THE BEECHAM COLLECTION:
Frederick DELIUS
A Mass of Life - Prelude (to Section 3 Part Two); An Arabesk; Songs of
Sunset; 10 Songs.
Roy Henderson, Olga Haley,
Dora Labbette, Nancy Evans, Redvers Llewellyn, London Select Choir, BBC Chorus,
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham.
SOMM-BEECHAM
8
Crotchet
£9.49
The Songs:
Dora Labette with the London Philharmonic Orchestra:
Whither
The Violet
I-Brasil
Klein Venevil
Dora Labette with Sir Thomas Beecham (piano):
Le Ciel est par-dessus le toit
The Violet
Irmelin Rose
Twilight Fancies
Cradle Song
The Nightingale
This all-Delius CD from Somm, the first of three Beecham releases, is a
continuation of The Beecham Collection series issued by Sir Thomas
Beecham Enterprises Ltd. The two main items are the 'live' (i.e. not studio)
recordings of An Arabesk and Songs of Sunset made in October
1934 at the time of that year's Leeds Festival, all the more poignant because
Delius had died as recently as June. A degree of mystery has surrounded the
whole batch of so-called Leeds Festival recordings, some of which were issued
commercially. They may have been taken during actual public performances
but it is only the absence of applause and that big give-away, the audience
cough, that makes one wonder whether they were special recordings made in
Leeds Town Hall perhaps before the Festival performance. Excerpts from Handel's
Israel in Egypt (which was heard in the opening concert, that also
included the première of Cyril Scott's La Belle Dame sans Merci
conducted by Beecham), parts of Mozart's Mass in C minor, two sections
of Sibelius's Tempest music, and Borodin's Polovstian Dances have
each been once available either on 78, LP or CD. Although the sleeve note
does nothing to unravel the mystery, these Delius items were in fact rehearsal
'takes' that have remained unissued until now. Various acetates of these
rehearsals, some with Beecham's voice clearly audible both talking and
(?)singing, have survived in different hands. As regards Songs of
Sunset, each side would seem to have been a continuous take of one of
the eight songs that make up the set, and from these it has been possible
to assemble a 'performance'. However, it was long thought that the final
side of Songs of Sunset had either not been recorded or been lost.
This was obviously believed by the compilers of this CD who, in an attempt
to make a satisfying whole, have added that final movement taken from Beecham's
1946 recording of the work (a set that was also neither completed nor approved
and had its only release in 1979 in the second of the World Records
Beecham-Delius boxed sets, SHB54). But the final 1934 side does in fact exist,
making one wish that this CD could be reissued complete.
The outstanding soloists are Olga Haley and Roy Henderson (who sings in both
works). When I visited Roy Henderson in his home in August 1986 (he died
in March last year) I asked him about the recording, and his reply was most
revealing: 'Yes, Beecham was naughty there. He said, "We've got the recording
people here . . just a rehearsal." I didn't sing out. I wasn't going to sing
out for the recording people unless we came to a financial agreement. . .
. We weren't paid a thing for it. It was done at a rehearsal, without any
sort of announcement.' When I invited him to talk to the Delius Society in
April 1989, he elaborated. The evening performances (on two successive evenings)
were to have been recorded by Columbia, but there was some sort of row afterwards
which prevented that from taking place. (Whether it was because Henderson
was a Decca artist or because the orchestra was not to receive any extra
pay is not clear.) Fortunately there is no evidence of Henderson not singing
out in these rehearsals. These are matchless performances of An Arabesk
and Songs of Sunset, and if indeed they are rehearsals, one only
wonders what the performances must have been like. The Yorkshire Observer
critic wrote of 'music-making that will stay long in our memories.' The Yorkshire
Evening Post wrote that 'the love duet, sung by Olga Haley and Roy Henderson
with magnificent fervour, is fit to be compared with Tristan and Isolde for
intensity of passion', while the Birmingham Post critic could not 'remember
a more lovely performance than this, with Beecham at his most inspired and
Olga Haley and Roy Henderson as the nearest imaginable thing to the ideal
soloist.' These 'performances' on this CD live up to everything that those
critics wrote. They are unquestionably among the greatest Delius recordings
ever made.
Fine transfers of An Arabesk and Songs of Sunset were in fact
prepared some years ago but never issued. By comparison these present transfers
are somewhat fierce but no less valuable. Unfortunately, a great opportunity
was surely missed by not including some of the rehearsal takes in which Beecham's
commentary, brief though it may be, can be heard, even if in one or two cases
Beecham's comments come at the end of a take that may have been used in the
'performance'. Here is an extremely rare chance of eaves-dropping on music-making
by Delius's acknowledged supreme interpreter.
The other items on this CD are ten songs sung by Dora Labbette, either with
orchestra or accompanied on the piano by Beecham (whom the critic Neville
Cardus once good-humouredly described as 'one of the four worst pianists
in the world', the others being Ernest Newman, Cardus himself and 'a very
famous pianist'). Dora Labbette (whose Covent Garden début was famously
made under the name of Lisa Perli) was a singer with whom Beecham had not
only a professional relationship but also a very close personal one. Her
beautiful voice is well matched to these songs. They were once available
in the first of the World Records sets, SHB32 (1976), and they make a welcome
re-appearance here.
The opening item on the CD is another test pressing that has only previously
been available in the same boxed set, SHB32: the Prelude to the Third Section
Part Two of A Mass of Life. Unfortunately here something has gone
very wrong indeed at the beginning of this transfer where the sound is distorted.
It fairly soon approaches the acceptable, but its LP issue had no such problems.
(Incidentally the sleeve note is inaccurate in stating that Beecham recorded
this prelude twice, in 1938 and 1948. The later recording was of the prelude
that opens Part Two of the Mass.)
Ideally, one would withdraw this issue and release instead An Arabesk
with Songs of Sunset complete, together with rehearsal takes from
both works, and, for good measure issue, on CD for the first time the 1946
Songs of Sunset with Nancy Evans and Redvers Llewellyn (from which the final
song has here been 'borrowed'), even though it lacks the second song. In
the meantime this CD, sadly, can only be a stand-by, but what a treasure
all the same.
Stephen Lloyd
See also review by Ian Lace
