See
earlier review by Colin Clarke
In these three symphonies, the attributes of William Alwyn's
symphonic writing that I noted in reviewing Lyrita's previous
installment (SRCD.227)
are once more clearly recognizable. There's the building of
movements through a progression of through-composed episodes,
rather than an adherence to conventional forms; the use of short
melodic and rhythmic motifs, rather than of full-fledged "tunes",
sometimes in conjunction with a series of short-term tonal centers;
the shifting, shimmering palette of orchestral timbres.
Listening to the present program with these features already
in mind, I began to notice that, while Alwyn's harmonic language
is unquestionably late-Romantic, the effect is not really "lush",
in, say, the Rachmaninov manner. The music hits the ear pleasingly,
but the music's seriousness of demeanour and intent militates
against anything quite so frivolous as taking sheer pleasure
in the admittedly attractive sounds.
In the single-movement Fifth Symphony, subtitled after Sir Thomas
Browne's 1658 book, the composer parlays that seriousness into
a sense of struggle - the prevailing grimness is a far cry from
the amiable pastoral musings associated with British symphonists.
Indeed, the anxious, edgy opening and the brooding, restless
theme beginning at 3:44 cast Alwyn as a sort of English Shostakovich!
Even in the violins' broad, cautiously optimistic statement
near the symphony's close, the seemingly joyful pealing of trumpets
actually produces a vague ambivalence that undercuts the affirmation.
Annotator Trevor Hold hears the music as "fall[ing] into
four clearly-defined sections, corresponding to the normal symphonic
movements," but you couldn't prove it by me; as before,
it's easier if the listener simply accepts the various episodes
in turn, letting them generate their own structural logic.
Tensile drama also marks much of the Third Symphony, immediately
reflected in the first movement's incisive, repeated-note string
motifs and scurrying woodwinds; the music opens briefly into
a lyrical theme which abruptly gets short-circuited by the more
rhythmically active material. The Poco adagio begins
cautiously - the music, not the performance - in light, diversely
coloured textures; later brass interjections signal a growing
into greater turbulence. Some passages in that movement suggest
a more austere version of Holst's "Venus"; Thomas
Mann, in the booklet, cites the more obvious resemblance to
that composer's "Mars" in the finale's bold ostinatos.
Those ostinatos continue behind the more legato second group;
and, rarely for Alwyn, the music opens into an actual broad,
lyric episode at 8:32.
In the Second Symphony, the composer uses his rich harmonic
idiom to conjure searching, fragmentary effects. Each of its
two movements begins in a dynamic, turbulent mood that eventually
subsides into quiet, if not exactly calm. The climax of the
second movement brings a sense of uplift, but, as in the corresponding
passage in the Fifth, subsidiary elements of the texture compromise
and contradict that uplift.
As in the earlier coupling of the First and Fourth Symphonies,
the composer's own direction is authoritative, balancing the
lovely sonorities and projecting the elusive structures with
a sure hand. Only the brass interjections in the Third's finale
briefly cause momentum to falter. The London Philharmonic plays
handsomely, its positive sense of purpose outweighing passing
moments of tentative coordination.
The engineering is often excellent. In the opening movement
of the Second, the bassoons - used by Alwyn as a sort of "motivic
timbre," analogous to the thematic motifs of the Wagnerians
- register with a buzzy presence; the brass choir is deep and
resplendent; clarinets are liquid; and there's plenty of air
around the instrumental groups. As the brass become more active,
however, the hard edge I noted on SRCD.227 returns, with the
textures turning slightly opaque.
Stephen Francis Vasta
See also Composing
in Words: William Alwyn on his Art (Musicians on
Music: Volume 9) Edited by Andrew Palmer
Toccata Press, hardback, 366 pages IBSN 978-0-907689-71-3 £35.00
Special Offer £28 [JF]
I have been waiting for this book
for nearly forty years. And when it arrived it is even more
impressive than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
London Philharmonic Orchestra/William Alwyn 
