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Keith Cummings

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Keith Cummings
Born
Keith Edward Cummings

(1906-08-30)30 August 1906
Perth, Australia
Died13 December 1992(1992-12-13) (aged 86)
Hampstead, England
GenreClassical
OccupationsMusician, professor
InstrumentsViolin, Viola

Keith Cummings (August 30, 1906 – December 13, 1992) was an Australian violist and violinist who settled in England. He played with the Blech Quartet, the New London Quartet, the Hallé, the London Symphony Orchestra and the RAF Orchestra. He was professor of viola at Trinity College of Music.

Early life and career in Australia

[edit]

Keith Cummings was born in Perth, Australia, on 30 August 1906 to John Cummings, a decorator, and his wife Sarah McKeown.[1] Cummings studied in Australia with Professor Joseph Nowotny[n 1][2]

In Perth, Cummings, along with his older brother Eric (a pianist), were members of the 32nd Scout Troop and performed at several concerts in 1920 and 1921 which were recorded in the local Perth News.[3][4]

As a youth, Cummings belonged to the Young Australia League (YAL) and toured with them around Australia. His fine playing was often commented upon in newspaper reviews of the period. The Bunbury Herald in September 1923, commented on the unstinted applause Cummings received for his interpretations of Dvořák's Humoresque and the Ave Maria (Intermezzo) from Cavalleria Rusticana.[5] The South Western Times spoke of "his power in transmitting the poetic images of the mind into soul-stirring music".[6] At the age of eighteen he accompanied the English contralto Dame Clara Butt.[2]

By 1925 he had formed a string quartet, the Mace quartet, its name derived from the initials of the players' surnames – Morley (cello), Ashton (viola), Cummings (1st violin) and Edgar (2nd violin).[7]

In 1927 Cummings received his Fellowship of Trinity College London (F.T.C.L.), the first diploma of its kind for violin-playing ever awarded in Western Australia.[8]

In 1929, Cummings gave several recitals with his brother J. Eric Cummings as accompanist.[9] In April 1930 he married the pianist Madge Price who was to accompany him in several concerts.[10] In 1932, he was the deputy conductor of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestral Society in Perth.[11] In that same year, owing to the economic depression, Cummings left for the United Kingdom, to study with Henry Holst.[2]

Career in the UK

[edit]

Cummings studied in the UK with Henry Holst at the Royal Manchester College of Music and later, in 1935, with Lionel Tertis at Tertis's home in Cheam.[2][12] In 1932, Sir Hamilton Harty auditioned Cummings for a viola position at The Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, and Cummings played with the orchestra until 1936.[2]

Cummings gave his first major recital, as a viola player, in Manchester, at the Memorial Hall, accompanied by Lucy Pierce, a piano professor at the RMCM. The concert received strong praise from a local critic who wrote: "…not even Tertis could have played the cadenza in the Bliss Viola Sonata better than Mr Cummings last night".[2] In an extended notice in the Manchester Guardian the playing of the two artists was highly praised, particularly in the works of Bax and Bliss.[13]

By 1933 Cummings was playing with the Hirsch String Quartet[14] and also performed and broadcast on a number of occasions with the Henry Holst Quartet and the Charles Taylor String Quartet.[15][16]

In 1936 Cummings moved to London having been offered a six-week engagement at Covent Garden with the London Symphony Orchestra. He played with the orchestra until 1941.[2][17] In the summertime, Cummings would play with orchestras at coastal venues owing to the influx of holiday makers. In the summer of 1936, he played with the Whitby Municipal Orchestra at the Spa Pavilion under Frank Gomez.[18] The following year, in October 1937, he performed at the Aeolian Hall in London with the pianist Lucy Pierce, in a sonata recital of Brahms, Honegger, Biber and Arnold Cooke.[19] The Sonata for Viola and Piano by Cooke was written for Cummings.[2] In December 1937, Cummings played and broadcast with the (Isidore) Schwiller String Sextet.[20] Cummings joined the Boyd Neel Orchestra and was with them when they toured Portugal in 1939, performing in Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra, the Coimbra concert being notable for the circus animals who shared the stage with the orchestra.[21][2] In October 1939 he performed with the Gershom-Parkington Quintet.[22]

During the Second World War Cummings was an enumerator for the distribution of ration books and identity cards. Cummings performed at the last season of the Promenade Concerts to take place at the Queen's Hall before its destruction by German bombing.[2] In 1941, Cummings joined the Royal Air Force Orchestra. Whilst with the orchestra, he toured the United States of America in 1944/5, meeting Tibor Serly (who completed Bartók's Viola Concerto), Fritz Kreisler, Bronislaw Huberman and John Brownlee. The orchestra played during the Potsdam Conference in 1945. On his return from the tour, he discovered that his house in London had been damaged by a V2 rocket.[2]

Both during and after the war Cummings played with the Blech String Quartet, with Harry Blech (violin), Max Salpeter (violin) and James Whitehead (cello).[23]

The Blech String Quartet playing Mozart's horn quintet in E-flat major, with Keith Cummings (far right) on viola, 1943

The Quartet gave a number of notable first performances including that of the Walton String Quartet, which received its first performance in a BBC studio and was broadcast live on the Third Programme on 4 May 1947. The following day the quartet received its first public performance, in the BBC's concert hall in Broadcasting House. The recording featured Harry Blech and Lionel Bentley on violin, Cummings on viola and Douglas Cameron on cello.[24]

When Harry Blech left the quartet, Erich Gruenberg became the leader of the renamed New London String Quartet, (Carl Pini played 2nd violin)[2] giving numerous concerts, including, the Brahms Piano Quintet with Benno Moiseiwitsch and a performance of the Schumann Piano Quintet at the Royal Festival Hall with Sir Malcolm Sargent.[2] They gave the first performance of William Alwyn's String Quartet no. 1 in D minor at the Royal Festival Hall in May 1954,[25] and gave the first broadcast performances of: Phyllis Tate's String Quartet in F on the BBC Third Programme in October 1953;[26] Egon Wellesz's String Quartet No. 7, Op. 66 on the BBC Third Programme in July 1954;[27] Dvorak's Quartet Movement in F on the BBC Third Programme in April 1956;[28] Hilding Rosenberg's String Quartet No.4 on BBC Radio in May 1958,[29] and Roy Harris's String Quartet No.3 on the BBC Third Progamme in August 1959.[30]

Before an invited audience in the Concert Hall, Broadcasting House in December 1954, for the BBC World Service, the New London Quartet with Dennis Brain (Horn), Jack Brymer (Clarinet), and Archie Camden (Bassoon), performed Schubert's Octet in F op.166 (D.803).[31]

In the 1950s, Cummings was a viola tutor for the newly formed (1948) National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.[32]

Cummings recorded with a number of solo artists including Victoria de los Ángeles, for her Five Centuries of Spanish Song LP, with an ensemble directed by José Maria Lamaña at Abbey Road Studios in June 1955.[33]

In 1960 Cummings joined the professorial staff at Trinity College of Music.[2] In that same year he received his Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Manchester College of Music, FRMCM.[34]

From the 1960s Cummings was an adjudicator and examiner at the Royal Academy of Music.[35]

Cummings played viola on the Beatles White Album for the songs Glass Onion[36] and Piggies,[37] recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 1968.

Cummings played on a 1757 Guadagnini viola, which Ernest Doring included in his book on the instruments of Guadagnini. He states: 1757 – A viola of very excellent acoustic properties is owned by Keith Cummings, of the Blech Quartet of London, which toured America with the Royal Air Force Band in 1945.[38] The viola is currently owned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and is played by their principal violist Eric Nowlin.[39]

Family

[edit]

Cummings had three children, all musicians – Julian (violinist), Diana (violinist), and Douglas (cellist). The Cummings family, Keith and Madge, their children —Diana, Julian and Douglas (and Diana's husband Luciano Iorio), all of whom were students at the Royal Academy of Music —and their children, were featured in a half-hour programme entitled A Family Band, presented by Roy Castle, and shown on BBC 2 on 3 May 1982.[40]

Keith Cummings died on 13 December 1992.

Notes

[edit]
  1. ↑ Joseph Nowotny (1871 -1951) studied in Vienna, moving to Perth in 1906. He was Concertmaster of the Montreux-Vevey Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland and also taught Ronald Thoms, Horace Dean and Albert Lynch

References and sources

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Keith Cummings, Obituary. Daily Telegraph. 19 December 1992. p.14
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 White, John (1997). An Anthology of British Viola Players. Colne, Lancashire: Comus Edition. pp. 71, 72. ISBN 095310690X.
  3. ↑ "No.32 Troop (Highgate Hill). Welcome to The Rev. Alan W. Whitehorn". Daily News Perth. 21 February 1920. p. 5.
  4. ↑ "Troop News". Daily News Perth. 18 June 1921. p. 5.
  5. ↑ "Y.A.L. Boys. Last Night's Performance. Bunbury Delighted". Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express. 4 September 1923. p. 8.
  6. ↑ "Y.A.L. Concert. A remarkable portrayal of youthful talent". South Western Times. 11 September 1923. p. 4.
  7. ↑ "Music and Theatre". Perth, West Australian. 16 July 1927. p. 2.
  8. ↑ "Mr Keith E. Cummings". Perth, Sunday Times. 4 December 1927. p. 8.
  9. ↑ "Violin Recital – Mr Keith Cumming". Perth, Daily News. 22 June 1929. p. 6.
  10. ↑ "Kitchen Tea". Perth, Daily News. 31 March 1930. p. 7.
  11. ↑ "Orchestral Concert". The West Australian, Perth. 25 May 1932. p. 16.
  12. ↑ "Music and Theatre". The West Australian, Perth. 21 December 1935. p. 18.
  13. ↑ "Music and Theatre". Perth, West-Australian. 22 February 1936. p. 14.
  14. ↑ "Chamber Music. Leeds Performance of Schonberg Sextet". Yorkshire Evening Post. 19 October 1933. p. 3.
  15. ↑ "Concert from Liverpool". Todmorden & District News. 11 January 1935. p. 3.
  16. ↑ "BBC Programmes". Londonderry Sentinel. 14 November 1936. p. 9.
  17. ↑ Townend, Peter (1962). Who's Who in Music. London: Burke's Peerage Ltd. p. 50.
  18. ↑ Pugh, Peter (1995). The Tom Jenkins Story. Cambridge Business Publishing. p. 30. ISBN 9781871341119.
  19. ↑ "Two 'New' Sonatas". Evening News (London). 16 November 1937. p. 5.
  20. ↑ "Today's Radio". Western Daily Press. 21 December 1937. p. 9.
  21. ↑ "Crocodiles like Delius". Dundee Evening Telegraph. 30 January 1939. p. 6.
  22. ↑ "Old Favourites – Famous Quintet Comes To Bath". Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette. 14 October 1939. p. 8.
  23. ↑ "The Blech String Quartet". Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner. 28 November 1942. p. 1.
  24. ↑ Craggs, Stewart R. (1990). William Walton: A Catalogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 103–105. ISBN 978-0-19-315474-2.
  25. ↑ William Alwyn archive. Cambridge University Library
  26. ↑ Phyllis Tate, String Quartet Movement in F. Radio Times. 25 September 1953. Vol 120, No.1559. p.49
  27. ↑ Egon Wellesz, String Quartet Movement No.7 Op. 66. Radio Times. 2 July 1954. Vol 124, No.1599. p.37
  28. ↑ Dvorak, Quartet Movement in F. Radio Times. 13 April 1956. Vol 131, No.1692. p.31
  29. ↑ Twentieth Century Scandinavian Music. Radio Times. 23 May 1958. Vol 139, No.1802. p.27
  30. ↑ Roy Harris, String Quartet No.3. Radio Times. 31 July 1959. Vol 144, No.1864. p.39
  31. ↑ The Thursday Concert – Schubert. Radio Times. 17 December 1954. Vol 125, No.1623. p.36
  32. ↑ "Unusual Orchestra in Aberdeen Tomorrow". Aberdeen Press and Journal. 17 August 1950. p. 6.
  33. ↑ Five Centuries of Spanish Song. Victoria de los Ángeles. HMV. ALP 1393.
  34. ↑ Kennedy, Michael (1971). The History of the Royal Manchester College of Music. Manchester University Press. p. 77. ISBN 0719004357.
  35. ↑ 1974 July, Prize List. Royal Academy of Music; 1966 July, Prize List. Royal Academy of Music
  36. ↑ "Glass Onion". the-paulmccartney-project.com. 19 July 2025.
  37. ↑ "Piggies". the-paulmccartney-project.com. 22 November 2024.
  38. ↑ Doring, Ernest (1949). The Guadagnini Family of Violin Makers. William Lewis & Son, Chicago. p. 142.
  39. ↑ "Eric Nowlin". dso.org. 14 October 2025.
  40. ↑ R.A.M. Magazine No. 229 Summer 1982. p.16

Sources

[edit]

Books

[edit]
  • Kennedy, Michael (1971). The History of the Royal Manchester College of Music. Manchester University Press. p. 197. ISBN 0719004357.
  • Townend, Peter (1962). Who's Who in Music. London: Burke's Peerage Ltd. p. 50.
  • White, John (1997). An Anthology of British Viola Players. Colne, Lancashire: Comus Edition. pp. 71, 72. ISBN 095310690X.
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