Geoffrey Toye
Encyclopedia
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 opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
producer.
He is best remembered as a music director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
and for his association with Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
. One of his ballets, The Haunted Ballroom (1934), became popular and was revived several times, and the new overture that he prepared for Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
in 1919 became the standard version.
Life and career
Born in WinchesterWinchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, Toye was the younger son of Arlingham James Toye and his wife Alice Fayrer née Coates. Toye's father was a housemaster
Housemaster
In British education, a housemaster is a member of staff in charge of a boarding house, normally at a boarding school . The housemaster is responsible for the supervision and care of boarders in the house and typically lives on the premises...
at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, who for many years ran a music society for the boys.
Early years
Toye studied at the Royal College of MusicRoyal 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...
, concentrating on composition and conducting. He also displayed such skill as a pianist that he was engaged "when little more than a boy" to accompany the celebrated soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame.Tetrazzini's voice was remarkable for its phenomenal flexibility, thrust, steadiness and thrilling tone...
. As early as 1906 he deputised for André Messager
André Messager
André Charles Prosper Messager , was a French composer, organist, pianist, conductor and administrator. His stage compositions included ballets and 30 opéra comiques and operettas, among which Véronique, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire also enjoying international...
as conductor at performances of Messager's opera Mirette
Mirette (opera)
Mirette is an opéra comique in three acts composed by André Messager, first produced at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 3 July 1894.Mirette exists in two distinct versions. The first version of the libretto was written in French by Michel Carré but this was never performed. English lyrics were...
at Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. Together with his elder brother Francis
Francis Toye
John Francis Toye was an English music critic, teacher, writer and educational administrator. After early efforts as a composer and novelist, and service in naval intelligence in World War I, he became music critic of The Morning Post from 1925 to 1937, which he combined with teaching singing and...
he composed incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for The Well in the Wood, a "pastoral masque" by C. M. A. Peake; and was sole creator of the scenario and music for a short ballet, The Fairy Cap, first given at His Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
in 1911, revived for charity performance the following year.
By 1913 Toye was conducting in major London theatres – for Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
's Blue Bird at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
, Marie Brema's opera season at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
, and for the première of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Androcles and the Lion
Androcles and the Lion (play)
Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture...
. In 1914, he was entrusted by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
with conducting the première of his London Symphony at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
. When the manuscript was lost (having been sent to Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.Busch was born in Siegen, Province of Westphalia. He held posts conducting opera at Aachen, Stuttgart and Dresden. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post at Dresden because of his opposition to the new Nazi government of Germany...
in Germany just before the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
) Toye, together with George Butterworth
George Butterworth
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E...
and the critic Edward J. Dent
Edward Joseph Dent
Edward Joseph Dent, generally known by his initials as E. J. Dent was a British writer on music....
, helped Vaughan Williams reconstruct the work. Also in 1914, Toye introduced Butterworth's rhapsodies A Shropshire Lad and The Banks of Green Willow to London audiences. The night before the première of The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
, Toye dined with its composer, Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, and the conductor 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...
. Boult later recalled that Toye took exception to one bar in "Neptune", where the brass play chords of E minor and G# minor together: "I'm sorry, Gustav, but I can't help thinking that's going to sound frightful." Holst agreed, and said it had made him shudder when he wrote it down, but he insisted that it must be that way: "What are you to do when they come like that?"
Private (rank)
A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...
in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1959. Its lineage is continued today by The Rifles....
, and later in the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
, in which he served in France as a photographic specialist. He retired with the rank of major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
. For a time after the war he was a member of the insurers Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...
, where he organised many amateur musical activities and founded the Lloyd's Choir. He was engaged as assistant conductor of the Beecham Opera Company and also conducted concerts for the 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...
in 1918 and 1919.
Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948....
, a fellow Wykehamist, appointed Toye as musical director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...
for three D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
seasons at the Prince's Theatre in London: 1919-20, 1921-22, and 1924. In his first season there, Toye revised the score of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
, cutting some music and writing a new and more dramatic overture that did not use themes from numbers that Toye had cut. Thereafter, Toye's overture was always used by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, even when the cut numbers were restored in the 1970s, and it became the standard performance version. He also arranged a new overture for The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, but that did not remain in use, and no copy of the score is known to have survived. As D'Oyly Carte's musical director, Toye impressed the critics; 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...
wrote, "Mr. Geoffrey Toye is doing his work as conductor conspicuously well. He has made many of us realise afresh how beautifully the operas are scored. He has never-failing vivacity and the right sense of musical humour." In 1925 and again in 1927 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
broadcast The Red Pen
The Red Pen
The Red Pen is a two-act operetta composed by Geoffrey Toye to a libretto by A. P. Herbert. The piece, described by its creators as "a sort of opera" was written for the BBC, following Herbert's successful Riverside Nights, and had a running time of about 90 minutes. It was first broadcast on the...
, "a sort of opera", with words by A. P. Herbert
A. P. Herbert
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, CH was an English humorist, novelist, playwright and law reform activist...
and music by Toye. In 1927 Toye was joint musical director of a benefit performance for the old D'Oyly Carte leading man, Courtice Pounds
Courtice Pounds
Charles Courtice Pounds , better known by the stage name Courtice Pounds, was an English singer and actor known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his later roles in Shakespeare plays and Edwardian musical comedies.As a young member...
, in which Toye was joined by stars from many branches of theatre, including Seymour Hicks
Seymour Hicks
Sir Arthur Seymour Hicks , better known as Seymour Hicks, was a British actor, music hall performer, playwright, screenwriter, theatre manager and producer. He married the actress Ellaline Terriss in 1893...
, Evelyn Laye
Evelyn Laye
Evelyn Laye, CBE was an English theatre and film actress.-Early years and career:Born as Elsie Evelyn Lay in Bloomsbury, London, Laye made her first stage appearance in August 1915 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton as Nang-Ping in Mr...
, Walter Passmore
Walter Passmore
Walter Henry Passmore was an English singer and actor best known as the first successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
, Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
and Derek Oldham
Derek Oldham
Derek Oldham was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
.
Later years
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
, became a governor of Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
in 1931, where, as co-director with Lilian Baylis
Lilian Baylis
Lilian Mary BaylisCH was an English theatrical producer and manager. She managed the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells theatres in London, and ran an opera company, which became the English National Opera , a theatre company, which evolved into the English National Theatre, and a ballet company, which...
, he managed the opera and ballet until 1934. For the Sadler's Wells Ballet company, he composed two ballets to his own scenarios: Douanes, in October 1932, a comedy set in a customs post described by The Times as "delightful and amusing", and, in 1934, The Haunted Ballroom, which portrays the Masters of Treginnis who are cursed to dance themselves to death in a gloomy ancestral ballroom by the ghosts of the women whom they had loved. As in Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
, the curse is passed to the heir of the accursed. The piece makes "imaginative... use of an eerie... chorus commentary". The Haunted Ballroom was Margot Fonteyn
Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, DBE , was an English ballerina of the 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time...
's first principal role and also starred Robert Helpmann
Robert Helpmann
Sir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer...
. Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet...
choreographed both works and revived The Haunted Ballroom several times after Toye's death. Its last performance in Sadler's Wells's repertoire was on BBC television on 24 February 1957. The original choreography of the piece now survives only in fragments. The Waltz from the score is probably Toye's best-known composition and has been recorded several times. It remained popular for many years as an orchestral piece.
From 1934 to 1936, Toye became Managing Director of the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden, working alongside the Artistic Director, Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
. Despite early successes, Toye and Beecham eventually fell out over Toye's insistence on bringing in a popular film star, Grace Moore
Grace Moore
Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
, to sing Mimi in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. The production was a box-office success, but an artistic failure. Beecham manoeuvred Toye out of the managing directorship in what Sir 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...
described as an 'absolutely beastly' manner.
Toye obtained the film rights to the Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operas. In 1938, he adapted, produced and conducted 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...
, starring Martyn Green
Martyn Green
William Martyn-Green , better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed and recorded with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.After army service in World War I,...
, Sydney Granville
Sydney Granville
Sydney Granville was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
and the American singers Kenny Baker and Jean Colin
Jean Colin
Jean Colin was an English actress. She began her career on stage in pantomime, musical theatre and operettas. Colin appeared in several films beginning the thirties. Colin was born in Brighton and died in London...
, but the onset of war prevented further screen adaptations. Toye composed and arranged the music for two other British films of the 1930s: Men Are Not Gods and Rembrandt, both for Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
in 1936.
In 1940, Toye joined the staff of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, in the American Liaison and Censorship Department. He was twice married, first in 1915 to the actress Doris Lytton, and later to Dorothy Fleitman, with whom he had one son. Toye's elder brother, Francis
Francis Toye
John Francis Toye was an English music critic, teacher, writer and educational administrator. After early efforts as a composer and novelist, and service in naval intelligence in World War I, he became music critic of The Morning Post from 1925 to 1937, which he combined with teaching singing and...
, was a well-known critic and Verdi scholar. Their sister Eleanor's daughter became a principal soprano with D'Oyly Carte under the name Jennifer Toye.
Toye died in London at the age of 53.
Compositions and recordings
In addition to his ballets, Toye's compositions included several books of songs (including some sea chanties), a symphony, a masqueMasque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
, Day and Night, a radio opera: The Red Pen (1925, with A. P. Herbert
A. P. Herbert
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, CH was an English humorist, novelist, playwright and law reform activist...
), an opera: The Fairy Cup, and two short choral items: Henrichye's Death, with orchestra, and The Keeper, with brass accompaniment.
Toye made very few gramophone records. For HMV in 1928, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
in recordings of Delius's
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
Brigg Fair
Brigg Fair
"Brigg Fair" is an English folk song. It is best known in a choral arrangement by Percy Grainger and a subsequent set of orchestral variations by Frederick Delius....
, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in Leipzig on October 2, 1913....
, and In a Summer Garden
In a Summer Garden
In a Summer Garden is a fantasy for orchestra composed in 1908 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in London under the composer's baton on December 11 of that year. The piece is built around several distinct themes...
. The composer wrote, "All three... are excellent and I shall be glad to have them sold as authorised by me."
Toye's overture to Ruddigore has been recorded numerous times, conducted by Harry Norris
Harry Norris
Harry Norris was an Australian architect whose works are spread across Melbourne. He was well known for his strong Art Deco Style combining American and Australian architecture. He was one of the most prolific commercial architects between 1920 and 1930...
, Isidore Godfrey
Isidore Godfrey
Isidore Godfrey was musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for 39 years, from 1929 to 1968...
, and Sir Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
(who each recorded the complete opera) and Sir Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
, among others. Norris, Godfrey and Sargent all observe some or all of Toye's cuts and other minor alterations in the score. Toye's only recording conducting a Gilbert and Sullivan work is the 1938 film of The Mikado referred to above. Of Toye's original music, the waltz from The Haunted Ballroom has been recorded several times, including one in the 1990s by the Marco Polo record label. A complete recording of the ballet was made in 2001 by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.