Review by Rob Barnett:-
Symphony No. 3's tip-toeing Moderato is in wholly Sibelian thrall so far
as the loving woodwind and string music is concerned. The reference works
are Sibelius 6 and 3 (in that order!). The coaxing first movement has the
same 'lie of the land' as an English folk song without evoking any particular
song. The work was much loved by Bernard Herrmann who conducted it several
times (anyone got a tape?). This is extremely fine music (typical of the
first four symphonies) with its sadly calling brass, slow motion swell and
grand melodies in constant interplaying motion. The second movement is light
with a distorted reflection of Beethoven 5's 'fate' motto in its woodwind
stabs. It becomes increasingly oppressive and troubled. The cool strings
remind me of Herrmann's film music in its wispy regret and valse triste
character. The symphonic momentum however is not lost, stepping, as it does,
to a steady bass-line pulse. The finale is Brahmsian and serious with some
of the mutedly angry hum of the Soliloquy for cello and orchestra. In summary:
a work of warm linearity ending in a positively Stokowskian glow like one
of Stokie's Bach organ orchestrations.
The Seventh was a Feeney Trust commission and was premiered by the City of
Birmingham SO conducted by composer-Conductor Andrzej Panufnik on 1 October
1957 (1956/57 season). The Feeney commissions for this and the preceding
season were also palpable hits with Bliss's John Blow Meditations (probably
Bliss's strongest work) and Tippett's Piano Concerto. The horn theme adumbrates
contours like those in the trumpet theme launching Franz Schmidt's Fourth
Symphony. There are some surprising tributaries here: at 3.30 Tchaik 4 and
balletic moments. Hickox is wondrously effective and for me holds the door
wide open onto the clear romantic sympathies which in the Boult recording
(Lyrita) remained under-played. I never expected such a Tchaikovskian outpouring.
The second of the three movements has a ripely pastoral panache mirroring
Vaughan Williams and Nielsen. There is some most uncharacteristic work for
the tambourine and a sense of dangerous fantasy and the slow rumba of the
harp and cor anglais a Latino sway. The Waltonian bubbling and effervescence
of the scherzo is one of the most brilliant movements in all the Rubbra cycle.
It is played to the spectacular hilt by Hickox and the BBC Welsh SO.
The finale is a Passacaglia and Fugue with a lento of momentous tread and
span, whirring high strings, an iridescent magic and the work emerges, as
a direct result of this performance, as one of the strongest of the Rubbra
symphonies. I had to rethink my attitude to this symphony because of this
Chandos disc.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Review by Hubert Culot:-
While composing his first four symphonies Rubbra approached symphonic writing
from various points of view but with an evident unique target, i.e. how to
achieve clarity while adhering to his highly individual symphonic writing.
The ultimate result of this quest may well be the popular Fifth. I will not
repeat my earlier comments on Rubbra's Third Symphony (British Music Society
News 49 March 1991). Suffice it to say that Rubbra managed to get some steps
further towards simplicity and clarity after the powerful, sometimes untamed
energy of the First Symphony and after the colourful exuberance of the fine
Second (a favourite of mine) but he had still to solve some formal problems
still in evidence in the fourth movement of the Third which is a set a variations
capped by a fugue. The fugue actually seems a bit contrived because the
variations do not have the cumulative effect and do not push-up the tension
so that the fugue is experienced as the only to release this tension. In
this respect Rubbra is completely successful in the last movement of the
Seventh Symphony. A Feeney Trust commission the Symphony No. 7 in C Op. 88
was completed and first performed in 1957. It is in three movements of fairly
equal length, the second being a long Scherzo of great colour, intensity
and energy. The last movement is a large-scale Passacaglia capped by yet
another fugue. However Rubbra achieves here the cumulative impact of the
variations (though in a quite different way than in the Third) which are
continuous and reach the fugue almost effortlessly. This movement may well
be one of the greatest single structures achieved by Rubbra and his Seventh
Symphony is certainly one of the peaks of the whole series.
This penultimate release in Chandos' Rubbra cycle is very fine on all counts
and confirms Hickox's obvious sympathy with the music. As in the previous
releases in this cycle the recorded sound is warm though it may at times
slightly obscure Rubbra's complex but totally controlled polyphonic writing.
Hubert Culot
Review by Gary Higginson:-
The 7th received its premiere recording in 1969 by Lyrita (SRCD 235) with
Sir Adrian Boult and the LPO. I have always considered this unsurpassable.
The 3rd (coupled with the 4th) was released in 1990 conducted by Norman del
Mar with the Philharmonia (SRCD 202). To my mind although each movement is
in itself perfectly conceived I have always regarded the 3rd as the weakest
of the 11 as an overall work. The Finale, a theme and 7 variations with a
closing Fugue has often seemed rather bitty and the triumphant ending rather
forced and sudden. In truth though apart from Del Mar, the only other conductor
I have heard tackle this work in recent times is Harry Newstone in a BBC
recording made in 1988 curiously enough on the same day that Lyrita were
also recording the work with the RPO. Hickox has a superb team at Chandos
and the orchestra (BBC National Orchestra of Wales) is now totally familiar
with the Rubbra language and with the Hickox approach. I can only recommend
that members have both versions of each symphony in their collection but
here are a few observations into interpretation.
The 7th has three movements 1. Lento - Allegro 2. Vivace e leggiero
3. Lento (Passacaglia and Fugue) Movement 1. Sometimes Hickox
seems a little ponderous but he does bring out some of the beautiful orchestral
detail. He is almost one minute slower than Boult. Movement 2 - the scherzo
needs to make a strong contrast with its unbuttoned, bouncing compound rhythms
and its wild and brassy orchestration. In the 30 years between the two recordings
orchestral virtuosity has risen considerably and it shows here. The orchestra
for Hickox are just that little more on top of the kaleidoscope of colours
and rhythms than the LPO for Boult. Yet Tempo 1 does seem here, to my taste,
to be too variable a tempo on its returns. The Tempo commodo (at just after
Fig 47) is surely too much akin to the Tempo 1, and the final Tempo 1 (Fig
60 to the end) is very fast and almost out of control. Movement 3. Hickox
produces some wonderfully expressive and very detailed playing with dynamic
nuances not easily audible in the Boult. The Fugue is considerably faster.
This brings out the typically Rubbran cross rhythms and figures delightfully.
Rubbra's suggested overall length is 39 minutes, both Boult and Hickox take
just less than 35 minutes.
Hickox's performance of the 3rd Symphony benefits from being a much broader
affair than that of Del Mar on Lyrita. This is particularly significant in
the magnificent slow movement which is over a minute and a half longer. This
is the most wonderful performance of this movement I have ever heard and
is full of cataclysmic grief and portent. However in the first movement Hickox
does I feel, make a serious misjudgement soon after Figure 13 when Rubbra
marks Molto Allargardo before the reprise of the first subject. Here Hickox
in the interest of holding the tension up, rides rough-shod through the passage
and therefore the effect of the reprise is lost. Other clear metronome markings
are often overlooked and the effect can be rather breathless. Then we have
the problem of Variation 7 in the Finale. How carefully should we take in
Rubbra's metronome markings anyway? This variation is 1 in the miniature
score 1 marked crotchet = 44 - very slow indeed. Both conductors go at minim
= 44.1 Is there a printing error somewhere? Perhaps this accounts for my
sense of an unfulfilled ending as we are quickly into the Fugue at half the
length of time the composer imagined. Rubbra once said to me after a performance
of a quartet, that everyone took his music too quickly. I have sometimes
wondered if this is simply not an old man reflecting years after the composition
of a work whose inner clock as it were has slowed down, but on considering
the markings he wrote as a young man I find that his disappointment is not
without cause. Is no conductor confident to bring off his music at the correct
tempo no matter how slow? (also see my review of Rubbra's choral works in
BMS News June 98 below)
Both recordings are quite superb. Sometimes, as in the Intermezzo, Lyrita
have more orchestral detail, at other times, as in the slow movement, the
Chandos team have a deeper understanding of the music. The wonderful thing
is that we compare and contrast these performances when at one time one could
hardly hear the works at all.
Gary Higginson
RADIO BROADCASTS
Symphony No. 3
BBC Northern SO/John Hopkins 1960s
RPO/Hary Newstone 12 Feb 1988
BBC Scottish SO/Steuart Bedford 22 December 1981
BBC Northern SO/Malcolm Arnold 25 Sept 1967
Symphony No. 7
City of Birmingham SO/Andrzej Panufnik 8 Oct 1957
EDMUND RUBBRA
Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis Op. 65 (1947);
Tenebrae Nocturnes Op. 72 (1951/1961); Salutation
Op. 82 (1953); Missa In Honorem Sancti Dominici Op.
66 (1948); Festival Gloria Op. 94 (1956). Gloria Dei
Patris Elizabeth C. Patterson. James Jordan (organ). Guild GDCD024
What a joy! At last a CD entirely devoted to Rubbra's choral music, and on
the whole I can say that it is worth the wait. There are 49 published choral
works of Rubbra and so few of them are generally known. The Mag and Nunc
and the Mass (being in most cathedral choirs' repertoire) are available in
excellent performances already from Choir of Gonville and Caius/Geoffrey
Webber (ASV DCA 881), with works by Patrick Hadley. Salutation has been recorded
on at least 3 other occasions to my knowledge. It forms part of A Garland
for the Queen commissioned for the Queen's Coronation with works by Ireland,
Vaughan Williams, Bliss and others. These performances hold their own despite
a few anomalies and this disc adds two other works which have not been recorded
before, although they have been broadcast in recent years by the BBC Singers.
The Mass is the only slightly problematical performance and I find myself
wishing that Richard Hickox 1975 performance on RCA (LP version only, no
longer available) with the St. Margaret's Singers was available on CD as,
for various reasons I still regard it as definitive. I can remember, by a
happy accident, speaking with the composer over the telephone on the day
after the Mass (and other church music) had been recorded (6 December 1975).
He had been present and was thrilled with the whole enterprise, saying that
the performances were exactly as he had wanted.
It is interesting looking at the score, and hearing Hickox's performance
to realise that every tempo marking is followed and very expressive nuance
is heard, as Rubbra had marked them. Of course there is room for
re-interpretation but there are some aspects of this new performance of the
Mass which seem to be almost wilfully eccentric and which affect the music's
flow. In the Gloria, Rubbra marks the Laudamus te section to be í=104,
much faster than the opening bars, GDP (Gloria dei Patris) actually goes
slower at í=66. This does give a beautiful, ethereal effect but when
at the Qui tollis Rubbra marks ï=72 the effect here is of getting faster
not slower and the beauty of the passage is almost lost. Later, the Allegro
at the A-men comes out much slower than marked at í=54 instead of
the composer's marking of í=88.
In the Benedictus Rubbra marks the pulse at à=60, GDP set off at
à=76 then speed up even more for the Hosanna when surely at least
a sustaining of the tempo would have been more appropriate. Rubbra once told
me that he felt that most conductors took his music at too fast a tempo.
I wondered if this was simply an old man taking a more leisurely look at
his music which is often very slow anyway, but on consulting many tempo markings
I find that he was quite correct.
Throughout the Mass, Rubbra's markings are multifarious and specific with
many ralls and rits, GDP quite often ignore these. Obviously the decision
and interpretation was deliberately reached and it should be said that, as
a performance, it all works effectively, as if they have performed the work
often in the course of an act of worship, which Rubbra would have been delighted
about.
The other major work here is the Tenebrae Nocturnes for Holy Thursday. The
first set was written for the 75th birthday of Charles Kennedy Scott in the
early 50s. In responding to a commission in 1961 Rubbra set another group
of three nocturnes for the Tilford Bach Choir (these are by far the hardest
set) and a central group of three were written for and dedicated to Alec
Robertson a supporter and friend of the composer. Rubbra sensibly clubbed
them all together under the earlier opus number. Stylistically there is little
noticeable difference although at this time (the early 60s) Rubbra was becoming
even more 'mystic' in many ways. The third nocturne seems to inhabit the
harmonic world of the eighth symphony, with its greater emphasis on pedal
chords. The earlier nocturne has more emphasis on Rubbra's own type of Organum
which can be heard also in the Mass.
To sum up then, this American choir have done us a big favour in recording
this music so beautifully. They have a fine controlled tone and the balance
is superb. The CD is just under an hour in length and being greedy I feel
slightly sorry that space could not have been found for one other work, say
the 8-part Te Deum Op 115 which would have made a perfect companion piece
to the magnificent double choir Festival Gloria which ends this disc. I do
so hope that more choirs will look into Rubbra's church music and give it
the place in the repertoire it so much deserves.
© Gary Higginson
BBC Welsh SO/Richard
Hickox 
