Moeran, Ernest John

Ernest John Moeran – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

(b. Heston, UK, 31 December 1894 – d. Kenmare, Ireland,1 December 1950)

Allegro moderato p.1
Rondo – Vivace p.23
Lento p.62

In the early years of the twentieth century a number of young British composers, wishing to divest themselves of prevailing Germanic influences, looked either toward contemporary French music or to English folk music. This latter was still to be heard flourishing in some rural areas of Great Britain. Young composers attracted to it, to a greater or lesser extent, included such figures as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, Ivor Gurney, George Butterworth, and others that included Ernest John Smeed Moeran.

Moeran grew up in the fens of East Anglia in the remote coastal village of Bacton, where his father, of Irish descent, held the living of the parish church. His education followed the traditional path of upper-class boys: first prep and then public school. He was primarily self-taught in music up to his entering Uppingham, his public school, where he was fortunate to come under the aegis of Robert Sterndale Bennett, a fine musician and the grandson of Sir William Sterndale Bennett, a composer friend of Mendelssohn. Having acquired considerable ability in piano and violin playing during his time there, he enrolled at the Royal College of Music, studying composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. Here, he first became acquainted with the music of Elgar, Delius, and Sibelius. …

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