Richard BLACKFORD (b.1954)
Pietà
for mezzo-soprano and baritone soli, soprano saxophone, mixed chorus,
children’s chorus and string orchestra (2019) [41:02]
Canticle of Winter
for soprano saxophone and string orchestra (2019) [6:28]
Jennifer Johnston (mezzo)
Stephen Gadd (baritone)
Amy Dickson (soprano saxophone)
The Bournemouth Symphony Chorus
The Bournemouth Symphony Youth Chorus
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Gavin Carr
rec. 23/24 June 2019, The Lighthouse, Poole, UK. DDD.
Texts and translations included.
Reviewed as lossless (wav) press release
NIMBUS ALLIANCE NI6396
[47:30]
Since Paul Corfield Godfrey
reviewed
this recording in February 2020, Pietà has been awarded the 2020
Ivor Novello Award in the Choral Category on Tuesday 1 December as part of
a two-hour ceremony, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. I missed the broadcast, so I
was pleased to receive a lossless press review pack of a work that I had
intended to investigate.
Put out of mind any thoughts that the Ivor Novello Award means light music
in the style of the composer of that name. A setting of the medieval poem Stabat Mater
could hardly be different from Novello – the words, searingly
intense, reflect the grief of Mary, bowed down at the foot of the cross.
The only other text of comparable power that I know on the same theme is the C13 English poem Stond wel, Moder, under rode, an imaginary dialogue between Jesus
on the cross and his mother roughly contemporary with Iacopo da Todi’s
Latin text – you can find text and translation
here.
PCG mentions Benjamin Britten in his review, and that’s apt, not only
because Blackford adds two poems from Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, in translation, the first a mother’s concern for her
imprisoned son – her own was a victim of the Stalin purges – the second
specifically relating to the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen at the foot of
the cross; in a parallel with the Middle English poem that I have
mentioned, Akhmatova's Jesus bids his Mother to cease weeping for him.
I remember being glued to the radio listening to the first broadcast of
Britten’s War Requiem, which I recorded on a reel-to-reel tape,
long since disappeared. I didn’t know nearly as much of Britten’s music
then, apart from the Young Person’s Guide and Peter Grimes, recently performed in Oxford – it may well be that
the War Requiem was my incentive to explore further – and I found
myself still profoundly moved by reviewing the blu-ray of the Coventry
Cathedral anniversary performance (Arthaus 108070).
Fifty years and more have not dimmed the impact of that work. I can’t claim
that Blackford’s Pietà made quite the same effect in me, and I certainly
shan’t be around in another fifty years to reassess it, but it is a
powerful work, and I shall definitely be returning to it – perhaps not in
Advent, but in Holy Week. Progressives will no doubt claim that Blackford’s
style is too conservative, but I’d rather describe it as timeless, neither
‘modern’ nor ‘old-fashioned’, whatever those terms mean. Perhaps there’s
some Shostakovich influence in there, but not imitation.
I’ve recently enjoyed a Beulah first recording of the music of
Richard Stanbrook – music that is free from ‘isms’,
certainly not limited by any rigidly-defined style (review). I appreciate Blackford’s music for very similar qualities, especially as
all concerned make a very good case for it. If you have access to
Naxos Music Library, I urge you to sample at least the powerful final section, Flammis ne urar succensus, there. While you are about it, NML have
several other Blackford / Nimbus recordings.
The short Canticle of Winter, based on a poem by Robert Frost,
rounds off the programme with a sense of both restlessness and repose.
The woods tempt the poet to stay, but he must move on. There’s no better instrument than the soprano sax, here played by the
work’s dedicatee, for making the listener feel restless. That’s why I can’t
bear to listen to Officium (ECM 4453692) or any of its successors;
Jan Garbarek’s sax weaving around the early renaissance music is just too
uncomfortable for me.
For once, I can’t complain about the short playing time; there’s really
nothing more to add, other than to urge you to listen to this compelling
recording.
Then another recent Nimbus recording of a Blackford work awaits you:
Blewbury Air (NI1570 -
review).
Brian Wilson
Previous review:
Paul Corfield Godfrey
