Reginald Somerville

Reginald Somerville (1867 – 8 July 1948) was an English composer and actor. He is known for writing many drawing-room ballads such as "God Sends the Night", "Yestereve", "Zaida: A Song of the Desert" and "The Lark and the Nightingale", as well as a handful of operas.

Biography

Somerville received musical training under the Italian tenor and teacher Giulio Moretti.^[1] He co-wrote music with A. McLean and G. W. Byng for the musical farce, A White Silk Dress, opening at London's Prince of Wales's Theatre on 3 October 1896.^[2] In collaboration with the librettist Guy Eden, he wrote The 'Prentice Pillar, a romantic opera in one act in 1899.^[3] Somerville's "The Ballad of Thyra Lee", a dramatic scene, premiered in 1900, was given at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert in May 1903.^[4] Also 1903, he played opposite Marie Studholme in The School Girl. In 1909, his opera The Mountaineers was premiered at the Savoy Theatre in London. It had a two-month run and a provincial tour in late 1910.^[5]

After the First World War, Somerville wrote Antoine, an opera that he considered his best work,^[6] which was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, by the Carl Rosa Opera Company. The plot of the opera featured a blind sailor who has his sight miraculously restored only to discover his wife eloping with a rich lover.^[7] He also wrote both the music and lyrics for a three-act opera titled David Garrick, which was founded on T. W. Robertson's well-known comedy of the same name. It was premiered in 1920 by the Carl Rosa company and then presented under Somerville's management in the West End, substantially re-written to suit the light-music audience.^[8] Critics were divided on the merit of Somerville's music. The Illustrated London News remarked that the score "halts between the methods of the lyric and the grand-opera stage, and would have been all the better for cutting out all the connections with the latter."^[9] A week later, the critic continued, "He has no great gift of melody. ... Worse than the orchestration is the handling of the ensembles, if one may call them ensembles."^[10] The work was revived in 1932. In 1924, he wrote The Love Doctor, a "musical show with a story", which was toured on the Moss' Empires circuit and played in London at the Chelsea Palace Theatre in 1925.

Somerville's work as a composer dried up with the advent of sound films in the mid-1920s, and he took to teaching, but he became ill, ran into debt and was declared bankrupt in 1934. The bankruptcy was discharged in 1937.^[11]

He died on 8 July 1948 at St John's nursing home, Tankerton-on-Sea, in Kent.^[12]

Instrumental works and songs

Somerville's published works for piano include: "Alpine Roses – Morceau" (1913); "Automobile waltz" (1912); "Carina – Morceau pizzicato pour Piano" (1911); "The Honey Bee – Humoresque for the piano" (1924); "Intermezzo" (1922); "The Mountaineers – Pianoforte Selection" (1913); "Three Dances" (1922); and "Three Light Pieces for Piano: Bagatelle, Melody, and Valse" (1911).^[13] Among his orchestral works are "Four Fancies – Suite" (1925); "Funeral of a Flea" (1928); "Nucleus Themes, No. 1" (1927); "Razzle-Dazzle" (1928); and "Two Grotesque Recitations (1927)".^[13]

Songs by Somerville include: "All the Way to Coventry" (1913);^[13] "Call the yowes to the knowes" (1891);^[14] "God Sends the Night" (1908);^[15] "The Hour I love the best of all" (1924);^[13] "The Lark and the Nightingale" (1900);^[16] "The Laughing Waves" (1900);^[17] "A Memory" (1891);^[18] "The Song of Kent" (1921);^[13] "Songs of Friendship" (1909);^[19] "The Amber Necklace" (1917);^[13] "When Dreams come true" (1913);^[13] "Wherever I may be" (1913);^[13] "Who Rides for the King" (1911);^[20] and "Zaïda" (1914).^[13]

Notes