Nic DAVIDSON PORTER Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 Memories of some unusual reviews took me to the late Dr. Wright's website this evening; just in time, as it is announced that the site will close on 20th December 2020... Have any amongst you any experience of his Three Pieces for Organ, op. 1, or his Passacaglia, op. 30 ? I am currently separated from my copy of Dr. Henderson's Encyclopaedia, but I do not recall any mention of Dr. Wright's compositions therein. With all best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Cooke Posted December 21, 2020 Share Posted December 21, 2020 I have never heard of him until now. There is no reference to him or any music in Henderson, I'm afraid. His name pops up on the Royal College of Music site and it looks as though he wrote an interesting cultural history of the ABRSM. (Not everyone would use the word 'interesting' in association with the ABRSM, but having in some way been involved in their examining process since I took Grade III Bassoon (Examiner: Garth Benson) about 50 years ago, it looks 'interesting' to me... though very expensive!) Anyway, his Three Pieces - also unknown to me - are just £5 including p&p from Nymet Music, so I look forward to their appearance shortly. If I can't think of anything else to do later I may recount a (slightly) humorous story about an (entirely good-natured) encounter with an ABRSM examiner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Surtees Posted December 21, 2020 Share Posted December 21, 2020 I didn’t think I’d heard of him either, but having read the link on the RCM website, I realise I have the book he co-wrote about the history of the Proms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brizzle Posted December 21, 2020 Share Posted December 21, 2020 I never knew quite what to make of the ‘reviews’ posted on that site; all of them were poorly-argued and poorly-written, and some of them were completely deranged. It’ll be interesting to see if his music is similar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic DAVIDSON PORTER Posted December 21, 2020 Author Share Posted December 21, 2020 Thank you all very much for your replies to my query; I was worried I might be stirring up a hornets' nest. Brizzle, you really hit the nail on the head with your comments; my use of the adjective "unusual" was a mixture of tongue-in-cheek/diplomatic. I am no musician, but my (university) language and linguistics training led me to a feeling of something approaching horror when I stumbled across his website; I was reading a lot around Elgar at the time. Wright's opinions are vitriolic; I can only hope that his music is better ! By the way, I must point out that the RCM David Wright is DCH , and not DCF. I shudder to think what an entire book even co-authored by DCF might have been like... I am trying hard to show courtesy, but it is something he rarely seemed to accord his victims. I am not a "book-burner", but can't help thinking that it is probably a good thing that his website is slowly being dismantled... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Surtees Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 12 hours ago, Nic DAVIDSON PORTER said: Thank you all very much for your replies to my query; I was worried I might be stirring up a hornets' nest. Brizzle, you really hit the nail on the head with your comments; my use of the adjective "unusual" was a mixture of tongue-in-cheek/diplomatic. I am no musician, but my (university) language and linguistics training led me to a feeling of something approaching horror when I stumbled across his website; I was reading a lot around Elgar at the time. Wright's opinions are vitriolic; I can only hope that his music is better ! By the way, I must point out that the RCM David Wright is DCH , and not DCF. I shudder to think what an entire book even co-authored by DCF might have been like... I am trying hard to show courtesy, but it is something he rarely seemed to accord his victims. I am not a "book-burner", but can't help thinking that it is probably a good thing that his website is slowly being dismantled... That would explain why the RCM page makes no mention of his death. I assume that David CH Wright is still very much alive. He is the co-author of the Proms book I mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vox Humana Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 Although the website is now defunct, elements at least can still be retrieved from Google's cache. I wonder how much of his biography can be verified? Apparently no one has ever found any evidence for the three doctorates he claimed to have: Ph.D., D.Mus., D.D. Do his compositions actually exist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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