There has been talk for decades about a second recording
of the Bax
Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra. Finally one emerges
from the realms of vapour-ware and it is little surprise that it comes
from indefatigable and inspired Dutton.
The Bax has appeared on CD before, though only once. Rivka Golani recorded
it in 1989 for long-disappeared Conifer (CDCF171) alongside the Elgar
Cello Concerto as arranged for viola by Tertis and the same composer's
three
Characteristic Pieces for viola and orchestra. That collection
rather echoed the even more alluring English piano and orchestra collection
also on Conifer (CDCF175) by Kathryn Stott which has been reissued by
Dutton.
The
Phantasy is as near-as-damn-it to Bax’s Viola Concerto
though these days it would not at all surprise me if the contemporaneous
and masterly Viola Sonata were not orchestrated to companion the
Phantasy.
The Tertis-dedicated
Phantasy is typical rhapsodic Bax and Chase
does a great job of keeping a firm grip on the forward momentum of the
piece while not short-changing the Szymanowski-style poetic asides.
The work starts with a gruffly belligerent gesture, reminiscent of the
anger that launches the
Northern Ballad No. 1. This furious tone
is maintained through the warlike march episodes that give backbone
to the first movement. The central panel is sweetly released by Chase
and his collaborators. There’s a tense and toe-tapping half-jig,
half-quick march in the finale which, while it might remind us occasionally
of RVW, is flooded with Baxian aggression that melts at times into razor-sharp
romance and melancholy. The ending is well wrought and fittingly flourished
by soloist and well-conducted orchestra. Exemplary Bax.
It’s a while since I have heard the Golani but this strikes me
as more dynamic and will certainly speak to those who find Bax too rhapsodic
by half. It has also been played and in some cases broadcast by Ralph
Holmes, Bernard Shore, Steven Burnard and Frederick Riddle.
For years I have been wanting to hear Theodore Holland’s
Ellingham
Marshes. That appetite began when a friend sent me tape of Holland’s
Spring Sinfonietta. We are told that the composer was a friend
of Bax at the Royal Academy of Music and he was later John Joubert’s
composition teacher. This substantial quarter-hour poetic tone poem
dates from the early war years. It is intended to evoke or is at least
inspired by the Suffolk marshes. It is not at all the swooningly fey
exercise I had thought. In fact it is intense and radiant with darker
rhythmic material. It has quite a bit in common with the Bax but with
some Patrick Hadley and even Ravel-like moments. It ends on a breath-taking
filament of sound. No rowdy finale here. A very beautiful work - extremely
well served in this its first ever recording.
The RVW Suite has been recorded several times before: Frederick Riddle
(RCA and
Chandos)
and Helen Callus (
ASV),
not to mention by Melvin Berger on a Pye Collector Series GSGC 14049
LP in 1966 (not sure if ever reissued on CD), by Lawrence Power on Hyperion
CDA67839 and by Yizhak Schotten on Crystal CD 837. Rather like the Finzi
Bagatelles for clarinet and piano (orchestrated by Lawrence Ashmore)
this sequence of miniatures has many instantly attractive episodes and
a high quotient of VW’s most pastorally-inspired writing alongside
kinetic romps like the
Galop.
We end with Richard Harvey and his
Reflections. This began life
as
Reflection on a Changing Landscape which was premiered by
Chase as part of the Exeter Festival in 1990. The four movements are
Awakening,
Shadowplay,
Borderlands and
Remembrance.
Awakening reminds me of Hovhaness such is its delicacy and plangency.
Here it is treated with great delicacy and whispered care. Harvey's
writing is like everything else here, written in the resilient melodic
tonal mainstream that lived on through the ascendancy of more sterile
styles. It is
in the English pastoral mainstream, notwithstanding
my reference to Hovhaness, or at least it is in
Awakening where
it attains real emotional voltage and swell.
Shadowplay is wispily
eerie and derives from music Harvey wrote for the Granada TV series
on Len Deighton's
Game, Set and Match. Similarly inspired is
the desolate meditation of
Borderlands drawn forth by Ian Holm
as Deighton's spy Bernard Samson. It moves from slow evolution to Glass-like
propulsion at the close. The final
Remembrance does elegy and
beauty so well. It starts elegiac and bids adieu in celebration - joy
in the life of Richard Gregson-Williams. The music ends with a few more
glistening strokes that reminded me of Hovhaness. The Harvey is a lovely
piece and furnishes well rounded satisfaction with which to end this
treasurable disc. Chase is the dedicatee alongside Richard Gregson-Williams,
one-time director of the Exeter Festival.
The Harvey reminded me - in its impact rather than its detail - of the
music Carl Davis wrote in the 1970s for one of the best-ever Hardy television
adaptations:
The Mayor of Casterbridge in which the late Alan
Bates was unforgettable as tragic Michael Henchard. It was on a 1978
LP EMI INS 3021. There are also touches of the more understated music
for Polanski's
Tessby
Philippe Sarde - don’t turn your nose up until you have heard
it. It also brings to mind the
Elegy for viola and orchestra
(from the film
Lady Caroline Lamb) (1972) as recorded by Philip
Dukes on
Chandos
CHAN 9867 (2001) and before that by Peter Mark on EMI British Composers
5861882 (2004) and on LP HMV CSD 3728 in 1972.
Chase again presents these works associated with Lionel Tertis on Tertis’s
own Montagnana viola.
Dutton could hardly have been more generous: the four works run just
shy of eighty minutes. We get two works in recording premières,
one - the RVW - previously recorded several times and the Bax recorded
commercially only the once before. The essays are by Graham Parlett
except for the Harvey where the composer has provided his own. The recording
is exemplary with violist-turned-engineer Michael Ponder at the audio
controls showing fellow feeling for Roger Chase's viola.
Chase is no stranger to pioneering viola repertoire. If we restrict
ourselves to Dutton he can be heard in the concertos by Stanley Bate
and W.H. Bell on
CDLX7216,
on
CDLX7250
in Tertis transcriptions of sonatas by Delius and Ireland and in Dale's
viola works - or some of them - on
CDLX7204.
To all of these he has brought real insight and his performances while
not lacking in passion and poetry also evince thoughtful study and ideas
that have matured. No evidence of the sight-reading conveyor belt.
Rob Barnett
Vaughan Williams review index
