H. Walford Davies
(1869-1941)
Solemn Melody
(for Strings and Organ)
(1908)
Transcribed for Organ Solo by
Ennis Fruhauf
[Available in the U.S.A. only]
Notes
H. (Henry) Walford Davies was born in
Oswestry, Shropshire on September 6, 1869. He trained in the choir of St.
George’s Chapel, Windsor, and was a student assistant to Walter Parratt. He
entered the Royal College of Musicians in 1890 with a scholarship in
composition and studied with Charles Parry and Charles Stanford.
Following several church appointments, Davies served as Organist and
Choirmaster at the Temple Church, London from 1898 to 1919. He was appointed
Director of Music for the Royal Air Force in 1918, and in 1919 he was named Professor of Music at the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, a post he held through 1926.
Davies was knighted in 1922 and
served as Organist of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor from 1927 to 1932. His
radio series, ‘Music and the Ordinary Listener’ was launched in 1926, the same
year he was named Gresham Professor of Music at the University of
London. In 1934 he became Master of the King’s Musick, succeeding
Edward Elgar. Davies died in Wrington, Somerset on March 11, 1941.
Solemn Melody was written in 1908 and
subsequently transcribed as an organ solo by John E. West. In more recent years it has
appeared in several other editions; in one of its rebirths it was arranged
as an anthem by H. A. Chambers on a text by Edith Dorothy
Pleydell-Bouverie, "Had we but hearkened to Thy Word."
This transcription is a departure
from the organ version by West in that it retains the hymn-like simplicity
of the original composition.
Solemn Melody opens with a brief introduction, then a sixteen-measure
compound phrase structure that is presented
first by cello, then repeated in