Tony Cunnane's Early Years 1935-53

Following Mr Taylor's departure I had great encouragement from the school's new Music Teacher, Dr Llifon Hughes Jones who had been a war-time Lancaster pilot and who had studied under Ralph Vaughan Williams after the war. There were very few gramophone records available at school but Dr Jones brought some in from time to time, possibly from his personal collection. One of the first I remember was Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia and I was absolutely bowled over when I heard it. It came on several 78rpm discs, which was very frustrating when I wanted to hear the piece in full from start to finish but was very suitable for teaching purposes. From that very first hearing I became fascinated by the way Vaughan Williams made use of the ancient modes and I started tentatively composing short pieces in the Dorian Mode. (See right hand column for an explanation of the Dorian Mode.)

Dr Jones was also a published composer. One day he brought the score of a short chamber piece he had written for solo oboe and piano. That was written in the Aeolian Mode - all the white notes on a piano from A to A - but it quickly became delightfully chromatic, thereby giving it a 'modern' flavour. Dr Jones asked the star pianist in our class, Eddie Foulkes, to play the piano part because he, himself, was not a top-class pianist. We had no oboe but Dr Jones was able to hum that part!! A few days later that piece and a couple of other short items by Dr Jones were played on the BBC Welsh Home Service from the Cardiff studios. Several of us went into school on the evening of the broadcast to listen to it, but the medium wave transmission on 881kHz was not very good; there was interference and the annoying fading that accompanies all but the shortest distance medium wave transmissions in the early evenings as the ionosphere starts to do its work. When I was on my RAF Wireless Fitters' course in 1954 I learned all about medium wave propagation but it was just a plain nuisance that evening in SGS trying to listen to Hughes Jones' premiere of his chamber music.

My lessons with Mr Cunliffe continued into a second year, but I gradually came to accept that I would probably never reach professional standard as a violinist. If the truth be known, I was rather lazy at practising what I was supposed to practise and I think Mr Cunliffe became quite frustrated with me. I was far more interested in music theory and composition and I started concentrating all my efforts on those. Recognising this, Dr Jones eventually persuaded my parents that I really did need a piano at home. However, there was no question of formal piano lessons because there was no more money, so I was self taught again. Having a piano at home helped me considerably with harmony and counterpoint lessons and general music theory.

One day at school I learned for the first time about perfect pitch. I well remember how disappointed Dr Jones was for me, and how jealous I was, when he discovered that one of the other students in my class, Eddie Foulkes the pianist, had perfect pitch and I and everyone else in the class had not. For days afterwards I tried in vain to memorise the exact sound of 440 hertz, the correct tuning of the violin open A string. I spent hours quietly humming what I thought was the correct frequency to the intense irritation of everyone around me. I used to check my memory every few minutes with my violin tuning pipe.

Eventually I had to accept that you cannot learn perfect pitch: you either have it or you don't – and I didn't.

Below:
A short extract from my diary for 11 July 1951 which shows that I had already decided that I was going to get on well with the new Music Master, Dr Llifon Hughes Jones - even before I could remember his name! Click on the image to pop up a larger version.

Dorian Mode
For those who have never heard of the Dorian Mode, it is the scale you get if you play eight consecutive white notes on a piano starting and ending on the note D. It wasn't until the 1960s that I discovered both the famous Beatles' song Eleanor Rigby and the intensely moving "Et incarnatus est de spritu sancto ex Maria virgine" section of the Credo in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis use the Dorian Mode. Click here to pop up a clip of the full score of the opening of Et Incarnatus est - note that the key signature shows that up to bar 125 the piece is in D minor, where you expect B flats and C sharps, but once the chorus enters Beethoven wrote B and C naturals, the indicators of the Dorian mode. The effect is magical.

Below:
SGS Form 5M in 1952 - my last ever school photograph although I did not know that then! Dr Hughes Jones is on the extreme right hand side, I am seated 3rd from the left - the one with the odd hair style