Conversations with Marjorie Stevenson: Reflecting on Life with Composer Ronald Stevenson
A few years ago, I was invited to an exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh of portraits by the celebrated artist, Victoria Crowe. I knew of her primarily as a landscape painter, particularly of scenes from the Scottish Borders, exhibiting a range of colours and atmospheres unique in my experience. She had produced a fantastic group of portraits of the most important people in the arts and science in Scotland. There were fascinating portraits of people I had heard of, and several of whom I knew nothing. One of these was of Thea Musgrave the composer, and it had been suggested that I could perhaps sing a recital in the Portrait Gallery of some of her music, to accompany the exhibition. As it turned out, Ms Musgrave had written virtually nothing for the bass voice, but I was intrigued to discover a portrait of the distinguished, but little-known composer, Ronald Stevenson, who it turned out had written a vast number of songs, mostly unknown.
Intrigued, I did some research about Mr Stevenson, only to find that he had died in 2015 at the age of 87, but that his widow, Marjorie, was living in West Linton and would be happy to meet me. I drove down to West Linton and discovered a marvellous lady who was determined to keep the memory of her husband and his work alive. In the course of our conversation, I found out that Ronald had been first and foremost a virtuoso pianist, one of the finest of his generation, and that his playing had led him to composition, firstly for piano, but then for many different combinations of instrument and voice, and particularly for voice and piano. Marjorie kindly gave me armfuls of scores of songs, along with suggestions of what might suit me. She showed me Ronald’s studio, with his piano, where he had worked with some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. The room was full of photographs of Ronald with famous musicians and poets, and it became apparent to me that for some reason this man had been enormously important and yet was virtually unknown. His most famous work, the “Passacaglia on DSCH”, for solo piano, written in 1960/62, (based on a ground bass of 13 notes, derived from the notes D-E flat-C-B, which is the German transliteration of the initials of the great Russian composer, Dmitry Shostakovich) is a monumental work, lasting well over an hour, and is one of the longest single unbroken movements in musical history.
After meeting Marjorie a few times, and finding her a fount of knowledge both about Ronald, but also about the many fascinating people who visited their home in West Linton, I decided to take my friend Peter Haigh, with whom I have made many recordings over the last 20 years, and who recorded my CD in 2020, to Marjorie’s home to record an informal interview with her. Peter set up our microphones in Marjorie’s lovely sitting room, and let the tapes run, with me prompting her with questions and suggestions and she remembering stories, anecdotes and conversations from the past, all delivered in her delightful Lancastrian accent, which she has never lost, even after more than 60 years in Scotland.
What follows is an edited version of our conversation, which lasted well over two hours, and could have gone on for several hours more, such is the clarity of her memory and the fluency of her speech. This exclusive interview for the Edinburgh Music Review will reveal a fascinating story of a rich life, both culturally and socially, which deserves to be better known, as does Ronald’s music. Although he was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, his family was probably originally Scottish, he lived most of his adult life in Scotland, and he considered himself a Scottish composer. It is one of the tragedies of Scottish life that we do not properly acknowledge our cultural heroes, somehow always feeling that we are not good enough. I hope that this interview will redress the balance somewhat, and that in the future we will be able to see how important Ronald Stevenson was in the history of Scottish music, and Scottish culture in general.
Since writing this Introduction, Igor Levit’s recording of Ronald Stevenson’s ‘Passacaglia on DSCH’ (Sony Music Classical) has won several awards, and Igor Levit was named Gramophone Artist of the Year 2020. My recording, entitled ‘Songs of Stevenson’ (BBS Records), of two of Ronald Stevenson’s song cycles, ‘Songs from Factories and Fields’ (words by Hugh MacDiarmid) and ‘Hills of Home’ (words by Robert Louis Stevenson), as well as songs by F G Scott, and Vaughan Williams’ ‘Songs of Travel’, is available from Birnam CD and Amazon.
I started off by asking Marjorie about the extraordinary way Ronald found himself in prison just after the end of World War Two.
MS: Well, of course, Ronald was too young to fight in the war, as he was only 17 when the war ended. However, every young man was called up to do National Service, and Ronald had said, from a very early age, that he would not learn to kill anyone. I have here a document that he wrote, in what I would describe as mature schoolboy handwriting, listing the reasons he gave the tribunal on National Service why he could not in all conscience take part. He had to write down all his reasons, at the age of 17, even before he was eligible to be called up. Since he was at the Royal Manchester College of Music, his call up was deferred, but as soon as he had finished, he was expected to join the armed forces, so, at 20, he went before a tribunal at the Liverpool Court.
BBS: And they wouldn’t accept his reasons?
MS: No! No! No! You know, it’s interesting the way young men were treated, between the different counties. In the North, since it was working class and more heavily populated, they wanted to make an example of them, because it didn’t look good to let them off. For example, he had a friend in Sussex, who didn’t get treated the same way. The treatment was regional, and the regional courts took different views.
BBS: He was actually sent to prison, wasn’t he? For how long?
MS: It was for six months. The Quakers tried to help people like Ronald, as individuals had no clout whatsoever, and they tried to stand up for people with strong views, but to no avail.
BBS: And was he in a prison with murderers and rapists and the like?
MS: Yes, to start with, in Birmingham, which of course was quite wrong, as he was a civil offender, not a criminal offender. It was all wrong, and there were far too many of them in one cell. He was taken with another chap, from Liverpool to Birmingham in handcuffs, which was terrible. He was in Winson Green for a bit, and then moved to Wormwood Scrubs for the rest of the time. It’s incredible to imagine this happening to a young man who was a conscientious objector, not a criminal!
Michael Tippett had been in Wormwood Scrubs during the war, and Ronald corresponded with Michael for advice about the “agricultural option”, for when he came out of prison, and had to do the remainder of the National Service on a farm near Blackburn. He was happy to do hospital work, or go down the mines, or the agricultural option, which was where he was sent. I don’t think the authorities really had much idea, they didn’t care where they were put, but Ronald worked on a farm. Michael Tippett knew of a pacifist farm in Essex, and so that’s where Ronald went first, and a bit later, he managed to get on a farm near Blackburn, digging and draining. I remember one weekend he took me on a bus to Chorley where the farm was, and he was really proud of the field that he had drained! He completed his two years at that farm, but it was good to be able to live at home, where he could practice his piano playing.
BBS: So, was he already composing, or was he just playing the piano?
MS: Well, of course, all this completely stymied his career. You know an instrumentalist needs to practice all the time, and obviously in prison, that wasn’t possible. In fact, his composition and his playing went together completely. One fed into the other. He would write innovatory things, which required him to develop innovatory things on the keyboard.
BBS: Was he recognised as a prodigy then?
MS: No I don’t think so, but people round about thought he was good, but didn’t really know much. Ronald and I were second cousins, and we were all mill workers or children of mill workers, with no real experience of fine music, and the colleges themselves were very unformed and didn’t know how to prepare anyone for life after college. In fact, because of the war, many of the teachers were refugees themselves (indeed it was wonderful that they survived and were there), and they had to look after themselves, because they had nothing either. What could you do after college? Win a competition, or maybe go to university and become a pedagogue.
BBS: I gather that Ronald’s father was from Scotland?
MS: Well, actually, no. That’s one of the myths. It was assumed that the grandfather, or even the great grandfather was from the Kilmarnock area, but no one ever really proved that. In fact his grandmother on his mother’s side was Welsh, and his Cambrian Cantos for harp were dedicated to her.
BBS: But Ronald himself felt drawn to Scotland somehow?
MS: Yes, very much so. Of course, Ronald and I were the first generation of either family to get an education, with the Labour Government after the War pushing for health and education.
BBS: When did you and Ronald meet?
MS: I remember the day. It was April 12th, 1947. Our families knew each other. Ronald’s family was in Blackburn, but my family must have migrated to Nelson, about twenty miles away! Ronald was 19 and he was giving his first public recital in St George’s Hall, Blackburn. My aunt knew about this, and because I was playing the piano, and loved music, she told my parents that I ought to go to this concert. She took me to Blackburn, where we had tea with Ronald and his family, and then he went off to the Hall, and my aunt and I followed on for the concert. I was quite amazed. I was struggling to play some Chopin, but when I heard him, and this was my first recital, it was extraordinary.
BBS: Can you remember what he played?
MS: Oh yes, I still have the programme. It was a historical recital from Bach to the Romantics, and it was what you might call a very thorough programme, from Bach, through Mozart and Beethoven, right through to Chopin.
BBS: And so, you were smitten?
MS: Yes, I was smitten - with his piano playing; but he said, he was smitten – with me! I was fifteen! I went on occasion to see him at college in Manchester, and met his friends, and I heard some of his recitals there. He must have said something cheeky to my mother, and things got difficult. I didn’t get on with my mother myself, but he should have kept his mouth shut. The relationship with my parents deteriorated and I was forbidden to see him, which of course didn’t work. His friends at college and my friends at school (I was in the Sixth Form by now) collaborated in all kinds of clandestine things to meet, to arrange meetings and the like. I left home eventually at 17 and went to Dartington Hall, where I spent two years, and I broke off from my parents and never saw them again. They went to New Zealand, and that was that!
Life was very hard for us at the start. Ronald had to become a music teacher, and many councils in England refused to employ conscientious objectors, especially the southern counties, but Northumberland did. He got a job in a mining town in that county, but life was hard, and it was all terribly drab after the War, for about ten years. Mind you, Ronald was perfect to teach there, as he himself came from a working class background. It wasn’t easy to teach a bunch of teenagers, especially boys, but he could always silence them with his piano playing. The music of Percy Grainger came in very handy, as he always wanted to collect and transcribe folk songs. This appealed to Ronald as well, and it gave him a hold over the rough boys at the school, who would react better to folk than classical music. Grainger had come to Europe from Australia, and was taught in Frankfurt by Iwan Knorr, who was an influential figure, and with Cyril Scott, Roger Quilter and others. Grainger was part of the Frankfurt Group. Apparently, Grainger was put forward for the Mendelssohn Prize, but announced that if awarded, he would use the prize to study Chinese Folk music. Knorr announced that the prize was not awarded for idiots! At this time, Chinese music was seen as very alien, but it showed that Grainger was keen to follow a different path.
BBS: How did Ronald discover Grainger?
MS: I’m not sure. Oh, yes, now I remember. You know, of course, that Ronald’s special love was for Busoni’s music, and his whole personality, his pedagogy. Ronald’s edition of Busoni with footnotes that are almost like lectures, included his piano exercises, which were not like normal exercises, but used other composers’ music in a creative way. His pedagogy was creative. You could almost say, and I do say, that Ronald was a posthumous pupil of Busoni. He used Busoni to hone his own technique. He used Bach’s two part inventions, but played them in every key, from memory, with the same fingering. He did this as an exercise, like doing press-ups, or something! So really, although Ronald was self-taught, he learned posthumously from Busoni.
BBS: So how did Grainger fit into all this?
MS: Yes, going back to Grainger. Ronald read everything about Busoni and all his connections, and he would read up about the connections too. He was going to write a biography of Busoni, in fact, he wrote several chapters, and I typed them all up. In fact, I typed all Ronald’s writings, his notes, his lectures and all his broadcast talks etc. So he discovered that Percy Grainger went to Busoni to study, and that is how Ronald picked up on Grainger, and then he researched Grainger himself, and ended up teaching rough miners’ sons about him, through his interest in folk music, and that captured the boys’ imaginations.
BBS: I wanted to ask you about a singer associated with Ronald. I am learning a song cycle of Ronald’s, “Songs of Quest” which seem to have been written for a baritone, Francis Loring. Who was he?
MS: I have absolutely no idea where he came from. He was some sort of aristocrat, a baronet or some such. Now, Ronald had a student, a very nice man, who was keen on song writing, he was a doctor of tropical medicine, and he was the head of the Hospital for the Kuwait Oil Company, John Guthrie. His father, or it may have been grandfather, was one of the Glasgow Boys, the artists, you know. He was fascinated by song writing, and Ronald helped him in his composition. He was very interested in the poet, Lorca, and it was John who knew Francis Loring.
BBS: I found a few extracts of Loring on YouTube, mainly Schubert, with Paul Hamburger playing the piano. A nice voice, quite light, a high baritone.
MS: Yes, they played the songs in London and then Vienna, but nothing really came of it. Ronald never passed an opinion on Francis Loring. He tended not to criticise, he was more of an encourager, but I don’t think the critics were particularly kind to Loring. It was a commission, you know, but Ronald chose the words. He would only set poems he wanted to set himself. Francis Loring’s wife was a sculptor, and she made a very fine bust of the singer Joseph Hislop, which is, I think, in one of the alcoves in the Usher Hall. He was a Scottish tenor, who had a decent career, and then taught singing. His most famous pupil was Jussi Bjőrling! He also taught Francis Loring , who wanted to commission a song cycle from Ronald. Ronald loved the poetry of John Davidson, and he suggested Davidson's Songs of Quest.
BBS: These commissions, did they bring in much money?
MS: No, not really. Ronald wasn’t really bothered. He didn’t need a commission to get him going! When he had an idea, he would just write!
BBS: On a different track, Marjorie, although you are both from Lancashire, was it a conscious decision to come to Scotland, and why?
MS: Yes, he wanted to come here. It was a very dreary existence, teaching in the mining villages in Northumberland. Mind you, he discovered a whole cupboard full of brass instruments in the school, and set about writing music for brass band, and getting the pupils involved. Anyway, he wanted to come here, and did the teacher training at Moray House – you had to do that if you came north of the border, even if you’d been teaching in England. It was at Moray House, on a noticeboard, that he saw an advertisement for a scholarship from the Italian government for study in Italy, and with his Busoni research, well, that changed his whole life! Also, he met some of the Scottish literary people. You must remember that Scotland is primarily a literary nation, rather than a musical one, except of course for the Gaelic tradition. Ronald always felt that the Gaelic melody was the jewel in the crown of Scottish music, but other than that, literature is far more prized here than music. You must remember that his first love was poetry, and this is why he considered his songs at least as important as his piano compositions His piano was his tool, and he was, of course, the master of that tool, but he used it to advance his song writing.
He met literary people in Scotland, and that sparked his interest.
BBS: Did you both come here at the same time?
MS: No, I had come the year before, staying in the YWCA in Inverleith. When he said that he was definitely going to come to Scotland, I found two rooms at the top of a tenement. We weren’t married yet, but his parents sent his piano. In Northumberland, he had been practising on the school piano until all hours. The headmaster used to do his paperwork in the evening, listening to Ronald at the piano, and eventually, because Ronald was living in the headmaster’s house, he would say,” Come along, Mr Stevenson Lad, time for bed!”.
There were all sorts of complications. Ronald had to stay at first n the YMCA, because you had to have some residential time in Scotland before you could get married. A lot of people thought I ran away to get married, but actually we didn’t get married till I was 20. I’d been at Dartington, and then I spent some time in Edinburgh working in a factory, at Ferranti’s. I didn’t see Ronald much then, especially when he was in Northumberland, and I couldn’t get married in England without my parents’ permission, which they wouldn’t give!
Eventually, he got a job in Edinburgh, having had to go through the course at Moray House first, but he taught at most of the big schools. He taught at Watson’s and at Heriot’s, as a peripatetic teacher, and other Merchant Company schools.
BBS: Ah, I went to Watson’s myself. A little bit later, mind you.
MS: Well, I suppose that must have been 1952, the year we were married. In 1954/55, he went away for six months to Italy, on his scholarship. I couldn’t afford to go with him, but when he came back, he returned to the teaching, and we moved to West Linton, to this house where we are sitting now. He had a permanent job at Broughton School, and it was through teaching that Ronald met so many of Scotland’s literary giants, many of whom were teachers. For example, Norman MacCaig was a teacher all his life, and actually MacDiarmid taught at Broughton too, for a short time.
BBS: Is it true that Ronald and Chris Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid) met on a bus? Is that right?
MS: Yes, on the Edinburgh to Biggar bus!
BBS: There are stories about lots of famous people coming here to West Linton. Were you and Ronald great entertainers?
MS: I wouldn’t say we were entertainers, no, but this house, well, it was like a revolving door! There was a chap, a composer, who had only corresponded with Ronald. They’d never met, but he expressed a desire to meet. Ronald said, yes, of course, but you’ll need to stay over, as the buses are hopeless at night. So he stayed five days! Ronald had to go into Edinburgh to the school, but he just hung around. I had the children and so on, but he just stayed. That was not uncommon! I mean, Leonard Friedman came here, he was a wonderful violinist, but he was impossible, you know. I’m sure he deliberately missed the last bus, on a number of occasions. That divan bed there has given a night’s sleep to I don’t know how many people!
BBS: So, did people like Menuhin and Peter Pears come here?
MS: Menuhin didn't. No. They worked together in Motherwell on a violin workshop with Motherwell High School, based around Ronald’s Violin Concerto, and then Menuhin conducted it in the concert hall in Glasgow, its first performance. His former student, Hu Kun, was the soloist. Menuhin had commissioned the concerto from Ronald. But Peter stayed here, oh yes.
BBS: Didn’t John Ogden come here often?
MS: Yes, he did. And MacDiarmid. It’s not as if we collected people, I wouldn’t like to give that impression at all.
BBS: No, no, far from it. For example, John Bellany wrote that he came, when he was unknown, tagging along with Alexander Moffat, and loved your hospitality/
MS: It was just that people used to come. You know, we were not well off or anything. I often try to remember what I used to give all these people who came to visit. I’ve no idea.
BBS: As long as there was wine and whisky flowing…
MS: No, I never had wine. We couldn’t afford wine. If there was any, they got it at the pub. I’m afraid that I couldn’t stand drunkenness, and he knew that – ha-ha! Of course, Ronald couldn’t really hold his drink. A couple of glasses were enough for him. We liked a gin and tonic on a Friday and a Saturday evening, and Ronald liked what he called his medicinal whisky before his lunch. He never got involved with the poets up in Edinburgh, or only very occasionally. They used to get together in Milnes Bar, the literary set. There is a photo of him with them, but it was a one off. You see, it was his profession. You can read a book or even write something while drinking, but you can’t drink and play the piano!
BBS: Or sing. You can’t sing and drink! But that was part of the deal with the poets?
MS: Yes, it was. They could never understand that. There was never drink flowing in this household. But it didn’t stop people coming, did it? It was the conversation they came for. Ronald didn’t need drink to get fired up. An espresso would get him talking! He was so stimulated and had so many ideas. Mind you, there were some people who didn’t like that and saw him as a threat. After a concert, people would say, it was an experience. You didn’t get a concert from Ronald; it was an experience!
BBS: So, when all these people were here, coming and going, did you take part in all the discussions, or did you sit quietly in a corner?
MS: No, no, I was far too busy preparing, and I had the children, and they brought their friends too! It was a vibrant household! The children went to Peebles High School, and their friends came round a lot. Ronald would always involve them in his music. He wrote his Clarinet Nocturne for Gerda’s friend, Jenny. She was just a schoolgirl! He arranged a children’s concert every Christmas for friends and their children, and he arranged music for them. He also arranged a concert each year, with our children and their friends at Garvald School, the school near here for children with learning disabilities.
He had a huge range of interests, especially practical music making. This was something that the literary people probably wouldn’t have been able to do, at all.
BBS: Now, I have a question for you. You spent two years in South Africa in the 60s. What took you from West Linton to Cape Town, at the height of the Apartheid regime, not a system which I would have imagined Ronald and you supporting?
MS: Yes, we spent two academic years in South Africa. I wrote an introduction to a book which hasn’t been published, talking about our experiences there. The book was going to be the correspondence between Ronald and Alan Bush, the composer. Alan was a communist and everything he wrote was to do with the workers’ or the peasants’ struggle. He was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, much older than Ronald. I wrote “Reflections on Apartheid South Africa” for that book.
We set out for South Africa in March 1963. We left Southampton on the Windsor Castle, and two weeks later, we arrived at Cape Town, where we were met by Professor Eric Chisholm, Director of Music at the South African College of Music and his wife, Lilias, who was the daughter of F G Scott, the composer. They invited us to stay with them while we found suitable accommodation, and their house in white middle class suburbia looked very like southern England. Walking round pushing my 2 year old daughter in her pushchair, vicious dogs would rush up to each garden gate, menacingly. It was common for postmen and tradesmen, all from the non-white community, to be attacked. I was told it was dangerous for a white woman to be walking around the suburbs, for fear of attack by black people. The only thing that worried me was the dogs! We had no car, unlike everyone else, so we used public transport. One of their staff houses on the campus became available, so we moved in there. We had no car, and no maid, nor did we need one! As children of working class parents ourselves, we had no interest in servants. Our neighbours, however, were quick to remind us that we were depriving a native woman of employment! We were horrified to discover that the concrete outhouse in the yard behind our house was for the servants, as no black or coloured person could stay in a white person’s house overnight! This was a sudden, and sickening, realisation of what Apartheid meant! Our two academic years in South Africa were an education for us, politically and humanly. Our elder daughter, then aged seven, couldn’t understand why there were no black girls at her school. We were often disturbed by our Afrikaans neighbour shouting to her children to get out of the sun. This was because she was paranoid that, if her children became too brown, they might find themselves classified as “Coloured” by the census.
BBS: Good grief! You couldn’t make it up!
MS: Apparently, there had been incidents where a darker complexioned child would be forced to leave their family. It was a shock to find park benches with signs painted on them – whites only! On buses, the front sections were white only, and, if a black person sat in one, the driver would call over a policeman to evict the miscreant. Similarly, on suburban trains, the last coach was for non-whites, and was invariably packed, but woe betide any black person trying to sit elsewhere. Beaches were segregated too. Black and “coloured” (mixed race) people had to go much further afield, lest they contaminate the water!
The South African government brought in a totally segregated education system by 1956 and by the time Ronald got there in 1963, there were almost no black or coloured students to be seen. Ronald took on some private students, but they dwindled away as they feared they were being watched leaving our house.
Hugh Tracy had been an advocate of ethno-musicology since the 1930s in Natal, and Professor Chisholm invited him to lecture at the South African College of Music. This intrigued and stimulated Ronald, reminding him of his studies of Percy Grainger. In addition, a new volume had just been published in Ghana about folk music there, and so Ronald was prompted to write his Ghanaian Folk Song Suite for piano solo. This two year stay in South Africa, although shocking in many ways, was a hugely formative experience for Ronald. His studies in Ethno-Musicology, and exposure to ethnic music, were very important in his compositions, especially the second piano concerto and the violin concerto. Correspondence with the composer Alan Bush in London, from South Africa, was also important for Ronald’s development, as with Grainger, Bush was a comrade in Art!
BBS: Was it the idea that the South African sojourn was a way to find out about African music directly?
MS: Yes, in a way. They needed a senior lecturer, and Eric Chisholm knew about Ronald and his work, and so, although it had to be advertised etc, they knew who they wanted, and so Ronald went out. I didn’t want to go, but Ronald hadn’t been too well, and I thought the weather might be good for him, plus the stimulation of African music. He said we don’t need to change our ideas, but let’s go and see first-hand what it’s like. It was a real education for us, and especially the children. They have never forgotten it!
When we came back, Ronald went entirely freelance, and, after setting up the West Linton Playgroup, unpaid, as the children became teenagers, I took up nursing.
BBS: On an entirely different tack, and going back to those Scottish poets, I’ve become quite interested in Hugh MacDiarmid. You and Ronald were good friends, as I understand it? Did they inspire each other, as it were?
MS: Well, yes. They didn’t see an awful lot of each other, as Ronald didn’t join in all the pub stuff in Rose Street. He couldn’t anyway. A lot of their work together was on the bus, or in correspondence, about the poems, or about Francis George Scott. Ronald did piano transcriptions of some of the songs that MacDiarmid and Scott wrote.
You know Sorabji, of course?
BBS: Well, no, not really. Was he the Anglo-Indian composer who wrote music from sets of miniatures to pieces lasting hours?
MS: Yes. Sorabji dedicated his Opus Clavicembalisticum to MacDiarmid, who had ranked him as one of the four greatest minds Britain had produced in his, MacDiarmid’s, lifetime. John Ogden had recorded it and, because he came here quite often to work with Ronald, he wanted to meet MacDiarmid, and they met here. The poet was very thrilled to receive the dedication from Sorabji, who was a critic and a polemicist, with a very barbed style. Of course, he hated when other critics didn’t like his music, and that’s why he banned the performance of a lot of his music. He was completely neurotic, especially about criticism. Ronald thought he would have been a better composer if he had listened to critics. He might have learned something, rather than dismissing all criticism as personal attacks.
MacDiarmid knew nothing of these things. He was just thrilled to be the dedicatee! He didn’t share political views with Sorabji. MacDiarmid was a communist and a Scottish nationalist, and each party threw him out! In the end, he stood against Judith Hart as a Labour candidate! He knew people like Bertrand Russell, but eventually, because of his drinking, he became something of a social liability. He was so disorganised. When I think of Ronald’s meticulousness, his beautiful calligraphy, they didn’t appreciate him at all, his genius. They weren’t on the same planet! The literary people were ignorant about music. They were illiterate musically, whereas the musicians were interested in both words and music. Ronald and F G Scott were fascinated by words and poetry. Francis Scott’s daughter, Lilias, said that her father had helped put MacDiarmid’s great ‘A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle’ together. It was all written on scraps of paper!
Ronald was a superb writer, as well as a fine composer. He was brought up the hard way, he had to plough his own furrow. He said: if you want a good performance, you have to have a good copy. No use coming with last minute corrections and scorings out.
BBS: From what you have just been saying, it seems to me, and I have found this through my own career, Ronald seems to have been a prophet without honour in his own country. It was almost as if the idea of a fine Scottish composer was invalid. Was he aware of this? Did it bother him?
MS: Yes, to a certain extent. He was always prepared to change his mind. He was amenable to having second thoughts about compositions if someone could explain a problem. He said at the end of his life, well, he felt that, as he had had a wonderful family life, that all the other stuff, it didn’t really bother him too much. What I mean is, he knew his own worth. He couldn’t have done what he’s done if he didn’t believe in his own ability. He was a slave to his art! If you hitch your wagon to his, as I did, you’ll be sacrificed at the same altar.
BBS: I wonder if perhaps he was living at slightly the wrong time. For example, nowadays, James MacMillan is “a famous Scottish composer!” He’s feted wherever he goes. I think he’s a reasonable composer, but he has achieved success in Scotland in a way that, sadly, Ronald never did. Would that be fair? Would he have been more successful now? What does success mean anyway?
MS: Possibly, but Ronald wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. MacMillan could become Master of the Queen’s Music or something like that, he’s a nice man, by the way. Ronald wasn’t bothered. Somebody started a campaign for Ronald to get an OBE. He refused it. Now if you refuse these things, you pay for it. They don’t ask you again! He was quite clear. He said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the British Empire. That is still, even at the present time, very relevant. I’m enormously proud of him for that. He was a pacifist. He didn’t want to kill anybody. He said that he would, if he had been old enough in the War, have been prepared to work hard in the Medical Corps against the horrors of Hitler, He wasn’t against defence, he was against aggression. He never talked about his beliefs while he was alive, but I know that is what he thought. He was a dilettante as far as politics was concerned. He thought for a time that the Soviet Union was a beacon for Socialism. He had a lot of conversations with Alan Bush, the composer and communist in London. The Communist Party wasn’t fit to wipe Alan’s boots. He was a man of great integrity, a wonderful man, but Ronald thought he spent far too much time and effort on politics. He was a Party Man, although he always warned Ronald away from any party himself. I think he may have realised that it had held him back, and he didn’t want that to happen with Ronald. He considered Ronald a genius, untouched by the stain of politics.
When the Soviet Union fell in 1989, Ronald went to visit Alan, who was in his 90s, and had some form of dementia. Ronald told him about the collapse of Communist Russia, and he wouldn’t believe him, didn’t want to believe it. All Alan’s students adored him, but his music was rarely heard. When Ronald wrote the Passacaglia, of course, Shostakovich was its dedicatee, and he was suffering with the Soviet Union himself. At the time, William Glock was the Head of the BBC and was a great champion of Serialism, Twelve Tone Music. Ronald said Serialism was like all the painters using only grey, with no colours. He knew that Shostakovich was being pushed from pillar to post in the Soviet Union, but Ronald was very confused at the time about what was happening there. He met Shostakovich here at the George Hotel in 1962 and presented him with the Passacaglia. A little later, he got invited to the composers’ symposium in Moscow. Alan Bush was not able to go, so he insisted Ronald went. I have a photo of them all in the Kremlin, with Madam Furtseva, Minister of Culture, looking very cross. Ronald had fallen asleep, you see. Shostakovich spoke to him a little in the George Hotel, haltingly, as his English was limited. He conducted his Festival Overture at the Usher Hall concert, and it was augmented by the Lochgelly Brass Band!
Ronald with Shostakovich at the George Hotel, 1962
BBS: Did Ronald and Shostakovich talk about the Passacaglia?
MS: A little bit. He said it looked very difficult! It has been played in Russia – Kenneth Hamilton played it. It’s being played a lot more now. Igor Levit has played it and it has been streamed since 2020 in his Hauskonzerte.
BBS: So, are you getting good royalties?
MS: I hope so!! I always plough the money back into typesetting Ronald’s works. It’s actually very little that you get in royalties, you know. There are no royalties from Russia, or China.
Now, just to go back to MacDiarmid for a moment. He had two personalities as far as I was concerned. He was very nice privately, but he seemed to have to be controversial publicly. His wife was like that as well. He saw himself as the irritant, the stirrer, as it were. Privately, he was very pleasant, and he had integrity.
BBS: But he was an outstanding poet.
MS: I don’t like the political stuff. Apart from anything, you can’t set it to music! For example Ronald set only the beginning of ‘Ae Gowden’ lyric; “Better a’e gowden lyric than the castle’s soaring waa, better a’e gowden lyric than onythin’ else avaa.” That’s what he set to music, for the next line is” better a’e gowden lyric than insurance, banking and law”. I do like the ‘Bonnie Broukit Bairn’. It’s still very relevant. Looking down at the planet Earth from space, the last line is: “But greet, an’ in your tears, ye’ll drown the hail clanjamfrie.” It’s one of the tenor songs, I think.
BBS: Marjorie, it has been an absolute delight chatting with you today, and it has been fascinating to get an insight into Ronald’s life and work, and indeed into your life too. It is abundantly clear that you were enormously important to him, and your stability and the family round him was a rock on which he could write his music.
MS: Yes, it was family that came first. I remember when I spoke at his funeral, I said: “He was a homing pigeon, and, when he’d been away, he always said the best place was Platform 1 at King’s Cross Station in London, where he got on the train to Edinburgh.
BBS: A final quick question. Listening to Ronald speaking on tape or TV, he seemed to have something of a Scottish accent. Did he consciously change? You still have a clear Lancashire accent to this day.
MS: Well, I don’t think he changed deliberately. He was always reading and quoting poetry. Even at school, he had a friend he used to walk to and from school with, and they were always quoting poetry to each other. He used to read poetry to me quite often. I suppose he was rather dominating! I never thought to say, if he was reading lots of things to me, would you mind shutting up for a bit. I didn’t mind at all! I was always interested, and I was soaking it all up. I think that may have been how he acquired a Scottish accent, although very light.
I do remember when he started speaking on the BBC in the late 50s, he was told he had better smarten up his accent! They were all terribly proper. I don’t like slovenly speech, but an accent gives richness and colour. I was speaking to my daughter Gerda recently, and we were both saying that RADA, where she trained, had a lot to answer for. It’s thankfully all much better now.
Now, would you like another cup of tea?
