Patrick Larley sent
the present two CDs to me following
my review
of the choral music of Margaret Wegener.
His music, like Wegener's is in the
bitter-sweet English lyrical tradition.
Also like hers, Larley's music is rounded
by the natural rise and fall of the
human voice and by the yielding and
resilient treasury of English poetry.
The pieces here all date from the 1990s.
Larley was born in
1951 in Frodsham, Cheshire just over
the Mersey from where the present reviewer
lives. After study at what was then
the Royal Manchester College of Music
his career took him to various cathedrals
as organist and choral director. These
included St. Asaph and Wells. Based
in the village of Worthenbury, Wrexham,
North Wales he is now a freelance composer,
conductor, harpsichordist and organist
balancing these duties with being music
director for the Nantwich and Ludlow
choral societies.
His choice of poetry
in the first CD (songs for tenor and
soprano with Larley as pianist) typifies
his involvement with the lyric tradition.
The five song Hardy cycle On a
Fine Morning (1995) immediately
proclaims his melodic signature which
is Finzian but with an accommodating
attitude to soft dissonance and tricky
rhythmic curls. The voice is also called
on to take on some Britten-like plaintive
excursions. There is a bleakness in
these songs (strong in The Darkling
Thrush) that is completely in character
with Hardy. The most instantly likeable
songs are the optimistic Great Things
with its rumba under-pinning, the
harmonic adventure and the romantic
and almost 1940s filmic If it's ever
spring again with its melodic line
seemingly gripped by a tribute to Constant
Lambert - try at 00.15. Richard Roddis
has a blessedly clear and pliable tenor
without any noticeable vibrato. Words
emerge with definition and Roddis's
voice rings out in commanding fortissimo
when required.
Also cathedral bell-clear
is the voice of Sue Tyson. Her boyish
voice always feminine lets every word
of the Shakespeare sonnet 116 ring out.
This is the first of three soprano songs
written in 1992. The piano line in Donne's
The Good Morrow provides a lyre-like
canvas for this honeyedly high lying
song. The Philip Sydney setting of My
True Love Hath My Heart has an antique
dancing delicacy. Again the vocal part
lies very high. Much of Oh be thou
blest (setting Alexander Pope) is
unaccompanied - the solitary singer
indeed.
Back to Mr Roddis for
fine skilled arrangements of Five
British Folksongs. She moves
through the fair is suitably dewy
and sincere. The Jock O'Hazeldene
song is set in the manner of Warlock.
Larley begins the cycle with a familiar
and moving song and ends in the same
manner - delectably mournful.
The disc ends with
Two Christina Rossetti Songs with
Sue Tyson. A Birthday is again
delicate though not quite as stratospheric
as Sonnet 116. As ever, Larley
shapes and signs the music with slight
harmonic squeezes and twists. A bleakly
dreaming land is evoked through Rossetti's
sorrowing Song. Tyson has one
of those undervalued voices akin to
Catherine Bott and Susan Hamilton -
evergreen and young-sounding, the poles
of innocence and knowledge constantly
meeting and shifting.
The song CD is not
just for obsessive completists of English
music. It is for all those who cherish
the best English song tradition unsullied
by operatic blowsiness and still dew
fresh, humane and singable. Larley is
fortunate to have such fine singers
involved in this project but also the
songs seem to the listener to be grateful
to sing so perhaps Tyson and Roddis
feel equally blessed.
The second CD is The
Rose Of Peace. It includes a
selection of Larley's a cappella
choral music. The singers are Larley's
Chudleigh's Companie an ensemble of
four sopranos, four altos, two tenors
and three basses. Sue Tyson is among
the sopranos and Richard Roddis one
of the two tenors.
These pieces are in
the exalted cathedral tradition. With
the solo voice of Sue Tyson rising out
in ecstasy or pained protest as in A
Girl for the Blue. The texture of these
settings is fine, completely resolved
and focused. Here in the, at times Delian,
Three Yeats settings Larley plays with
the honeyed decay of bell tones; especially
in the striking but subtle The Rose
Of Peace. On the edge of Glory was written
for St Columba's Church in Chester -
it mixes the plainchant and Celtic traditions
and, unusually on this disc, includes
a brief and querulous Gaelic instrumental
voice - in this case the recorder.
The Two Divine Poems
by John Donne draw from Larley the most
complex and dissonant music on this
disc - a tour de force for any
choir. Tired of Spem in alium,
Bax's Mater ora Filium or Strauss's
Eine Deutsches Motette? If
so give this rewarding and challenging
piece a try.
In the Two Medieval
Poems Larley captures the expected
style of such music but here matched
up with a contemporary sensuousness
(tr. 8 1:02) in Hayle, Flowre of
Vyrgynyte. Wolcome Yole! is
playful with explosions of sound dotted
across its miniature landscape.
The Lark in the
Clear Air recalls RVW's folk settings
as once recorded by Christopher Bishop
in which solo tenor and baritone voice
s play a leading part. Speaking of Vaughan
Williams, Larley's choral arrangements
of RVW’s Linden Lea is smoothly
and respectfully handled. Then and finally,
comes the daringly innocent setting
of Vespers by A.A. Milne - an
arrangement of the tune by H. Fraser
Simpson. This is a delicate fencing
match between high art and the twee.
Frankly it's a delight but I can see
some may find it a queasy experience.
Those innocent exclamations of Oh!
might well push some more fastidious
people over the edge. The rest of us
can enjoy this smilingly innocent moment
in time. I think Larley will make many
new friends through this piece - definitely
one for Classic FM, if only they are
listening.
This Rose of Peace
disc runs the range of Larley's
choral music from the most exalted and
demanding high art, as in the Donne
settings, to the audaciously sentimental
- the Christopher Robin song.
On this showing Larley’s
other works should be well worth hearing.
The notes list: Pneuma for symphonic
wind band (1991); Sonatina for Classical
Organ (1992); Fanfara alla Fuga
for symphony orchestra (1994); On
the Edge of Glory (1997); Symphonie
of the Nativitie (1997); Appearing,
Shining, Distant or Near (1998);
Stone Circles (1998) and A
Mass of a Thousand Ages - written
for the new millennium. It would be
good to hear some of these more ambitious
works.
Unlike the songs CD,
all the words for the choral disc are
printed in the insert.
Well worth getting
... and while you are at it I am sure
you will enjoy the two CDs of songs
and choral pieces by Margaret Wegener.
Both are also reviewed here at:-
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/July04/Wegener_Choral.htm
and
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Oct02/Wegener.htm
Two fine CDs representing
Patrick Larley - a considerable and
distinctive voice in the English vocal
tradition.
Rob Barnett
Sue Tyson soprano