None of these works
are full-scale concertos. In fact only
one of them claims the imposing mantle
of the word ‘concerto’ although if the
Bliss Concerto can carry the designation
then certainly the Dyson can.
It seems obtuse to
start with the war-time Rubbra work
in a disc that is otherwise taken up
with world premiere recordings (or not
far off!). However in the case of the
Rubbra there are, remarkably, three
other versions either on the market
or once available. Cello Classics issued,
within the last twelve months, Jacqueline
Dupré’s homespun recording, warts
and all, with the Newbury Players. I
wouldn’t want to be without that tense
version even if it is plagued with rough
edges of all sorts. Then again there
is the de Saram recording on Lyrita
SRCD 234 (again with Handley conducting).
The eloquently warm cliff-edge oppression
and anguish of that version is to be
preferred with the Raphael Sommer version
(Handley again!) a close second on a
long-deleted BBC Radio Classics 15656
9193-2. The music links directly to
the sound-world of the Rubbra Fourth
Symphony dating from a couple of years
previously. It was a tape of the Sommer
broadcast in February 1976 that introduced
me to this very fine work.
The Murrill is
blithe, freewheeling and companionable
with a Hispanic-Blissy accent towards
the end at 13.51 onwards. The key and
style sometimes recalls the epic Finzi
Concerto dating from five years later.
Nothing ill comes near this music. It
is constantly in song and predominantly
happy song at that. Casals’ party piece:
El Cant des Ocells is woven into
the music. The concerto is dedicated
to Casals in respect and affection and
was premiered by the composer’s wife,
Vera Canning on 3 March 1951. I have
known this work from a valuable but
primitive off-air recording of William
Pleeth (for whom Rubbra wrote the Soliloquy)
with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted
by Eugene Goossens. The Fantasy movement
(II) of the Dyson triptychal
work have been recorded before by Julian
Lloyd-Webber for Philips (442 530-2)
and in 1987 Andrew Shulman and Ian Brown
recorded the work complete in the version
for cello and piano on Continuum CCD
1025. The first movement has a nostalgic
Miaskovskian air to it and this continues
remarkably consistently into the central
movement complete with its affectionate
incidental recollections of Tchaikovsky
4. This delicate and elegant work has
been at the end of the queue for the
Dyson revival. It turns out to be a
most attractive work with an early autumnal
disposition; not desperately assertive
but certainly dreamily lyrical. The
Chaconne has an Elgarian brogue
and introduces the first shadows of
darkness dispelling them for some shuddering
Tchaikovskian echoes. That final movement
ends with passive modesty - a sigh for
fallen leaves. The work is dedicated
to the composer’s daughter, Alice, who
has done so much, and successfully,
over the last fifteen years to revive
Dyson’s music. This is the one of the
last chapters in that recorded revival
process.
The Haydn Wood Variations
dates from the 1930s when the composer
was extending his reach from lighter
genre music into the serious concert
hall with a rather Tchaikovskian B minor
violin concerto premiered by Antonio
Brosa in 1932 (a wonder that Hyperion
have not got to it yet!). It is the
Tchaikovsky (Rococo Variations),
with small incursions from Elgar and
at the very end (13:40) Stanford, who
comes to mind most often in this music.
The work was revived by Martin Storey
in 1990. It is played here with flamboyant
great style by Wallfisch who is no stranger
to the work. He broadcast it with the
Ulster Orchestra conducted by Adrian
Leaper in January 1994.
When Sanctuary and
Wallfisch next look at reviving rare
works for cello and orchestra I hope
that they will explore other works standing
in waiting. For a start there is Florent
Schmitt’s Introit, Récit et
Congé. This is a major cello
concerto in all but name and has been
superbly played in the hands of Gaston
Poulet and André Navarra. So
far as English works are concerned there
is the stormy 1930s Cello Concerto by
Lennox Berkeley; a different voice from
that represented by the super-refined
works of his high maturity post-1945.
We should also remember the outstandingly
romantic and instantly memorable Cello
Concerto by John Foulds.
The BBC Concert Orchestra
has since its time with Stanford Robinson,
then Ashley Lawrence and then Barry
Wordsworth has done outstanding work
in the revival of British music. However
it is not the BBC’s number 1 band; even
so the orchestra is totally committed
and fulsome of tone. My only criticism
would be that where a grand tortured
gesture is required (as in Soliloquy)
the high strings sound thinner than
we might get from the BBC Symphony or
the BBC Phil.
The disc is completed
by Lewis Foreman’s thoroughly detailed
and totally readable notes.
Snap up this valuable
and gorgeously lyrical hymn to the British
cello and its place during the first
half of the last century. Wallfisch,
whose repertoire must be amongst the
largest in the world, excels in all
these works. In fact this shows him
in the very fullness of his powers.
Rob Barnett
Raphael Wallfisch (cello) 
