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Lennox BERKELEY (1903-1989)
Symphony No. 1 (1940) [30:59]
Symphony No. 2 (1956-57 rev. 1976) [1957 rev. 1976]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Norman
Del Mar (1); Nicholas Braithwaite (2)
rec. 1975 and 1978 ADD LYRITA SRCD.249 [62:03]
Berkeley’s First Symphony
was completed in 1940 though the sketches went back to 1936.
It has power and intensity with brass calls and march rhythms
adding their own indissoluble rigour to the writing. Its
first movement sonata form is tightly argued and highly successful.
The second movement, a Francophile and rather lissom waltz,
has a certain dapper quality that sets it apart and is rather
intriguing. It effectively lightens the immediacy of the
writing and prepares the ear for the slow movement. As so
often in Berkeley this has a slightly fugitive, withdrawn
quality. There’s plenty of space around the cor anglais’s
mournfulness for this spirit of refraction and obscure loss
to gather pace; in fact passages even manage to sound like
very stripped-down Mahler. There’s a total and irrevocable
change in the finale. The neo-classical high spirits are
an almost ruthless shock though once again Berkeley manages
to infiltrate moments of doubt into the centre of the movement;
if the centre of emotive gravity is there then the surrounding
material, it seems to be saying, is not necessarily to be
taken at face value. But it certainly finishes in fine assertive
style.
The
Second Symphony was finished by 1957 but was revised in 1976
shortly before this recording was made. The stripped down
lyricism is freighted and weighted by brass and the stentorian
basses. Brittle percussive march rhythms may remind one of
the 1940 symphony though here things are much terser and
leaner in spirit and in texture as well. This later work
is weighted heavily in favour the first and third movements
with the scherzo and finale acting as tighter, shorter cousins.
The Scherzo for instance is zesty and classically orchestrated
but very cleverly constructed. Weight falls on the Lento,
unrevised and standing as it did in 1957,where the
writing for high strings is powerfully sustained and the
occasional outbursts juddering in their immediacy but well
calibrated in architectural terms. The finale, needless to
say, is vibrant, colourful and essentially light-hearted.
Norman
Del Mar and Nicholas Braithwaite are the heroes of the hour,
energizing their orchestras in the idiom with flair and introspective
intensity.
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