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Re: The Arcadians (Arthur Wood) - background

Classical Music on the Web  Music Webmaster Len
Mullenger  A YORKSHIRE MUSICIAN - ARTHUR WOOD
(1875-1953)
by Philip L Scowcroft
BBC Radio 4's The Archers has made the name of Arthur
wood immortal, for its signature tune, which has been
played ten times a week for more than three decades is
his Barwick Green the finale of a suite entitled My
Native Heath whose other movements are Knaresborough
Status (or Hiring Fair), Ilkley Tarn (or Dance of the
Sprites) and Bolton Abbey (Slow Melody). Although as
we shall see, much of Wood's career was spent in
London, where he died on 18th January 1953, his native
heath was indeed Yorkshire, and the titles of many of
his compositions besides this show that he never
forgot this.
Arthur Wood was born at Heckmondwicke on 24th January
1875, the son of a tailor who was a violinist in a
local amateur orchestra. As a boy Arthur played the
violin but the flute (and piccolo) soon became his
major instruments. When the family moved to Harrogate
in 1882 he received free flute lessons from Arthur
Brookes of the spa orchestra, an orchestra Arthur was
soon to play in. (Brookes later emigrated and played
in the Boston Symphony Orchestra). Arthur left school
at the age of 12 and two years later became Organist
of St Paul's Presbyterian Church in Harrogate. By the
time he was sixteen the flautist, accompanist, solo
pianist and deputy conductor to J Sidney Jones, father
of the composer of The Geisha, conductor of the
Harrogate Municipal Orchestra which played four times
a day in the Valley Gardens. Later he moved to the
Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra and played under the
baton of Dan Godfrey.
His ambition, however, was to conduct and this was
realised in London's theatre land. When he became
Musical Director at Terry's Theatre in 1903 he was, at
28, the youngest M.D. in the metropolis. He is said to
have owed this engagement to Sidney Jones, the son of
his former chief at Harrogate, who was impressed by
Wood's Three Old Dances published in 1902. From
Terry's he moved to the Apollo, where he directed
Messager's Véronique; the Adelphi, the Shaftesbury,
where between 1908 and 1917 he conducted The
Arcadians, The Pearl Girl, Princess Caprice etc; the
Gaiety; His Majesty's; Daly's where, between 1922 and
1926, he was required to conduct The Merry Widow; The
Prince of Wales; and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Wood conducted London theatre orchestras for more than
three decades; in between times he toured America with
Véronique and conducted some of the early recordings
of certain of the Savoy operas.
Wood composed prolifically. As a theatre conductor it
was natural for him to try his hand at musicals of his
own, like Yvonne, Petticoat Fair and Fancy Fair, the
latter two around the end of the Great War. His many
orchestral arrangements included: selections from
operettas such as Oscar Straus' Cleopatra and his own
works in that genre; the overture to The Arcadians:
Elgar's early violin piece Mot d'Amour and, for the
BBC, accompaniments to traditional songs. As was the
case with Elgar, Wood's study of orchestration, which
began when as a boy he copied out music at 2d a sheet,
was purely practical and owed nothing to academic
study. He was a staff composer with Boosey & Hawkes
for whom he brought out dozens of orchestral suites
and short genre pieces. Many of these recall his North
Country origins: Three Dale Dances, Three More Dale
Dances, Yorkshire Moors Suite, the Yorkshire Rhapsody
Barnsley Fair, A Lancashire Clog Dance, the Overture
Shipley Glen and the miniatures Moorland Fiddlers and
On The Moor. But like Albert Ketelbey and Eric Coates
he could create all kinds of mood pictures. For
example the Three Old Dances, which as have seen,
helped him on his way as a conductor: their titles are
True Hearts, Forget-Me-Not and Gaiety. The suite Widow
Malone (1937) affords Irish colour and there was also
the Three Mask Dances and the Ballerina Suite not to
mention trifles like Coquetterie, Fairy Dreams,
Fiddlers Three, Too Many Girls and an Oriental Scene,
which never attained the popularity of Ketelbey's In a
Persian Market. Wood composed a Concertino in A major
for his favourite instrument, the flute, published in
1948 in a reduction for flute and piano, also a trifle
Merriment for piccolo and orchestra. One item which
was popular in its day, a One-Step You Can't Keep
Still achieved publication as a solo for violin or
cello.
Apart from perennially popular Barwick Green, we hear
little of Arthur Wood's music today though brass bands
for whom he wrote marches like All Clear and Royal
Progress remain faithful to his transcription of the
Three Dale Dances in which form they sound well. He
was a respected adjudicator of brass band contests. He
has been dead for over thirty years; surely it is high
time to dust down some of these orchestral suites and
maybe even the Concertino for flute, so that we can
see for ourselves just how good an answer to
Nottingham's Eric Coates was Yorkshire's Arthur Wood.
Readily available material on Arthur Wood is not
plentiful; the standard music dictionaries maintain in
relation to him the same conspiracy of silence they
accord other "light music composers". This little
study has been assembled from many sources, The Times
(20 Jan 1953), The Cleckheaton & Spenborough Guardian
(23 Jan 1953), etc - (acknowledgement to Kirklees
Library Services for making these available.)
© Philip L Scowcroft.  Enquiries to Philip at  8 Rowan
Mount   DONCASTER   S YORKS DN2 5PJ
Philip's book 'British Light Music Composers' (ISBN
0903413 88 4) is currently out of print.
E-mail enquiries (but NOT orders) can be directed to
Rob Barnett at rob.barnett1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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