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Sir Malcolm ARNOLD (1921-2006)
Grand Concerto Gastronomique for Eater, Waiter, Food and Large Orchestra Op.76 (1961) [15:06]
Symphony No.9 in D major Op.128 (1986) [42:31]
Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie (soprano)
Liepāja Symphony Orchestra/John Gibbons
rec. 14-16 June 2021 Great Amber Concert Hall, Liepāja, Latvia
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0613 [57:40]

Let me nail my colours to the mast before I review this disc at all. I consider Malcolm Arnold’s Symphony No.9 to be a great work, indeed a work of genius by a great composer. I suspect conductor John Gibbons feels much the same as evidenced by this well played and carefully considered performance. There has been some debate recently on the MusicWeb message board about the relative neglect of Arnold during this his centenary year. My personal belief is that this has as much to do with the spirit of the current age and a seeking after modern ‘relevance’ rather than a considered judgement on the artistic worth of his substantial output. Rather salutary to think that on the cusp of November in a centenary year this is probably the first major orchestral recording to mark such an important anniversary.

The circumstances of the genesis of the work are relatively well-known but worth relating briefly. The work was a BBC commission due to be composed straight after the Symphony No.8 which was completed in 1978. Indeed the opus numbers are close; 124 and 128 respectively. Arnold’s mental health was always precarious and following on No.8 he suffered a major collapse including attempted suicide. The period of recuperation was long and fraught and there was a legacy in Arnold’s compositional processes with the resulting Symphony having a bareness of texture, counterpoint and harmony quite unlike anything he had written previously which had an abundance of all those characteristics. No real wonder then that the BBC reading panel took fright with the finished score believing it to be at best incomplete and at worst proof of Arnold’s seeming vastly diminished capabilities. Hence the work had to wait 6 more years for a studio workshop run-through by one of Arnold’s great friends and musical supporters Sir Charles Groves. Even then, there was a distinct sense of it being something “less” and not until Andrew Penny recorded it as the crowning achievement of his fine Naxos cycle in 1995 did the stature of the work begin to emerge. That said, it still has not been played at the BBC Proms – an omission which I find hard to comprehend.

A word here too for the excellence of the extended liner note on this disc by composer/academic Timothy Bowers as well as a personal note by John Gibbons entitled “revisiting Malcolm Arnold”. Bowers in particular explains and clarifies quite brilliantly just why this is such a powerful and impressive work. Simply put it is exactly the limitations imposed by his illness and the way that Arnold managed to navigate them while staying true to his musical identity and individuality. To quote Bowers once; “...it is arguably the most moving symphony of [Arnold’s] whole cycle. One hears Arnold’s voice in its simplest terms. It is, despite its austerity, the work of a master craftsman who, throughout his life, wrote music that is far more than the sum of its parts.” Just so – a perfect summation.

This is the work’s fourth recording. After Penny, Vernon Handley followed in Bournemouth as part of his cycle for Conifer (now available as part of a Decca box of Arnold Symphonies). Then in 2001 Rumon Gamba completed the Richard Hickox cycle on Chandos. So it is already twenty years since the last ‘new’ recording. I have to say my preferred version remains Penny – clearly this might be a case of “first love” but as objectively as I can be, I still hear this to be a beautifully paced, sensitively and subtlety played and recorded performance. The coupling of a slightly tense interview between Penny and Arnold (who attended the sessions) is a bonus no Arnold admirer will want to miss. A brief look at the printed score is telling – the thing that instantly hits the score reader is how empty it appears. Pages and pages of empty staves with some parts silent for minutes on end. Yet the ear tells a different story. Yes, you are instantly aware that in no way is this a “thickly” scored work and yes the emotional landscape is relatively bare but this in no way suggests that the scoring or the emotion conveyed is barren or empty. There are features at every turn but the skill of the performers is to underline these musical events and adjust the expressive range accordingly to allow details to register without overstating them. Likewise the listener needs to recalibrate the way in which this work is listened to. This is not a work replete with events and obvious melodies – which of course much earlier Arnold is. Penny was helped greatly by the skill of the NSO of Ireland’s players who gave a phrase the gentlest of expressive nudges and so doing highlighted the understated emotion present in much of the work. The Naxos engineering which placed the orchestra slightly further back into a warm acoustic also helped to integrate the strings in particular in a way that served the work so well.

This new performance by John Gibbons conducting the Latvian Liepāja Symphony Orchestra is also very good but the engineering places the orchestra slightly closer to the microphones. To my ear this has the effect of exaggerating the relatively limited dynamic markings in the score. Again, this might be interpreted as a manifestation of Arnold’s reduced musical faculty; the ‘range’ of dynamics is predominantly p to f with pp and ff used relatively sparingly – with the crescendi/decrescendi between these dynamic points similarly infrequent. Penny is very good at observing these almost emotionally detached indications which means that when he does point a marcato accent or wider (pp/ff) dynamic it makes more of an expressive impact. Make no mistake, Gibbons and his Liepāja Symphony Orchestra are very good but by making more of the dynamics somehow the overall power of the reined-in range is diminished.

It is in the finale that Gibbons makes his single most individual interpretative choice. In the liner he writes; “Many have seen Arnold’s Ninth Symphony as the angst-ridden work of a dying man...this view contradicted my own understanding of the work...there are dark moments of considerable intensity and pain but, for me, these are counterbalanced by over-riding feelings of peace and serenity...” To achieve this vision Gibbons, in essence, ignores Arnold’s printed tempo marking of Lento crochet/quarter note = 60 favouring a beat closer to 80. Again to quote Gibbons; “[this] allows the music to flow inexorably towards the sublime D major resolution at the end of the work.” This it undoubtedly does but even after several listenings I must admit that the “original” tempo marking – one followed quite closely by the other three interpreters on disc – is for the moment too firmly rooted in my inner ear. I find the slower tempo underlines the sense of weary endurance after which the serene D major resolution is even more moving and impactful.

Important to state though that Gibbons is probably one of the leading, most consistent promoters of Arnold’s major scores having conducted the entire cycle in recent years. So this is not a choice casually arrived at. Gibbons notes that Arnold in his own recordings would often deviate significantly from his own markings – although it should also be noted that Arnold often chose to be slower not faster. One obvious impact of this flowing tempo is to change the proportions of the work. Bowers notes – as others have before – that the length of the standard/slower finale is roughly the same as the other three movement s combined (given Gibbons’ choice I suspect Bowyers wrote the liner before he had heard this performance!). Here, Gibbons’ finale comes in at 17:57 as opposed to the average 23-24 minutes of the other recordings. To be honest, I have yet to assimilate this radical change and I am not sure I will in the short term, so for me the jury is still “out” and other listeners must judge for themselves but clearly great music can and should be interpreted in a wide range of ways.

Across the other three movements, tempi are much less controversial. The Mahlerian influence has been quoted before but I would add passages of a winnowed terseness that would not be out of place in a Shostakovich score. Not to say Arnold was seeking to emulate either of those great composers, simply that they share a similar emotional palette. Certainly this is a performance that all admirers of Arnold’s music should hear.

The disc opens with a genuine Arnold rarity – indeed a first recording. To give the work its full name the Grand Concerto Gastronomique for Eater, Waiter, Food and Large Orchestra Op.76. The work was one of several good-humoured works that Arnold provided for the famed Hoffnung Music Festivals from the mid 1950’s through to 1961. Undoubtedly the full comedic impact of the work requires it to be seen – the score in isolation has the feel of a silent movie score with exactly the kind of ‘big’ gestures and technicolour effects so notably absent in the Symphony. Arnold had a particular genius for writing music that was technically skilful and musically satisfying while being also genuinely inclusive and entertaining – his sets of English Dances immediately spring to mind in this category. The Concerto Gastronomique is intended as an incidental work but as such a very good one. Even without the visual/comedic prompts it is entertaining and Arnold plays to the maximum the parodic potential of a ‘nobilmente’ march for Roast beef although Gibbons made a (sensible) performing choice to play the march just three times instead of following the concert direction of repeating it again and again and again, getting ever slower as the eater becomes ever fuller. Apparently at the first performance this involved twelve(!) repetitions. The ‘desert’ of Peach Melba turns out to be a genuinely witty arrangement of the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria for wordless soprano and what might be termed a cinematic accompaniment. Harp and vibraphone play the famous Bach accompaniment and double Gounod’s counter-melody while Hollywood strings and queasy sliding wind suggest this might be one rich course too far. Soprano Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie sensibly sings her vocalise ‘straight’ and rather beautifully (albeit recorded separately in London) leaving the accompaniment to provide the humour. Musically, shape and coherence is given by the Epilogue – coffee, brandy reprising the musical material of the Prologue. Arnold completists such as myself will definitely want to hear this work, quite how well it serves as the entreé for the symphony I am less sure but of course CD or streaming makes it very easy to select a preferred listening programme.

Overall, this is a typically excellent disc from Toccata; first rate music receiving effective performances presented in an informative and valuable package. Even the rather sombre, indeed haunted, image of Arnold that stares bleakly from the booklet cover is well-chosen and apt. Given that it is two decades since we have had a new survey of Arnold’s magnificent symphonies, I hope that this will prove to be just the beginning of a new cycle – a warmly welcomed disc.

Nick Barnard