AVAILABILITY
www.duttonlabs.demon.co.uk
Dutton have already
dedicated a disc to Walford Davies (CDLX
7108) entitled "Solemn Melody",
based around his famous piece of that
name, interspersing his few organ works
with contributions from his friends
and contemporaries and concluding with
some examples of his broadcast talks.
I was much impressed by the planning
of this disc, feeling that it was a
model of how to make something interesting
out of limited resources, both financial
and (maybe) musical.
Walford Davies’s broadcast
talks did much to bring music closer
to Everyman at a time when the "wireless"
(as my grandmother’s generation used
to call the radio) was in its infancy.
It was his cantata "Everyman" which,
among his larger pieces, brought him
his greatest success. Premièred
at the 1904 Leeds Festival it was praised
by Vaughan Williams and for a few years
enjoyed a remarkable success with choral
societies up and down the country. The
conductor of the Leeds Festival, Stanford,
complimented Davies for "adding to the
world’s wholesome music". Maybe this
was a backhanded swipe at Strauss’s
"unwholesome" Tod und Verklärung
which Stanford had reluctantly allowed
into the Festival programme. Yet, of
the British works premièred at
that same Festival (others were Holbrooke’s
"Queen Mab", Parry’s "Voces Clamantium",
Mackenzie’s "The Witch’s Daughter" and
Charles Wood’s "The Ballad of Dundee")
it is Stanford’s own "Songs of the Sea"
which, in their bluff but touching way,
have so far made the greatest inroads
on Everyman’s consciousness. Walford
Davies’s work somehow never resurfaced
after the First World War and the conductor
of this recording has been able to trace
only two subsequent performances, in
London (1929) and Reading (1982), before
his own in 2003 and 2004 which led to
this recording.
Whether or not Drummond’s
and Dutton’s efforts succeed in reinstating
the work in the popular repertoire (Drummond’s
stated wish), its erstwhile fame and
its lingering hearsay reputation made
it imperative that a recording should
be available. So what has it to offer?
"Everyman" takes its
text from a Victorian version of an
old Morality Play. In spite of a few
"Olde Worlde Tea Shoppe" touches ("Why
askest thou? Wouldest thou not?") it
has an essential seriousness, a mystic
purpose embedded in remoteness. Reading
it through in preparation to listening,
I tried to imagine the sort of music
that might be suited to it, a sort of
modernized plainchant, I thought, rising
to some gravely harmonized choral passages.
I certainly didn’t
expect what I actually heard, and I
think it fair to say that anyone listening
to the music without a knowledge of
the text being sung (say, a foreigner
with no understanding of English) would
very likely imagine a subject matter
quite different from that which he is
effectively hearing. In spite of the
generally serious tone, there is a richness,
a sumptuousness, even a sensuousness
to its language which might not suggest
a religious work at all. Some lively
passages even conjure up images of a
rustic wedding or the like.
Obviously, Davies is
entitled to his own response to the
poetry he is setting, but my principal
problem with the work remains this apparent
dichotomy between the tone of the music
and the tone of the words. On the other
hand, the music is in itself very good
music, wrought with a fine but never
heavy professional hand. It flows easily
from point to point, its climaxes clearly
and satisfyingly shaped, the orchestration
luminous and colourful. And, although
it occasionally suggests Brahms, Elgar,
Richard Strauss or maybe Reger, in the
last resort I found the nearest parallel
to be with the stately, large-limbed
emptiness of Lorenzo Perosi, the Vatican’s
hugely prolific and once-successful
"house-composer" in those same years.
This gives credence to Scott Godard’s
gibe that "unlike Parry [Walford Davies]
was a Churchman first, religion coming
some distance behind" (British Music
of our Time, ed A.L. Bacharach, Pelican
1946). However, one moment at least
is truly memorable, as Everyman, having
prayed vainly to Kindred and Fellowship,
to Riches and to Good Deeds, is finally
impelled by Knowledge to pray to God.
At the close of this section the voice
of the soprano, Good-Deeds, soars over
chorus and orchestra as she promises
to go with him on his journey. This
I found truly moving and it surely found
an echo in Stanford’s "The Travelling
Companion". Together with the stirring
conclusion, it made me wonder if, now
that I had found Davies’s wave-length,
I might be more convinced by the earlier
stages of the piece.
Here I found myself
up against another problem. In many
ways the performance is extremely fine.
The London Oriana Choir has a rich,
vibrant sound and memories of the old
days when the Kensington Symphony Orchestra
under Leslie Head, the heroes of many
a brave rescue operation, found valour
the better part of discretion, are banished
by the highly skilled playing heard
here. David Drummond conducts with fervour,
dedication and, as far as I can tell
without a score, an unerring sense of
pacing. Unfortunately the soloists are
all heavy wobblers. In three cases out
of four this is just within the limits
where I am prepared to put up with it,
while wishing they didn’t. But in the
case of Pauls Putnins in the all-important
role of Everyman I am quite distressed
by the jaded, wavery tones of what sounds
to be an elderly voice long past its
prime. From the biographical notes this
seems not to be the case and the group
photograph suggests he is actually very
young, raising alarming thoughts as
to what he will sound like when he really
is long past his prime. Maybe the reality
is not quite as bad as it sounds, since
microphones have a way of exaggerating
a certain type of vibrato, but as I
put the record back on I found this
ghastly bleating sound to be even more
irritating the second time round and
I just didn’t stay the course. Could
he not sort this out?
There is no doubt about
the importance of this recording as
a document and at least part of the
music still has the power to move. Only
the individual listener can decide whether
the singing of the principal solo role
is an unredeemable fly in the ointment.
The recording is spacious, there are
brief but pithy essays by Lewis Foreman
and David Drummond and the text is provided.
Christopher Howell
see also
PROSPICE
Songs with quartet. Piano.
H Walford Davies:
Prospice; George
Butterworth: Love Blows as
the Wind Blows; Arthur
Somervell: A Broken Arc;
Geoffrey Bush:
Farewell, Earth's Bliss;
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Five
Mystical Songs.
Martin Oxenham (baritone); Bingham String
Quartet; Katharine Durran (piano).
Meridian. Duo DUOCD 89026 75'
12" [LF]
Every
so often one comes across a recording
which has long been available but has
somehow failed to attract much notice
or be widely subscribed by record stores,
and yet on investigation proves to be
a complete revelation.
London Oriana Choir 
