Stage — Ballet

The Incompetent Apothecary
Subtitle: A Breughel Comedy

• First Performance:  one movement only, Dance of the Citizens, in Harrogate, Royal Hall, July 26, 1929, conducted by Cyril Scott
• Published 1923: Schott
•  [40’ CS] 
• Note:  The first movement of Three Symphonic Dances, S.46 (qv), appears to have been intended for this ballet.

Karma:  A Fantasy in Mime & Music in Five Pictures -  Suite    

Prologue                 Andante sostenuto         [7p / 29b]
Picture I.  Barbaric Dance         Allegro    - Adagio maestoso e sostenuto – Allegro    - A little broader    [29p / 116b]
Picture II.  A Piper in the Desert    Lento (- Much quicker - Lento)      [18p / 68b (50b without middle section)]
Picture III.   Song from the East        Allegro non troppo / Lebhaft!  - Molto maestoso – A tempo – Con molto spirit    [21p / 90b]
Picture IV.  Before the Church        Adagio        [95p / 18b (incomplete)]
Picture V.  Souvenir de Vienne         Andante sostenuto

• Dedication: André Charlot
• Instrumentation: Orch:  1.1.1.1 / 2.2.1.0 / perc / harm / cel / pf / strs
• The score calls for“Mustel & celeste”.  Evidently Charlot had at his disposal both a Mustel harmonium and a celesta – probably also a Mustel.  Written on the same staff, the harmoniumis indicated “organ”.  A Mustel harmoniumis implied by the registration in the score.  For instance, the score begins with a Mustel solo, marked “con metaph” (= metaphone), “harpe eol” (= eolienne), and “cor Ang.” (= cor anglais), all stops on the Mustel harmonium.  The score seems to call for a separate celesta, rather than the “celeste” stop on the harmonium.
• The following notes relate to the FS.   
  • An 18-bar return of Picture I material in the middle of Picture II may have been cut in performance.
  • A 6-bar transition from Picture II to III is excised in the holograph.
  • Picture IV (IV Bild) is incomplete.  The manuscript has the first 18 bars only, corresponding to S.247, b.1-16.   
  • Picture V is missing, except for a 20-bar piano sketch,  the music of which is not found in the piano version (S.245 / 247).  It served as an introduction to the scene, and is labeled “Souvenir de Vienne – Prelude.  Andante sostenuto (very tranquilly).” 
  • Review commentary, from The Stage, September 25, 1924: “The ballet depicts “the working, in five stages, of the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation.”  
  • Pictures I & II:  “…the attempted sacrifice of one Prehistoric sister by another, their rivalry, later on, as wives of an Arab Sheik…”
• First Performance:  September 23, 1924, London, Prince of Wales Theatre 
• Published 1924: Elkin
• Score and parts on hire available from Novello
• Holograph of FS (82p) with Cyril Scott Estate.  For holograph of piano draft, see S.247.  
• (St. Leonards on Sea)             (facsimile of holograph of FS)

Masque of the Red Death

• Based on the eponymous Edgar Allen Poe story.
• First performance run:  Sept.4 - Nov.15, 1930, London, Cambridge Theatre, in André Charlot's Masquerade    
• Composed 1930
• Unpublished / lost