Spen Valley Magazine Spen Valley Magazine (draft) | Page 15

MUSIC
in the Spen Valley
John Curwen
John Curwen was born in Heckmondwike in 1816
and was a Congregationalist Church Minister for
26 years. But he’s best known for teaching the world
to sing. He developed the Tonic Sol-Fa system to help
Sunday School pupils learn hymns without needing
to read music. Without John we wouldn’t have had
the iconic song “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music.
The John Curwen Cooperative Primary Academy in
Heckmondwike bears his name and has a plaque
in its entrance hall about him.
Walter William
Cobbett
Walter Willson Cobbett (1847-1937) was the co-founder
of BBA which came to Scandinavia Mills Cleckheaton
in 1901. But his real passion was music: he was a
dedicated violinist and author of Cobbetts Cyclopaedic
Survey of Chamber Music, the most comprehensive
book on the subject. He commissioned new chamber
music from composers like Benjamin Britten and
Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Worshipful Company
of Musicians still awards an annual Cobbett prize
which he founded, for services to chamber music.
Ken Mackintosh
Ken Mackintosh (1919 -2005) was born at Halifax
Road Liversedge. A saxophonist, he was a band
leader and accompanied singers like Tom Jones,
Shirley Bassey and Matt Monro, with his band
featuring regularly on radio in the 1940’s and 50’s.
One of his fans was Queen Elizabeth II’s mother,
for whom he played at Windsor Castle.
Most people recognise the theme to the longest-
running radio “soap”, BBC’s “The Archers”. Few
people know that the music is “Barwick Green”,
composed in 1924 by Arthur Wood, born near
The Green Heckmondwike. Encouraged by his father,
he played violin, flute and piccolo as a child, left
school at 12 and became director of music and a
conductor of orchestras in London. Billy Connolly
once said The Archers theme tune should replace
God Save the Queen as the UK’s national anthem!
Another gifted musician was Leslie Heward, born
near the former Liversedge Town Hall. He learned
to play the piano at age two, then learned the organ
and by age eight had accompanied a performance
of Handel’s Messiah. He won a scholarship to the
Royal College of Music, London where he studied
composition and conducting. He went on to become
Musical Director of the City of Birmingham
Orchestra 1930-1942.