One hears so much about
"the magic of Beecham", and
this is a disc which demonstrates that
indefinable quality. Please don’t ask
me to define it or explain it technically;
I can’t. I’m afraid the best I can do
is to say that everything about the
way the music is played on this CD just
sounds "right". I think in
part it’s something to do with the pacing.
Beecham had the confidence, the belief
in Delius, to trust to his instincts
and allow the music the time and space
to breathe. That in turn meant that
in his hands Delius’s unique harmonies
could make their effect. Also Beecham’s
fastidious ear for balance allowed the
many details of this composer’s very
individual orchestral palette to register.
This CD gathers together
a useful selection of the recordings
that Beecham made for HMV and for Columbia
between 1946 and 1952. The earliest,
Marche Caprice, Brigg
Fair and part of On Hearing
the First Cuckoo in Spring were
set down in the immediate aftermath
of the Delius Festival that Beecham
mounted in London in October and November
1946. As Lyndon Jenkins tells us in
his characteristically interesting and
well-informed notes, this festival featured
the first London appearances of Beecham’s
new Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and
these recordings were among the very
first that the orchestra made.
It’s a testament to
the quality of the players that Beecham
assembled and to the conductor’s own
skills that the RPO sounds anything
but new on these recordings. Listen,
for example, to the ravishing playing
of the strings in the yearning passage
between 4’46" and 6’32" of
Brigg Fair. And how lovingly
Beecham shapes these pages, clearly
revelling in the seductive sounds conjured
up by Delius’s muse and his player’s
collective skills. The whole performance
of Brigg Fair is quite superb
and very atmospheric. The many quiet
pages are delivered with great subtlety
but the climaxes, such as the final
one that thrills us at 13’57",
are ardently played.
As Lyndon Jenkins tells
us, for some reason Beecham was dissatisfied
with the original recording of On
Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and
so the first of the two 78-rpm sides
was re-made in 1948. One interesting
side-effect of this was that there had
been several personnel changes in the
orchestra by then, one of which had
seen Jack Brymer replace Reginald Kell
as principal clarinet. So we hear, if
I may put it this way, two different,
but very distinguished "cuckoos"
in the one recording. Jenkins helpfully
points out the exact point in the track
where the side-break occurs, However,
I must come clean and say that when
I listened before reading his note I
didn’t notice the join, which is a tribute
to the skill of the Naxos transfer engineers.
Over The Hills and
Far Away also receives a masterly
performance. The very opening, happily
reprised towards the end of the piece,
is one of the most magical passages
in all Delius as a solo horn calls out
gently across wide mountain vistas.
The effect is tremendous here – was
the horn player Dennis Brain, I wonder?
However, not all is gentle poetry. When
the music becomes more vigorous (at
2’59") there’s real strength and
red-blooded urgency in Beecham’s direction.
This performance is a joy from start
to finish.
For devotees of Beecham
in Delius this collection will be of
particular value since it enshrines
Beecham’s only commercial recording
of North Country Sketches. These
four pieces are not heard all that often
but Beecham makes out a characteristically
good case for them. The first one, ‘Autumn,
the wind soughs in the trees’, is most
evocative while in the next one, ‘Winter
Landscapes’, you can sense the icicles
glistening. The final piece is entitled
‘The March of Spring’ and Beecham conveys,
effortlessly it seems, the vernal freshness
of the music and, later, its ecstatic
excitement as Spring breaks forth.
Lyndon Jenkins includes
in his note Beecham’s hilarious comments
on the problems caused by an inexpert
player of the bass oboe when Delius
conducted the première of Dance
Rhapsody No. 1 in 1909. Happily
there are no bass oboe "incidents"
to mar this Beecham reading and Jenkins
is right to draw attention to the tender
and eloquent contribution of the solo
violinist towards the end (from 8’47").
As I’ve indicated,
the notes accompanying this CD are excellent.
So too are the transfers. The recordings
are remarkably good when one considers
that some of them are nearly sixty years
old. An admirable amount of detail is
reported and on my equipment I detected
very little surface noise. Certainly
I can’t imagine anyone buying this disc
finding the sound quality to be an obstacle
to enjoyment.
But it’s the performances
that matter. Without exception they
are superb. The conducting is consistently
sympathetic, imaginative and idiomatic,
just as you’d expect. The execution
by the fledgling RPO is of the highest
order. These recordings are as essential
to any Delian as they are self-recommending.
If you haven’t yet sampled Beecham in
Delius and wonder what all the fuss
is about this modestly priced anthology
is an excellent way to find out. Naxos
have put us in their debt by restoring
these performances to the catalogue.
Strongly recommended.
John Quinn
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Beecham
