Eric Fogg
Encyclopedia
Eric Fogg was an English composer and conductor who died under tragic circumstances at the age of 36. His early works were influenced by Igor Stravinsky
, though his later pieces owe more to Granville Bantock
and Richard Strauss
and even William Walton
. Much of his music has been lost.
, the son of Charles H. Fogg, the organist for the Hallé Orchestra
, who was his first teacher. His mother, Madame Sadler-Fogg, was also musical (she trained the young Isobel Baillie
in singing) and contributed to his musical education. He became a boy chorister at Manchester Cathedral
from ages 10 to 14 and then studied with Granville Bantock
in Birmingham
. He started composing very early and his output was considerable. On 30 March 1920 the British Music Society presented an evening of the 17-year-old Fogg's music, in which 25 of his works were given a hearing. The meeting was addressed by Leigh Henry. He had written 57 works by the age of 18.
On 16 June 1921, the "Chinese suite" The Golden Valley (1919) was premiered by Adrian Boult
with the Queen's Hall
Orchestra at the Royal College of Music
, on the same concert as the first and only performance of Ivor Gurney
's War Elegy. He joined the BBC
in Manchester in 1924 as an accompanist, rising to assistant music director. In the 1930s he was well known as "Uncle Eric" of the radio program Children's Favourites. He succeeded Archie Camden
as the conductor of the Manchester Schoolchildren’s Orchestra. He moved to London
and became musical director of the BBC's Empire Service in 1934.
In 1935 he conducted the Empire Orchestra in the first performance of Peggy Glanville-Hicks
's Sinfonietta in D minor for small orchestra.
for his second wedding. The coroner delivered an open verdict, however his death is often described as suicide
.
Other works include:
Fogg orchestrated Walter Carroll
's Seascape: A Children's Suite. The piece has been recorded by the Northern Chamber Orchestra
under Nicholas Ward.
The writer Pebblehead dedicated "The Nuts Of Narcolepsy" to Eric Fogg.
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, though his later pieces owe more to Granville Bantock
Granville Bantock
Sir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...
and Richard Strauss
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...
and even William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
. Much of his music has been lost.
Biography
Charles William Eric Fogg was born in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, the son of Charles H. Fogg, the organist for the Hallé Orchestra
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
, who was his first teacher. His mother, Madame Sadler-Fogg, was also musical (she trained the young Isobel Baillie
Isobel Baillie
Dame Isobel Baillie DBE was a Scottish soprano, popular in opera, oratorio and lieder. She was regarded as one of the 20th century's great oratorio singers.Isobel Baillie was born in Hawick, Scottish Borders, in 1895...
in singing) and contributed to his musical education. He became a boy chorister at Manchester Cathedral
Manchester Cathedral
Manchester Cathedral is a medieval church on Victoria Street in central Manchester and is the seat of the Bishop of Manchester. The cathedral's official name is The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George in Manchester...
from ages 10 to 14 and then studied with Granville Bantock
Granville Bantock
Sir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. He started composing very early and his output was considerable. On 30 March 1920 the British Music Society presented an evening of the 17-year-old Fogg's music, in which 25 of his works were given a hearing. The meeting was addressed by Leigh Henry. He had written 57 works by the age of 18.
On 16 June 1921, the "Chinese suite" The Golden Valley (1919) was premiered by 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...
with 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...
Orchestra at the 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...
, on the same concert as the first and only performance of Ivor Gurney
Ivor Gurney
Ivor Bertie Gurney was an English composer and poet.-Life:Born at 3 Queen Street, Gloucester in 1890, the second of four children of David Gurney, a tailor, and his wife Florence, a seamstress, Gurney showed musical ability early...
's War Elegy. He joined 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 Manchester in 1924 as an accompanist, rising to assistant music director. In the 1930s he was well known as "Uncle Eric" of the radio program Children's Favourites. He succeeded Archie Camden
Archie Camden
Archie Camden was a British bassoonist; he was a pedagogue and soloist of international acclaim. His career began in 1906 when he joined the Hallé Orchestra where he became principal bassoonist in 1914. In 1933 he moved to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where he stayed until 1946 when he took up...
as the conductor of the Manchester Schoolchildren’s Orchestra. He moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and became musical director of the BBC's Empire Service in 1934.
In 1935 he conducted the Empire Orchestra in the first performance of Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer.- Biography :Peggy Glanville-Hicks was born Melbourne in 1912. At age 15 she began studying composition with Fritz Hart in Melbourne...
's Sinfonietta in D minor for small orchestra.
Death
Eric Fogg died on 19 December 1939, when he either fell or jumped under the wheels of a train at Waterloo Station in London. He had been on his way to BrightonBrighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
for his second wedding. The coroner delivered an open verdict, however his death is often described as suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Music
Fogg's music attracted differing opinions and even some hostility during his lifetime. Some critics felt that he was too modernistic, but others complained that he did not wholeheartedly encompass modernism. It soon fell from the repertoire, but of recent years his music has started to be performed once more, and recorded.- Sea Sheen: An Idyll, Op. 17 (1920), was written before his study with Granville Bantock. It is possible that it is the same as the Idyll heard at Bournemouth on 24 March 1919. It exists in both piano and orchestral versions, the latter recorded by the BBC Midland Light Orchestra conducted by Gilbert VinterGilbert VinterGilbert Vinter was an English conductor and composer, most celebrated for his compositions for brass bands....
, and the BBC Concert OrchestraBBC Concert OrchestraThe BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra....
under Gavin SutherlandGavin Sutherland (conductor)Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer/arranger and pianist.Born in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England, he studied conducting, piano and orchestration at Huddersfield University and graduated with first-class honours, as well as gaining the Kruczynski Prize for Piano and the Davidson...
.
- The tone poem Merok (1929), in the form of variations on a Norwegian folk song, was recorded for the first time by the BBC Concert OrchestraBBC Concert OrchestraThe BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra....
under Vernon HandleyVernon HandleyVernon 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...
.
- The original score for the choral and orchestral work The Seasons (words by William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
) was either lost or destroyed. It was premiered at the Leeds FestivalReading and Leeds FestivalsThe Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm...
in 1931, in the same concert as the premiere of William WaltonWilliam WaltonSir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
's Belshazzar's FeastBelshazzar's Feast (Walton)Belshazzar's Feast is an oratorio by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931. The work has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions and one of the most popular works in the English choral repertoire...
. To celebrate the centenary of Fogg’s birth, a new score was prepared, and the work was performed by the Broadheath Singers and the Windsor Sinfonia conducted by Garry Humphreys at St Mary's Parish Church, Slough, on 13 September 2003. It received another performance on 25 March 2006, with the BBC PhilharmonicBBC PhilharmonicThe BBC Philharmonic is a British broadcasting symphony orchestra based at Media City UK, Salford, England. It is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The orchestra's primary concert venue is the Bridgewater Hall....
and the Leeds Festival Chorus under Simon Wright, which was (apparently erroneously) described as "the first performance in 75 years".
- The Bassoon Concerto in D (1931), written for and premiered by Archie CamdenArchie CamdenArchie Camden was a British bassoonist; he was a pedagogue and soloist of international acclaim. His career began in 1906 when he joined the Hallé Orchestra where he became principal bassoonist in 1914. In 1933 he moved to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where he stayed until 1946 when he took up...
, has been recorded by Graham Salvage with the Royal Ballet SinfoniaRoyal Ballet SinfoniaThe Royal Ballet Sinfonia is the Orchestra of Birmingham Royal Ballet.The Sinfonia appears with Birmingham Royal Ballet in its home town, in London and around the UK, and frequently appears with The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House and on tour...
conducted by Gavin Sutherland.
Other works include:
- Hansel and Gretel, ballet (1918)
- Scenes from Grimm, orchestra (1918)
- Dance Fantasy for piano and strings (1919), which won a Cobbett Prize
- The Golden Valley, Chinese suite (1919)
- The Golden Butterfly, ballet (June 1919)
- Ballade in C minor (piano)
- The Hillside (1921; soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra; words by Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
) - Songs of Love and Life (Tagore; 1921)
- Overture to ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's The Comedy of ErrorsThe Comedy of ErrorsThe Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
(1922) - String Quartet in A flat (1922–23)
- Poem for cello and piano (1922)
- Fanfare for 4 trumpets
- Three Chinese Songs, Op. 59 (1920; words by Leigh Henry)UR Research
- various other songs
- Suite for violin, cello and harp
- Fantasy for cello and piano
- The Face in Motion
- Caprice for violin
- many piano pieces.
Fogg orchestrated Walter Carroll
Walter Carroll
Water Carroll was a professional Mancunian composer and teacher. He wrote pieces for piano. The Manchester born educator and composer was very crucial to his city in the Northwest of England. Also he was a teacher at The Royal Manchester College of Music and also Manchester University. He was...
's Seascape: A Children's Suite. The piece has been recorded by the Northern Chamber Orchestra
Northern Chamber Orchestra
The Northern Chamber Orchestra is a chamber orchestra based in Manchester, England. Established in 1967, the orchestra gives concerts at Heritage Centre, Macclesfield, St Ann's Church, Manchester, as well as Blackburn, Skipton, Lancaster and Tatton Park, Knutsford...
under Nicholas Ward.
The writer Pebblehead dedicated "The Nuts Of Narcolepsy" to Eric Fogg.