Simpson studied with
Herbert Howells between 1942 and 1946.
Newcomers should note that Simpson’s
music carries no obvious imprint from
Howells. He was born in Leamington Spa
and died in Tralee, County Kerry, disaffected
with the BBC for whom he had worked
between 1951 and 1980.
I have known the Simpson
symphonies and followed many of their
premieres and later broadcasts since
1972. As a student in Bristol I remember
the broadcast premiere of the awesome
Fifth Symphony. I had, at that time,
also heard the Third Symphony on a Horenstein-conducted
Unicorn LP since reissued by NMC.
Simpson had many productive
and sometimes conflict-torn years inside
the BBC. His educating advocacy certainly
made its impact on me. I still remember
his broadcast symposium on ‘The Symphony’
with Deryck Cooke and Hans Keller and
have a tape of it somewhere. Then again
his work for Sibelius, Nielsen and Bruckner
bore fruit in broadcasts of live concerts
and studio events. He championed Havergal
Brian contra torrentum and his
Brian legacy is a series of BBC broadcasts
of all 32 symphonies. They were conducted
by a motley crew that included John
Canarina, Brian Fayrfax, Adrian Boult,
Vernon Handley, Myer Fredman, Stanley
Pope, Charles Mackerras, Charles Groves
and others.
Simpson the composer
is handsomely served by this Hyperion
box. If confirmation was needed of his
standing and mastery as a leading symphonist
of his time this set provides it with
thumping conviction. This is music that
knows nothing of surface glamour and
is impatient of short attention spans.
Sobriety however does not exclude drama,
humanity and a quality close to awe.
The composer often gives the listener
the sense of being close to a creative
process that appears to be sweeping
him along. Its inevitability is part
of it potency.
The present Hyperion
set bears witness to some of his influences.
Nielsen appears especially in the reverential
contemplative second movement of the
First Symphony - those rural
pipings link strongly with the quietude
of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Nielsen
symphonies. The outer movements embrace
the rhythmic heroic world of another
hero, Beethoven and mesh them with Nielsen
4 and 5. The Beethoven allegiances are
specifically with symphonies 3, 5 and
7. The work ends in the blazing affirmation
of an A major chord. Launy Grøndahl
and the Danish Radio Orchestra gave
the premiere but the work was taken
up by Boult. He it was who recorded
it for EMI. It has been reissued as
part of the EMI Classics British
Composers series.
The Eighth Symphony
arose from a challenge set by Simpson
himself to write a symphony to a scheme
set by someone else. This was provided
in mood form by the painter Anthony
Dorrell. The work was premiered by Jerzy
Semkow at the RFH in 1982. The stellar
blaze of the scherzo with its romping
horns and rampant trumpets is deeply
impressive. Its ruthless rhythmic figures
sometimes recall a very different but
equally unglamorous symphonist, the
Swede Allan Pettersson. In the finale
the severity of the string writing even
introduces some dissonance presented
four-square. There is some wonderfully
life-enhancing antiphonal hunting brass
in the finale.
The Second Symphony
dates from three years after Simpson's
book Carl Nielsen, Symphonist.
The Nielsen ‘stamp’ is patent in this
music - especially in the explosive
elements of the Fourth Symphony. There
are also shades of Sibelius especially
the Prelude from The Tempest.
Indeed the more placid quiet voices
from Sibelius's incidental music as
well as echoes of the Fourth Symphony
can be heard in the Largo Cantabile.
Mixed in, one can also discern the long
lyricism-laden lines of late Rubbra.
The eruption and haymaker dances of
the Non troppo allegro are full
of rhythmic engagement and fascination
sharing also the joyous gauche qualities
of Nielsen's Four Temperaments.
The Fourth Symphony
was commissioned by the Hallé
Orchestra and premiered by them under
James Loughran. It was Simpson’s first
four-movement symphony. It is notable
also for a peremptory Beethovenian style
for the Presto redolent of the
Bonn composer’s symphonies 3 5 and 7.
This romping and rampant writing carries
over into the finale. The slow movement
includes the singing elegiac tone of
Joseph Koos' cello. The notes tell us
that, in the original version of this
movement, the lyrical quality was even
more expressive.
The third disc is the
one to start with. It includes Simpson's
most popular symphony, the Third, with
his most impressive, the Fifth. The
Third is dedicated to the British
composer Simpson idolised: Havergal
Brian. It carries some of the elder
composer’s awkward stop-start approach.
It remains impressive and even cussèd.
Dissonance is even more noticeable but
modest persistence brings the usual
sturdy rewards with Simpson. The work
ends in a passive gentle downwards curve;
no volcanic gestures here. It would
be ten years before Brian made a major
and steady impact. Once again Simpson
was the prescient pioneer. His persuasive
powers resulted in Boult agreeing to
conduct Brian's Gothic Symphony in
1966.
The Fifth Symphony
was the work that first drew me
to Simpson. I heard a broadcast of the
premiere conducted by Andrew Davis.
Its whispered tension contrasted with
furnace blasts were captured on one
of those little Philips cassette recorders
from a cheap FM radio I had bought in
Currys. Insistently galloping furies
alternate with the quietest whisperings
and pipings in occluded vales. The side-drum
raps along in the scherzino third
movement of the arch-like five. A sombre
adagio is disrupted by the blast
of the finale - a sustained molto
allegro e con fuoco lasting more
than fifteen minutes. The headlong pelt
of the music sounds Nielsen-like, meshing
the anger of the Fourth with the enigmas
of the Sixth. There is a Bernard Herrmann-style
death-hunt thundering out and merging
into a massive and obsessive peal of
bells at 12:00. This rises to whirling
hysteria and a 13:09 again sounds out
the influence of Nielsen. The roar at
13:38 is like the wild-belling of Roy
Harris 's symphonies of the 1940s. There
is some stunning writing here. It ends
in a sustained quiet glimmering diminuendo
high in the violins and fading to niente.
Like symphonies 4 and
5, numbers 6 and 7 were written in quick
succession with their creative processes
overlapping. They are single continuous
half-hour spans with the major struts
of the span in this case separately
tracked: two for 6 and three for 7.
Momentary resemblances in the Simpson
Sixth to Sibelius 6 are soon expelled
in favour of the irrepressible and unruly
bustle of life, grouchy, serene and
majestic in the character of Alwyn's
Fifth Symphony. A stomping and echoing
majesty storms through the final heroic
bars. This is the rise to manhood with
no charting of decline.
The Seventh is
dedicated to Hans and Milein Keller.
It was written not to any commission
but for an RCA recording project
that never came off. The Second Symphony
and this one were to appear on the same
LP. It had to wait until 1984 for its
premiere with Brian Wright and the RLPO.
This work always strikes me as a sort
of analogue for a philosophical discourse.
Its stylistic parallels lie with Sibelius
4, the great arching first movement
of Shostakovich 6 and the bustling and
rustling energetic discharge of Rosenberg's
Sixth Symphony.
Next we come to the
three final symphonies written between
1987 and 1990. The Ninth Symphony
is on the same disc as an extended
talk about the symphony by the composer.
This is done with typical modesty and
conviction. It is dedicated to the composer’s
wife, Angela. The first of three sections
of this continuous span of music is
grand with echoes of a severe Bachian
chorale prelude and an awed grandeur
also resonates through the finale pages
of this section which pitches directly
into the grand guignol of the
central episode. Its Beethovenian helter-skelter
and brassy staccato contrasts with the
liberated athletic cantilena of the
strings before the serenity sometimes
gaunt and sometimes warm of the final
chapter. The risen triumph of the final
five minutes – quite apart from prompting
passing thoughts of the outrage radiant
in Malcolm Arnold’s Fifth Symphony -
is ethereal without being in any way
like Tavener or Macmillan. It harks
back to the chorale prelude atmosphere
of the opening.
The Tenth Symphony
is in four movements. There’s a
crushingly emphatic allegro,
a breathy allegro leggiero piping
its pianissimo way through a cold Eden,
the enigmatic sphinx-like gaze of the
andante and the superb Neptune
glimmering of a prefacing Largo give
way to a lengthy and fantastic Allegro
con brio. This ends with a stubborn
outburst given definition by a brawl
of brass and timpani. I still find this
a difficult piece perhaps in much the
same way that I still find the Arnold
symphonies 7 and 9 intractable yet intriguing.
The last CD holds the
Eleventh Symphony and Simpson’s
Nielsen Variations. The Symphony
is dedicated to composer-conductor Matthew
Taylor who premiered the work at Cheltenham
Town Hall in 1991. Like numbers 2 and
7 it is for a small classical orchestra
with an extra pair of horns. Like 1-3,
6 and 7 it is all over in about half
and hour. Despite these diminutive references
this is not a symphony of small gestures.
It is typically serene in the first
movement and chirpily playful and full
of fantasy in the finale before a startling
outburst that quietly fades, breathes
new air then decides to end. It is a
fascinating example of a composer finding
renewal in how to bring a symphonic
work to a satisfying conclusion.
The only non-symphonic
work in the set is the Nielsen
Variations. These take a jolly
theme from Nielsen’s incidental music
for Ebbe Skamulsen (1925) and
wrest from it nine variations and a
finale. Variation 3 is Simpson’s homage
to the pastoral stillness captured by
the Danish composer in his symphonies
3 and 4. Variation 7 is both explosive
in the manner of Nielsen 4 yet as it
closes looks to the soloistic intercourse
of the Sinfonia Semplice. The
ten minute long finale starts with regret-tinged
music for strings, some flighty heroism
with punched out brass chords recalling
Roy Harris and Simpson own Fifth Symphony
and a final belled and hammered ascent
to grandeur and C major. The Variations
were written between symphonies 8 and
9.
The Hyperion presentation
for the set is sober; almost ascetic.
The cover of the box and booklet is
of the Vela pulsar nebula - the
glowing remnants of a Supernova.
This set is the
way to acquire the Simpson symphonies.
There is no equivalent although you
can of course buy the individual Hyperion
issues at full price and enjoy a more
sumptuous packaging. Each of the seven
discs is packed in a basic white paper
envelope with one face transparent so
that you can read the CD label. Each
envelope is sealed with a sticky flap
so each time you have to peel the flap
back to get at the disc. The case is
a basic stiff-card wallet in the manner
of Brilliant Classics.
I think Simpson would
have welcomed this ever so slightly
spartan finish which focuses down on
the music and allows its fascination
to work its benevolently insinuating
magic without even the chance of distraction.
The First Symphony
is available in the important pioneering
recording by Boult (EMI Classics) as
is the even more forbidding Third Symphony
on NMC (Horenstein) with the Clarinet
Quintet.
It is worth noting
that but for Matthew Taylor’s conducting
of ‘his own’ symphony: No. 11, this
would have been a Vernon Handley-conducted
event. Handley's support for the Simpson
cause has gone largely unsung. It is
good that he can be heard now in ten
of the symphonies including the Tenth
which is dedicated to him.
Calum Macdonald's notes
guide us through the eleven symphonies
and the forty years they span. There
is a tad too much musicological exegesis
for my liking but no doubt this will
help others. The compact essay is across
ten pages and is reproduced in French
and German as well as English. Full
discographical information is provided.
If you have never heard
any Simpson then start with the Fifth
Symphony and then move to the First
and Fourth. If you need a more accessible
entry-point then try the delightful
Nielsen Variations first and
orientate yourself to Simpson’s soundworld.
I hope that one day
someone will have the temerity to record
Simpson’s original version of the massive
Fourth Symphony - well worth the wrath
of true believers.
Meantime this set is
the way to acquire the Simpson
symphonies and those who chose to wait
now reap the rewards at Hyperion’s Helios
price. And next the string quartets?
Rob Barnett
HYPERION CDS44191-7 [7 CDs: 73:03 + 74:50
+ 70:59 + 60:06 + 67:54 + 54:38 + 54:55] 
for
details
