The Dutton label is certainly giving tremendous service to rare
British music, very much in the way we have been used to from
Chandos and Hyperion. Dutton’s repertoire of recordings has
been adventurous and many of them mouth-watering. Clearly not
all of this rare music has been outstandingly memorable. On
this release the works from William Henry Bell and Ralph Vaughan
Williams are certainly well crafted and worth getting to know.
The score by Stanley Bate is of particularly high quality. Played
here by soloist Roger Chase, using Lionel Tertis’s celebrated
Montagnana viola, all the scores are claimed to be world
premiere recordings. I note that all three composers are connected
in that they all attended the Royal College of Music (RCM),
London.
Stanley Bate was a new name to me. None of my friends seemed
to have heard of him either. Suddenly there are now two important
Bate releases available on Dutton as the Symphony No.3 (1940)
has just been issued on CDLX 7239. As a pupil at the RCM, Bate’s
impressive list of teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams,
Arthur Benjamin, Reginald Owen (R.O.) Morris and Gordon Jacob,
all of whom had studied with Stanford. Bate later studied privately
in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and also with Hindemith in Berlin
at the Hochschüle für Musik.
Bate was one of a group of British composers who stayed in the
USA during the Second World War years; an absence that undoubtedly
harmed his career in Britain. Returning to London in 1949 Bate’s
music was for the most part ignored. Significantly at this time
the BBC had embarked on a cultural repositioning in favour of
modernist composers. Experiencing severe personal difficulties
Bate committed suicide in 1959. Bate’s entry in Grove Music
Online ends with the rather pointed comment, “Bate was
highly prolific, but his music, with a few exceptions, lacks
enduring quality.” It would be interesting to know how much
of Bate’s work the Grove biographer had actually heard. On the
evidence of this recording of the Viola Concerto and
the subsequent Dutton recording of the Third Symphony I
am hopeful that the music of Bate will be judged more positively.
The Concerto for Viola and Orchestra from 1944/46 is
cast in four movements and was composed in the USA. The concerto’s
printed score bears a dedication to Vaughan Williams and was
written for the famous violist William Primrose. As indicated
by the short score it seems that Primrose was the original dedicatee.
Violist Emanuel Vardi gave the premiere with the NBC Symphony
Orchestra in 1947 at New York for a radio broadcast. Almost
immediately Bate’s Viola Concerto fell into obscurity.
In 2005 Hyperion released a splendid disc of rare late-Romantic
English Viola Concertos from York Bowen and Cecil Forsyth
on CDA67546. The Bowen and Forsyth concertos are fine works,
however, I feel that the quality of the Bate Viola Concerto
occupies a more elevated league rather akin to the William
Walton Viola Concerto and Max Bruch’s Viola Romance
in F major.
The opening measures of the first movement of the Viola Concerto
immediately cast a spell over the listener with a beautiful
cantabile line for the soloist. There is a sense of isolation
conveyed suggesting desolate landscapes. Here I was reminded
of the sound-world of Vaughan Williams’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’.
The mood quickly changes to one of generally robust writing,
communicating copious amounts of tension and edginess. This
is certainly powerful and affecting music that must surely be
influenced by the horrors of war. The brief contrasting episodes
of relative calm are appealing providing a glimpse of how different
events might have been. Overall the orchestration is evocative
of Vaughan Williams infused with lashings of Waltonesque rhythms
and harmonies.
The splendid Andante Sostenuto has an uncertain calm
permeated with gently swaying rhythms of a dark and intense
sadness. The solo viola enters at 2:10 with a mournful cry.
Throughout the movement the music plumbs considerable emotional
depths. Again it is difficult not to be reminded of Vaughan
Williams together with hints of Samuel Barber and Walton. One
can easily imagine the late autumnal chill of an English marshland
scene inhabited by frenzied bird migration activity. This is
surely a nostalgic cry from the American-based composer for
his home country.
Marked Allegro vivace the Scherzo is hurried and
agitated, almost frantic music. It sparkles with freshness and
wilful energy. I was left wanting more of this brief yet urgent
movement. On occasions the sound world, especially the haunting
and lyrical repetitions, reminded me of the distinctive approach
that Philip Glass employs today.
Powerful and memorable the final movement concentrates more
on mood painting than killer themes. Not too dissimilar to the
opening movement the solo writing
utilises long Romantic lines and the warmly colourful orchestration
is lush and opulent. A sensuous Waltonesque style is present
overlying rich and dense orchestral scoring in the stormy manner
of Vaughan Williams.
There can be few classical music lovers who have not heard of
Ralph Vaughan Williams, a composer whose eminence has travelled
worldwide with an appeal that has been enduring. The short Romance
was originally a composition for Viola and Piano dating
from around the 1930s. It may have been intended as an encore
for the renowned violist Lionel Tertis but for some reason was
consigned to the drawer. The Romance was edited
for performance by violist Bernard Shore who gave the premiere
in 1962 with Eric Gritton at the Arts Council Drawing Room at
St. James’s Square, London. Roger Chase the violist on this
release has prepared a sympathetic orchestration of the Romance
for small orchestra. One wonders what the master himself
would have created. Characteristically pastoral in feel the
Romance is attractive rather than vintage Vaughan Williams.
William Henry Bell (usually know as W.H. Bell) was another budding
composer to study with Stanford at the RCM. In fact, Bell also
studied for a time with Frederick Corder at the Royal Academy
of Music. Sadly Bell is one of a large number of Stanford pupils
and associates who, although achieving a modicum of success
during their careers, have faded almost completely from the
radar; with commercial recordings of their scores a distinct
rarity.
Probably frustrated by the limited opportunities afforded by
the fierce competition for work several former RCM students
from this era searched abroad to improve their professional
prospects. Like several of his contemporaries Bell took advantage
of British colonial links by emigrating to South Africa in 1912.
There he made a highly successful career becoming director of
the South African College of Music; it later became part of
the University of Cape Town. A tribute to his memory is the
W.H. Bell Music Library at the University of Cape Town.
Bell wrote his three movement Rosa Mystica, Concerto
for Viola and Orchestra in 1916 receiving its premiere the
next year in Cape Town. It is not known for certain why Bell
appended the title Rosa Mystica (Mystical Rose),
usually a sacred reference to the Virgin Mary, to his Viola
Concerto. The score is prefaced by a couple of verses
from The Flower Of Jesse from Martha Edith Rickert’s
collection Ancient English Christmas Carols - 1400-1700.
Four horns playing in unison herald a martial preface to the
first movement. This mainly sweet and fluid music contains episodes
that convey a sense of fear and excitement. Written in the midst
of the horrors of the Great War one can easily imagine Bell
depicting a scene of crowds of young men responding to Kitchener’s
call to enlist to serve King and Country. At times in the viola
passagework I was reminded of the lyricism of the Delius Violin
Concerto.
The Adagio is gentle and gloriously tender writing of
mood rather than melody. These passionate outpourings must unquestionably
be Bell’s musical depiction of a love affair. There is a stirring
contrasting episode of storm and tension from about 5:02 which
soon subsides.
The Finale feels similar in many ways to the opening
movement especially the very brief suggestions of a martial
character that commences the movement. The general atmosphere
is a peaceful one, almost idyllic, that feels a million miles
away from the horrors of war. There are light undercurrents
of tension present in the music but only rarely felt. From around
5:00 the music develops a robust quality of forward momentum
that gradually fades in intensity.
Soloist Roger Chase and the BBC Concert Orchestra under Steve
Bell are to be congratulated for their admirable endeavours
in bringing these three premiere recordings from project to
fruition. Their playing is sympathetic, alert and consistently
well judged. Beautifully recorded with a fine warm bloom and
a splendid balance from the Colosseum in Watford the release
also has the benefit of two splendid essays.
This is a fine recording from Dutton that will help promote
these forgotten works. I believe the Stanley Bate Viola Concerto
to be an outstanding score deserving of acclaim.
Michael Cookson
Roger Chase (viola) 
