This is largely a Rawsthorne
recital. His music is in the congenial
company of pieces by two other British
figures: Bush and McCabe. John McCabe
is a distinguished composer (more popular
than ever now) who has written the definitive
biography of Rawsthorne. Alan Bush was
a contemporary of Rawsthorne's and amongst
other connections joined Rawsthorne
on the British Council tour of the USSR
in 1962. One of the fruits of that visit
was the first recording of Rawsthorne's
Second Symphony coupled with an Alan
Bush concert overture. The composers’
recordings with the USSR Symphony Orchestra
were issued on a Melodiya LP.
Composer-collaborative
works are sufficiently unusual in recent
music to be noted as oddities. While
there are plenty of examples of composers
arranging, devising variations on or
realising dead composer's music (Elgar
3, Hindemith of Weber, Ravel of Mussorgsky)
two living composers allowing their
creativity by design to meet in one
work can be found in relatively few
cases in the classical world. There
is the Mont Juic suite (1935)
where Britten and Lennox Berkeley collaborated
in alternate dances but at first would
not tell us who wrote which dance. There
are also a few sets of orchestral Variations
such as the Severn
Bridge Variations (written in
the early 1960s for the opening of the
bridge and recorded on NMC) where various
composers including such disparate figures
as Arnold and Maw each contributed a
variation to produce a composite occasional
work.
The Prison Cycle
is to words by Ernst Toller a political
radical who had been instrumental in
the Munich insurrection and had been
imprisoned. The first and last of the
items and the song Die Dinge are
by Alan Bush (trs. 1,2,5) they provide
a severe book-end typical of the pacing
prisoner whose track is bound by four
stone walls. The whole cycle is sombre
as befits the subject of imprisonment.
Rawsthorne's songs as well as Bush's
Die Dinge provide some limited
lyrical release and rarely a delicate
Schubertian emotionalism. Rawsthorne's
Chinese cycle lasts little short of
six minutes encompassing five songs
- brevities all. They were written in
1929 therefore can be compared with
Lambert's Li Tai Po cycle and
Bliss's Women of Yu'Eh (both
on different Hyperion discs). They are
more maturely knowing than the Chinese
songs of Granville Bantock. The idiom
is atypically romantic for Rawsthorne
with pearly illustration and flickering
humour. They are beautifully sung which
compares favourably with the slightly
tremulous delivery in the Prison cycle
and the squally Louis MacNeice setting
Precursors which is redolent
of the same protest and resentment that
characterises the Prison Cycle. It
ends in splendour with all the dramatic
confidence of a concert scena. The Three
French Nursery Songs with their
faintly surreal lunar dreaminess were
dedicated to Gemma Blech (presumably
of the same family as Leo and Harry,
the latter of London Mozart Players
fame). They were recorded by Sophie
Wyss in 1942 for Decca.
How pleasing to move
to the Scena Rustica with Lucy
Wakeford's delicate harp accompaniment.
The work was commissioned in 1967 by
the Summer Music Society and is dedicated
to Sheila Armstrong (such a strength
to British singing during the 1950s
to the 1970s). The sleeping lover is
abandoned by his lady who finds pleasing
solace in the embrace of a man ‘that
halsed her heartely and kissed her swete’.
The words are by John Skelton.
The 1940 vintage pair
of songs for tenor and piano are closer
to Rawsthorne's accustomed style which
can be severe. Here that severity is
leavened with a rather Pierrot moonlit
lyricism perhaps not that far away from
Gurney and Finzi in the first song at
2.01. The second song the celebratory
God Lyaeus is Britten-like in
its lunging protestation. The 1948 Carol
was written originally with orchestral
accompaniment for a BBC radio play to
words by W.R. Rodgers. It has a Finzian
lunar ‘temper’. Two Fish is undated
but is thought to have been written
towards the end of his life. The style
is gaunt but not completely without
lyrical flesh.
The Valse and Ballade
played by Alan Cuckston are early
pieces. The Valse goes off in
strange fractured directions while the
Ballade is somewhat Medtnerian (even
Rachmaninov) a crashing contrast with
the later mature Ballade once recorded
by John Ogdon. It then surprises by
picking up the Christmas theme lacing
in Good King Wenceslas and some
decidedly oddball eccentricities.
The McCabe folksongs
are an arrangement dating from circa
1963. These show a subtle art but not
so cloaked in contrivance that the artlessness
of the folksong lacks oxygen. On the
contrary this speaks freely especially
in the reflective Hush-a-Bie.
The John Peel final setting has
a clarinet solo that has the humour
of Malcolm Arnold. The song ends on
a decidedly unEnglish tartan skirl -
a winking tribute to the cycle's premiere
on a Scottish tour.
The timing is not generous
by CD standards but the disc is extremely
well documented. Each piece is given
the full treatment with useful background
notes and sung texts. I noticed that
the French texts are given as sung but
not in translation into English whereas
the German Toller texts are given with
translation.
Campion and the Rawsthorne
Trust have done these composers proud.
While I could have wished for more music
this disc is easily recommendable to
those who have caught the Rawsthorne
bug. His music can be severe but these
pieces show a lyrical vein and should
prompt curiosity about such major works
as the Second Symphony, Carmen Vitale
and Medieval Diptych.
Rob Barnett
Alison Wells (sop) 