"Few composers
belonging to the "lost generation"
of English Romantics stand in such urgent
need of rehabilitation as Cyril Scott"
- so wrote the late Christopher Palmer
in his excellent and insightful notes
to the first part of this disc.
Cyril Scott was a prodigy
and happily his parents recognised his
gifts. He was dispatched to Frankfurt
at the age of 12 to study with Humperdinck
and returned there aged 16 to begin
more sustained studies with Iwan Knorr
along with a number of "British"
compatriots including Percy Grainger,
Norman O’Neill, Balfour Gardiner and
Roger Quilter (the so-called ‘Frankfurt
Group’).
Scott achieved a prominent
reputation in the years immediately
preceding and following the Great War
and was a highly respected composer
in continental circles, especially admired
by Debussy - whose knowledge of British
music was second to none. After that,
interest in his music declined precipitously
and he is now virtually forgotten apart
from some of his piano pieces. Interestingly,
like Coates, his English publisher,
Elkin, only required lighter pieces
such as piano solos and songs, whilst
his German publisher, Schott, was interested
in larger-scale pieces – very telling!
Tragically and ironically, the original
manuscripts of many of his major works
were destroyed in allied bombing raids
during World War II.
This disc features
John Ogdon and the LPO under the anglophile
American composer and conductor, Bernard
Herrmann. The CD begins with the First
Piano Concerto, which The Times
music critic described as a work of
"unique importance" after
its first performance by the composer
with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and
Beecham at the Festival of British
Music in May 1915. This is indeed
a seminal work and fully deserves to
be in the repertoire. Although it is
scored for fairly small orchestra it
is at times lush, exotic and crushingly
chromatic. Not least, it is forward-looking
and could easily have been composed
in the late 1920s or early 1930s. For
instance, the staccato piano chords
in the last movement cadenza stand comparison
with the much later concerto of Britten,
and some chordal sequences even remind
one of Gershwin. The use of the celesta
adds to the exotic feeling of much of
the score and brings to mind Neptune
from the Planets. The second
movement has an almost hallucinogenic
quality. The final movement is rousing
and virtuosic, and brings the work to
a magnificent conclusion. Both Ogdon
and Herrmann are clearly enraptured
by the work and were to be congratulated
for making this pioneering recording
back in 1977. However, the rapture on
occasion heads towards reticence and
introspection and they could possibly
be criticised for a certain degree of
self-indulgence, especially in the timings.
After all, we do have a very recent
recording with which to make comparison
in Howard Shelley with Martin Brabbins
and the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos.
They manage to knock an amazing 6 minutes
off the timing of the first movement
alone! It is in the central, rather
ruminative, section of the first movement
that the difference is mainly observed.
Quite honestly, a degree of introspection
and relaxation is needed at times and
I find this performance engaging and
penetrating enough to convince me of
the importance of the work and to be
angered by its neglect.
Roger Wimbush provided
the background information for the two
other recordings on this CD. The less
substantial and more populist variations
on Early One Morning follows,
in a version rescored by the composer
for one rather than two pianos and orchestra.
It is lushly scored for strings with
the piano often having an obbligato
accompanying role. The rather dreamily
romantic sections are interspersed with
tougher and more clashing interludes;
but we are never far away from the theme,
which constantly recurs in various,
intriguing guises and harmonies.
The Second Piano concerto
was composed much later (1958) and at
a time when Scott, due to outright ostracism
by the so-called musical elite, turned
to composition purely for his own distraction
rather than for any chance of performance.
Indeed the score is only available in
manuscript form and this recording may
indeed have been its first outing. A
second recording is now available on
Chandos with the same team that produced
the First Piano concerto. The Second
is a much shorter work, and for 1958
is clearly not as avant-garde as
the First was in 1913, but it still
has great interest. After a gruff opening
sequence, the first movement winds down
to a rather reflective and rhapsodic
middle section before finishing strongly.
The second movement is very short and
occupies a similar sound-world to the
second movement of the First Concerto
composed 40 years earlier. Perhaps its
less mystical quality is due to the
absence of the celesta - as in the First
Concerto. Indeed, the movement quickly
transgresses many tonal boundaries before
Scott introduces an extended section
of unaccompanied piano chords and arpeggios
and then comes quietly to a conclusion.
The final movement continues where the
second left off and both Ogdon and the
LPO give a fine and purposeful performance
of what is often rather episodic music
tersely and sparsely scored. There then
follows a heavy and gruff section for
piano with chromatic chordal clusters
- rasping brass and strident string
interjections - before the work comes
to a satisfying close.
This then was a remarkable
and pioneering recording and it is wonderful
to have it available again, this time
on CD. For those who wish to have both
concertos on one disc it is clearly
a winner. However, others have opined
that the performances of the two concertos
on separate discs by Shelley and Brabbins
with the BBC Philharmonic are probably
superior. Both, I think, have their
place.
Em Marshall
See also reviews
by Rob
Barnett and John
Quinn
The
Lyrita Catalogue
for details
John Ogdon (piano) 
