The Band That Played On (14 page)

Dowson certainly performed around Oxford and was known by the musicians who belonged to the Oxford University Music Club (later to become the Oxford University Music Society). Woodward was becoming familiar with a more cultured world than he would have been exposed to if he had stayed in West Bromwich. Rosina Filippi was a well-connected woman who played opposite many of the giants of British theater and by playing with her husband Woodward would have been introduced to that layer of society.

In photographs John Wesley Woodward looks neat, solid, and dependable. He’s broad shouldered and well groomed with a carefully waxed mustache. His spectacles are wire rimmed and in some photos he instead wears a monocle in his right eye. His friends and acquaintances remembered him as being easygoing and having a positive attitude. He was “amiable,” “good natured,” and “modest,” and had “an easy, equable temper.” Outside of music he had an interest in photography and building primitive internal combustion engines, a technology still in its infancy.

His career accelerated in 1907 when he was invited to join the newly formed Duke of Devonshire’s Band, sometimes known as the Duke of Devonshire’s Private Orchestra, based on the south coast of England at Eastbourne.
²
The 8th Duke of Devonshire, Spencer Compton Cavendish, was an aristocrat and statesman who had entered parliament in 1857 and had at one time been leader of the Liberal Party. His family was one of the wealthiest and most powerful in Britain, its ancestral base being Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, one of Britain’s most impressive stately homes.

Duke of Devonshire’s Orchestra (Woodward is to the immediate lower right of the conductor).

No one is sure why the Cavendish family took the title Devonshire. Some suggest it was a misreading of Derbyshire made back in the sixteenth century. They went on to acquire land in other parts of the country, most notably in Eastbourne, where the Cavendishes and another family carved up the territory between them. The railway arrived in 1849 and ten years later the 7th Duke of Devonshire planned a new-look town that would be “built by gentlemen for gentlemen.” By 1891 the town’s population had gone from four thousand to thirty-five thousand and it had become a resort with a promenade, hotels, and a one-thousand-foot-long pier crowned with a four-hundred-seater pavilion.

Eastbourne attracted a distinguished and prosperous clientele who were able to spend much of their time in leisure pursuits. It was imperative for them to let everyone know that they were “in residence” and the
Eastbourne and Sussex Society and Fashionable Visitor’s List
announced their comings and goings. Typical of the paper’s entries was the news that “the Duchess of Norfolk has been in very delicate health” and that “Lord Wimbourne’s condition has undergone no appreciable change.” The following advice was given for those contemplating driving in a newfangled motor car: “To make winter driving really enjoyable great care must be bestowed upon the choice of proper garment, for if one gets cold whilst driving, especially in ones hands or feet, all enjoyment is gone at once.”

The Duke of Devonshire took a particular pride in Eastbourne and was careful that no other British resort would outclass it. He was alarmed that nearby Bournemouth, which had its own symphony orchestra, might outstrip it. For this reason the 8th Duke created his own orchestra. With forty-two musicians (fifty-four in the summer) and an average wage bill of £150 a week, it was an expensive project but one that produced the necessary effect. The
Eastbourne Chronicle
wrote in April 1907 that the Duke’s Orchestra was “an orchestra of such commanding size and proficiency as will serve the double object of making a powerful addition to the list of high class attractions and of assisting to advertise the town.”

The Duke hired Dutch conductor Pieter Tas at the end of January 1907, so we can assume that the hiring of musicians took place in February and March. The conditions were that they could be required to play in any property owned by the Devonshire Parks & Baths Company, giving up to a maximum of twelve performances per week. They had to provide their own evening dress for the later performances but could have to “wear such uniform or costume as the company shall at its own expense provide.” Woodward was paid £2 15s. 0d. per week and lodged at “Leathorpe” on Upper Avenue with George Stevens, a fifty-five-year-old retired builder, and his wife, Mary.

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, as it looks today.

Winter Garden, Eastbourne, venue of many concerts by the Duke of Devonshire’s Orchestra.

Most of the orchestra’s concerts were given at the Winter Garden on the edge of Devonshire Park. In April 1908, for example, it gave a symphony concert on a Thursday afternoon, orchestral concerts on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday evening, a grand chamber concert on Friday afternoon, a Sullivan Night on Friday, a popular concert featuring a vocalist on Saturday night, a Grand Concert on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. (for which the audience chose the program), and a concert of songs by Madame Liza Lehmann on Tuesday evening.

Devonshire Park Theatre, another Eastbourne venue well known to Wes Woodward.

The music it played was varied. In a symphony concert in March 1909, it played Dvorak’s
New World Symphony
and Liszt’s Second Rhapsody, and worked with a visiting composer, Dr. J. W. G. Hathaway. The Sunday evening program, which featured vocalist Edith Clegg, included
Marche Solennelle
by Alexandre Luigini; the overture from
Fingal’s Cave
by Mendelssohn; Ernest Guiraud’s violin and orchestra piece “Caprice”; extracts from André Messager’s ballet
Les Deux Pigeons
, Wagner’s opera
Lohengrin
, and Charles Gounod’s opera
Faust
; and “The Bees Wedding” by Mendelssohn.

They also did concerts of what were called Popular music, which were light orchestral numbers: Julius Fucik’s “Entry of the Gladiators,” Jules Massenet’s “Scenes Napolitaines,” Schubert’s “Marche Militaire,” and a selection from Arthur Sullivan. The local paper commented: “Nobody nowadays associates the term popularity in music with anything that is cheap or tawdry, least of all may they do so in connections with Mr Tas’ programmes which are culled from the most fascinating works, and are so well compiled as to echo the last note of variety.”

The audiences had high expectations for the music, as did the critics on the local papers. If it fell below the expected standard, they would make their objections known. In February 1908, Tas briefly handed his baton over to Dan Godfrey from Bournemouth and apparently the standard slipped. “A world of difference is interposed between the Duke’s Orchestra at their best and at their ordinary level,” wrote a critic from the
Eastbourne & Sussex Society
. “It was regrettable that under the direction of so eminent a conductor, they should have fallen somewhat beyond the high water mark on Friday last. Their achievements could not, for instance, in any way be compared to those chronicled at the Edward German concert of a fortnight ago, and their want of enthusiasm naturally spread to the audience, who received some of the works tamely.”

Very occasionally Woodward would perform a solo. On February 15, 1908, for example, he played “Cavatina” by Joachim Raff (originally written for piano and violin but often adapted for cello) and “Danse Rustique” by British composer William Henry Squire. On January 9, 1909, he again played the piece by Raff along with “Mazurka” by David Popper. A local novelist and music lover, Emeric Hulme Beaman,
³
said of Wes:

On several occasions he exhibited brilliant qualities as a solo executant but he excelled rather as an orchestral player than a soloist. His orchestral playing was uniformly sound, steady and reliable; while these same invaluable qualities, conjoined with much natural taste and a cultured style, enabled him to appear to utmost advantage in chamber music. He was a thorough and conscientious musician, whose playing, whether in solos or concerted work, was always interesting and always enjoyable.

Many of the orchestra’s musicians did extra work, such as playing at the roller rink in Devonshire Park, but, according to the Duke’s wages books, Woodward restricted himself to the main orchestra work. This may have been because he wanted to play music with other ensembles in his free time. In 1908
Strad
magazine reviewed him in concert at the Town Hall in a fund-raising event for St. Peter’s Church. Apparently “his violoncello solos formed quite a feature.” The
Brighton Advertiser
reported that he also performed with the orchestra in the Lounge Hall of the Grand Hotel under Simon Von Lier, the conductor who had been with the Kensington Palace Hotel Orchestra when Theo Brailey played there.
⁴

The hiring of Von Lier in 1903 was indicative of the importance that orchestral music played in the marketing of middle-class resorts and hotels at the turn of the twentieth century. It was the sign of culture and sophistication. The chairman at the time wrote:

I believe you will agree with us that music (especially that of a high class) is now considered almost an essential requirement for hotels of the character of the Grand. If so, I am sure you will approve of the engagement of this orchestra which plays daily in the Hall, afternoon and evening. It is admitted by all who have heard it to be one of great merit and considerable note and has, so far, proved an attraction and has given great pleasure to the visitors, as is evidenced by the applause with which their music is greeted.

The composer Claude Debussy came to stay at the Grand in 1905 with his pregnant mistress, Emma Bardac, and while there completed his best-known composition,
La Mer
.