John Clare Byrt
Blue Plaque Ceremony
30th November 2024

Musician
John was a talented musician from childhood. He studied many instruments at school, as well as his principal one, the organ. He was already a fellow of the Royal College of Organists when he went up to St John’s College, Oxford, as organ scholar.

He graduated with a 1st, then completed a doctorate as a fellow. According to a contemporary student Roger Nichols , the Durufle Toccata was his party piece. He stood in at short notice for the clarinet part in a student Turn of the Screw, by Brittan, then played the bassoon in a subsequent production of Albert Herring.

He also took over the Operation Club’s Sicillian Vespers, by Verdi, very late in rehearsals. Roger’s now wife Sarah was volunteered to take down rehearsal numbers during the first run through : “It was for me a remarkable experience to sit at the elbow of this brilliant man as he conducted, intermittently shouting numbers & muttering ‘late’, ‘early’, ‘sharp’, in a furious undertone.”

John conducted the university choir Schola Cantorum which, according to another contemporary Hugh Keyte, became one of the best choirs in the country at the time. In 1966 he conducted a first modern performance of John Taverner’s Missa Corona Spirea, hearing which inspired Andrew Parrott to later found the Taverner Consort. To quote Hugh, ‘John was a supremely gifted choral director, with the kind of inquiring mind that was never content to stick to the standard repertoire or to unthinkingly follow received performance practice’.

Teacher
John was an inspired teacher as many tributes to him testify, his patience & good humour being often mentioned. He taught at East Devon College, producing various student shows including West Side Story, Grease, & Godspell (with a female Jesus). Clare Bull, who sang the part of Maria in West Side Story, wrote “I remember a superb quality of music-making & huge amounts of fun. John was unstinting in his dedication & commitment to us all”.

He took over the musical direction of East Devon Choral Society, which sang a wide variety of music, Carmina Burana, Bach’s B minor & Passions, Elgar, Mendelssohn, it’s a long list of composers. Perhaps most uniquely the 1589 Florentine Intermedii, with Emma Kirkby as soloist. She says she dined out for months on this.

Some here will remember the Xmas performance of Gallery Carols for the BBC in St Peter’s Church. The choir would also include compositions by pupils in the summer concert, & John was always kind & encouraging.

He founded two early music groups, the Lowman Singers & Lowman Consort, again performing a wide repertoire of early music, including the Monteverdi Vespers. John composed a fiendishly difficult recorder piece for the Lowman Consort, which Ashley Allerton’s recorder group kindly played at his memorial concert.

I still remember ‘musical afternoons’ where as children Simon, Matthew, myself and some of our friends would gather and play songs John had arranged for us.

Towards the end of his life, before lockdown, he would play the honky tonk piano in Tiverton market on a Friday morning.

Scholar
John’s interest in rhythmic inequality, which resulted in his book ‘An Unequal Music’, began at Oxford with a performance of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes’, in the French style of notes inégales.

In 1968 he conducted a groundbreaking unequal or dotted version of Handel’s ‘Dixit Dominus’ in the Sheldonian. The strain of bringing this to fruition was followed by a breakdown resulting in bipolar, which affected his subsequent career.

In 1970 he conducted a first unequal Messiah in Bath. After retiring from teaching at East Devon College, he renewed his study of notes inegale, producing a newsletter sent to those interested in his ideas, and recordings of unequal performances, some of which are on his website.

John self-published his book in 2016, with a launch party at Tiverton Museum. It was a determined effort and entailed overcoming physical & mental difficulties. Indeed, on an occasion when he was debilitated by a medication change and locked himself out of the house with snow falling, our neighbours Sam & Katie, who live here now, took him in & gave him a cup of tea, for which kindness I shall always be grateful.

Incidentally, I have recently taken delivery of a 3rd edition of his book. John’s son Simon writes : “Dad wholeheartedly believed in his theories and wasn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers in the traditional music scene. Often his ideas did not go down too well, as he was telling established conductors that they were performing their repertoire incorrectly. I (Simon, that is), have lovely thoughts of him pouring over scores in the British Library & other places, to gather proof & clues that would back up his theories’.

Composer
Dad had a vibrant and exciting approach to composing. When I look at his works as a whole, there is often a strong pulse and rhythm to his writing that keep the pieces exciting and energetic.

He had a deep understanding of all classical and traditional harmony, which he used instinctively to create natural and free flowing compositions, he would then often surprise the listener with a daring and unexpected chord change, which was made even more impactful by the traditional harmony that preceded it.

He was happy to incorporate modal scales into his compositions and also used contrast to great effect in his pieces – whether in use of dynamics / timbre / or harmonic modulation (major / minor). Regarding melody, his approach was always very natural, and the Melodie’s of his pieces always flowed beautifully, with careful attention to the push and pull of the phrasing.

It has been lovely to see recent recording of his compositions appearing online. Highlights include two excellent performances of his seminal carol “All and Some” by the Choir of Kings College and also by the Elysian Singers. There are also recent recordings of his folk songs by the Queens Six, The Blossom street choir and The St Charles Singers. Dad had heard the majority of these recordings and approved immensely. He was delighted the pieces were being performed and interpreted in different ways.

There was a time in the early 70s, 1973 particularly, when he was very prolific and composed some of his most distinctive compositions. He often liked to set his compositions to traditional texts:

• The Beginning & the End, which was performed in Bath with Jantina Norman as soloist.
• The Two Ivans, Dives and Lazurus, and
• The Double Shame

He often set poems written by women for women to sing, and composed many pieces for smaller vocal ensembles and soloists including Sweet Work (which was written for Anna Rufey & Daniel Broad, was performed at the memorial by Emma Kirkby and Howard Williams) madrigal suite for 6 voices, songs of the earth, Yeats songs for bass baritone.

And the extremely daring and complex piece ‘Polytonal songs’ , also performed at the memorial, and creating a great challenge for the performers!

It would take a long time to list his compositions ! But other highlights include:

• Many Carols and folk song arrangements. Recorder pieces for the Lowman Consort, sonatas for guitar , oboe and many other instruments,
• Piano pieces for children, which me, Matt and Meredith all enjoyed playing as children.
• In Praise of London was a commission from Tiverton group Con Spirito, Te Deum he wrote at Oxford

We have recently found out that Bodleian Library at Oxford University will keep his musical manuscripts for future generations to discover which is very exciting. Celia, John Draisey & Ashley Allerton’s are currently cataloguing them before they are sent off.

Finally, we’d like to thank Katie and Sam for hosting this small get together to honour Dad’s Blue Plaque and I’d like to thanks everyone for coming! There will be a glass of something for anyone interested in the house, but before we go in, I’d like to hand over to John for a performance of Dad’s family Carol ‘ The Oxen”.