Slowly Alan Bush's
musical legacy is finding its way onto
commercial discs. Here is another positive
step towards completing the discography.
Make no mistake, this
is an important disc presenting Bush’s
first two symphonies in their premiere
commercial recordings on CD. Somehow
the plight of such music is typified
by the source of this disc (a Danish
company) and its performers (a Music
College Orchestra - exemplary in technical
and artistic terms).
Both symphonies have
a political subtext or linkage. The
First, just like the masterful Violin
Concerto (on Claudio), has each of its
movements describe a process from aspiration,
to greed, to frustration, to liberation.
Aspiration proceeds as if in an expressionist
dream while the second movement is gritty
and angular - echoes of Shostakovich,
Kurt Weill (his two symphonies) and
even Walton. A kind of emotional constipation
settles over the third movement which
in its subdued mood recalls Piston and
Diamond. The finale has a flavour of
rejoicing - a certain teeth-clenched
searing Soviet determination and a predominantly
public face. While the strings are not
as voluptuous as they might be this
is a completely enjoyable performance
and the hoarse 'tin' of the French Horns
at 3.24 will bring a smile of pleasure
to anyone who rejoices in Soviet performing
style. This rather fierce puritanical
hymn of joy was later extracted and
revised as a Character Portrait -
Defender of Peace as a tribute to
Marshal Tito (Malcolm Williamson was
later to write his own Hymn to Tito)
and premiered in Vienna in 1952 under
Bush's baton. The Symphony was premiered
complete at the Proms with the LPO conducted
by the composer on 24 July 1942.
The Second Symphony
was commissioned by the Nottingham Cooperative
Society and was premiered in Nottingham
on 27 June 1949. It was written after
serious reflection prompted by the Zhdanov
decree and by Bush's attendance at the
1949 Prague Congress. The bourgeois
12-tone experimentation of part of the
First Symphony is now rejected in favour
of a more folk-inflected accessibility.
It is the most popular (least unpopular?)
of the four with previous performances
conducted by the composer, Brian Priestman
and Malcolm Nabarro. The four movements
retain their programme titles (unlike
the First Symphony). The first is Sherwood
Forest. It carries the stigmata
of Britten's Grimes (still fresh
in the memory from the 1945 premiere),
of early Tippett, the Third Symphony
of Roy Harris (in the strings - Harris
also had Communist sympathies) and the
jollity of Holst's Brook Green.
The movement is notable for the prominent
roles allocated to the horns.
The Second movement
is Clifton Grove - a broad Largo
in which the writing for strings
is almost Delian. The flow is steady
and from the sable tones of the strings
rises a duet for cello and clarinet
which harks back to Tippett. The Castle
Rock movement is grippingly active,
taut, with its exciting rhythmic life
marked out by staccato writing for strings
and crashing percussion. The finale
is Goose Fair. It recaptures
the folk flavour with echoes of Vaughan
Williams (Eighth). In the yearning string
writing even William Alwyn is hinted
at (his First Symphony is contemporaneous
with the Bush Second).
The Second Symphony
was issued on LP in the early 1960s
on a primitive sounding Melodiya. The
composer conducted the USSR Symphony
Orchestra in a live performance in Moscow
on 3 October 1963. That recording while
still of archival interest can now be
pensioned off to the back-shelves.
The notes written by
Lewis Foreman are sumptuously full and
detailed.
There are two more
symphonies to be recorded so I hope
they will find a suitable company. The
Third is The Byron for baritone,
chorus and orchestra (premiered in the
DDR by Herbert Kegel's Radio orchestra).
The Fourth is The Lascaux premiered
in Manchester in 1986. Then there is
the Concert Suite for cello and
orchestra (championed by Zara Nelsova
in the UK) and the mighty 1937 Piano
Concerto. The latter screams out for
a premiere recording and a few may remember
Leonard Slatkin’s impressive revival
of the piece with the BBCSO in December
2000.
Can we hope that the
next disc from the RNCM, Bostock and
Peter Olufsen's ClassicO company will
present Stanley's Bate's turmoil-stricken
Third Symphony from 1940 and his Fourth
from the 1950s? The present disc is
the 13th volume in the ClassicO British
Symphonic series so perhaps a 14th is
not out of the question.
For now this disc is
welcome indeed for its spirited performances
(things really catch fire in the finale
of No. 2), the polished artistry of
the RNCM orchestra and the consummate
direction of Douglas Bostock. The final
optimistic moments of Bush's Nottingham
where glorious confidence carries
all before it threaded through with
a slight a Weill-like asperity.
Music of a distinctive
mastery with a peculiarly British rigour
and a constrained emotionalism.
Rob Barnett
The
British Symphonic Collection
Royal Northern College of Music Orchestra/Douglas
Bostock 
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