Anthony Scott (organist)

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Anthony (Leonard Winstone) Scott (1911 – 6 November 2000) was a British composer, organist and organ restorer, born in Datchet, Berkshire. He studied at the Royal College of Music; composition with Herbert Howells and organ with Henry Ley. He also studied privately with Gerald Finzi, between 1937 and around 1940, for which Finzi refused to take any fee. According to Joy Finzi, these lessons 'meant days talking and walking'.

Some of Scott's early works were published by Oxford University Press, including a Prelude and Fugue for organ, which was dedicated to Finzi, and a few other works were published by Novello & Co. and (later) Boosey & Hawkes. During the Second World War, Scott served with the Royal Air Force as a navigator in bomber command. Following the war, Scott continued to share his work with Finzi informally.

Anthony Scott was encouraged by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who sought both to promote his work and to obtain commissions for him. Basil Ramsey, who was at the time Director of Publications at Novello & Co., recalls an occasion when Vaughan Williams, at Scott's invitation, attended a rehearsal of Scott's Sinfonietta for strings, in 1951. Ramsey writes: 'The great man sat with a score and followed the vigorous, contrapuntal writing to its final chord with full attention. He then turned to Scott and said "Goodness, that's the Grosse Fuge with knobs on!" So unexpected was the remark that Scott just gave a huge grin.' Vaughan Williams sent the score to the Boyd Neal Orchestra in November 1951 in an attempt to interest them in the work.

In 1953 Anthony Scott's Chorale Variations for orchestra — a set of variations based on a 17th-century German chorale melody — was premièred at the Three Choirs Festival. In the 1956 he also composed the incidental music for a BBC radio play by Veronica Henriques, 'By Air'. He is known to have composed two one-act operas.

As an organist and an organ builder/restorer, Anthony Scott was involved with the Berkshire Organists Association. He is known to have been responsible for the maintenance of organs at Peasemore, Wickham, and Lambourn, amongst others. In 1953 he is noted in a review of the Three Choirs Festival performance as being organist of Old Windsor Church.

Works

(Known works, not a complete list.)

• Fantasia for string orchestra (1936)
• Prelude and Fugue for organ (published by Oxford University Press, 1948)
• Violin Concerto (c. 1950; first tried through with piano in private by Yfrah Neaman and Howard Ferguson at the flat of Ursula Wood; first performed with orchestra in a public rehearsal at Leeds Town Hall by Frederick Grinke (violin) and the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, cond. Maurice Miles, 24 June, 1953.)
• Sinfonietta for string orchestra ([?c.1951]. Published Novello & Co., 1955)
• Almighty Word. Anthem on a tune by Tallis for choir & organ to words by Sylvia Barrett. ([1953]. Published Oxford University Press; a work proposed by Alan Frank of OUP and written by Scott at the suggestion of Ralph Vaughan Williams.)
• Chorale Variations for orchestra (first performance: Three Choirs Festival, 1953, London Symphony Orchestra, cond. Herbert Sumsion)
• Hymn–Anthem: Almighty Word, Immortal Love (performed Three Choirs Festival, 1956 and 1965)
• Incidental music, 'By Air: an impression of a passenger flight'. Radio play by Veronica Henriques with organ music played and composed by Anthony Scott. Broadcast on the BBC Home Service, Tuesday 4 December 1956. The 11th in a series of programmes titled 'Writing for Sound'.
• Here we bring new water: a New Year Carol for choir and piano. (Published Novello & Co., 1958.)
• Toccata and Fugue in A minor for organ. (Published Novello & Co., 1959.)
• The Love Song of Har Dyal for choir & piano (Words: Rudyard Kipling. Published Novello & Co., 1966.)
• Sinfonia for piano and orchestra (1964; first performed 29 September 1970, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from The Assembly Rooms, City Hall, Cardiff.)
• Allegro and Ricercare for two pianos (1969; first broadcast performance by Robert and Joan South, BBC Radio 3, 8 April 1971.)
• The C Sharp Side: Anyone Might Call (opera in one act; date unknown)
• Concertino for organ and strings (date unknown)
• Easter (Marriage anthem for choir & organ. Words: George Herbert ('I got me flowers'). Published by Boosey & Hawkes, 1973.)
• Lullaby (Song for voice and piano. Published Boosey & Hawkes, 1976.)
• Four songs from 'The Princess' (Words: Alfred Lord Tennyson. Voice and piano. Published Boosey & Hawkes, 1977. First broadcast performance, Ian Partridge and Clifford Benson, BBC Radio 3, 10 July 1985.)
• Three Preludes on old hvmn tunes. (Date unknown. Included in a recital by Philip Moore at Guildford Cathedral, broadcast on Radio 3, 19 April 1978.)
• Three Wilfred Owen Songs : 'Futility'; 'At a Calvary near Ancre'; 'Le Christianisme'. (First performance: Ian & Jennifer Partridge, broadcast from BBC Pebble Mill, BBC Radio 3, 14 November 1986.)
• Five Dylan Thomas Songs : 'This bread I break'; 'Here in this spring'; 'In my craft or sullen art'; 'The conversation of prayer'; 'Ears in the turrets hear'. (First performance: Ian & Jennifer Partridge, broadcast from BBC Pebble Mill, BBC Radio 3, 14 November 1986)
• Introduction and Fugue for orchestra. (Date unknown.)

Reputation and Posthumous Performance

Anthony Scott apparently 'fell out with the music establishment' in 1982, following which he continued to write, but any music written between then and his death in 2000 remained in manuscript. In around 2013–2014, 'following a chance meeting with the composer's son', Scott's Violin Concerto was rediscovered in a chest of manuscripts in the Scott family home by Douglas Gowan, Director of Norfolk Concerts. Gowan arranged for the concerto to be given, performed by violinist Amelie Xiaojun Huang and the Anglia Ruskin Orchestra, at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, on 17 May 2014.

Further Reading

Anthony Scott at the British Music Collection: https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/composer/anthony-scott

Anthony Scott, 'Gerald Finzi as a Tutor of Composition'. The Clock of the Years: A Gerald and Joy Finzi Anthology, ed. Rolf Jordan (Chosen Press, 2007), 39–44.

'Anthony Scott' in Michael Kennedy and Joyce Bourne, The Oxford Dictionary of Music (Second edition. Oxford University Press, 1994), 792.

References

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