Three top-flight soloists
are the deciding factor in this disc’s
success. Each of them gives 100% advocacy
to Mathias’s music and the results make
for eminently satisfying listening.
Mathias wrote these concertos explicitly
for the soloists on this disc - there
are also concertos in Mathias’s work-list
for violin (György Pauk); organ
(Gillian Weir); flute (William Bennett);
oboe (Sarah Francis) and horn (Hugh
Potts). At the time of his death, Mathias
was planning concertos for cello and
trumpet.
The Clarinet Concerto
was premiered by the BBC Welsh Symphony
Orchestra under David Atherton (with
Peyer as soloist) at St Asaph Cathedral
in September 1975. The clarinet part
in the first movement (Allegro vivo)
is pithy and gestural, but always playful.
Peyer is remarkably spirited in his
response to the jazz-tinged rhythms
and Atherton brings out the sparkling
nature of the orchestration perfectly
(the percussion includes glockenspiel,
vibraphone and suspended cymbal for
colour). If the Lento espressivo is
in the final analysis a little less
inspired (although colouristically it
is very beautiful), the dancing finale
provides all the joie de vivre
one could wish. de Peyer is a remarkable
player in the way he imbues the long
lines of the slow movement with meaning
and is also able to make the rhythms
of the outer movements dance infectiously.
The finale, incidentally, includes an
appealing cadenza for clarinet and jazz
cymbal just before the brief coda.
Osian Ellis featured
also on a disc of solo works by William
Alwyn on Lyrita (Lyra Angelica
on SRCD230: a MusicWeb recording
of the Month, http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Mar04/Alwyn_Lyra.htm).
Mathias chose to score for single wind
and brass only in a (successful) attempt
to lighten the textures in deference
to his soloist. Ellis, the dedicatee,
plays with the utmost delicacy and sensitivity.
Interestingly, the work’s beginning
could easily have come from the pen
of Aaron Copland, before the music steps
across the Atlantic in the twinkling
of an eye and once more we are on home
ground. This is Mathias in his most
gentle mode spiced with some occasional
more angular, almost (but not quite)
Stravinskian, elements.
The slow movement (marked
‘Adagio appassionato, sempre flessibile’)
is prefaced by an quotation from a poem
(‘Welsh Landscape’) by R. S. Thomas
evoking wild skies and spilled blood.
Remarkably vivid images that Mathias
brings to life in a dramatic ten-minute
movement. The colouring of the harp
sound by vibraphone is memorable in
its beauty.
The harp has traditionally
been used to accompany dancing in Wales,
and this connection is made real in
the finale, a spring-fresh tonic to
the clouds of the slow movement, played
with great panache on this occasion
by both soloist and orchestra (especially
the wind soloists – only the bassoon
appears slightly backward in the recorded
balance).
Despite the many attractions
of the Clarinet Concerto and the Harp
Concerto, it is the Third Piano Concerto
that is the finest work on the disc.
Written for the composer himself to
perform, its influences include Bartók
(the dancing rhythms of the first and
last movements and the evocative Welsh
Night-Music of the Second), Messiaen
(orchestral colour), Stravinsky and
(clearly at one point in the first movement)
Gershwin.
Peter Katin is the
soloist on this recording, clearly a
different pianist to the player I heard
at the Wigmore Hall in July last year
(http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2003/July03/mozart167.htm).
Here Katin has all the necessary equipment,
including some glittering finger-work
in the finale. Parts of the first movement
include some pounding rhythms, here
very exciting indeed. Perhaps because
he was writing for himself (Mathias
gave the first performance at the 1968
Swansea Festival), there is a confidence
to the writing that is most impressive.
One of the most impressive
Lyrita offerings, this disc is the ideal
starting point for any investigation
into the music of William Mathias. The
Piano Concerto in particular cannot
fail to delight.
Colin Clarke
William
Mathias
The
Lyrita catalogue
aGervase de Peyer (clarinet); bOsian
Ellis (harp); cPeter Katin (piano);
