It’s a wonderful thing
that discs like this - near-definitive
performances, more than twenty years
old, but sounding as good as anything
recorded yesterday afternoon - are these
days being reissued at budget or mid-price,
bringing great music into our living
rooms for mere pocket money.
I was a young university
student when I first heard the Cello
Symphony, a couple of years after its
first performance. Although at the time
I was being swept along by discoveries
of Mahler, and daily encounters - courtesy
of an enthusiastic roommate - with ‘new’
Shostakovich, I found myself joining
the throngs of popular opinion at the
time and dismissing Britten’s latest
piece as a ‘miss’. But why oh why, especially
as it inhabits the sound-worlds of both
Mahler and Shostakovich? Well in my
case, because I had neither the courage
nor the experience to think anything
which countered what I perceived to
be an ‘expert’ judgement, however much
I thought I ‘understood’ what I had
heard, or had a genuinely considered
(albeit secret!) view. Other people,
I suspect, found its material overly
simple, even unmemorable, and the scale
of its drama far too compact to be truly
effective. Since the War Requiem,
many listeners had come to doubt the
genuineness of Britten’s emotional framework,
and weren’t reassured by what they heard
in the new symphony. And in the 1960s
- although atonalism was intellectually
‘trendy’ - the idea that a symphony
should be one thing and most certainly
not another was endemic among small-minded
academics and journalists: so poor Britten
couldn’t win!
Happily, history or
the passage of time has a habit of righting
such wrongs. Like the War Requiem
the Cello Symphony has become established
repertoire - there are several recordings
in the catalogue - and almost universally
admired. I would go so far as to suggest
it is imbued with genius. Its economy
of means and the compactness of its
argument are measurements of its indebtedness
to classical masters. The recurring
scalic material - so beautifully diatonic
- recalls Mozart and Haydn, even if
its working out is personal: indeed,
it is all uniquely Brittenesque. The
arresting opening superimposes the soloist’s
syncopated multiple-stoppings over a
solemnly descending scalic bass, like
a great baroque chaconne: and the second
subject of the same movement marries
sustained pianissimo chords with
ascending scales (ingeniously disguised!)
in pizzicato strings. This kind
of subtle integration and re-use of
material is symphonic in the tradition
even of Beethoven: it’s clever, but
it speaks to us directly. There are
many more stylistic echoes. Bach may
be heard in the unaccompanied third
movement, and in the passacaglia which
draws the symphony to a close. And,
as so often with Britten, the lyric
fingerprints of Schubert are everywhere
in evidence.
Rostropovich and Britten
himself are the yardsticks by which
all other performers and performances
must be judged in this repertory. By
the standards of the great Russian cellist
- achingly intense, unashamedly extrovert
- Wallfisch (no more so than in the
intimate soliloquy of the third movement)
is perhaps a shade too contained. But
even so, both his virtuosity and his
command of expressive nuances are all
one could possibly want.
Bedford is uniquely
authoritative among post-Britten conductors:
he brings out countless details and
pursues the argument persuasively. The
much-expanded ECO is on top form. As
the first movement fades away, the winds
are miraculously unanimous in tone and
tuning. And, in the visionary coda of
the finale, the trumpets blaze and the
strings shine.
The Death in Venice
suite is Bedford’s own: I’m surprised
we don’t hear it more often, because
it gives us much of the most memorable
(and it’s very memorable) music
in a manageable and accessible format.
Like so many other symphonic syntheses
of operas - Stokowski’s Wagner, for
example; or Strauss’s Strauss; and Hindemith’s
Hindemith - voice parts appear on all
manner of orchestral instruments, including
even the tuba. The main examples of
such are the strawberry seller - in
the ‘First Beach Scene’ - and, in the
‘Pursuit’, Aschenbach himself. Inevitably,
you don’t find yourself becoming involved
in the psychological journey quite as
you would do in the opera house. But
absolutely no apologies need be offered:
this is a completely convincing symphonic
poem.
In the opera, the Polish
family whom Aschenbach encounters in
Venice are not singers, but mimers and
dancers: their music is instrumental,
and a particular feature of the score.
This is one reason why Bedford’s suite
‘works’ so well. The inspired percussion
writing - four players plus timpani
in the suite, five plus timpani in the
opera - is matched not only by superb
playing on this disc, but also by some
of the most realistic recording of such
sonorities I’ve ever heard. The depth
of bass and the sparkle of high-pitched
overtones has to be heard to believed!
Again, the ECO’s wind can only be marvelled
at. The solo oboe shadowed by solo flute
in the reprise of the ‘I love you’ music
makes a wonderful transition into the
scene of Aschenbach’s death and is utterly
beautiful.
In a marketplace teeming
with good discs of Britten’s music,
positively none is better than this.
Peter J Lawson
English Chamber Orchestra/Steuart Bedford 
