Though by no means all the own-label releases
by Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé have been devoted to English
music it’s in
that field that their finest work has been
most consistently achieved on disc. Here’s another choice example
though the pieces by Holst and Delius perhaps sit a little oddly together.
I know of at least three other recordings of Holst’s visionary
Hymn of Jesus. There’s Sir Adrian Boult’s pioneering
1962 Decca recording, though the sound on that is by now somewhat
dated (
review).
Much better sonically are the 1977 EMI recording by Sir Charles Groves
(
review)
and the 1990 Chandos version conducted by Richard Hickox, which Len
Mullenger rightly described as “full-blooded” (
review).
Incidentally, by a nice piece of symmetry Hickox was the chorus-master
of the London Symphony Chorus at the time they made the Groves recording.
Groves scores a point over Boult and Hickox in having a youth choir
- the choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral - to sing the substantial
and crucial semi-chorus part. Elder also uses a group of young singers,
the estimable Hallé Youth Choir. They make a tremendous contribution,
as they have done to some previous Hallé choral recordings.
Extravagantly scored for semi-chorus, two SATB choirs and a substantial
orchestra,
The Hymn of Jesus is a work of blazing originality.
I suspect we can get an idea of how important it was to Holst by the
fact that the dedicatee was his great friend, Vaughan Williams.
Elder’s performance is thoroughly convincing. There’s
a fine feeling of space and mystery in the Prelude; the orchestral
playing is as refined as we’d expect from this source. The semi-chorus
is a bit more magically distanced than on any of the other recordings,
yet their singing has good presence too. When the Hymn proper begins
with the entry of the main choirs the music fairly blazes. Later,
when Holst sets his mystic dance going in irregular quintuple metre
- an inspired idea since it suggests a primitive dance, highly appropriate
to the text - the performance has great spirit. The Hallé Choir
sings superbly, mixing ardour and finesse as Holst’s quickly-changing
musical moods demand. Holst’s extraordinary harmonies at such
places as ‘To you who gaze, a lamp am I’ or again at ‘Know
in me the word of wisdom’ are splendidly achieved. As for the
Youth Choir their many - and important - interjections are all spot-on.
With the Hallé playing magnificently this is a very fine performance
indeed of Holst’s choral masterpiece. There is applause at the
end but, happily, the music is allowed to die away first.
Sea Drift is another visionary work but completely different
to
The Hymn of Jesus both in style and in concept. It’s
another of Delius’s Whitman settings, which received its first
performance, in a German translation, in Essen in May 1906. This was
as part of a music festival in the city, Calum MacDonald writes in
his interesting and detailed booklet note. Essen hosted at least two
significant premières at that time because I believe that just
three days later Mahler conducted the first performance of his Sixth
Symphony in the city, presumably as part of the same festival. It
was not until 1908 that
Sea Drift was heard in the UK.
Elder leads a distinguished performance. Right from the start the
wistful orchestral introduction is beautifully paced and judged. The
Hallé Choir, here called upon to sing very different music
to the Holst, prove equally adept in this idiom and deliver Delius’s
highly individual choral parts splendidly. There’s much sensitive
singing from them, such as the passage beginning ‘O rising stars!’,
but they do equally well when required to sing out ardently - ‘Shine,!
Shine! Shine!’ being one such case.
The baritone solo role is crucial and Roderick Williams offers distinguished
singing. His tone is even, firm and focused and, as ever with this
fine singer, the words are enunciated with great clarity and an evident
full understanding of their meaning. In my experience he always produces
his voice evenly throughout its compass - as here - but his top register
must be the envy of many baritones. Hear him at ‘He poured forth
the meanings’, for example. I’ve previously mentioned
the long passage that begins at ‘O rising stars!’ in the
context of the choir’s performance but Williams’s emotive
singing makes an equally critical contribution to these pages. He’s
outstandingly expressive in the passage beginning ‘O reckless
despairing carols’ and, if anything, impresses even more in
the last section, beginning at ‘O I am very sick and sorrowful’
where the quality of the orchestral accompaniment is simply marvellous.
This performance of
Sea Drift is of the highest quality from
all concerned and clearly it was appreciated greatly by the Manchester
audience, though thankfully there’s a decent pause before the
ovation begins. Incidentally, another performance of
Sea Drift
a few days later by the same forces was
reviewed
for Seen and Heard by Michael Cookson.
There are several good recordings of
Sea Drift in the catalogue
already and for quite some time the ‘market leader’ has
arguably been the Hickox/Terfel recording on Chandos which Brian Wilson
rightly praised in its download format (
review).
That CD has been part of my own collection for many years. Terfel
offers a very different listening experience. For one thing he has
a much bigger voice and more vocal amplitude than Roderick Williams.
There are several occasions in his recording, made under studio conditions,
where Terfel takes risks for interpretative emphasis - he’s
daringly quiet at ‘This gentle call is for you my love, for
you’ for instance. Terfel’s exciting, risk-taking approach
may not be to all tastes, however. I continue to admire his recording
very much but the more natural, relaxed approach of Roderick Williams
is extremely satisfying and suits the music very well indeed.
There haven’t been too many recordings of
Cynara so far
as I’m aware - and it’s something of a rarity in our concert
halls too - but some fine baritones have recorded it. I first got
to know it many years ago in the recording by John Shirley-Quirk and
that doughty, underrated Delius champion, Sir Charles Groves (
review).
Originally intended by Delius as part of
Songs of Sunset, he
decided against including it and the setting remained incomplete for
over twenty years.
Cynara was one of the first - indeed, I
believe
the first - of the pieces that Delius was able to complete
with the support of Eric Fenby. It’s good, then, that this was
one of the works that Fenby recorded for Unicorn-Kanchana in the early
1980s (
review).
The soloist was Thomas Allen - not then knighted - and his performance
is characteristically eloquent and nuanced, though some may feel -
as I do - that both he and the orchestra were placed rather too distantly
from the microphone. Now Roderick Williams enters the lists with this
version, the only item on this new CD to be recorded under studio
conditions.
As in
Sea Drift Williams gives an eloquent performance, characterised
by the same technical qualities such as even, firm tone, sense of
line and clarity of diction. He’s very subtle and expressive
and the orchestra plays Delius’s sensuous music with refinement
and sensitivity. The music briefly flares up at the start of the third
and fourth stanzas of Ernest Dowson’s poem but for the most
part the writing is lyrical and expansive. This is up to the same
extremely high standards that we’ve experienced in the other
two works here.
Two different production teams have worked on this disc but whether
in the Bridgewater Hall or in the BBC’s new Manchester studios
the recorded sound is excellent. So too is the quality of the notes,
which are by Michael Kennedy (Holst) and Calum MacDonald. This is
a disc that not only maintains but also enhances the very high reputation
of Sir Mark Elder and his Hallé forces, especially in English
music.
John Quinn
Holst discography & review
index
