George Dyson – Symphony (1937)

Sir George Dyson KCVO (28 May 1883 – 28 September 1964) was an English musician and composer. After studying at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, and army service in the First World War, he was a schoolmaster and college lecturer. In 1938 he became director of the RCM, the first of its alumni to do so. As director he instituted financial and organisational reforms and steered the college through the difficult days of the Second World War.

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Symphony in G major (1937)

I. Energico (0:00)
II. Andante (10:31)
III. Allegro risoluto – Molto moderato – L’istesso tempo – Allegro risoluto – Molto moderato – Vivace – Molto sostenuto – Poco andante – Poco allegretto –
Presto – Grazioso (22:10)
IV. Poco adagio – Andante – Allegro assai – Andante molto moderato (32:10)

City of London Sinfonia conducted by Richard Hickox

Details by J. Scott Morrison;
George Dyson (1883-1964), a composer whom I had strangely enough previously known only as the father of the great theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, was a Yorkshireman who early evinced intense musical talent and who arrived at the Royal College of Music at age 17 and went on to become its Director in 1937.

The Symphony in G Major’ from 1937 is in four movements and it begins with some clear influences from Sibelius — a current then rampant in English orchestral music (and we’re all the better for that) — but in a clearly English voice, with modal writing and frequent use of sextuple rhythms. The first movement, a sonata-allegro marked Energico, begins with a heiratic, vaulting theme that sets the tone for the movement. It is followed by a somber, lyrical but sometimes ghostly Andante that makes use of a slowly treading gait reminiscent, in a way, of Elgar. The Scherzo reminds one of the world of the ‘Tabard Inn’ (anticipating that work by six years) and has a courtly Renaissance feel in its use of modal themes and dance rhythms in 6/8 time. It is in several sections alternating fast and slow tempi, and one of the slow sections is a beautiful pensive passage with a memorable theme derived from the symphony’s opening moments. The Finale opens with somber brass chords and a string chorale and goes on to recapitulate much of the earlier music in the piece. Like the scherzo, it alternates fast and slow passages and culminates in a stately, ceremonial peroration that brings the 42-minute symphony to a satisfying completion. This work is surely the equal of Moeran’s G Minor Symphony, written at the same time, and although it lacks the modernity of the malice of Walton’s nearly contemporaneous First Symphony, that was never its intent.

J. Scott Morrison

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