This interesting release
presents John Lambert's little known
20 minute Organ Mass, a work
from the mid-1960s at the heart of a
programme of English 20th century organ
music, the remainder written between
1920 and 1946. Timothy Bond, a long-time
lecturer at RCM and specialist in contemporary
music, plays with commitment, flawless
technique, a nice sense of harmonic
tension, and a superb ability to project
sometimes highly complex forms.
Clearly Bond's wish
to champion John Lambert's work is the
main raison d'être for
the recording. Lambert, himself one
time organist at St Vedast-alias-Foster
in London and composition student of
Nadia Boulanger, composed essentially
avant-garde music for a huge variety
of forces. His Organ Mass, roots
firmly in the ethos of Stockhausen and
Boulez, is characterised by an ever-expanding
canvas both in terms of length and in
terms of development, serial elements,
the use of specific 'blocks' of sound
(trills and chordal trills feature heavily
for instance), considerable use of monody
and near monody - shades here of Les
Corps Glorieux of Messiaen - and
a challengingly complex rhythmic and
harmonic language. Timothy Bond proves
an ideal interpreter; whatever your
feelings about this school of composition,
this work clearly deserved a first-rate
recording, and this it has received.
In addition, Bond's first-rate programme
notes add hugely to the experience.
Also of considerable
interest on the CD are the first recordings
of 3 (actually 2) 'new' organ works
of Benjamin Britten. These have been
discovered and edited by the performer
and the composer Colin Matthews. The
short Voluntary on 'Tallis's Lamentation'
and the 2 versions of the very static
and beautiful Prelude to 'They Walk
Alone', part of the incidental
music to a play, will I think become
popular repertoire items on these shores.
My only concern about
this CD is the organ Timothy Bond has
chosen to record. A large-ish - 3/56
- Jehmlich organ from 1998, this follows
the now rather tired formula of essentially
neo-classical choruses - Hauptwerk and
Positive - plus a large Schwellwerk
with pseudo-French reeds, all housed
in a modern, in this instance strikingly
ugly but Werkprinzip-dictated, case
and with ultra rock-steady winding,
perhaps from Schwimmer regulators, though
this is speculation. Tonally it is characterised
by an excellent consistency of voicing,
and at 8', especially the flutes and
strings, it sounds quite beguiling,
aided by the large and warm acoustic.
The 4' principals and the upperwork
however are hard and unyielding. The
character of the organ seems to match
Lambert's music perfectly, and to a
lesser extent Britten's and Tippett's
also. However it seems quite wrong for
both Howells and Vaughan Williams -
isn't Hyfrydol rather slow incidentally?
- and I don't agree with Timothy Bond
that the voicing of the instrument serves
optimally the lyrical tendencies in
the music. The disc, I feel, could and
perhaps should have been recorded in
the UK.
If you are interested
in 20th century English organ music
this is an essential purchase. One could
suggest that less than an hour of music
seems a bit stingy, but Bond's programming
is so strong that one can listen to
this at one sitting without it outstaying
its welcome.
Chris Bragg
Timothy Bond, organ 