Chansonette

Cyril Scott (1879-1970) was a remarkable
English composer. He came from a cultural family; his father was a classical scholar, his mother a fine amateur musician. Having displayed a natural penchant for music as a child, he was sent to Frankfurt am Main at age 12 to study with Vzielli and Engelbert Humperdinck, remaining there for a year and a half before returning to England. He once again went to Frankfurt am Main in 1895 to study piano and theory with Iwan Knorr. Scott acquired fame mainly as a composer of some exotically flavoured piano pieces, of which "Lotus Land" became a perennial favorite.

In many of his pieces, Scott showed himself a master of musical miniature. He wrote in a distinctly modern idiom, very much in the style of French Impressionism; employed sonorous parallel progressions of unresolved dissonant chords; made frequent use of the whole-tone scale. His writing for piano is ingratiating in its idiomatic mastery; his harmonious modalities exude an aura of perfumed euphony.

From his early youth, Cyril Scott was attracted to occult sciences, and was a believer in the reality of the supernatural; he published books and essays on music as a divinely inspired art, and inveighed violently against jazz as the work of Satan.

Scott left no original organ music, but there are 2 books of fine transcriptions. The first, from which this is taken, were done by Arthur Wormald Pollitt, Mus.D. (Dunelm) (1878-1933). He was a chorister at Manchester Cathedral; studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music, and. Assistant organist of Manchester Cathedral.

"Chansonette" is the kind of piece that could drive you crazy! Crazy in trying to "translate" it to the organ. I guess it's a piano piece, and while you can play it on the organ, there are "trade offs". All-in-all, I think this came out OK, but it's awkward and "dicey" from start to finish! ;-)

The score is attached below, as well as photos of Cyril Scott, and a photo of Manchester Cathedral.