At various times Alwyn's champions
among the record labels have been Lyrita and then Chandos
and now Naxos. Each has been financially supported in their
projects by Alwyn or by the Alwyn Foundation. Pleasingly
all three remain represented in the catalogue. If we ignore
the Dutton (1, 2, Barbirolli; composer) and Somm (3, Beecham)
historical one-offs you can now choose from three cycles
of the complete symphonies: Alwyn/LPO (Lyrita), Hickox/LPO
(Chandos); David Lloyd-Jones/RLPO (Naxos). It's remarkable
when you take breath and think about it. Each successive
cycle has delved just that little bit deeper into recording
the Alwyn worklist. Naxos have offered up more works than
either of the other two.
The romping
Overture to
a Masque was written in London for an intended Prom
premiere but no such luck. The war intervened and the
work fell from view only to be rediscovered in recent
years in the archives of the LSO. It has the swagger
of Reznicek's
Donna Diana and Smetana's
Bartered
Bride. The ending is delivered with a burred brass
burble of the type we also hear at the very end of Moeran's
own
Overture to a Masque which was written five
years after the Alwyn. It is a lovely overture with some
attractively memorable flute flurries within the first
two minutes. The Concerto Grosso No. 1 is in three movements
in a decidedly neo-classical style
à la Pulcinella though
by no means as desiccated. It was written while Alwyn
was serving as air raid warden in the London Blitz. The
second movement makes less of a surrender to the neo-classical
world with pensive solos for viola and cor anglais over
rocking strings. The finale regains the neo-classical
pepper and spice of the first movement. The Five Preludes
were Alwyn's first musical triumph. Again they were written
in London and this time they were premiered by Sir Henry
Wood. These are miniatures ranging between 0:45 and 1:53
and encompassing moods from tranquil melancholy through
to ruthlessly joyous clashing chinoiserie. The poignant
little sketches rise in the little
Allegro Molto to
an explosive and abrupt display.
The
Pastoral Fantasia is
for viola and strings. It inhabits the world of
The
Lark Ascending and other hymns to the surface vistas
and the spiritual depths of the British countryside.
The
Tragic Interlude starts with the suggestion
of grandiloquent torment. Tragedy is an unmistakable
and sustained aspect of this work which is linked with
Richard Aldington's novel of the Great War, 'Death of
a Hero' (1929). It falters forward as if staggering wounded
and hopeless. The tolling underpinning to much of the
writing strongly recalls the tragic undertow of Alwyn’s
1970s Symphony No. 5,
Hydriotaphia - for me one
of Alwyn's masterworks alongside
Lyra Angelica.
Autumn
Legend is for cor anglais and orchestra so it might
immediately suggest a link with the
Swan of Tuonela;
the
music bears this out. The piece has a strong atmosphere
and if Sibelius is one influence then another is the
rhapsodic bleakness of 1920s and 1930s Frank Bridge.
Bridge's
There
is a willow looks out on a dreamscape inspired by
Alwyn’s high regard for the Pre-Raphaelite painters and
especially for D.G. Rossetti. The
Suite of Scottish
Dances is light fare with many antique touches, a
dab of Ronald Binge, a splash of romantic mystery, a
whiff of heather, a hiccup of whiskey, a Mozartean gurgle
and the stomp of the hornpipe.
The notes are in the safe
hands of Andrew Peter Knowles who works unstintingly for
the sustained Alwyn revival.
Alwyn's progress like that
of fellow film music composer Rawsthorne has been fuelled
at least in part by film music royalties. I hope that the
Naxos project will stretch to recording Alwyn’s epic cantata
to words by William Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell. Conspicuous by its absence has been Alwyn’s Violin
Concerto. Is this on the Alwyn-Naxos hit-list, I wonder?
While all but the
Preludes are
available elsewhere from Lyrita or Chandos this collection
is unique in offering a fine selection of short but far
from lightweight Alwyn pieces.
Rob Barnett
Reviews
of other Naxos Alwyn recordings
Philip
Dukes (viola); Rachael Pankhurst (cor anglais) 
