Goossens did not restrict
his adventures to the fields, byres
and lanes of the English countryside.
In that sense he was by no means a typical
British composer - if there is such
a thing. His métier had a distinct
Continental accent: French (never Teutonic),
Russian, impressionistic. His choice
of works for concerts also reflected
these inclinations mixing Ireland, Stravinsky,
Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninov. His Phantasy
Concertos, one each for violin and piano,
and richly deserving of a recording
premiere, are opulently convoluted and
Gallic. His operas Don Juan and
Judith similarly. His string
quartets have the same agreeable density
and profusion of line. If anything his
great choral work The Apocalypse
bows towards Mussorgskian models.
The two symphonies (superbly recorded
by Vernon Handley on ABC Classics) are
rich with incident and again have a
Baxian-Russian accent. There are two
each string quartets (another natural
for a CD project) and violin sonatas
(on two Guild CDs) and these do have
some English pastoral flavour but leavened
with Gallic impressionistic treatment.
This delightful and
generous anthology leans strongly although
not exclusively on his French sympathies.
Models may well have been Debussy’s
Danses Sacrés et Danses Profanes
as well as Ravel’s Introduction
and Allegro. Among English composers
it is little surprise that his publisher
of choice was Chesters. The wonder is
that he attended the RCM. He would have
found more congenial spirits at the
Royal Academy of Music alongside Bax,
Holbrooke, McEwen and the rest. The
Four Sketches and the Suite
are for same ensemble (the piano
could have been substituted for the
harp in the gorgeously sensuous Op.
6 Suite. Together with the Five
Impressions they occupy adjacent
opus numbers and centre on the years
1913-1914 - before an end to innocence
and the death on the Western Front of
Goossens’ brother, the horn-player Adolph.
The Sketches include
a Serenade that is very lively
and good-humoured and chucklingly Hispanic
(tr. 2 - a truly delightful movement
for sampling). The Romance is
gorgeously trilled and sung with a foot
in both English and French camps. The
Humoresque has the three players
cackling like cheery witches. Strangely
enough it is Chabrier whose name most
often came to mind; maybe Chabrier with
a smattering of Cyril Scott for the
exotic and Bliss for the fantastic.
The Five Impressions
of a Holiday show strong sympathies
with Debussy. The music is dreamy, suggestive
and misty although The Water Wheel
throws aside languor with some wildly
cart-wheeling figures for the piano
and the flute capering joyously as it
also does in At the Fair. The
Village Church mixes a memorable
tune with the chiming magic of Ravel’s
Mother Goose.
From Bredon in the
Cotswolds, the second of the Three
Pictures gives us Grainger filtered
through Ravel - extremely attractive.
Originally it had been scored for flute,
strings and percussion. From a Belfry
of Bruges is quite chilly at times
and is somehow ‘anchored’ by a deeply
tolling bell. Frank Bridge would surely
have admired this. I suspect that Bridge
would also have warmed to the shivering
From a Balcony in Montparnasse.
The curvaceously capricious flute might
have been expected to add some warmth
but instead the whole picture is one
of November streets and just at the
corner of our field of vision some wicked
presence stepped from the pages of an
M.R. James short story.
Sitting chronologically
between the trio of works from just
before the Great War and the Three Pictures
(a memento of his triumphant years with
the Cincinnati Orchestra) comes the
1924 Pastorale and Arlequinade.
The Pastorale is warmly allusive
with a generously fleshy-toned flute
singing and musing in the golden sun.
After the baskingly reflective Pastorale,
the Arlequinade takes the listener
back to the mood of the Humoresque
from Op. 5. Bax’s playful side is
echoed in these works: as in his Gopak,
finale of the Oboe Quintet, Overture
to a Picaresque Comedy and Mediterranean.
We should recall that Goossens was a
doughty Bax interpreter witness his
recordings of Tintagel (astoundingly
fleet of foot - an acoustic reissued
by Symposium), the Second Symphony (BBC
studio recording in the late 1950s)
and Mediterranean.
Documentation is as
good as ever from this source. This
time the author is Edward Blakeman -
not a name I have encountered before
but I hope we will hear from him again.
Artistically and technically
this anthology is consummately successful.
Goossens with a marked French accent
and with currents flowing in from the
English countryside and the streets
of Madrid and the Russian steppes. This
is a very welcome addition to the Goossens
catalogue.
Rob Barnett
London Chamber Music Group: Susan Milan,
flute; David Theodore, oboe; Jan Peter Schmolck,
violin; John Heley, cello; Christina Rhys, harp;
Ian Brown, piano