1946 in British music

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This is a summary of 1946 in music in the United Kingdom.

Events

February – Kathleen Ferrier's recording contract with Columbia Records expires, and she transfers to Decca.
21 March – Swedish premiere of Peter Grimes, the opera's first performance outside the UK, in Stockholm.^[1]
June – George Formby is awarded the Order of the British Empire in the 1946 King's Birthday Honours List.^[2]
5 July – Michael Tippett arranges the first British performance of Monteverdi's Vespers at Morley College, adding his own organ Preludio for the occasion.^[3]
6, 7 & 9 August – Leonard Bernstein conducts the first US performance of Peter Grimes at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood.^[4]

Popular music

Geraldo and his Orchestra – "We'll Gather Lilacs" (Ivor Novello)
Archie Lewis and The Geraldo Strings – "I Dream of You (More Than You Dream I Do)"
"It's A Pity To Say Goodnight" – (Billy Reid)

Classical music: new works

Malcolm Arnold – Symphony for Strings, Opus 13
Edmund Rubbra – Cello Sonata, Opus 60
Michael Tippett – Little Music for String Orchestra
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, co-arranged with Joseph Cooper
William Walton – String Quartet No. 2 in A minor

Opera

Benjamin Britten – The Rape of Lucretia

Film and Incidental music

William Alwyn – I See a Dark Stranger, starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard.
John Ireland – The Overlanders.
Alan Rawsthorne – The Captive Heart, starring Michael Redgrave.

Musical theatre

7 March – The London production of Song of Norway opens at the Palace Theatre and runs for 526 performances.
19 December – Noël Coward's new musical Pacific 1860 opens at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring Mary Martin and Graham Payn.

Musical films

Gaiety George, released July 22, starring Richard Greene and Ann Todd.
I'll Turn to You, directed by Geoffrey Faithfull, starring Terry Randall and Don Stannard
The Laughing Lady, directed by Paul L. Stein, starring Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth
London Town, released September 30, starring Sid Fields, Greta Gynt, Petula Clark, Kay Kendall and Sonny Hale and featuring Tessie O'Shea and Beryl Davis.
The Magic Bow, directed by Bernard Knowles, starring Stewart Granger and Phyllis Calvert

Births

3 January – John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin)
6 January – Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) (died 2006)
10 January – Aynsley Dunbar, drummer and songwriter
22 January – Malcolm McLaren, impresario and founder of the Sex Pistols (died 2010)
7 March – Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum)
21 March – Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry)
1 April – Ronnie Lane, singer, songwriter and guitarist (The Faces) (died 1997)
2 April – Raymond Gubbay, classical music promoter^[5]
4 April – Dave Hill, guitarist (Slade)
11 April – Bob Harris, DJ
10 May
- Donovan, folk singer
- Graham Gouldman, singer and songwriter (10cc)
- Dave Mason, singer-songwriter and guitarist (Traffic and Fleetwood Mac)
15 May – Aly Bain, Scottish fiddler (The Boys of the Lough)
16 May – Robert Fripp, guitarist, composer and record producer
18 May – Bruce Gilbert, guitarist (Wire and Dome)
15 June - Noddy Holder, singer and songwriter (Slade)
30 June - Giles Swayne, composer
19 July – Alan Gorrie, Scottish singer and bass player (Average White Band and Forever More)
23 July – Andy Mackay, saxophonist, oboist, and composer
10 August – Peter Karrie, star of West End musical productions
1 September – Barry Gibb, singer and songwriter
5 September – Freddie Mercury, singer (Queen) (died 1991)
23 September – Duster Bennett, blues singer and musician (died 1976)^[6]
28 September – Helen Shapiro, singer
14 October
- Justin Hayward, guitarist, singer and songwriter (The Moody Blues)
- Dan McCafferty (Nazareth)
29 October – Peter Green, guitarist and singer
8 November – Roy Wood, singer and songwriter (The Move, Wizzard)
11 November – Chip Hawkes, vocalist and guitarist (The Tremeloes)
24 November – Bev Bevan, drummer (Electric Light Orchestra, Black Sabbath)
1 December – Gilbert O'Sullivan, singer-songwriter
10 December – Ace Kefford, bass player
12 December – Clive Bunker, drummer (Jethro Tull, Electric Sun, Solstice, and Aviator)
14 December – Jane Birkin, French-based actress and singer (died 2023)
16 December – Trevor Pinnock, harpsichordist and conductor
29 December – Marianne Faithfull, singer and actress

Deaths

29 January – Sidney Jones, conductor and composer, 84^[7]
20 February – Hugh Allen, organist and choral conductor, 76^[8]
13 March – Thomas Dunhill, composer and music writer, 69^[9]
13 April – W. H. Bell, composer and conductor, 72^[10]
1 May
- Edward Bairstow, organist and composer, 71^[11]
- Percy Whitlock, organist and composer, 42 (tuberculosis)^[12]
16 October – Sir Granville Bantock, composer, 78^[13]
10 November – Nicholas Gatty, composer and music critic, 72
5 December – Tom Clare, music hall singer and pianist, 70
15 December – Frederic Norton, composer, 77

References

^ Mitchell, Donald (ed) (2004). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 3 1946–51. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22282-X. p. 137
^ Whitcomb, Ian (2012). Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Age. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Books. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4584-1654-4.
^ Cole, Suzanne (2013). "Things that really interest ME: Tippett and Early Music". In Gloag, Kenneth and Jones, Nicholas. The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–67. ISBN 978-1-107-60613-5. p. 59
^ Mitchell, Donald (ed) (2004). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 3 1946–51. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22282-X. p. 207
^ "Birthdays", The Guardian, p. 37, 2 April 2014
^ Mojo4music.com Archived 2013-06-16 at the Wayback Machine
^ Alan Hyman (1 January 1978). Sullivan and his satellites: a survey of English operettas 1860-1914. Chappell. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-903443-24-1.
^ Maggie Humphreys; Robert Evans (1 January 1997). Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. A&C Black. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7201-2330-2.
^ Gerald Norris (June 1981). A musical gazetteer of Great Britain & Ireland. David & Charles. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-7153-7845-8.
^ Maggie Humphreys; Robert Evans (1 January 1997). Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. A&C Black. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-7201-2330-2.
^ Melvin P. Unger (17 June 2010). Historical Dictionary of Choral Music. Scarecrow Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8108-7392-6.
^ David Mason Greene (1985). Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers. Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd. p. 1329. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6.
^ Jürgen Schaarwächter (27 February 2015). Two Centuries of British Symphonism: From the beginnings to 1945. A preliminary survey. With a foreword by Lewis Foreman. Volume 1. Georg Olms Verlag. p. 510. ISBN 978-3-487-15227-1.

[1] Mitchell, Donald (ed) (2004). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 3 1946–51. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22282-X. p. 137

[2] Whitcomb, Ian (2012). Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Age. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Books. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4584-1654-4.

[3] Cole, Suzanne (2013). "Things that really interest ME: Tippett and Early Music". In Gloag, Kenneth and Jones, Nicholas. The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–67. ISBN 978-1-107-60613-5. p. 59

[4] Mitchell, Donald (ed) (2004). Letters From A Life: Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Vol. 3 1946–51. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22282-X. p. 207

[5] "Birthdays", The Guardian, p. 37, 2 April 2014

[6] Mojo4music.com Archived 2013-06-16 at the Wayback Machine

[7] Alan Hyman (1 January 1978). Sullivan and his satellites: a survey of English operettas 1860-1914. Chappell. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-903443-24-1.

[8] Maggie Humphreys; Robert Evans (1 January 1997). Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. A&C Black. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7201-2330-2.

[9] Gerald Norris (June 1981). A musical gazetteer of Great Britain & Ireland. David & Charles. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-7153-7845-8.

[10] Maggie Humphreys; Robert Evans (1 January 1997). Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland. A&C Black. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-7201-2330-2.

[11] Melvin P. Unger (17 June 2010). Historical Dictionary of Choral Music. Scarecrow Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8108-7392-6.

[12] David Mason Greene (1985). Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers. Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd. p. 1329. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6.

[13] Jürgen Schaarwächter (27 February 2015). Two Centuries of British Symphonism: From the beginnings to 1945. A preliminary survey. With a foreword by Lewis Foreman. Volume 1. Georg Olms Verlag. p. 510. ISBN 978-3-487-15227-1.

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1946 in British music

Contents

Events

Popular music

Classical music: new works

Opera

Film and Incidental music

Musical theatre

Musical films

Births

Deaths

See also

References