King Charles chooses Errollyn. Good call?
NewsThe order was published this morning:
His Majesty The King has appointed Ms Errollyn Wallen CBE as Master of the King’s Music; the first appointment to this role of his reign.
Wallen, 66, succeeds Dame Judith Weir who has held the role since July 2014. The appointment is in the monarch’s gift, delivered upon advice of the usual establishment committees.
She is an impeccable choice. Belize born, Errollyn Wallen composed works to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. She will fulfil the role admirably, and assuredly with greater verve than such ill-chosen predecessors as Walford Davies, Arnold Bax and Arthur Bliss. We send her the warmest congratulations.
Still, one wishes the King had cast the net a little wider than his suited and botted committees. Maybe next time he will ask slippedisc.com. Our immediate recommendations would be Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sandé and Laura Mvula. Now that would be the day.
Wallen is known best for her radical Proms take on Hubert Parry’s Jerusalem.
What an interesting suggestion and one for discussion.It removes the pomposity associated with the role though Errolyn Wallen is certainly not pompous and her music can be wonderful and diverting.
Perhaps two Masters of the Kings Music?
Her music sounds like something generated in a computer. Like AI. Like it doesn’t know where to go. Seems apt for a royal family with it’s heavy, colonial past and present.
The money must be good.
Congrats
I do not understand “it is heavy”.
Unless it’s changed recently, they’re paid an ‘honorary stipend’.
Are they allowed to use the word “Master”?
‘Mistress of the King’s Music’ might cause some confusion…
Not being overly familiar with the history of the Master of the King’s Music, I wonder: why are Bax and Bliss — both highly accomplished composers — thought of as ill-chosen? This isn’t a rhetorical question: I’m genuinely curious.
No quibbles about the also highly accomplished Wallen.
There were end of career appointments. They had noting left to say.
‘Nothing left to say’. Quite so. After being made Master of the Queen’s Music, Bliss wrote nothing except 92 works of all kinds.
All of which gather dust.
That is not an indication of their artistic worth. As we all know well, there are too many dynamic factors at play in the world of aesthetics to make such an inference in a serious way.
You just don’t know.
You left out Malcolm Williamson, who took too long to get around to what he had to say, and missed the Jubilee altogether.
Ah, thank you. That clears it up, even if it’s a matter of opinion. Certainly, much of Bliss’s late output gathers dust, whether justly or not.
A dear family friend was, in the 1960’s, a day nurse taking care of Lady Bliss during the last years of her life at her home in Santa Barbara, CA. Our friend would drop in on her way home from her shift, and I recall one day when she announced that the two of them had been listening to recordings of Handel’s music. “We agreed that he was nothing but a stuffed shirt,” she reported. (I suspect that they must have listened only to the Royal Fireworks Music, which of course is intended to convey pomp and splendor rather than human emotions…)
Box ticking…
Why isn’t Sir John Rutter the obvious new Master of The King’s Musak?
Dame Judith Weir had a track record as a serious composer. I have never heard of Ms Wallen.
A rather below the belt comment regarding Bax and Bliss. And rather a long time ago.
Finally Ms Wallen’s appointment will delight the Diversity Fanatics. Enough said.
If you’ve “…not heard of Ms Wallen” why would you assume she’ll delight “diversity fanatics”? Are you a “homogeneity fanatic” because you’ve not heard of her?
Your ignorance of her music– which is well crafted and enjoyable –does you no credit, nor the presumption that a person of colour would only be chosen for ‘diversity”. Enough said.
“The appointment is in the monarch’s gift, delivered upon advice of the usual establishment committees.”
Is there anything left that the monarch can decide without advice?
When to go for his cancer treatments.
Lay off.
To be able to answer that question, the monarch has to establish a committee.
Breakfast
No mention yet of the greatest master of the royal music. Peter Maxwell Davies.
Here’s his amazing 1969 Proms walk out piece…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mkOP7PQ2tc&t=232s
What a ridiculous assertion!
So thats a ‘woke’ appointment is it? is her music actually any good we ask ourselves? Good luck to her.
I dream this sort of thing after a night of deep drinking.
Sally
Many of Bliss’s greatest works (The Meditations on a Theme of John Blow, the cello concerto, and the Metamorphic Variations) were written during the twenty years when he was Master of the Queen’s music. It was a fertile period for him. He just didn’t write anything of real interest in his official capacity.
A very quick and superficial reading of the headline let me think for one second His Majesty had chosen Erroll Flynn as Master of the King’s Music. Now, that would have been a remarkable appointment…
She has got off to a great start in her new role. I agree with every word:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/aug/25/widen-access-to-classical-music-with-free-lessons-says-errollyn-wallen
What is this gobshyte?
That’s a mirror, fool.
Superb composer with every bit as good track record as her recent predecessors. Her cello concerto is a masterpiece on a par with those of Walton and Elgar. Her reworking of Purcell in In Earth is a great success.
As regards Walford Davies, he didn’t do much, but his Everyman is a knock out oratorio.
Here is that cello concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKe90Gdr7Ts
You have to wait for 5 minutes before the strings break-into the performance, which is not a good idea. But for the rest it’s a nice expressive piece entirely made with traditional means, as if there has never been a devastating modernism. And it sounds very English.
If you like simplistic stuff = C-G-C-G-C, you’re fine.
What was that comment Mahler made about Puccini?
“Now any fool can orchestrate.” (or words to effect).
Yes I too love complexity, it gives you the feeling that you are really in contact with the modern world! When I have to fill-out my tax forms I play Pli selon Pli to keep me on the rails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56pQqEVetA
Sally
King Charles can think for himself and this was undoubtedly his choice. Forget the committee nonsense.
From: Richard Stanbrook.
Date: 26th August 2024.
I wish every success for Errollyn Wallen in her well-deserved appointment as Master of The King’s Music. Congratulations – and keep up the good work!
Who are you quoting you write ” such ill-chosen predecessors as Walford Davies, Arnold Bax and Arthur Bliss.”? IMHO there’s more memorable MUSIC in any random single bar by Davies, Bax or Bliss than in anything I’ve heard by Ms Wallen.
Mark Mortimer: “So thats a ‘woke’ appointment is it? is her music actually any good we ask ourselves? Good luck to her.”
—–
Since everything is so political nowadays, with the idea of meritocracy increasingly treated as political too, I’m never quite sure what is or isn’t the motive behind anything or anyone.
As for modern composers, since just about all of them are the antithesis of a John Williams (hummable and so bourgeoisie!), they tend to be one gigantic sonic blur.
It may help to stop thinking and to start listening.