Prelude (Rubato – Andante)

Fantasy (Allegretto leggiero)

Chaconne (Andante).

Dyson came from a working class background in Halifax, West Yorkshire, the son of a blacksmith. Although from a poor family in the industrial north, Dyson’s parents were musical and encouraged him as an organist in the local church. The young Dyson became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of sixteen, and then went to the Royal College of Music with an open scholarship in 1900. At the RCM, Dyson became a pupil of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford then at the height of his influence as a composition teacher. Dyson transcended his family roots to become the voice of public school music, and in 1937 he became Director of the RCM. With no family income, Dyson needed to find a job, and thanks to the influence of his former Director at the RCM, Sir Hubert Parry, Dyson became the first Director of Music at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, soon moving to Marlborough College. The sudden and unexpected outbreak of war in 1914 changed his world and he joined up. After the war Dyson picked up the threads of his life almost where he left them in 1914, except that by now he was married. He returned to school mastering now at Wellington College, and was also one of the many new part-time staff that Sir Hugh Allen introduced at the RCM after the death of Parry.

In 1924 Dyson moved to Winchester College where he developed his career as a composer. For the 1933 Three Choirs Festival at Hereford he produced his choral work St Paul’s Voyage to Melita. The Blacksmiths was written for Leeds in 1934, and then Nebuchadnezzar for Worcester in 1935. There were also orchestral works, including the Prelude, Fantasy and Chaconne for cello and orchestra in 1936 and a symphony in 1938.

As a student Dyson had produced a romantic cello sonata which was lost for much of the composer’s life and has only recently come to light again. Thirty-two years later he completed the Prelude, Fantasy and Chaconne at Christmas 1935, and, dedicated to his daughter Alice, it received its first performance at Hereford played by Thelma Rice with Dyson himself conducting. The first movement forms into a simple ternary shape, singing a wayward reverie. In the Fantasy Dyson’s thistledown textures and scherzando instrumental writing presents the players considerable problems. The
Chaconne is a set of ground bass variations in 3/2 time building over the span of the movement to an imposing coda.

Lewis Foreman © 2024