John Joubert is a naturalized British composer of South African origin. I
do not need to sketch out his biography or list his main works as this had
already been very adequately done on
MWI here. He is probably best known for his shorter choral works, and
there can be few people who have not heard or even sung his carol
Torches. There is a charming story of how a carol-singing group
regaled Joubert with a performance before realising that he was its
composer.
He has, however, also composed a number of orchestral works and even three
full-length operas. Opportunities to hear these are rare (
Jane Eyre
performed in Birmingham on 22 October 2015), so this reissue of three
orchestral works, one a song-cycle, is very welcome.
Temps perdu
was inspired by two things. One was an early work of his own, a set of
variations which became the basis of this work – we might compare Britten’s
Simple Symphony, which had a similar origin. The other was Proust’s
À la recherche du temps perdu. The English translation, still
happily titled
Remembrance of Things Past, had recently (1982) been
reissued in a version revised by Terence Kilmartin. In
Swann’s Way,
the first part, Charles Swann and his girlfriend Odette de Crécy have as a
private symbol of their love a ‘petite phrase’ from the violin sonata by the
fictional composer Vinteuil. This is based on an actual passage in the first
violin sonata by Saint-Saëns. Joubert includes this in the first variation
and several times later. I have already mentioned Britten, and Joubert’s
work is in a very similar idiom and could be compared to Britten’s
Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge. It is a most attractive
piece.
The Sinfonietta I would compare rather to Tippett, as it begins with a
sonata allegro, a form Britten avoided, while its leaping lines recall the
opening of Tippett’s
Concerto for double string orchestra. Here,
however, we have some wind instruments added and they are given a chance to
shine in the slow first part of the second movement. The second part of this
movement is a lively tarantella.
The instant moment is a song cycle to five poems by D. H.
Lawrence. These celebrate his love affair with Frieda Weekley, whom he later
married. It is hard now to appreciate the admiration, not to say reverence,
which Lawrence inspired in many people in the middle years of the twentieth
century. This brought about an inevitable reaction and he is probably rather
underestimated now. Joubert explains in his own, most informative,
sleeve-note, that he took the title of his work from a passage by Lawrence
in which he characterises his verse as “the insurgent naked throb of the
instant moment”. I must admit that I find Lawrence’s artistic aims,
personality and a good deal of his work quite antipathetic – and I read a
good deal of it at one time – so it is a tribute to say that I enjoyed this
work more than I expected to. I suppose the moral is that the words need to
inspire the composer, but that they do not need to inspire the listener.
This is a much darker and more sombre work than its two companions and it
takes us into some disturbing territory. If I liked the poems more I would
say it was a companion for baritone voice to Britten’s song-cycles for
tenor.
The Instant moment and
Temps perdu were both
commissioned by the English String Orchestra so these performances have
obvious authority, enhanced by the presence of the composer’s son and
daughter among them. Henry Herford is a veteran of modern English works and
makes a characteristically vigorous contribution. All three performances
derive from a festival of Joubert’s music in 1987. The recording, despite
its age, is clean and clear. We should be grateful to Naxos and the British
Music Society for arranging this reissue and hope there will be others to
follow.
Stephen BarberReviews of previous release (British Music Society):
Neil Horner and
Nick Barnard
