Charles William Eric Fogg (21 February 1903 – 19 December 1939) was an English composer, conductor and
BBC broadcaster. His early works were influenced by
Igor Stravinsky,[1] though his later pieces owe more to
Granville Bantock and
Richard Strauss and even
William Walton. Much of his music has been lost.[2]
Fogg started composing very early and his output was considerable. An early version of his orchestral work Sea Sheen received its first run through by an amateur orchestra in
Colne as early as 1917, with the fourteen year old composer conducting. However, two years later he burned most of his early compositions and started again.[4] Despite this, by 30 March 1920 some 25 of his works were ready to be given a hearing at a British Music Society event. By the age of 18 his catalogue numbered some 57 works.[3]
Career
Fogg's name first reached a wider audience when he appeared at a Queen's Hall Prom concert on 21 September 1920 to conduct his Golden Butterfly ballet suite, op 40.[5] On 16 June 1921, his "Chinese suite" The Golden Valley (1919) was premiered by
Adrian Boult with the
Queen's Hall Orchestra at the
Royal College of Music, in the same concert as the first and only performance of
Ivor Gurney's War Elegy.[6]
He joined the
BBC in Manchester in 1924 as an accompanist, rising to assistant music director under T H Morrison.[7] In the 1930s he was well known as "Uncle Eric" of the radio programme Children's Favourites. He succeeded
Archie Camden as the conductor of the Manchester Schoolchildren's Orchestra.[2] In 1934 he moved to
London and became musical director of the BBC's Empire Service (now the
BBC World Service), where he founded the Empire Orchestra of 22 players in December 1934.[8]
After this time his composition work tailed off due to pressure of other work, which included conducting the Empire Orchestra five times a week, mostly in the early mornings and late at night.[4] In 1935 he conducted the orchestra in the first performance of
Peggy Glanville-Hicks's Sinfonietta in D minor for small orchestra.[9]
Death
Eric Fogg died on 19 December 1939, when he either fell or jumped under the wheels of a train at
Waterloo Station in London. He had been on his way to
Brighton for his second wedding.[8] The coroner delivered an open verdict, however his death is often described as
suicide.[10]
Music
Fogg's music attracted differing opinions and even some hostility during his lifetime. Some critics felt that he was too modernistic, but others complained that he did not wholeheartedly encompass modernism.[2] It soon fell from the repertoire, but of recent years his music has started to be performed once more, and recorded.
Sea Sheen: An Idyll, Op. 17 (1920) was written before his study with Granville Bantock. It is possible that it is the same as the Idyll heard at Bournemouth on 24 March 1919.[2] It exists in both piano[11] and orchestral versions, the latter recorded by the BBC Midland Light Orchestra conducted by
Gilbert Vinter, and more recently by the
BBC Concert Orchestra under
Gavin Sutherland.[12]
The tone poem Merok (1929), in the form of variations on a Norwegian folk song, refers to a village in Western Norway at the head of the
Geiranger Fjord. It was recorded for the first time by the BBC Concert Orchestra under
Vernon Handley.[3][12] A new recording by the
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by
Rumon Gamba, was issued by
Chandos Records in September 2019.[13] Gamba describes the work as showing "restrained beauty and a certain melancholy by using shifting, unexpected harmonies and constantly altering the placement of the melody within the orchestra – most hauntingly at the end where the bass clarinet disappears into the misty fjord..."[14]
The original score for the choral and orchestral work The Seasons (words by
William Blake)[1] was either lost or destroyed.[15] It was premiered at the
Leeds Festival in 1931, in the same concert as the premiere of
William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, where it was inevitably overshadowed.[16] To celebrate the centenary of Fogg's birth, a new score was prepared, and the work was performed by the Broadheath Singers and the Windsor Sinfonia conducted by Garry Humphreys at
St Mary's Parish Church, Slough, on 13 September 2003.[15] It received another performance on 25 March 2006, with the
BBC Philharmonic and the Leeds Festival Chorus under Simon Wright, which was (apparently erroneously) described as "the first performance in 75 years".[8][15] A non-commercial recording exists.
The Bassoon Concerto in D (1931), written for
Archie Camden and premiered by him with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer on 20 August 1931 at the Queen's Hall[17] was recorded by
Graham Salvage with the
Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Gavin Sutherland in 2001. It is the most substantial orchestral score of his to have survived.
^Fogg, Eric (23 July 1920).
"Sea-sheen, op. 17: an idyll for piano". Asherberg, Hopwood & Crew ; Chappell & Co. Retrieved 23 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia (new catalog).