ABSTRACT
Although the early part of Lord Berners’ career as a composer was largely dominated by small-scale piano music and songs, three short orchestral works also date from that time: Three Pieces for Orchestra (1917), Fantaisie espagnole (1918–1919) and the Fugue in C minor (1924). Berners’ assured handling of a large orchestra owed a debt to early Stravinsky, and the accomplished nature of Fantaisie espagnole and Three Pieces for Orchestra mirrored the first efforts of Berlioz, Richard Strauss and other renowned orchestrators. Berners’ approach to orchestral writing led him to treat the wind, brass and string sections equally when allocating background and foreground material. A meticulous attention to detail in the placing of dynamic markings is further evidence of Berners’ ordered approach to orchestral writing. Berners use many of the conventional devices from seventeenth-century models in his Fugue in C minor.
