Havergal BRIAN (1876-1972)
Faust (1955-56)
Peter Hoare (tenor) - Faust
David Soar (bass-baritone) - Mephistopheles
Allison Cook (soprano) - Gretchen
William Morgan (tenor) - Raphael
Robert Hayward (bass) - Gabriel
Elgan Llyr Thomas (tenor) - Michael
Simon Bailey (bass) - Der Herr [God], Bösergeist [Evil Spirit]
David Ireland (bass) - Erdgeist [Earth Spirit]
Katie Coventry (mezzo-soprano) - Schüler [Student]
Nicholas Lester (baritone) - Valentin
Clare Presland (mezzo-soprano) - Marthe
Claire Mitcher (soprano) - Stimme [Voice]
Iain Farrington (organ)/Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera/Martyn Brabbins
rec. August 2019, Abbey Road, Studio 1, London (April 2021, organ and wind machine, St George’s Headstone, Harrow)
German libretto and translation included
DUTTON EPOCH SACD 2CDLX7385 [76:55 + 58:25]
Havergal Brian’s Faust is subtitled ‘A Tragedy in a Prologue and Four Acts’. The significance of that innocent seeming subtitle is that it draws one’s attention to the fact that, in setting Part I of Goethe’s tragedy, he opens the work with the Prologue in Heaven, where God and Mephistopheles have their wager as to whom Faust will follow, something that – as Brian pointed out to his old friend Ernest Newman in a letter – neither Gounod nor Berlioz did. This exploration of a near 18-minute prologue, one that is not in itself intrinsically dramatic or theatrically propulsive – whatever philosophical background it may add - is an index of a dogged adherence to the dictates of the text as a unit of measurement that must not be sacrificed. It’s Brian at his most craggy and individual. I begin in this way because it prefigures certain elements that will occur to a listener – the work has never been staged - as the work develops.
But first some brief background. Brian wrote Faust in 1955-56 as he was approaching 80 years of age. Aged 93 he was to say that this, his fourth opera, was the one he especially wanted to hear but his wish was not to be granted. More recently small excerpts have been performed and in fact the Night Ride scene has been released on Toccata. He had clearly been considering Faust for many years and just before the outbreak of the Second World War had written that ‘If Faust teaches us anything it is the futility of seeking a solution to the mysteries of the unknown’. His position regarding the text was one of fidelity (though it was cut, nothing was changed) and his conception, operatically speaking, was intellectual, as John Pickard makes clear in his excellent, thought-provoking notes. The implicit resolution here is, to be crude, the static. The glorious phantasmagorias of Liszt and Berlioz are nowhere to be found here, of course, Brian’s solutions being altogether different.
Faust is a kind of music drama with motifs associated with the major characters, Faust, Mephistopheles and Gretchen. Orchestrally it is heavily contrapuntal and there are times when the vocal and orchestral elements operate almost in parallel, the orchestral writing functioning symphonically, which imparts a strange sense of dislocation but reinforces Brian’s intellectualised vision. Not for nothing had he inscribed lines from Part II of Faust on the score of his Gothic Symphony (1919-27), namely ‘He who strives with all his might/that man we can redeem’. Some scenic elements bear noting. In the long Prologue, where one finds Raphael, Gabriel and Michael as well as God and Mephistopheles, there’s a kind of trio for the first three mentioned and on Mephistopheles’ appearance Brian grants the orchestral strings a tremolandi, and lower brass glowering; a small whiff of sulphur is conjured up, the effect – for so often austere a word setter as Brian – is somewhat stagey.
Brian’s orchestration is worthy of attention. He often, within the contrapuntal drama of his setting, sets low brass against piercing winds, and he succeeds in communicating Faust’s urgency as he summons up the Earth Spirit in his study. But Brian’s music, here or in the symphonies, is never without expressive lyricism as can be heard as early as the first meeting of Faust and Mephistopheles. It deepens in Act 2 – after the deftly aerial Prelude for orchestra – when Faust meets Gretchen, the writing here being beautifully calibrated and touching, even Elgarian in his lighter manner.
Brian’s orchestral nocturne in the opening of the central scene of the second act is especially attractive and as this scene develops, charting the scene in Gretchen’s room, Brian offers a test case of his individual deployment of sonorities, colours, and conjunctions. Brian doesn’t make too much of the ensuing ‘King of Thule’ scene but one feels he responds more personally to the next scene where she is at her spinning wheel (‘Meine Ruh’ ist hin…’), perhaps because the former scene, where Gretchen discovers the jewels, is susceptible to melodrama but that the spinning scene is introspective and melancholic. Allison Cook’s soprano takes on an appropriately darker coloration here.
The Third Act opens at night outside Gretchen’s house. Brian employs a kind of drinking song motif and shows that he can generate dramatic tension, along with some orchestrally descriptive cues. The chorus makes one of its very few appearances here reappearing in a wholly different context in the Cathedral scene where the organ also makes a sonorous appearance. Gretchen is confronted by the Evil Spirit who is sung by bass Simon Bailey, who had earlier sung the part of God – duality of dualities. In the final act Brian again gives the orchestra a small interlude, this time – unlike the earlier aerial gossamer - a spectral night ride. This prefigures the final scene of the condemned Gretchen in prison which opens as a kind of Hindemith-like Trauermusik. Though this scene, in which she is finally saved by the grace of God, lasts a full quarter of an hour, its crux, when she hears the voice of salvation and Faust disappears with Mephistopheles, sounds so curt, that one wonders what Brian’s intention was. There is no moment of reflection for her and no orchestral epilogue. The audience is given no time to absorb the final events or to reflect on them. Might it be that Brian was himself unconvinced by Gretchen’s redemption or that he preferred not to indulge in conventional operatic glamour and instead to deny the audience easy comfort. It’s hard to say and it would be trite, given how he laboured over the work, to suggest that it was mere miscalculation.
Faust has been waited for by Brian admirers for decades. It appears in a truly splendid realisation from the forces of English National Opera with first class soloists led by Peter Hoare’s visceral, sardonic Faust, David Soar’s menacing Mephistopheles and Allison Cook’s assumption of the role of multi-variegated Gretchen – she has the furthest distance to travel emotively. The choice of Katie Coventry as the student – Brian seems to have dithered over the voice type, but a trouser role is appropriate – is an apt one and she sings with intelligence and good tonal quality. Presiding over the enterprise is ENO’s opera director Martyn Brabbins, directing with huge authority and recorded with clarity in SACD in Abbey Road. I listened to the CD layer.
There’s a full libretto in the fine booklet. No one who admires Brian will want to spurn listening to this.
Jonathan Woolf
