Episode 368. Gay Eccentrics (Pride 2025)
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Somewhere along the line in planning my Pride 2025 episodes, I hit upon the idea of paying tribute to Gay Eccentrics. (Maybe because I am one of them myself?) There are many mad queer geniuses in the history of music, and I have chosen today to focus on three twentieth-century case studies. First, the husband and husband team of Norman Notley (1890 – 1980) and David Brynley (1902 – 1981), musical and artistic polymaths who settled in the small Dorset village of Corfe Castle. They were both members of the innocuously-named New English Singers, which was actually an early version of the high-caliber vocal chamber ensembles in such profusion today. In recent times their archives have been digitized and exhibited at the Dorset Museum and Art Gallery, which has led to their story going viral. In 1957 while living in the US, the pair made a recording of Elizabethan Songs that is a model of its kind and is featured on the episode. Next up us Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson (1883 – 1950), much better known as Lord Berners, the quintessential upper-class British eccentric who also happened to be the leading British avant-garde composer of his day (as well as a “notorious” homosexual!) I feature an excerpt from his single opera as well as a passel of songs from his small output. Finally, we cross the Atlantic to encounter the prescience, acerbic wit and borderline insanity of Ben Bagley (1933 – 1998), the producer of off-Broadway theatrical revues and a series of recordings featuring unknown material by the top Broadway composers of the day, including fellow gay eccentrics Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart. I may be a day late with this week’s episode, but I’m definitely not a dollar short! This episode has something for everyone!
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Thomas Morley: It Was a Lover and His Lass. Norman Notley, David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
Lord Berners [Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson], Heinrich Heine: Du bist wie eine Blume (Lieder Album, No. 1). Ian Partridge, Len Vorster [2000]
Cole Porter: I’m a Gigolo (Wake Up and Dream) [as heard in the Ben Bagley revue The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen through the Eyes of Cole Porter]. William Hickey, musical arrangements by Skip Redwine, vocal arrangements by Bud McCreery [1965]
The Dorset Museum’s Notley/Brynley archive: https://www.dorsetmuseum.org/david-brynley-and-norman-notley-archive/
The Windrose Rural Media Trust’s archive of excerpts from Notley and Brynley’s home movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odE75RtB7GY&t=1s
Robert Jones: Will Saide to His Mammy. Norman Notley, David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
Thomas Campion: Thrice Toss these Oaken Ashes. David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
John Hilton [the Younger]: As Flora Slept. Norman Notley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
Robert Jones: My Complaining. Norman Notley, David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
Henry Lawes: The Angler’s Song. Norman Notley, David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
John Dowland: Now, O Now I Needs Must Part. David Brynley, Paul Wolfe [1957]
A very interesting piece about Lord Berners’ most famous work, the ballet The Triumph of Neptune, which includes some wonderful photos of the first production: https://madeleinesstage.co.uk/2022/03/12/forgotten-ballets-the-triumph-of-neptune-1926/
Lord Berners, Heinrich Heine: König Wiswamitra (Lieder Album, No. 2). Meriel Dickinson, Peter Dickinson [1977]
Lord Berners, Georges Jean-Aubry: Romance (Trois Chansons, No. 1). Ian Partridge, Len Vorster [2000]
Lord Berners, libretto after Prosper Mérimée [sung in English]: Oh, that angel treats me just the way she likes (Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement) [sung in English]. Ian Caddy, John Winfield, Nicholas Cleobury, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra [BBC Recording 16.VIII.1983]
Lord Berners, Thomas Dekker: Lullaby (Three English Songs, No. 1). Felicity Lott, Peter Lawson [1997]
Lord Berners, Robert Graves: The Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward (Three English Songs, No. 2). Meriel Dickinson, Peter Dickinson [1977]
Lord Berners, Esther Lilian Duff: The Green-Eyed Monster (Three English Songs, No. 3). Meriel Dickinson, Peter Dickinson [1977]
Lord Berners, John Masefield: Theodore, or The Pirate King (Three Sea Shanties, No. 2). Bernard Dickerson, Richard Rodney Bennett [1977]
Lord Berners, Traditional Sea Shanty: A Long Time Ago [Hilliard’s Shanty] (Three Sea-Shanties, No. 3). Ian Partridge, Len Vorster [2000]
Lord Berners: Red Roses and Red Noses. Meriel Dickinson, Peter Dickinson [1977]
Keller Whalen’s invaluable piece on Ben Bagley as published on his Cab Calloway blog, The Hi-De-Ho Blog: https://www.thehidehoblog.com/blog/2020/10/ben-bagley-cab-calloway-and-the-great-broadway-composers
Cole Porter: Down in the Depths (On the 90th Floor) (Red, Hot and Blue) [as featured in The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen through the Eyes of Cole Porter]. Kaye Ballard, musical arrangements by Skip Redwine, vocal arrangements by Bud McCreery [1965]
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: Don’t Tell Your Folks (Simple Simon) [as included in Rodgers and Hart Revisited]. Dorothy Loudon, Arthur Siegel, musical direction and arrangements by Norman Paris [1964]
Mike Stewart, Charles Strouse: Man’s Inhumanity to Man (Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revue) Bill McCutcheon, Beatrice Arthur, Fay De Witt, Dody Goodman, Dorothy Greener, John Bartis, Eddie Hilton, G. Wood, Dorothea Freitag (also musical direction and arrangements), Liza Redfield, Ralph Roberts [1955]
Vernon Duke, Ogden Nash: You’re Far from Wonderful (The Littlest Revue). Joel Grey, Orchestra conducted by Will Irwin [1956]
Vernon Duke, Ogden Nash: I’m Glad I’m Not a Man (The Littlest Revue). Tammy Grimes, Orchestra conducted by Will Irwin [1956]
Herb Hartig: Tennessee Williams’ Notes for Certain S.R.O. (Ben Bagley’s Shoestring ‘57). Dody Goodman [1957]
Sheldon Harnick, David Baker: Someone Is Sending Me Flowers (Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revue). Dody Goodman, Dorothea Freitag (also musical direction and arrangements), Liza Redfield, Ralph Roberts [1955]
Charles Strouse, Lee Adams [after Hugo Wolf]: Spring Doth Let Her Colours Fly (The Littlest Revue). Charlotte Rae, Tommy Morton, George Marcy, Orchestra conducted by Will Irwin [1956]
Sheldon Harnick: Garbage (Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revue). Beatrice Arthur, Dorothea Freitag (also musical direction and arrangements), Liza Redfield, Ralph Roberts [1955]
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: From Another World (Higher and Higher). [featured on Rodgers and Hart Revisited, Volume II]. Bobby Short, musical direction and arrangements by Norman Paris [ca. 1969]
G. Wood: On a Shoestring (Ben Bagley’s Shoestring ‘57). Beatrice Arthur, Dody Goodman, Dorothy Greener, Fay De Witt, Bill McCutcheon, John Bartis, G. Wood, Dorothea Freitag (also arr.), Liza Redfield, Ralph Roberts [1957]
