The mould-breaker

Rodney Newton Percy Fletcher's Labour and Love, this year's 3rd Section Regional test-piece, and looks at the life of its composer

Percy Fletcher was born in Derby in 1879 and died in 1932, aged just 52. He was a pianist, organist and violinist and moved to London, where he became a much sought-after musical director in the theatres of the capital’s West End. He directed the music at the Prince of Wales, the Savoy, Daly’s, Drury Lane and, from 1915 until his death, His Majesty’s Theatre. While at His Majesty’s, he conducted the long run of the popular musical, Chu Chin Chow, arranging much of Frederick Norton’s music himself. He then wrote the score for an exotic successor entitled Cairo, which is forgotten today, but, in 1921, ran for 216 performances. Then, in 1925, he followed this up with another musical called The Good Old Days. He was also very active as a writer of popular songs, including The Bells of Youth, Kitty, What a Pity, Secret of My Heart, The Captain’s Eye, The Smile of Spring, The Great Adventure and Galloping Dick, while his Four Tennyson Lyrics were more serious offerings. He also wrote a considerable amount of choral music, including The Shafts of Cupid, The Enchanted Island, Choral Rhapsody on Scottish Airs (for chorus and orchestra), The Walrus and the Carpenter, The Deacon’s Masterpiece and the Wonderful One-hoss Shay, which also had orchestral accompaniment, as did the popular Cupid’s Garland, written in the year before his death. In addition to this, in 1922, he wrote a sacred cantata, The Passion of Christ, as well as shorter part-songs, many for women’s voices, such as The Cloud, Bees, Haste Thee Nymph, the lullaby Softly Sink in Slumbers Golden and The Valley of Dreams.

He wrote carols such as Now Once Again and Ring Out, Wild Bells, as well as folk song arrangements, and a large number of suites for light orchestras (probably even more than the celebrated Eric Coates, who lived longer). These include Rustic Revels (1918), Sylvan Scenes and Woodland Pictures (both written in 1920), Six Cameos for a Costume Comedy (1926), Famous Beauties (describing in music the goddess Aphrodite, Versailles Palace and Queen Cleopatra), The Three Light Pieces, Nautical Scenes, Salon Suite in the Old Style, At Gretna Green and Parisian Sketches (of which Bal Masqué became popular). There were also the marches The Crown of Chivalry, Spirit of Pageantry, VC March, a toy soldiers’ march, The Toy Review, and the Sultan’s March from his musical, Cairo. From a brass bander’s point of view, it is interesting to note that many of his orchestral scores include the euphonium. When Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died in 1912 leaving his Hiawatha Suite and Minnehaha Suite unfinished, Percy Fletcher completed them, as well as creating orchestral arrangements of Amy Woodforde-Finden’s popular Indian Love Lyrics and arranging her suites, A Lover in Damascus and The Pagoda of Flowers. He even anticipated Leopold Stokowski in creating a fantasia for chorus and orchestra on themes from Wagner’s The Mastersingers.