born in Upper HollowayHolloway, London
Holloway is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Islington located north of Charing Cross and follows for the most part, the line of the Holloway Road . At the centre of Holloway is the Nag's Head area...
, Islington, London, to Charles James Dale, a pottery manufacturer from Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, and his wife, Frances Anne Hallett, daughter of a furniture manufacturer from Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...
. His father, who had migrated first to Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
and then to London, was a director of the Denby Pottery Company
Denby Pottery Company
Denby Pottery Company Ltd is a British manufacturer of pottery, and is named after the village of Denby in Derbyshire.-History:The pottery at Denby was founded on the estate of William Drury-Lowe in 1809 as a manufacturer of stoneware bottles. It was run by Joseph Jager in partnership with Robert...
and London manager of James Bourne & Son. He was also a self-taught but enthusiastic amateur musician, church organist and Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
hymn tune writer who nurtured the Finsbury Choral Association (attracting composers such as Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
and Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
to come and conduct their choral works) and founded a Metropolitan College of Music in Holloway that would later become the London College of Music
London College of Music
The London College of Music is a music school which is part of the University of West London in England.The LCM was founded in 1887 and existed as an independent music conservatoire based at Great Marlborough Street in central London until 1991...
.
Benjamin was the youngest of seven children. One of his brothers was Henry Hallett Dale
Henry Hallett Dale
Sir Henry Hallett Dale, OM, GBE, PRS was an English pharmacologist and physiologist. For his study of acetylcholine as agent in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses he shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Otto Loewi.-Biography:Henry Hallett Dale was born in Islington,...
, a future Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
-winning physiologist
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
and President of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(as well as isolating and describing histamine
Histamine
Histamine is an organic nitrogen compound involved in local immune responses as well as regulating physiological function in the gut and acting as a neurotransmitter. Histamine triggers the inflammatory response. As part of an immune response to foreign pathogens, histamine is produced by...
and acetylcholine
Acetylcholine
The chemical compound acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system and central nervous system in many organisms including humans...
, he helped uncover important mechanisms of the immune
Allergic inflammation
Allergic inflammation is an important pathophysiological feature of several disabilities or medical conditions including allergic asthma, atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis and several ocular allergic diseases. Allergic reactions may generally be divided into two components; the early phase...
and nervous
Neurotransmission
Neurotransmission , also called synaptic transmission, is the process by which signaling molecules called neurotransmitters are released by a neuron , and bind to and activate the receptors of another neuron...
systems that would transform contemporary understanding of anaphylaxis
Anaphylaxis
Anaphylaxis is defined as "a serious allergic reaction that is rapid in onset and may cause death". It typically results in a number of symptoms including throat swelling, an itchy rash, and low blood pressure...
, allergy
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...
, and immunity
Immunity (medical)
Immunity is a biological term that describes a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. Immunity involves both specific and non-specific components. The non-specific components act either as barriers or as eliminators of wide...
). Although ten years Benjamin's elder, Henry always remained close to his younger brother and, like their father, both men had a reputation for being affable and approachable, irrespective of position and fame.
Despite an indifferent record at school, by the age of 14 Dale was already an accomplished organist and had written a small collection of compositions, including a concert overture called Horatius, inspired by Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was a British poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history...
. Dale's father arranged for the overture to be played at the Portman Rooms, Baker Street
Baker Street
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid the street out in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who lived at a fictional 221B...
(on 10 May 1900) and was rewarded by a positive review in The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
. Benjamin left school at the age of 15 to enroll as a student of the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
(RAM). He started at the RAM in September 1900, on the same day as Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, another promising pianist-composer, who became a lifelong friend. There he reunited with an early playground companion, the concert pianist and composer York Bowen
York Bowen
Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...
, who also remained an especially close friend for the rest of Dale's life. Like the others, Dale studied composition under Frederick Corder
Frederick Corder
Frederick Corder was an English composer and music teacher.-Biography:Corder was born in Hackney, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and started music lessons, particularly piano, early. Later he studied with Henry Gadsby...
, a supporter of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and biographer of Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
who epitomised the progressive musical climate of the RAM under the direction of Alexander Mackenzie (contrasting with the more conservative Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
, where composition was Stanford's domain).
Early compositions
While studying at the RAM, Dale worked on several compositions, including the first movement of a piano trio, a complete organ sonata, two concert overtures (one inspired by Shakespeare's The TempestThe Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
), the Concertstück
Concertino (composition)
A concertino is a short concerto freer in form. It normally takes the form of a one-movement musical composition for solo instrument and orchestra, though some concertinos are written in several movements played without a pause....
for organ and orchestra, and his first published work, the Piano Sonata in D minor.
Composed between 1902 and 1905 and dedicated to York Bowen, Dale's piano sonata is a large-scale virtuoso work in just two movements, the second of which melds slow movement, scherzo and finale in to a set of variations, a form apparently influenced by Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Piano Trio
Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, was written in Rome between December 1881 and late January 1882. It is subtitled In memory of a great artist, in reference to Nikolai Rubinstein, his close friend and mentor, who had died on 23 March 1881...
. Commentators have discerned various other influences and echoes within this eclectic work, including Liszt's Sonata in B Minor
Piano Sonata (Liszt)
The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
's Fantasie in C
Fantasie in C (Schumann)
The Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, was written by Robert Schumann in 1836. It was revised prior to publication in 1839, when it was dedicated to Franz Liszt. It is generally described as one of Schumann's greatest works for solo piano, and is one of the central works of the early Romantic period. ...
, Balakirev
Balakirev
Balakirev may refer to:* Mily Balakirev, a Russian pianist, conductor and composer* Balakirev the Buffoon, a 2002 Russian television adaptation of Lenkom play...
's Islamey, Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
's first piano sonata and Wagner's Liebestod
Liebestod
Liebestod is the title of the final, dramatic aria from the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner. When used as a literary term, liebestod refers to the theme of erotic death or "love death" meaning the two lovers' consummation of their love in death or after death...
. In the opinion of Francis Pott, "the swirling arpeggiation and rich variety of gesture imply an attempted pianistic parallel to Wagnerian and Straussian
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
orchestration, thus carrying the illusion of symphonic transcription to new places". According to Lisa Hardy, author of an extensive survey of British piano sonatas,
"Dale's sonata was the first outstanding British piano sonata. Its harmonic language avoided the clichés of the BeethovenDespite entering the repertoire of concert pianists like York Bowen, Myra HessLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
-BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
style and utilized the resources of Straussian and Wagnerian chromaticismChromaticismChromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
to an unprecedented level. In a sense, however, it marked the end of an era, as this was as far as late romantic harmonies could be taken."
Myra Hess
Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...
, Benno Moiseiwitsch
Benno Moiseiwitsch
Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE was a Ukrainian-born British pianist.-Biography:Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Moiseiwitsch began his studies at age seven at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He later took lessons from Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna...
, Irene Scharrer
Irene Scharrer
Irene Scharrer was an English classical pianist.Irene Scharrer was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Tobias Matthay....
and Moura Lympany
Moura Lympany
Dame Moura Lympany DBE was an English concert pianist.She was born as Mary Gertrude Johnstone at Saltash, Cornwall. Her father was an army officer who had served in World War I and her mother originally taught her the piano...
, by the 1920s Dale's sonata had fallen out of fashion. In recent years, however, the work has been championed on CD by Peter Jacobs (on Continuum, 1992), Mark Bebbington
Mark Bebbington
Mark Bebbington is a British concert pianist. He is a notable advocate of British music.-References:...
(SOMM, 2010) and Danny Driver (Hyperion
Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...
, 2011), contributing to a current revival of interest in Dale's music. It probably remains the single composition for which Dale is best known today.
Dale's next published work was his three movement Suite for Viola and Piano—another sonata in all but name—dating from 1906, the first of a series of compositions written expressly for the violist
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
and RAM professor Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis, CBE was an English violist and one of the first viola players to find international fame.Tertis was born in West Hartlepool, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, and initially studied the violin in Leipzig and at the Royal Academy of Music in London...
. This ambitious work stretched the boundaries of viola technique at the time and remains challenging even today: Tertis frequently played it either with Bowen at the piano, or in a later arrangement of the last two movements with orchestral accompaniment (first performed in a 1911 Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
concert under Nikisch), which he had encouraged Dale to produce. The Suite was followed by the Phantasy for Viola and Piano (dated 1910) and an Introduction and Andante (1911) for the unusual combination of six independently scored violas, written for performance by Tertis’s pupils (one of whom happened to be Eric Coates
Eric Coates
Eric Coates was an English composer of light music and a viola player.-Life:Eric was born in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire to William Harrison Coates , a surgeon, and his wife, Mary Jane Gwynne, hailing from Usk in Monmouthshire...
). A CD of Dale's viola chamber music is available on Dutton Epoch
Dutton Vocalion
Dutton Vocalion specialises in re-issuing on CD music recorded between the 1920s and 1970s, and in issuing albums of modern digital recordings. It was established by British recording and re-mastering engineer Michael J. Dutton....
.
By this time, Dale had established himself as a successful composer and teacher, having been appointed Professor of Harmony at the RAM in 1909. In 1912, Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
conducted Dale's Concertstück for organ and orchestra at the Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
, with Frederick Kiddle
Frederick B. Kiddle
Frederick B. Kiddle was a prominent English pianist, organist and accompanist.Kiddle was born at Frome, Somerset, and studied at the Royal College of Music under Sir Walter Parratt, Rockstro and Higgs...
at the organ in what was probably its last performance to date. Wood was an admirer of Dale's music and described his once popular orchestral setting of Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
's Before the Paling of the Stars (composed in 1912) as "a choral gem."
Later years
The outbreak of Word War I caught Dale traveling to the Bayreuth FestivalBayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
on one of his holiday trips to Germany. While being kept under parole in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
as an enemy alien, Dale wrote three song settings (including two part songs), his first new compositions since 1912. In November, Dale was interned in the Ruhleben Prisoner of War Camp near Berlin, along with several other prominent musicians, including fellow composer and RAM professor, Frederick Keel
Frederick Keel
James Frederick Keel was an English composer of art songs, baritone singer and academic. Keel was a successful recitalist and a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. He combined scholarly and artistic interest in English songs and their history. His free settings of Elizabethan and...
, who was in the same barracks. Dale took part in the activities of the Ruhleben Musical Society, formed in 1915 in the wake of a muddy first winter. In particular, he joined forces with the Canadian Ernest MacMillan
Ernest MacMillan
Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan, CC was an internationally renowned Canadian orchestral conductor and composer, and Canada's only "Musical Knight". He is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician, from the 1920s through the 1950s...
(later to become the conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is a Canadian orchestra based in Toronto, Ontario.-History:The TSO was founded in 1922 as the New Symphony Orchestra, and gave its first concert at Massey Hall in April 1923. The orchestra changed its name to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1927. The TSO...
), who gave lectures on each of the nine symphonies of Beethoven: at the end of each lecture, MacMillan and Dale would perform a four hand piano arrangement
Piano four-hands
Piano four hands is a specific form of duet for a single piano with two players. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is a piano duo....
of the symphony under discussion. Dale was also one of the musicians who helped MacMillan recreate the score of The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
from memory for a full performance in the camp. In 1918, Dale was released early from Ruhleben after breaking his arm, being allowed to stay on a farm in Holland for the duration.
Despite deteriorating health after the war, Dale was able to travel round the world, examining in Australia and New Zealand for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
ABRSM is an internationally recognised educational body and charity that provides examinations in music The organisation, based in London, UK, runs exams in centres all over the world...
. He started composing again and became professor of harmony and later Warden at the Royal Academy of Music. He also worked for the BBC's Music Advisory Panel. In the post war period, Dale composed several chamber works for violin (recorded for Dutton Epoch), including a large scale Violin Sonata (1921–22). An anthem, A Song of Praise, followed in 1923. His last major work was the orchestral The Flowing Tide (1943), which has strong elements of Debussian
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
Impressionism combined with Romanticism. In 2002, The Flowing Tide was broadcast complete on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
with Vernon Handley
Vernon Handley
Vernon George "Tod" Handley CBE was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, London. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his...
conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
in what presumably was the first performance of the work since Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
conducted its 1943 première. In a detailed review of the event, Christopher Foreman hailed the work as a "major British orchestral masterpiece."
Dale died in July 1943 in London, aged 58, after collapsing during one of the final rehearsals for the première of The Flowing Tide.
Selected works
Orchestral- Horatius, Overture (1899)
- Overture for orchestra (1900)
- The Tempest, Overture to the Shakespeare playThe TempestThe Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
(1902) - Concertstück (Concert Piece) for organ and orchestra (1904)
- Concert Overture in G minor (1904)
- English Dance for small orchestra (1919) – arrangement of original (1916) for string octet, also arranged for violin and piano, Op. 10, No. 1 [see below]
- Prunella for small orchestra (1923) – arrangement of original (1916) for violin and piano [see below]
- A Holiday Tune for small orchestra (1925) – arrangement of original (1920) for violin and piano [see below]
- The Flowing Tide, Tone Poem (1924–1943)
Chamber
- Piano Trio in D minor – 1st movement only (performed 1902)
- English Dance for 4 violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos (1916)– originally intended to introduce Act 3 of Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning PestleThe Knight of the Burning PestleThe Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont, first performed in 1607 and first published in a quarto in 1613. It is notable as the first whole parody play in English...
Violin
- English Dance for violin and piano, Op. 10, No. 1 (1916) – originally titled Country Dance
- Prunella for violin and piano, Op.10, No.2 (1916) – originally intended as an Intermezzo for the play of the same name by Laurence HousmanLaurence HousmanLaurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator.-Early life:Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, one of seven children who included the poet A. E. Housman and writer Clemence Housman. In 1871 his mother died, and his father remarried, to a cousin...
and Harley Granville-BarkerHarley Granville-BarkerHarley Granville-Barker was an English actor-manager, director, producer, critic and playwright.... - A Holiday Tune for violin and piano, Op.10, No. 3 (1920)
- Sonata in E major for violin and piano, Op.11 (1921–1922)
- Ballade in C minor for violin and piano, Op.15 (1926)
Viola
- Suite in D minor for viola and piano, Op.2 (1906)
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- Maestoso – Allegretto espressivo
- Romance (also arranged for viola and orchestra, 1909)
- Finale: Allegro (also viola and orchestra, 1909)
- Phantasy in D major for viola and piano, Op.4 (1910)
- Introduction and Andante for 6 violas, Op.5 (1911, revised 1913)
- English Dance (1916); arrangement for viola and piano by York BowenYork BowenEdwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...
– original for violin and piano
Keyboard
- Organ Sonata in D minor (first performed 1902)
- Sonata in D minor for piano, Op.1 (1902–1905)
- Night Fancies, Impromptu in D major for piano, Op.3 (1907)
- English Dance for piano (1919) – original (1916) for violin and piano
- Prunella for piano (1923) – original (1916) for violin and piano
Vocal
- Music, when soft voices die, a song setting in E major for treble voices with piano accompaniment of the poem by ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
(1914) - Part-songs, Op.8[?] (1914)
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- My Garden in A, setting of a mystical poem by T.E.BrownThomas Edward BrownThomas Edward Brown , commonly referred to as T.E. Brown was a Manx poet, scholar and theologian.Brown was born at Douglas, Isle of Man. His father, the Rev. Robert Brown, shared with the parish schoolmaster in tutoring the clever boy until, at the age of fifteen, he was entered at King William's...
- Crossing the Bar in F major, setting of the poem by TennysonCrossing the Bar"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that is traditionally the last poem in collections of his work. It is thought that Tennyson wrote it as his own elegy, as the poem has a tone of finality about it...
- Two Songs from Shakespeare, Op.9 (1919); Songs from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
- O Mistress Mine in F major for low voice and piano
- Come Away, Death in D major for low voice, viola and piano
- My Garden in A, setting of a mystical poem by T.E.Brown
Choral
- Three Christmas Carols, Op. 6 (1911)
- Before the Paling of the Stars for chorus and orchestra, Op. 7 (1912); setting of a Christmas hymn by Christina RossettiChristina RossettiChristina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
- A Song of Praise, Festival Anthem for soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op.12 (1923); words by Reginald HeberReginald HeberReginald Heber was the Church of England's Bishop of Calcutta who is now remembered chiefly as a hymn-writer.-Life:Heber was born at Malpas in Cheshire...
; composed for the 269th annual festival of the Sons of the ClergyCorporation of the Sons of the ClergyThe Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy is a charity founded in 1655 which provides financial support to clergy of the Church of England.The Corporation was established in 1655 in response to the distress of the large number of clergymen who were dispossessed of their livings under the regime of... - Rosa Mystica, Carol for mixed voices with tenor solo (1925); the words from the Mediaeval anthology collected by Mary Segar
Writing
- Harmony, Counterpoint and Improvisation by Benjamin Dale, Gordon JacobGordon JacobGordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
, Hugo Anson