Stage — Ballet
The Incompetent Apothecary
Subtitle: A Breughel Comedy
- First Performance: one movement only, Dance of the Citizens, in Harrogate, Royal Hall, July 26, 1929, conducted by Cyril Scott
- Published 1923: Schott
- [40’ CS]
- Note: The first movement of Three Symphonic Dances, S.46 (qv), appears to have been intended for this ballet.
Karma: A Fantasy in Mime & Music in Five Pictures - Suite
Prologue Andante sostenuto [7p / 29b]
Picture I. Barbaric Dance Allegro - Adagio maestoso e sostenuto – Allegro - A little broader [29p / 116b]
Picture II. A Piper in the Desert Lento (- Much quicker - Lento) [18p / 68b (50b without middle section)]
Picture III. Song from the East Allegro non troppo / Lebhaft! - Molto maestoso – A tempo – Con molto spirit [21p / 90b]
Picture IV. Before the Church Adagio [95p / 18b (incomplete)]
Picture V. Souvenir de Vienne Andante sostenuto
- Dedication: André Charlot
- Instrumentation: Orch: 1.1.1.1 / 2.2.1.0 / perc / harm / cel / pf / strs
- The score calls for“Mustel & celeste”. Evidently Charlot had at his disposal both a Mustel harmonium and a celesta – probably also a Mustel. Written on the same staff, the harmoniumis indicated “organ”. A Mustel harmoniumis implied by the registration in the score. For instance, the score begins with a Mustel solo, marked “con metaph” (= metaphone), “harpe eol” (= eolienne), and “cor Ang.” (= cor anglais), all stops on the Mustel harmonium. The score seems to call for a separate celesta, rather than the “celeste” stop on the harmonium.
- The following notes relate to the FS.
- An 18-bar return of Picture I material in the middle of Picture II may have been cut in performance.
- A 6-bar transition from Picture II to III is excised in the holograph.
- Picture IV (IV Bild) is incomplete. The manuscript has the first 18 bars only, corresponding to S.247, b.1-16.
- Picture V is missing, except for a 20-bar piano sketch, the music of which is not found in the piano version (S.245 / 247). It served as an introduction to the scene, and is labeled “Souvenir de Vienne – Prelude. Andante sostenuto (very tranquilly).”
- Review commentary, from The Stage, September 25, 1924: “The ballet depicts “the working, in five stages, of the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation.”
- Pictures I & II: “…the attempted sacrifice of one Prehistoric sister by another, their rivalry, later on, as wives of an Arab Sheik…”
- First Performance: September 23, 1924, London, Prince of Wales Theatre
- Published 1924: Elkin
- Score and parts on hire available from Novello
- Holograph of FS (82p) with Cyril Scott Estate. For holograph of piano draft, see S.247.
- (St. Leonards on Sea) (facsimile of holograph of FS)
Masque of the Red Death
- Based on the eponymous Edgar Allen Poe story.
- First performance run: Sept.4 - Nov.15, 1930, London, Cambridge Theatre, in André Charlot's Masquerade
- Composed 1930
- Unpublished / lost