Inspired by the greatness of others

On December 11th at 7:30 PM at the Civic Auditorium in Idaho Falls, I will be conducting the Idaho Falls Symphony in their annual Christmas Concert. This program inspired me to think about something that I have thought about for a long time-the very precarious relationship between creativity and originality.

The work on this program that got me thinking was the Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson. The piece is utterly charming; the composer uses familiar Christmas Carols as the basis for each of the four movements, and he adds his own counterlines and harmonies, placing the familiar tunes in a setting that allows them to have the glow of familiarity and the feeling of hearing something fresh and new at the same time. The work does feel like a Symphony, even though the structure is somewhat unusual; the first movement is a kind of introduction-he calls it a "Prelude" (based on Adeste Fidelis, although the tune is never heard in its entirety) and it goes from there into a "Scherzo", although a Scherzo more in character than a traditional Scherzo. Based on the Carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" it alternates between 4/4 and 5/4 time, rather than the traditional fast triple meter for Scherzos. The slow movement that follows, based on the "Coventry Carol" and "The First Nowell", is the longest movement and the emotional heart of the piece. The finale starts with some of the original material that the composer used in the first movement, which then extends into the Carol "Now We Go A-wassailing" and ends with a glorious return of Adeste Fidelis-finally heard complete. Throughout the music is entertaining, beautifully scored and distinctive.

Although I have heard little of Hely-Hutchinson's other music, by all accounts his original music is dull and undistinguished. When working with other people's material-or when writing parody music-his "Old Mother Hubbard in the style of Handel' is very clever (we will be doing that piece on this concert as well)-he was creative, inventive and even original. But when faced with creating music out of whole cloth, as it were, he would freeze up, and write what has politely been described as "professional music"-competently composed and immediately forgettable.

Hely-Hutchinson is hardly the only composer who wrote his best music when freed from the shackles of the demand of originality. Tony Payne's contribution to the completion of the Elgar 3rd Symphony is a work of genius, easily his best work as a composer. Leopold Godowsky, like Payne, was a fine composer in his own right, but nothing he wrote compares to the sublime music he wrote in the finest of Studies on the Chopin Etudes.

I think this points out how complex and interesting a phenomenon originality is, and how counterproductive it is to condemn those who overtly stand on the shoulders of others to create wonderful music.

By the way, this program also contains arrangements of a number of carols that I have done myself-and these works, like the Hely-Hutchinson, contain a mixture of original and "borrowed" materials. I do not know if my arrangements are better than my original music, but I do know that these pieces were terrific fun to write!