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English Idylls CD 1 Frederick DELIUS (1862-1934)
On
hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941)
Enter
Spring John FOULDS (1880-1939)
'April
- England' Frank BRIDGE
Summer
(Tone poem for orchestra) Percy Aldridge GRAINGER (1882-1961)
Harvest
Hymn Arnold BAX (1883-1953)
November
Woods Frank BRIDGE
Christmas
Dance 'Sir Roger de Coverley' CD 2 Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Romanza
from Tuba Concerto (arr. cello and orchestra by Vaughan
Williams) Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Romance,
Op. 62 (arr. cello and orchestra by Elgar)
Une idylle, Op.
4 No. 1 (arr. cello and organ) Frederick DELIUS
Two
Pieces for Cello and Chamber Orchestra (1930) 1. Caprice
2. Elegy Percy GRAINGER
Youthful
Rapture (1901) George DYSON (1883-1964)
Fantasy
(1935) from Prelude, Fantasy and Chaconne John IRELAND (1879-1962)
The
Holy Boy (1913) (transc. Christopher Palmer) Sir Henry WALFORD
DAVIES (1869-1941)
Solemn Melody (1908) for
solo cello, organ and strings Percy Aldridge GRAINGER
Brigg
Fair (transc. Christopher Palmer) Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)
Invocation
for Cello and Orchestra Cyril SCOTT (1879-1970)
Pastoral
and Reel (1927)
Julian Lloyd-Webber
(cello),
John Lenehan (piano) (Scott),
John Birch (organ) (Elgar, Davies)
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Sir Neville Marriner
rec. March 1996, The Colosseum, Watford, UK (CD1); January
1994, St. John’s Smith Square, London (CD2). DDD PHILIPS
ELOQUENCE 442 8415 [68:35 + 59:55]
As
I have cause to say before Marriner's Delius is undervalued.
His On Hearing the First Cuckoo while tense and pushed
is warmly cocooned. Bridge's Enter Spring comes from
a seasonal anthology first issued in 1998 which also included
the Bax and Foulds items included here. The Bridge is not
the equal of the Groves version though the recording is much
more richly detailed. Even so the sound seems more claustrophobic
and enclosed even compared with the deleted Carewe-conducted
version on Pearl. April-England by Mancunian Foulds
is a wondrous piece but this version is a little earthbound
when compared with the Wordsworth conducted one on Lyrita.
It's a sensational and terribly undervalued piece which has
a hymn-like benediction. Foulds loved hymn tunes - witness
his Cello Sonata. Strange how the chaffing strings at 3.35
are so redolent of Tippett and a Blakean gravitas bursts
forth at the climax. In that sense the Foulds is akin to
Bridge's Enter Spring. On the other hand Bridge's Summer is
all warm enchantment and so it is here in Marriner's hands.
This one tends to slowness - summer oozes in its veins. The
Grainger Harvest Hymn displays the composer's tendency
to treacle and Marriner indulges that tendency. Bax's November woods
is sumptuously recorded. This is the warmest November
Woods on record. Bridge's Roger de Coverley which
I learnt from the Britten-conducted version is very pointedly
done by Marriner. It makes good use of the wild and boozy
subsidiary lines and the counter-pointed interplay again
recalls Tippett.
The
second disc mixes cello and orchestra with cello and organ
or piano. It has Julian Lloyd Webber centre-stage. The cello
arrangement of the midmost movement of the RVW Tuba Concerto
works beamingly well but my how much the orchestral
introduction sounds like Finzi; not for the last time either
- try also 2:02 onwards! Arrangements for cello have not
finished - Elgar's autumnal Romance was written for
bassoon and catches some of the half-lights of the cello
concerto. The Idylle is soupy salon material with
a line similar to pieces perpetrated by Bridge and Glazunov.
The Delius Two Pieces - better known as Caprice
and Elegy - take us back to the solo and chamber orchestra.
It's a late work dictated to his amanuensis Eric Fenby and
here it is beautifully recorded with a fine balance between
cello, orchestra and solo harp. The second piece seems rather
anonymous but later seems haunted in the manner of Frank
Bridge. Grainger's Youthful Rapture was championed
by Beatrice Harrison who also played the Delius Cello Sonata
(also recorded by Lloyd Webber) and the Two Pieces. Such
a pity that Philips, who first issued the second disc, seem
to have been averse to recording the whole Dyson work from
which the Fantasy was extracted. It is plucked from
the Prelude, Fantasy and Chaconne for cello and small
orchestra premiered at the Three Choirs in 1935. The whole
work has been recorded but only in the version for cello
and piano (Continuum) - quite an oversight. It would make
a wonderful coupling for the Foulds Cello Concerto and Florent
Schmitt's tripartite Introit, récit et congé for
cello and full orchestra: Christopher
Palmer provided the arrangements, used here, of the Ireland The
Holy Boy and the unusual Grainger version of Brigg
Fair from the one written for choir with solo tenor voice.
Holst's Invocation for cello and orchestra is serious
and certainly not of the salon. It's a tender rounded thing
with some lovely plangent writing for woodwind along the
way (1:43). It rises to a climax of almost Bachian eminence
lofted yet higher by the hieratic horns. It encompasses a
vast range of expression compressed into almost ten minutes.
The Scott reappears as more and more music by this composer
emerges into the welcoming sunlight. Both the Pastoral and
the Reel have that typical harmonic slide and sway we also
find in that other visionary John Foulds as in the tone poem Mirage and
the Cello Sonata. The Reel develops a fine
skirl in the double-stopped manner of the bagpipes. It may
in part recall the wild brew to be heard in Grainger's Scottish
Strathspey and Reel and in other works by Chisholm and
Arnold. The Walford Davies solemn melody is hymn-like.
With
decent notes this makes a pretty good bargain if you are
in the mood for British music with an idyllic tendency.
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