This
is the first of the Naxos series I’ve encountered – though
it’s no surprise to see that we’ve reached volume five
so prolific have the English been in this genre. And, with
one exception, it really is a case of English; no interlopers
from principality or north of the border, much less Ireland.
The exception naturally is Chagrin, whose French name reflected
wartime trauma in his escape from his native Romania – he
was born Alexander Paucker.
Let’s
start with Pamela Harrison, born in 1915 and a student
of Gordon Jacob and Arthur Benjamin. She married in 1943,
the notes state, though in his brief autobiography Harvey
Phillips, her first husband, claims it was 1944 – that’s
marriage for you. Her Suite for Timothy (a son)
certainly dates from 1948. It’s a neo-classical confection
with fizzy fun in the third movement presto suffused with
folksy lilt and an affectionately warm Lento. Shades of Capriol,
maybe, in part, but a well crafted, likeable work.
Chagrin’s
1969 Renaissance Suite adopts a peaceable compromise
between Old-Worlde and interventionist trickery. It’s not
as Village Green as Rubbra’s Farnaby pieces or as affectionate
as Barbirolli’s Purcell arrangements. And certainly not
as explicit as Beecham’s Handelian dress. But it’s discreetly
scored, and has a warmly textured and attractive Pavana.
Percy
Fletcher gives us a Greensleeves paraphrase; Dan Godfrey-lite
is the style if I can put it that way, a collection of
tunes enticingly paraded and topped by a Fiddle Dance – à la Rustic
Revels. Albert Cazabon’s little Giocoso is
rather generic though crafted with warmth. And Humphrey
Searle sleepwalks his way through Roseingrave’s pieces,
with the possible exception of some harmonic deftness in
the first of the three, a Fugue.
John
Ireland’s A Downland Suite is doubtless the best
known of all, and is heard here in Geoffrey Bush’s 1978
completion, which shortened the Minuet and Prelude and
lengthened the Elegy. It makes for sympathetic listening
in this string arrangement but it’s not merely nostalgia
that leads me, by some way, to prefer the original brass
band test-piece composition. Finally there’s the most recent
work, Paul Lewis’s 2002 Suite navarraise, cast in
three movements. This is a songful work and one without
the pageantry of pastiche. It’s warmly and expertly scored
with well-distributed string solos and has a jaunty final
movement. A splendid addition to the roll call of English
string miniatures, in fact, and worthy to take its place
here.
I dare say the Royal
Ballet Sinfonia is now well versed in the genre. It sounds
as if rehearsal time, such as there was, must have been
put to decent effect. Sutherland invariably gets the best
out of his bands, and so it proves here, even if not everything
is from either the top or even middle drawers.
Jonathan Woolf
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Reviews of other releases in this series on Musicweb
Volume 1 (8.554186) - reviews by Ian
Lace & Colin Scott-Sutherland
Volume 2 (8.555068) - reviews by John
France and Adrian Smith
Volume 3 (8.555069) - reviews by Rob
Barnett & Terry Barfoot
Royal
Ballet Sinfonia/Gavin Sutherland 
