Goossens, Eugène (III)

Annelies Focquaert (translation: Joris Duytschaever)

The composer and conductor Sir Eugène Goosens descended from a musical family with Flemish roots: both his grandfather and his father (Eugène Goossens I and II, respectively) were professional conductors. His career as a conductor and a composer led him from London to Rochester (US) and Sydney (AUS).

Of the five children from the marriage of Eugène Goossens (II) and singer Annie Elizabeth Mary Agnes Cook, Eugene (III) was the oldest; all of his brothers and sisters were to become career musicians too. Father Goossens, despite his birth in Bordeaux, was to remain ‘a staunch Fleming’ throughout his life, to quote from his son’s autobiography.

Young Eugène (in English his name is often spelled without the French accent) Aynsley was first taught music at home by his parents and in 1901 he was sent to the boarding school of the Jesuits in Bruges for his grade school years. From 1903 on he went twice weekly to the Conservatory in Bruges for violin classes and solfège. Once he had rejoined his family in Liverpool from 1906 on, he pursued further studies at the Christian Brothers’ School and at the Liverpool College of Music. There he won in 1907 a stipend endowed by the city that enabled him to study at the Royal College of Music in London. He spent formative years for violin (with Achilles Rivarde), piano (with John Dykes), theory (with Charles Wood) and composition (with Charles Villiers Stanford), graduating in 1912. Arthur Bliss, Arthur Benjamin and Herbert Howells were in the same class. He became a violinist in Sir Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra (1911-1915), and made his debut as a conductor in 1912 with his first composition (Variations on a Chinese theme), while also founding the Philharmonic String Quartet, in which he played the second violin.

Because of a heart condition he was not drafted, enabling him in 1916 to fill in at the last moment for Thomas Beecham at the Shaftesbury Theatre in two new operas: Stanford’s The Critic and Ethel Smyth’s The Boatswain’s Mate. This was an opportunity for him to shine with his exceptional capacity to assimilate new scores very rapidly, and the success of this debut was instrumental for Beecham’s hiring him as his assistant conductor. This contract lasted for ten years and resulted in even bigger opportunities such as the conducting of Diaghilev’s ‘Les Ballets Russes’ and the Carl Rosa Opera Company (in the footsteps of his father and grandfather). In June 1921 Goossens assembled an orchestra of virtuosos under his own name, introducing contemporary music in London. Among their achievements the first concert performance of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, in the presence of the composer, should get pride of place. In the newspapers the young conductor was dubbed ‘London’s Music Wizard’, but the general public was sometimes unable to appreciate his progressive taste (he also performed works by Schönberg, Milhaud, Honegger and Poulenc).

In 1923 there was a dramatic shift in his career: George Eastman (the founder of Kodak) invited him to become conductor of the newly founded Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in Upstate New York. Included in this appointment was also a teaching position at the Eastman School of Music. During the periods without teaching obligations he conducted the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, New York and San Francisco as well as travelling to Europe to conduct his own works.

In 1931 he became the successor of Fritz Reiner as permanent conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra that before had already played under the baton of other world citizens with Belgian roots: Eugène Ysaÿe and Frank Van der Stucken. Goossens’ tenure lasted for 19 years. He was awarded the ‘Légion d’honneur’ in 1934, his stature of internationally respected conductor growing worldwide. With the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra he took care of the première of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony and William Walton’s Concerto for Violin in 1941. As a composer he counted among the best and was regarded as a peer by his British colleagues Walton, Bliss and Vaughan Williams.

In 1946 he declined the offer to become conductor of the re-opened Covent Garden Royal Opera and Ballet Company because he did not like the idea of being under the authority of the general director. After Goossens had completed a successful tour in Australia in 1947, Charles Moses of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) invited him to become first permanent conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO). Concurrently he was also offered the position of director of the Conservatory of New South Wales in Sydney. When he accepted both positions it was rumoured that his combined earnings exceeded the salary of the prime minister. From July 1947 he stated serving. He managed to be as good as his word, upgrading the SSO to “one of the six best orchestras in the world” as he had promised, by a drastic rejuvenation of the orchestra, a broadening of the repertoire and also of course by applying his know-how and charisma to the utmost. Not only did he include in the programme repertoire that was new or unknown in Australia, he also took care of the world première of John Antill’s Corroboree (a ballet based on music of the Aboriginals, 1947).

At the conservatory, too, Goossens fundamentally reorganized classes, choir and orchestra, attracting new teachers from Europe and encouraging students to produce two operas annually. Joan Sutherland, then still an unknown typist, made her debut in Goossens’ opera Judith. Whenever the occasion arose, he also taught himself: harmony, counterpoint and composition. Throughout the years his reputation kept growing because he organized successful open air concerts for classical music that drew crowds. He was also one of the vocal advocates of the founding of an opera house in Sydney. In 1955 he was knighted for the services rendered by him to Australian music.

However, flying high also makes people more vulnerable. At the peak of his fame Goossens’ career was badly hit by a scandal. His interest in pantheism and occultism had resulted in socializing with the ‘witch of Kings Cross’, the libertarian artist Rosaleen Norton. At an undercover search by police in 1955, in the context of the severe laws against libertarian behaviour, letters by Goossens to Norton were found and held against him. When Goossens returned in March 1956 from a tour in Europe, customs at the Sydney airport impounded erotic materials. Accused of ‘scandalous conduct’, Goossens was forced to resign and, disgraced, relocated to England after two months. But the scandal interfered with his activities in England as well, limiting them to a series of studio recordings for the BBC and Everest Records, in addition to a few guest performances as conductor. This adversity was aggravated by health problems to boot. He died in England in 1962.

Goossens was a talented and productive composer. His works were often performed in the interbellum but fell into oblivion afterwards, due to a changed mentality and also to the exacting technical demands of performance. Perhaps because he spent so much time conducting compositions of composers that he ranked above himself, his own works show a conspicuous eclecticism, stymying somewhat his attempts at finding a distinctive voice and at coming into his own. Goossens’ early and masterly command of the orchestral sound palette is present in works such as the scherzo Tam o’Shanter (1916) and the Sinfonietta (1922), with influences from Richard Strauss, while his works for chamber music echo the French impressionists from the end of the 19th century.

Goossens himself withdrew from circulation some of his early chamber music, such as the Octet (1911), after he had developed more in the direction of neo-classicism in the vein of Stravinsky. His most important works are the Concerto for Oboe (1927), composed for his brother Léon; two operas, Judith (1929) and Don Juan de Mañara (1935); Symphony No.1 (1940) and Symphony No.2 (1942-44) and an oratorio The Apocalypse (1954). He also wrote stage and film music (The Constant Nymph, by Basil Dean, 1933); songs, string quartets and works for piano or violin. Delius praised his Phantasy Quartet as "the best thing I have seen coming from an English pen".

In 1991 ABC named a recording studio in Sydney after Goossens, as late recognition of his contribution to music in Australia. After a long period of oblivion several CD editions became available from the mid-1990s featuring both works by Goossens or performances conducted by him, mainly on the labels Guild and Chandos.

That the pronunciation of Goossens’ surname in England and Australia received a slightly different inflection from the Flemish original, is shown by a quip from the English actor-writer-composer Noel Coward:
"My heart just loosens
When I listen to Goossens"