MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Joseph HOLBROOKE (1878-1958) Violin Sonata no.3 in F ‘Orientale’ op.83 (1926) [12:34]
Sir Henry WALFORD DAVIES (1869-1941) Violin Sonata no.2 in D minor op.7 (1896) [18:10]
Cyril ROOTHAM (1875-1938) Violin Sonata in G minor (1925) [19:49]
Arthur BENJAMIN (1893-1960) Sonatina for cello and piano (1939)* [11:56]
Jacqueline Roche (violin); Robert Stevenson (piano); Justin Pearson (cello); Sophia Rahman (piano)
rec. Potton Hall, Suffolk, 14-16 February 2008
World premiere recordings except *first CD recording
DUTTON EPOCH CDLX7219 [63:00]

 

Experience Classicsonline


This is a charm for the curious, the enthusiast for these composers and the student of the chamber medium as canvassed by composers of the British Isles. The time span runs from four years short of the transition into the twentieth century to the year of the start of the Second World War. Holbrooke was to see out the war as was Benjamin who lived through both. Benjamin however retained a grip on success, on concerts and on broadcasts. Holbrooke however found that the war spelt neglect as his music became increasingly unfashionable. Like York Bowen he was to live into old age with his music gathering dust around him and with his benefactor since 1907 dying one year after the end of the war. Rootham who had seen active service in the Great War died one year short of the start of War and Walford Davies – a great educator – died while the war still raged.

Holbrooke wrote three violin sonatas (1900s, 1917 and 1925). The middle one is a version of the Grasshopper Violin Concerto which like the concertos for cello and for saxophone awaits a premiere recording. This is the Third Sonata’s first commercial recording although it was recorded privately for the composer in the 1930s and a studio broadcast was put out by the BBC in the early 1980s. This version is played full out with total commitment by Roche and Stevenson. The music is certainly not oriental in the sense we might expect from songs by Bliss, Lambert or Mahler. It’s a vague flavour and whether I would have noticed it but from the title I am not at all sure. The single movement Sonata is mercurial, sanguine, warmly lyrical without being in any way like Brahms or Bruch. If anything you might well warm to this if you enjoy the John Ireland and Dunhill sonatas. It strikes a superb balance between melodic ideas and length. You will not tire of the piece.

For a change of temperature and style move on to Walford Davies’s op. 7 Second Violin Sonata in four movements. After a strenuous Brahmsian first movement comes a chuckling Dvořákian Allegretto semplice. This does not have the all-conquering confidence of the Tovey Piano Trios but it has compactly expressed pleasures of a romantic pensive leaning. The easy-going, flowing and smiling mood glimpsed in the second movement returns with a silvery and very attractive eloquence here.

Cyril Rootham’s music has been in harness with Holbrooke’s before. Have a look at the Rootham First Symphony and Holbrooke Birds of Rhiannon on Lyrita (JF; RB). Rootham in the 1920s wrote with the most treasurable lyrical faculty. The singing line in the first movement for example might well make you think of Delius or Ireland’s Second Sonata but the idea is I think stronger than either. This is not the Sonata equivalent of the First Symphony which in any event lay seven years in the future. The intensely honeyed singing line might be thought of as a modern counterpart to the Karlowicz or Sibelius violin concertos. It is a glorious full-throated idea and Roche makes full play of it. She sounds more excitable and confident than Barry Wilde who recorded it with Alan Fearon on a private LP back in the 1970s. In general the admirable Jacqueline Roche carries her confidence high and harking back to Jürgen Hess’s broadcast of the Holbrooke also leaves him sounding positively tentative. The finale of the Rootham sings in a way that bring to mind Howells at his most pastoral-ecstatic during the decade from 1914 to 1924.

Arthur Benjamin was born in Sydney but was very much part of the British music scene as composer and administrator. His list of works is by no means lengthy although there are a handful of operas. His most striking works are the Symphony and the Romantic Fantasy for violin and viola and orchestra – the latter dedicated to Bax and by no means at odds with the Delian idiom. The Cello Sonatina is in three compact movements of which the middle one seems to hark back to Bach while the finale has the devilish obsessive quality of the Bax Viola Sonata’s central movement.

The simply splendid booklet notes – almost essential with a release this recondite - are by the pianist Robert Stevenson.

This makes for a fine conspectus of neglected British violin sonatas and in this company the Rootham and the Holbrooke stand out. It will complement the Forum-Regis collection. I also hope that it will serve as a pathfinder for a further collection to include the Isaacs Violin Sonata and Holbrooke’s Second Sonata. More please.

Rob Barnett


see also article on the Genesis of this recording by Robert Stevenson


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.