Music for pleasure
The lighter side to Malcolm Arnold Always happy to wage subversive war against the trappings of musical pomposity, Arnold was attracted to the irreverent concerts devised by his friend
Gerard Hoffnung (above). For the first of these, presented at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1956, Arnold provided
A Grand, Grand Overture. This is scored for full orchestra, organ, three vacuum cleaners, one floor polisher and four rifles (which execute the floor-cleaning contingent), and culminates in a coda of grand chords which threaten to repeat for ever, or almost. Among other Hoffnung Concert creations by Arnold were Leonora No. 4 – a roguish take on Beethoven’s three Leonora overtures – and the Grand Concerto Gastronomique for eater, waiter, food and orchestra.
The light-music side of Arnold’s talent also shone through the sequence of suites of orchestral dances which saw him exploring the length and breadth of the British Isles. The collection began in 1950 and ’51 with the two sets of Four English Dances, whose tuneful appeal belies the reality that this ‘light music’ style is harder to bring off than it sounds. Five years later both sets became the basis of a ballet, Solitaire, by the rising young choreographer Kenneth Macmillan (Arnold supplied two additional numbers on request). Sets of Scottish and Cornish Dances appeared in the years that followed and, after Arnold’s breakdown and recovery, some Irish and Welsh Dances too.