Leighton. The British music scene reminds me of a castle on a hill against the sky. You're so taken by the castle, you don't really see its surroundings. The Brits have tended to have one feudal figure dominating all the others of his time: Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Britten, and Tippett. All these artists have very fine contemporaries, far less well-known. Leighton, like many other British composers who came to notice after World War II, faced the problem of what to do next. Vaughan Williams, Walton, and Britten were successfully cultivating their own gardens. Tippett was traveling his idiosyncratic and essentially unrepeatable path. Some younger composers -- like Alwyn and Arnold -- found themselves comfortable near the Walton beds. Others became more internationally-minded. Leighton himself became intrigued by the music of Messiaen, although he never really copied. Leighton's music is meditative and intellectually patrician. If it has a fault, it keeps too much its emotional distance, at least in the earlier music. However, as he ages, the music becomes more and more passionate, until the Symphony No. 3 "Laudes musicae", which blazes with warmth. I also recommend the church music and the suite Veris gratia for cello and orchestra.

Leigh. The British tend to focus on the artists killed in World War I--Owen, Butterworth, Brooke. World War II as well claimed its share of promising talent. Walter Leigh died in North Africa. His idiom is neo-classic, a bit more oriented toward the European continent than was usual for a British composer of the time. Everything I've heard of his is wonderfully witty. Works include a Concertino for Harpsichord,. the overture Agincourt, incidental music to Aristophanes's Frogs and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Music for Strings.

Jacob. Gordon Septimus. A pupil of Vaughan Williams with the reputation of admirable craftsman. His idiom resembles the sophisticated Vaughan Williams of the Partita, the Concerto accademico, and the Piano Concerto. About the only stuff that gets recorded is essentially "light music," with little pretension to anything more. A quick check of Grove's reveals that Jacob has titles in his catalogue that hint at greater substance, which of course I've never heard. I can recommend especially the Five Pieces and the Divertimento, both for harmonica and strings, the Concerto for Piano 3-hands and Orchestra, and the William Byrd Suite, an arrangement of Byrd keyboard pieces for band. In live concert, I've heard exquisite songs for voice and string trio on lyrics by William Blake. These last convince me that there's more to this composer than a good time.

Howells. An early follower of Vaughan Williams, known mainly for his church music. He hasn't a large catalogue. Hymnus Paradisi for choirs, soloists, and orchestra is his most ambitious work, but I find it uninvolving. The church music is wonderful, including the Collegium Regale and the St. Paul's Service. His solo songs are gem, among which "Come Sing and Dance" and "King David" are probably classics of English song. I also like very much his early piano quartet.

Holmboe. Twentieth-century composers not living in Paris, Vienna, Moscow, Berlin, St. Petersberg, or New York have a tough row to hoe, as far as recognition is concerned. It took nearly forty years after the composer's death for Nielsen to be recognized, mostly because his career was based in Copenhagen. His countryman Vagn Holmboe faces the same problem, as does the Swedish symphonist Alan Pettersson. Holmboe writes outstanding symphonies and string quartets. The Swedes have begun to record his work. I recommend any of the symphonies (he wrote at least 10), the String Quartet No. 8, the Brass Quintet, and the Recorder Trio. If you like Hindemith and Nielsen, you should have little trouble with Holmboe.

Herrmann. An American composer and conductor long resident in England, where he became more a part of the British music scene. Herrmann has an odd style, based on a unique, immediately-identifiable sense of harmony. He can get more out of two chords than any other composer I know. One of the outstanding film composers, he worked with Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons), Hitchcock (Vertigo, Marnie, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Man Who Knew Too Much), Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451), DePalma (Sisters, Obsession), Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans), and Scorcese (Taxi Driver). He also has several non-movie works, my favorites of which are a Symphony and a Sinfonietta for String Orchestra, the precursor to the Psycho score.

Cooke. Arnold. Like Reizenstein, another British Hindemithian. Lots of rhythmic vitality. Favorite works include Jabez and the Devil, a suite based on Benét's Devil and Daniel Webster, and a beautifully worked-out Symphony No. 3.

Butterworth. A hope of British music, killed in World War I. He left too little behind to speculate on potential, but that little reveals a composer with a genuine lyric gift. He never quite freed himself from the influence of Vaughan Williams and that composer's In the Fen Country vein. He left behind short orchestral pieces and songs. My favorites include the cycles Bredon Hill and Six Songs from "A Shropshire Lad", both to Housman texts, and the sweetly-singing Banks of Green Willow and Two English Idylls.

Bridge. A cruel joke runs, "Frank Bridge's best work is Benjamin Britten." Britten himself considered Bridge his principal teacher and worked hard to promote his music, not entirely out of sentiment, for the music is quite fine. I view Bridge's career in two phases. The first, strongly influenced by Debussy, resulted in pretty pictures like the tone poems Enter Spring, The Sea, and Summer. However, in the Twenties, Bridge became attracted to the music of Schoenberg. This toughened his own music and made his ideas more incisive, especially in his third and fourth string quartets and in Phantasm for piano and orchestra, a rare example of Expressionism in British music.

Brian. A major British symphonist. However, Havergal Brian's music is in danger of being overwhelmed by the story of his career. Born working-class, he somehow learned enough music to become a fully-professional composer. Unfortunately, he had few contacts, and his music, particularly the "Gothic" Symphony (No. 1), scared off impresarios by the immense forces it demanded (a complete Te Deum is just one of its movements). Brian deserved this reputation far less than Mahler or Strauss. He was willing and able to write pieces of "normal" length for modest forces. For most of his career, he was a "composer's composer," taken up by, among others, Vaughan Williams. Still, he remained very little known to the general public until the 1970s, almost at the end of his life, when the symphonist Robert Simpson began to successfully proselytize in articles and arrange for concerts and recordings, mainly of the symphonies. Brian has a large catalogue yet to be heard, including over thirty symphonies (at least twenty written after he reached 70), operas, and other orchestral pieces. Aside from powerful music, listeners discovered a fascinating "what if." Brian, like Mahler, creates his own galaxy of musical imagery, but he is isolated in his influence due to the fact that his music simply wasn't played enough. The "Gothic" Symphony is a major work, but so are all his symphonies. Of those I've heard, I'm particularly drawn to Nos. 6, 21, and 22 ("Sinfonia Breve"), a heady musical concentrate in which much happens in a short time. I keep alert for announcements of premiere recordings.

Bliss. In the 1920s, Bliss was a Great Hope of British music, but he was soon eclipsed (as was practically everyone else) by Vaughan Williams in his modernist phase, Walton, and especially the young Britten. His early compositions show an original turn of thought: a Colour Symphony, the oratorio Morning Heroes, with extended sections for percussion and speaker, and a concerto for tenor, percussion, and chamber ensemble. It soon became clear, however, that Bliss would break no new ground. Indeed, he became Master of the Queen's Music (replacing Arnold Bax) and was knighted. Beyond Morning Heroes, I can't find an outstanding work in his catalogue, but there are several nice ones, including a virtuoso piano concerto, a rhythmically vital Melée fantasque, and a lovely Meditations on a Theme of John Blow.

Berners. A genuine British eccentric, Berners allied himself with Surrealism between the wars. His ballet The Triumph of Neptune featured a baritone in his bath warbling "The Last Rose of Summer." In musical style, he comes closest to the American Virgil Thomson, possibly because they both share the influence of Satie. Most of Berners's works have a loopy wit. His Fantaisie espagnole sends up the Franco-Iberian school of Debussy, Ravel, and Falla. His Fugue for Orchestra quickly runs down to non-fugue, after an impressive beginning. However, he could play it reasonably straight as well. His music for the British film Nicholas Nickleby has great charm.

Berkeley. Lennox, not to be confused with his son Michael. A British student of Nadia Boulanger (who numbered among her pupils Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Jean Françaix, and many, many others), and thus a rarity. Boulanger's impact was far greater in the United States than in Britain, which tended to teach its own. Berkeley begins, not surprisingly, in an attractive Stravinskian, neo-classic vein and later moves to something at once less distinctive and more personal. Highpoints of his output include 4 Ronsard Sonnets for tenor and small orchestra, Sinfonia Concertante, Divertimento in B-flat, Mass for 5 Voices, Partita, Serenade for Strings, and a Sinfonietta. His best-known work is ironically a collaboration with Benjamin Britten called Mont Juic, on Spanish themes. He also wrote three symphonies, which show his career at various stages--all well-written, but not particularly memorable.

Benjamin. A British modernist, slightly older than Walton, Arthur Benjamin has dropped almost completely out of the Schwann/Opus catalogue. He is best known for the orchestral bonbon Jamaican Rumba. However, he has substance as well. Be on the lookout for the Concerto quasi una fantasia for piano and orchestra, the piano concertino, and the Romantic Fantasy for violin, viola, and orchestra. Heifetz and Primrose recorded the last in the early stereo era. "Romantic" describes it well.

Bax. Bax considered himself, quite rightly, a Romantic. Writing music was for him an expression of states of feeling. In his early career, he became entranced with the Celtic Twilight, to the extent of writing in an Irish vein under the nom de plume Dermot O'Brynne. His early tone poems (and his most popular works) Tintagel and The Garden of Fand are based on Celtic subjects. I find them well-written, but uninteresting. However, in the Twenties, Bax began a fine series of symphonies--cogently argued with great craft and in a more modern idiom. His concerti (for piano, cello, and violin) also bear a look. None of these works are that well-known, although they keep attracting champions and recordings, which at least hints at their power.

Alwyn. A member of the "lost generation" of modern British composers -- essentially, a conservative group that began their careers around the end of World War II and that did not employ serial technique. Alwyn composed mainly symphonies, each different from the other. As he put it, he wanted to find different paths to the problem of writing symphonies. They are masterful works. convincing and assured. Richard Hickox has recorded the set for Chandos, as well as other works like "Lyra angelica," a beautiful harp concerto.

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