William ALWYN (1905-1985)
Overture in the Form of a Serenade (1946) [5:55]
Micaela Haslam (soprano); The London Chorus
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Heroic Elegy & Triumphal Epilogue (1901 rev. 1902) [20:03]
Roderick Elms (organ)
York BOWEN (1884-1961)
Orchestral Poem Eventide op.69 (1922) [13:10]
Roderick Elms (organ)
William ALWYN (1905-1985)
Prelude (1925) [2:11]
Blackdown – a Tone Poem from the Surrey Hills (1926) [5:00]
Peter Pan Suite (1923) [5:24]
Ad Infinitum – a Satire for Orchestra (1929) [7:02]
Sir Hubert PARRY (1848-1918)
Hypatia – incidental music (1892) [13:04]
The London Chorus/Ronald Corp
BBC Concert Orchestra/John Wilson
rec. The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford, 12-14 July 2009
DUTTON EPOCH CDLX 7237 [72:52]
Some people do not take kindly to these very mixed collections. I rather like
them even if I do lean more towards single composer albums. It’s probably
non-PC to commend such miscellanies for the reason that they may in this case
attract the avid Bowen enthusiast they might well lead to that person ‘discovering’
Alwyn. Anyway here goes ….
Alwyn’s 1940s Overture in the Form of a Serenade is a gallimaufry of
influences and effects – all attractive if in a disorientating blend. The
work has a Petrushkan energy, a touch of RVW folksiness and the light and
carefree attitude of Bliss in Rhapsody and Madam Noy. This is
rarely redolent of what we may regard as the mature Alwyn from the symphonies
although once or twice the brass whoops betray that identity. We then turn
to a work from another, more famous, composer’s pre-history: the Heroic
Elegy & Triumphal Epilogue by Vaughan Williams. Given the references
to heroism and triumph the mood of the music is more seraphic than I had expected.
Compare it with slightly later works, similarly entitled, by the young and
confident Havergal Brian. His For Valour (1902-06) and In Memoriam
(1910) were recorded by the Hull Youth Symphony Orchestra and Geoffrey
Heald-Smith in 1979-81 and can still be heard on Cameo Classics CC9014CD-2.
The NSO Ireland conducted by Adrian Leaper also recorded In Memoriam on
Marco Polo 8.223481. New recordings of those Brian works are due from Toccata
Classics in due course. The two Brian pieces - also written with the Boer
War as backdrop - have a more craggy aspect where RVW, though he has some
darkly tragic outbursts as at 1:38 in the longer Triumphal Epilogue,
is in general more tensely restrained. Again characteristic RVW is short on
the ground but there are some foreshadowings of the pastoral voice that was
to come. Drum-rolls and fanfares are present so that at least is in keeping.
Who knows – next we may get to hear the tone poem The Solent – I very
much hope so. The two RVW works are separately tracked. York Bowen’s renaissance
continues apace with the premiere of his First Symphony at Em Marshall’s English
Music Festival in May 2010. The orchestral and chamber Bowen has been done
handsomely by Dutton. With the tone poem Eventide this is carried further
forward. It’s a lovely rounded and contented sunset score in an idiom that
blends Delius and Bax – in that sense a typical product of the Royal Academy.
The final pages wreathed in solos from the orchestra’s principals are utterly
magical. The piece was last heard in a speckle of concert and radio performances
in the 1920s. It is inspired by Keats’ first sonnet. We return to Alwyn next
for four works from the 1920s. There’s a grimly determined microscopic Prelude
for orchestra which in fact contains far more presentiments of the future
mature Alwyn than the 1946 overture that launches the disc. Its gaunt and
turbulent mien several times reminded me of his Fifth Symphony Hydriotaphia
which lay fifty years in the future. Dutton really do offer new perspectives
on works we are familiar with and constantly cause the readjustment of our
judgmental compasses. Blackdown – a Tone Poem from the Surrey Hills
will appeal to all lovers of British pastoralism. It was performed at the
same Guildford concert as Bowen’s Eventide. It’s a musical portrait
as potently atmospheric as Maurice Johnstone’s superb Tarn Howes and
RVW’s Lake in the Woods. The music was inspired by the view from the
top of Blackdown, the hill near Haslemere. It’s wonderful stuff and quite
unlike the majority of the Alwyn we know from post-1945. The Peter Pan
Suite is in four movements: (i) Peter Pan (light as down – Fauré-impressionistic
and contented); (ii) Tinker Bell (tinklingly restful – Ariel without
the mischief); (iii) The Lost Boys in Never-Never Land (more ambivalent
in mood – sorrowing even) and (iv) Captain Hook (a mercurial piece
– with fragments of a familiar hornpipe). Ad Infinitum is the longest
piece in this Alwyn sequence. It is quite different from the rest. Beginning
rampant it remains furious or at least irritable with activity. It was inspired
by Josef Capek’s play The Life of the Insects. The lyrically restless
theme has a touch of Elgar about it but its vigour owes more to Barber’s nostalgic
suite Souvenirs – or it might have had it not have pre-dated the Barber.
It ends in alternating caramel and bitters. Parry was from a previous generation
and from the ‘other’ London college to the one attended by Alwyn and Bowen.
The three movements from his incidental music for a stage adaptation of Charles
Kingsley’s novel Hypatia are variously Elgarian-contented (i) Andante
(Hypatia and Philammon - Act 3: Entr’acte; sumptuously complacent and
ever-threatening to turn into a waltz (ii) Allegretto (Ruth and Orestes)
Entr’acte before Act 2 and proudly rounded in its march mode but with a very
much lighter touch emerging in the Trio section (iii) Moderato alla marcia
(Orestes’ March) Act 4, Scene 2.
The whole collection is successful though I confess I was not that impressed
with the for me rather emptily Germanic Parry. There are no complaints and
indeed glowing praise for the performance and recording. The notes are by
Andrew Knowles and Lewis Foreman. They hit all the right bases.
Rob Barnett