Although this set is titled Sir Thomas Beecham - English
Music it pretty much boils down to Beecham’s Delius
plus one disc of music by other English composers. It’s
one of a Beecham series issued by EMI Classics in 2011 - marking
fifty years since Beecham’s death. The others are:-
Sir Thomas Beecham conducts French Music (6 CD set 9099322)
Sir Thomas Beecham: The Classical Tradition Mozart/Haydn (10
CD set 9099462)
Sir Thomas Beecham: The Great Communicator (4 CD set 9099642)
Sir Thomas Beecham: The Later Tradition (8 CD set 9186112)
Beecham’s Delius for many years effectively slammed the
door on Delius forays by other conductors. It may have done
some disservice to the propagation of Delius’s music placing
too much fame on the shoulders of one man - not that the testimonials
were not merited. Few composers’ reputations have been
so exclusively harnessed to one conductor. When Beecham died
in 1961 his Delius recordings lived on and continuing their
spell also served to discourage others. Oh, there are exceptions
in the shape, for instance, of Barbirolli, Sargent and Ormandy
but nothing of a similar scale or depth. Many of the Beecham-Delius
discs inhabited the catalogue for years - in fact often without
a moment’s absence and continuing to hold premium price.
Of the present discs only CDs 1 and 2 are in stereo and many
of the recordings there fall into the category of ubiquitous
presence - almost as immanent as the Barbirolli/Baker/Dupré
Elgar Sea Pictures-Cello Concerto LP. CDs 3-5 represent the
Delius EMI mono years. The original recordings made in 1946-52
had only a fleeting presence in the catalogue and the same goes
for the CD reissues. A Village Romeo and Juliet, the
Pougnet Violin Concerto and the 1946 Song of the High Hills
had brief moments in the sun both as LPs and as CD reissues.
The Over the Hills, Marche Caprice, and last three
movements of the Florida Suite and Songs of Sunset
have been newly re-mastered this year for this box.
Many of the Delius recordings here - especially the stereo ones
on CDs 1 and 2 - are very well known and need little comment.
Sleigh Ride and Florida Suite are as magical,
as beguiling and as swooningly catchy as ever. Brigg Fair
is superbly tracked into 23 segments for those who want to study
the score or recording or bathe in the Beecham heat close-up
and repeatedly or to immerse in favourite episodes. The shimmer
and grateful song of the Florida Suite finale (At
Night)is remarkably Tchaikovskian as is the Marche
Caprice. The Dance Rhapsody No. 2 is captured in
lovely stereo and accommodates an acres-wide dynamic range -
very satisfying. The pacing of On Hearing the First Cuckoo
and the heat-haze evoked are magically well pitched. The same
goes for the caramel halo around the singing of the Beecham
Choral Society in Songs of Sunset. I have no complaints
about them or about John Cameron but Maureen Forester is excessively
plumy. She also seems ill at ease with the way the Dowson words
lie across Delius’s music. Overall though this is glorious
music-making.
The five movements of Dance Rhapsody No. 1 include some
trippingly spun oboe invention - pure distilled Beecham magic.
David McCallum’s solo violin lords it over the orchestra
in the molto adagio finale. This ushers us nicely into
Pougnet’s reading of the Violin Concerto. Pougnet is not
temperamentally well suited to this poetically instinctive music.
Compare his reading with the Sammons
(Naxos) and Ralph Holmes (Unicorn DKPCD9040 - past time that
Fenby series was licensed to Alto); not to mention that by Tasmin
Little. There are certainly more romantic approaches. Things
go more naturally with the urgent ebb and ecstatic flow of The
Song of the High Hills - among my favourite Delius works.
That’s even more so in this magnificent version. The violins
are specially attentive and swooning in The wide far distance
section with the choir melting imperceptibly into focus and
out. Great Delius playing. Paa Vidderne is more obvious
and less refined. It has a tendency towards bombast in the Strauss
way though it does have its moments and some of them are heatedly
Tchaikovskian. This rare piece with other Norwegian Delius pieces
can be heard in modern sound on ClassicO (review
review
review).
A Village Romeo and Juliet is Delius’s most famous
and successful opera - a new production is due in November 2011
at Covent Garden and was to have been conducted by the late
Sir Charles Mackerras. Beecham’s herculean and quixotic
enterprise in bringing the opera to commercial shellac is remarkable.
Think how big the box of 78s would have been. It came to fruition
in EMI’s Abbey Road studios in 1948 with sessions there
sandwiched between BBC sessions for a broadcast which has since
been issued by Somm.
It is good to hear the famous Walk in its correct dramatic
place in the drama even if it is momentarily disfigured by a
patch of surface scuff. We are back with emotional mastery for
Beecham’s 1951 Sea Drift. The utter rapture and
fierce joy of the choir in Shine! Shine! Shine! is a
little too much for the matrices of the time but that distortion
comes and goes almost before you notice and is part of the experience.
The recording captures a myriad details in this ecstatic immersion
of mournful abandon. This was first issued on CD as part of
EMI’s Beecham Edition in 1992 on CMS 7 64386 2 which is
exactly the same as discs 4 and 5 of this set though the original
has the advantage of 20 page booklet with a synopsis and the
sing words reproduced; something you have to do without if you
go for this six CD set. Before that it was issued in the 1970s
as part of a World Records Club boxed set of LPs.
The last disc, playing at 80 minutes - as near as damn it -
moves us away from Delius. I do not recall the German Gypsy
Suite ever being issued before - certainly the booklet declares
a 2011 re-mastering. The four movements are the bohemian equivalent
of orchestral suites by Charpentier or Glazunov. We’re
talking about genre postcard miniatures. Bantock’s Fifine
at the Fair is an amply proportioned and lavish piece of
late-romantic tone-poemry. The piece clearly responds to a recording
technology that can accommodate the was of Bantock’s voluptuous
handling of the orchestra so you may favour the Handley with
the same orchestra as Beecham - part of the Hyperion
Bantock project. It’s attractive certainly, expansively
indulgent and lavishly melodic but not totally compelling overall.
If only he had recorded The Witch of Atlas or Holbrooke’s
Queen Mab. On the other hand Beecham’s 1947 Fand
has a sharper imaginative profile and an impetuous urgency.
It’s that urgency and virile pulse that marks it out from
another recording from the next decade - the one played by the
Hallé under Barbirolli (Dutton).
I prefer the Barbirolli because I like a gentler pace than Beecham’s.
Nevertheless the Beecham is colourful and very grown-up. Beecham
clearly had an affinity with Berners’ Triumph of Neptune
because he recorded movements from the suite not only for EMI
but also for CBS
in the early 1950s. The music is polished but has a satirical
kick which reminds me of Walton’s Façade.
Were Berners and Beecham poking fun at RVW and perhaps Grainger
in the final Apotheosis, I wonder?
This is a bargain price box so you are not going to get the
sung words printed. You do however get full discographical details
as well as a fresh essay by Lyndon Jenkins.
With Beecham’s Delius do not forget the extensive recordings
he made for CBS
in the early 1950s and years before that for EMI; the latter
now on Naxos.
The CBS is invaluable as it featuresA Mass of Life and
other things including a generous slice of the Hassan
music which were never part of Beecham’s EMI project.
There were so many “what might have beens” for EMI
and Delius. Imagine if we could also have had Beecham-directed
versions of the Requiem, Double Concerto and Cello Concerto.
The Requiem was finally done by EMI in the 1960s by Meredith
Davies. The Double Concerto first saw the light of day on
record circa 1967 due to the funding of the cellist Gerard Warburg
who with Raymond Cohen and Norman Del Mar conducting the RPO
recorded the piece in a doughty and poetically potent reading.
This was issued on a rare Pye Golden Guinea Collector Series
LP (GGC4073). This was reissued in early days of the CD on PRT
PVCD8372. It was followed by a low temperature outing from Menuhin
and Tortelier and much later and with more apt atmosphere by
Tasmin Little and Raphael Wallfisch on EMI. When EMI finally
got around to the Mass it fell, in 1972, to Liverpool
and Charles Groves. This is being reissued by EMI very soon
but first came out on CD in 1992 (CMS 7 64218 2. Norman Del
Mar - a Beecham protégé - also had the Mass on
CD. That was taken from a fervent, smouldering and ecstatically
blazing FM broadcast issued by Intaglio in 1991 (INCD 702-2).
It’s probably the best version I have heard and that includes
Hickox on Chandos.
This Beecham set is in short an invaluable and compact addition
to your shelves. The problem may be duplication with previous
reissues of these recordings. If you can live with that then
do not hold back. A treasury of Beecham’s Delius and the
music of other Brits in excellent stereo in the case of CDs
1, 2 and 6 and in good though sometimes distressed mono.
A treasury of Beecham’s EMI English music recordings including
those precious stereo sessions.
Rob Barnett
Tracklisting
Disc 1
01 Over the Hills and Far Away (ed. Beecham) (1960 Di (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
02 Sleigh ride (Winter night) (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
03 Introduction (Slow. Pastoral): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius)
- Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
04 I. Theme (with easy movement): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius)
- Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
05 Variation 1: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
06 Variation 2: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
07 Variation 3: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
08 Variation 4: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
09 Variation 5: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
10 Variation 6: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
11 II. Interlude (Slow and very quietly): Brigg Fa (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
12 III. Variation 7 (Rather quicker but not hurried (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
13 Variation 8: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
14 Variation 9 (With easy movement): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius)
- Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
15 Variation 10: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas
Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
16 Variation 11 (Slow. With solemnity): Brigg Fair (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
17 Variation 12 (Maestoso): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) -
Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
18 Transition: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra
19 IV. Variation 13 (Gaily): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) -
Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
20 Variation 14: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas
Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
21 Variation 15: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas
Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
22 Variation 16: Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir Thomas
Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
23 Transition (Rather quicker): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius)
- Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
24 Variation 17 (Rather slower. Very broadly): Brig (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
25 Coda (Very quietly): Brigg Fair (Frederick Delius) - Sir
Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
26 I. Daybreak - Dance from Florida Suite RTVI/1 ( (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
27 II. By the River (Andantino): Florida Suite (re (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
28 III. Sunset (Moderato) - Danza (Allegretto): Flo (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
29 IV. At Night (Andante moderato): Florida Suite (r (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
30 Marche-caprice (1987 Digital Remaster) (Frederick Delius)
- Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
Disc 2
01 A Dance Rhapsody No. 2 (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
02 Summer Evening (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick Delius/Sir
Thomas Beecham) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
03 On hearing the first cuckoo in Spring (2001 Digital Remaster)
(Frederick Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas
Beecham
04 Summer Night on the River (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
05 A Song before sunrise (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
06 Intermezzo from Fennimore and Gerda (2001 Digital (Frederick
Delius/Eric Fenby) - Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
07 Irmelin Prelude (2001 Digital Remaster) (Frederick Delius)
- Sir Thomas Beecham/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
08 A song of the setting sun! (Quietly): Songs of Su (Frederick
Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham
Choral Soci
09 Cease smiling, dear! (With easy movement).: Songs (Frederick
Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham
Choral Society
10 Pale amber sunlight falls (Slow).: Songs of Sunse (Frederick
Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham
Choral Society
11 Exceeding sorrow consumeth my sad heart! (Frederick Delius/Ernest
Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham Choral Society
12 By the sad waters of separation (Frederick Delius/Ernest
Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham Choral Society
13 See how the trees and the osiers lithe (Freshly). (Frederick
Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham
Choral Society
14 I was not sorrowful (Frederick Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen
Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham Choral Society
15 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter (Frederick
Delius/Ernest Dowson) - Maureen Forrester/John Cameron/Beecham
Choral Society
Disc 3
01 Lento -: A Dance Rhapsody No. 1 (1992 Digital Remaster (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
02 Comodo -: A Dance Rhapsody No. 1 (1992 Digital Remaster (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
03 Vivo -: A Dance Rhapsody No. 1 (1992 Digital Remaster (Frederick
Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
04 Più lento tranquillo -: A Dance Rhapsody No. 1 (1
(Frederick Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas
Beecham
05 Molto adagio: A Dance Rhapsody No. 1 (1992 Digital remaster
(Frederick Delius) - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas
Beecham
06 With moderate tempo -: Violin Concerto (1992 Digital remaster
(Frederick Delius) - Jean Pougnet/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Thom
07 Slower -: Violin Concerto (1992 Digital Remaster) (Frederick
Delius) - Jean Pougnet/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas
Beecham
08 Tempo I - Allegretto - Più moderato: Violin Conce
(Frederick Delius) - Jean Pougnet/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Thomas Beecham
09 With quiet easy movement - Tranquillo -: The Song (Frederick
Delius) - Freda Hart/Leslie Jones/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
10 Very slow (The wide, far distance - The great solitudes)
(Frederick Delius) - Freda Hart/Leslie Jones/Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra
11 In tempo -: The Song of the High Hills (Frederick Delius)
- Freda Hart/Leslie Jones/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
12 Very quietly - Tempo I: The Song of the High Hills (Frederick
Delius) - Freda Hart/Leslie Jones/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
13 Paa Vidderne (On the Heights) (1992 Digital Remaster (Frederick
Delius) - Sir Thomas Beecham
Disc 4
01 SCENE 1 - September. A piece of land on a hill: A (Frederick
Delius)
02 SCENE 2 - Six years later. Outside Marti's house: (Frederick
Delius)
03 SCENE 3 - The Wildland: A Village Romeo and Julie (Frederick
Delius)
04 SCENE 4 - Interior of Mart's house (part 1): A Vi (Frederick
Delius)
05 The dream of Sali and Vrenchen (Wedding Scene): A (Frederick
Delius)
Disc 5
01 SCENE 5 - The Fair: A Village Romeo and Juliet (1 (Frederick
Delius)
02 The Walk to the Paradise Garden: A Village Romeo (Frederick
Delius)
03 SCENE 6 - The Paradise Garden: A Village Romeo an (Frederick
Delius)
04 Once Paumanok -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon Clinton/Sir
Thomas Beecham
05 Shine! shine! shine! -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
06 Till of a sudden -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
07 Blow! blow! blow!: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
08 Yes my brother I know -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
09 O rising stars! -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
10 O reckless despairing carols -: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius)
- Gordon Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
11 O past! O happy life: Sea Drift (Frederick Delius) - Gordon
Clinton/Sir Thomas Beecham
Other performers
John Cameron (baritone), Maureen Forrester (contralto) (Sunset);
Jean Pougnet (violin) (concerto); David McCallum (violin) (Dance
Rhapsody No. 1); Freda Hart (soprano), Leslie Jones (tenor)
(Hills); Gordon Clinton (baritone) (Sea Drift); Dennis Dowling
(Manz), Frederick Sharp (Marti), Margaret Ritchie (Sali - as
a child), René Soames (Sali), Dorothy Bond (Vreli - as
a child), Lorely Dyer (Vreli), Gordon Clinton (The Dark Fiddler)
(A Village Romeo and Juliet) Jack Brymer (Fifine)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham 
