This year (2006) sees
Malcolm Arnold’s 85th birthday.
While inroads have been made into the
list of unrecorded works some still
remain. The Cello Concerto is notable
by its absence as also are the two operas
(The Dancing Master and The
Open Window), the Thomas Merritt
choral work with brass band and
the John Clare cantata. Until
the arrival of this disc The Return
of Odysseus had been unheard since
its 1977 premiere at the Royal Albert
Hall when the Schools’ Music Association
(who had commissioned the work) performed
it with David Willcocks conducting.
The children’s choir connection links
it with the Merritt work, first performed
with children’s choir in Truro Cathedral,
the composer conducting.
Written during his
Irish sojourn, The Return predates
the Eighth Symphony by three years and
post-dates the enigmatic Seventh also
by three years. It shows little of the
composer’s torment and angst. The storyline
follows that of the closing section
of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’: Odysseus’s return
after many years to Ithaca to find Penelope
faithful despite pushy suitors and the
havoc they have been wreaking on his
home. The work opens in chiming peace.
There is a superb surging evocation
of the wine dark sea at 4:30. In a typical
disorientating rollicking rum-ti-tum
touch (7:24) the sailors sing of the
episodes of Odysseus’s ten year long
journey from Troy. This rhythmic and
sharply limned music associated with
the words: He’ll never come back!
He’ll never come back! recalls nothing
so much as Joseph Horovitz’s Captain
Noah and His Floating Zoo. Arnold
himself used something similar for the
shepherds in the 1960 nativity play
The Song of Simeon. It would
have gone down well with the school
choirs who first sang it. Later the
suitors pick up on that lolloping jazzy
tune and it becomes a hallmark of the
work.
Arnold then recycles
the Moody and Sankey tune from the Cornish
Dances, later used again in the
Eighth Symphony. A liltingly honeyed
and sweet vignette of Penelope’s steadfast
fidelity is lovingly portrayed by the
women’s voices at 12:10 to the words
For twenty years our lady Penelope.
Before the music for the ruffian suitors
returns with rasping rolling brass we
get another glorious marine evocation.
Arnold is fleetingly kind to the suitors
in giving them some engaging unison
singing that will remind some of Hanson’s
Beowulf Lament (17:55). The moment
of Odysseus’s identity being revealed
coincides with his slaying of the suitors
in a crazed chaos of ‘sprechgesang’
- like a panicked and louder version
of the spoken round-dance beatitude
at the climax of Holst’s Hymn of
Jesus. The lilt of the opening pages
returns with its sweetness and contented
harp arpeggios in a touching lullaby
for Penelope. Her years of loneliness
end in the cradling arms of Odysseus.
Not to be missed.
Let’s get the criticisms
out of the way before moving on to the
other works. It’s a pity that the Arnold
is in a single track. At almost half
an hour it would have been preferable
if it had been tracked to coincide with
the main segments. The selection of
pieces is miscellaneous, mixing French
regional with British early and late
20th century. True, all the pieces are
pleasingly melodic. The playing time
is just short of an hour so you might
have expected another work. Set against
this the world premiere recording of
a substantial Arnold work for choir
and orchestra and a world premiere recording
of the orchestral version of the Milhaud.
The Milhaud suite
must have had particular resonances
as a wartime work completed at about
the time of the Normandy landings. It
is however a lightish piece here recorded
for the first time in its version for
full orchestra rather than windband.
The movements are Normandie,
Bretagne, Île de France,
Alsace-Lorraine and Provence.
The music is poetic and optimistic and
the finale movement is memorable for
its pipe and tabor ebullience. By the
way, those frightened off by his later
dissonant works such as the Fourth Symphony
of three years later, need have no fear.
This suite has more in common with his
own 1936 Suite Provencale of
1936 and Moeran’s Serenade -
coincidentally from 1944 - than with
anything more forbidding.
Vaughan Williams’
Toward the Unknown Region has
been done before - most recently on
Naxos by the RLPO Chorus - and with
some distinction review.
I have never heard it done with such
lithely blooming feminine qualities.
Taylor and his Glasgow forces give it
an ecstatic Delian glow rather different
from the bluff muscularity of Boult
on EMI (1970s analogue), the now rather
dated sounding Sargent (1960s) and Lloyd-Jones
on an extraordinarily intriguing Naxos
disc.
The singing is very
good with an agreeably soft focus around
the choral contribution. There’s a notable
unanimity of address by the choir suggesting
considerable application and dedicated
hard work at rehearsal.
As ever with Divine
Art the notes are English only and are
models of their sort. Typography is
clearly legible. The texts are to the
point and the sung words are printed
in full.
An essential purchase
for Arnold enthusiasts who will be richly
rewarded by The Return of Odysseus.
Milhaud fans will want this orchestral
version of the suite. RVW’s following
will be pleased to hear a more sensual
version of Toward the Unknown Region.
Rob Barnett
Addendum
Divine Art have written
with one correction: The Milhaud is
not strictly a world premiere: the orchestral
version was recorded by Milhaud himself
in the 1940s (dreadful recording) and
also on EMI (probably deleted, not sold
in the UK). Still it is the only modern
recording!
and comment received
Rob Barnett's review
of the new recording of Arnold's The
Return of Odysseus is incorrect when
he states the cantata had not been heard
between its premiere in 1977 and the
arrival of the new CD. I heard it performed
in Glasgow in 2001 by the very chorus
who have now recorded it. It was performed
to celebrate Sir Malcolm's 80th birthday,
Sir Malcolm was present, the conductor
was Douglas Bostock, and it was performed
in a double-bill with Holst's Choral
Symphony.
Paul Brownsey
Malcolm
Arnold website
Anne Taylor (sop) (Arnold) 
for
details
