British Music for Strings III
Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Suite for Strings, Op. 1a (1883/1890) (ed. Douglas Bostock)
Susan Spain-Dunk (1880-1962)
Suite for String Orchestra (1920) (ed. Peter Cigleris)
Lament, for String Orchestra (1934) (ed. Peter Cigleris)
Constance Warren (1905-1984)
Heather Hill, for String Orchestra (1929-32)
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)
Cringlemire Garden, Op. 39 (1952)
Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim/Douglas Bostock
rec. 2020, CongressCentrum, Pforzheim
CPO 555 457-2 [64]
The four composers on this disc were all well-known and enjoyed significant performances during their lifetimes. After their deaths, Fame dealt with them in very different ways, as we will see.
Constance Warren’s Heather Hill is a lovely piece, beginning with an almost Holstian spareness and gradually becoming more folky. It has a real open-air feeling, but is not without its dramatic moments. Why is this the first significant work by Constance Warren to be recorded? The answer is that virtually all of her music was written while she was studying at the Royal Academy of Music and once she returned to her native Birmingham, she stopped composing. On the basis of Heather Hill, more of her music would certainly be welcome. For additional information about both Heather Hill and Constance Warren see John Frances’ article from this past January.
Unlike Constance Warren, Susan Spain-Dunk composed throughout her life but, as Lewis Foreman points out in his notes, her “glory days” were between the two World Wars, after which her music was seen as too conservative. Like Warren, Spain-Dunk studied at the Royal Academy. After graduation her music was then taken up by Sir Henry Wood, including the Suite for String Orchestra on this disc. The work is a serious one and becomes more so over the course of its five movements. The Prelude reminded me of the music of Ernest Farrar, or perhaps of the music Farrar would have written had he not been killed in 1916. It is lyrical, but not without strength. Formally, the Interlude provides a light contrast to the first movement, but at times it is as serious as its predecessor. I especially liked the bittersweet Romance, a little reminiscent of Elgar, as well as the Scherzo. The Finale makes reference to the work’s opening, and the material is here raised to a very dramatic level.
About fifteen years after she wrote the Suite, Spain-Dunk produced her Lament for Strings. We do not know for whom the piece was written but it shows that the composer had learned over those fifteen years to express her musical thought with greater concision and emotional force. The work begins in an almost sprightly manner, but this quickly turns deeper before finally becoming plaintive, with an effecting coda. I was not familiar with anything but Susan Spain-Dunk’s name before reviewing this recording, and for me her music has been a real find. NB: mention must be made of clarinettist Peter Cigleris’ work researching and editing both Spain-Dunk works for this recording.
Ruth Gipps did not suffer much of an eclipse after her death in 1999, at least not on CD, but in my opinion, it will require a good many more CDs before her music receives its due. Cringlemire Gardens are located in the Lake District, and listeners can again turn to an article by John France for more information. Suffice it to say that the piece is an imaginatively written depiction, beginning with several solos over the main body of strings, developing into a very evocative faster section, before a return of the opening material elaborated in the composer’s distinctive style.
Although Ethyl Smyth underwent a period of neglect after her death, she has returned to prominence and her music has been much covered on recordings. Her Op. 1 was a Quintet for Strings (1883), which I reviewed last year. After she returned from her studies in Germany, she arranged the Quintet for full string orchestra (1890), and this version, along with her overture Antony and Cleopatra, first made Smyth known in England. NB: for this recording, Douglas Bostock has made his own edition of the piece. In comparing the two versions I found that the first movement’s outdoor feeling was magnified by the larger string complement, but in the second movement, the prevailing sense of urgency is better rendered in the quintet version. As per my aforementioned review, I found the central Scherzo to be the least interesting movement, and augmenting the strings did nothing to change my mind. The noble Adagio does benefit from the later version, as well as from Bostock’s evocative conducting. The final Allegro is the most individual movement and is fine in either version, but again, Bostock’s conducting is exemplary.
I have admired Douglas Bostock as conductor and adventurous programmer since his 1998 disc of Gordon Jacob’s orchestral music in Classico’s British Symphonic Collection. Lately, he has established an especially productive relationship with the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra, which he took over in 2019. This disc is the third volume in their British Music for Strings series, the first volume featuring music of Parry, Elgar and Jacob (the Symphony for Strings, which was on the Classico disc) [review] and the second, music of Bantock and Christopher Wilson [review]. I have not heard these two discs, but on Volume Three, the players are excellent, with beautiful string tone and very clear contrapuntal lines. Bostock’s tempi are also fine and he gets exquisite sounds from both the massed and solo strings. The only major drawback is the acoustic, which sometimes causes the sound to be overblown. Let us hope that Bostock and his orchestra will continue to give us works from this fascinating repertoire.
William Kreindler
Previous review: Jonathan Woolf
