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The Cyril Scott Companion: Unity in Diversity ed. by Desmond Scott, Lewis Foreman, and Leslie De'Ath

2020; Music Library Association; Volume: 77; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.2020.0099

1534-150X

Christopher R. Little,

Historical Studies of British Isles

Reviewed by: The Cyril Scott Companion: Unity in Diversity ed. by Desmond Scott, Lewis Foreman, and Leslie De'Ath Christopher Little The Cyril Scott Companion: Unity in Diversity. Edited by Desmond Scott, Lewis Foreman, and Leslie De'Ath. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2018. [xxx, 722 p. ISBN 9781783272860 (hardcover), $48; ISBN 9781787446298 (ebook), price varies.] Music examples, illustrations, appendixes, catalogs, discography, bibliography, indexes. Cyril Scott lived to the age of ninetyone. He filled those years with productivity in fields as diverse as composition, performance, painting, poetry, drama, alternative medicine, humor, philosophy, and the occult. Scott nevertheless held to a philosophy that he felt vindicated his variety of interests, a philosophy first articulated in his book Man Is My Theme: A Study of National and Individual Conduct (London: Andrew Dakers, 1939) and later inscribed on his tombstone: "Unity in Diversity." "People who can only see one point of view, their own, be it religious or politi cal," he wrote, "are usually those who think with their emotions instead of their reason. There can be no such thing as a point of view common to all, for temperaments differ and circumstances differ. Therefore the wisest way to solve world-problems is to recognize the principle of Unity in Diversity" (Man Is My Theme, 66). This companion volume to the life and works of Cyril Scott shares the same motto. The product of three editors, it fills over seven hundred pages with chapters on Scott's life, musical works, and writings. These discussions take up two-thirds of the book's length. The remaining pages offer appendixes, a catalog, a discography, a bibliography, and indexes. There are both black-and-white and color-plate illustrations as well as many music examples. An editors' note (p. xxx) claims the Companion is not primarily an academic work, though the supplemental mate -rials are intended to become standard reference information for this composer. The large number of contributors to this volume provides a wide range of approaches to its subject. Contributors include Cyril Scott's son Desmond Scott (coeditor) and godson Rohinten Daddy Mazda; scholars Lewis Foreman (coeditor), Stephen Lloyd, Steven Martin, Richard Price, and Peter Atkinson; performers and composers Leslie De'Ath (coeditor), Valerie Langfield, Peter Dickinson, and Edmund Rubbra (posthumously); conductors Martyn Brabbins and Martin Yates; and national lecturer for the Theosophical Society in America, Kurt Leland. The Cyril Scott Companion is organized into four sections. A preface by Desmond Scott provides a brief biographical sketch. Highlights from the opening section of seven discussions placing Scott in context include Stephen Lloyd's description of when, where, and how Scott's fellow-student circle of friends, known as the "Frankfurt Group," began and how its [End Page 273] members (Scott, Percy Grainger, Roger Quilter, Henry Balfour Gardiner, and Norman O'Neil) maintained their friendship and mutual encouragement over the course of their lifetimes. Lloyd also pays fruitful attention to the impact that Grainger's suggestions, revisions, and own compositions had on Scott's music, as well as to Grainger's tireless championship of Scott's music throughout his life. In a brief but weighty chapter, Richard Price challenges the oftrepeated description of Scott as the "English Debussy," showing that the chromatic harmony of Scott's first mature works was his own invention. Claude Debussy's music became an "encouragement and an example," but Scott was no "mere imitator" (pp. 44–45). Price goes further, arguing a connection between Scott's experiments in rhythmic and metric irregularity in his 1909 piano sonata and Igor Stravinsky's innovations in melodic expansion and contraction in The Rite of Spring. This chapter in particular will encourage readers to rethink preconceived ideas about Cyril Scott's musical style. Lewis Foreman cites the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) Written Archive Centre to trace how its internal reviewers rejected more and more often Scott's larger works when submitted for broadcast consideration. Similarly, Peter Atkinson, in a chapter on Scott's reception in Britain and abroad, confirms that the BBC's judgment of Scott was not an isolated case. Atkinson presents press reviews of Scott from Britain, the United States, and continental Europe, following the trajectory of Scott's career: an early reputation as...