MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
Plain text for smartphones & printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Support us financially by purchasing
this through MusicWeb
for £9 postage paid world-wide.

Reflections
Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941)

Sonata for Viola and Piano (1917) (arr. Martin Outram) [24:17]
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Reflection (1930) [4:05]
Portrait No 2 ‘EBB’ (1930) (arr. Outram) [3:55]
Lachrymae op. 48 Reflections on a song of Dowland (1950) [13:25]
Frank BRIDGE
There is a willow grows aslant a brook (1927) (arr. Britten, 1932) [8:05]
Pensiero (1905 rev. 1907/8) [3:59]
Allegro Appassionato (1907/08) [2:29]
Benjamin BRITTEN
Elegy (1930) [6:41]
Martin Outram (viola)
Julian Rolton (piano)
rec. 16-18 November 2012, Wyastone Concert Hall.
NIMBUS ALLIANCE NI6253 [67:29]

There seems no reason for me to alter my view of the playing of these two musicians, given that comments from a previous review appear on the back of the jewel case of this latest CD. Outram remains a great ambassador for British chamber music and Rolton is a splendid colleague in every respect. Together they have constructed a programme that focuses on Britten and Bridge, pupil and teacher respectively, and the homage paid to the older man when Britten arranged so beautifully Bridge’s There is a willow grows aslant a brook. Both too played the viola, and indeed both recorded on the instrument - albeit in Britten’s case in a very minor way.
 
The surprise here is Martin Outram’s arrangement for viola of Bridge’s 1917 Cello Sonata. This would not have been a surprise, though, to an executant-proselytizer such as Lionel Tertis who routinely did this sort of thing – Delius, Elgar, Bach, Dohnányi, Mozart, you name them - but which is less often encountered in our time. I have to say the transcription works very well. The work itself spans the years 1913-17, probably begun as a four-movement affair but gradually taking shape as two-movements, with the slow movement and scherzo compressed. The result is certainly akin to the type of works written for the Cobbett Competition, although the stipulation there was for one-movement fantasia-like chamber pieces. No matter, the warm lyricism of the relatively idyllic, prelapsarian first-movement is well conveyed, and Rolton’s ripplingly supportive playing is an apt foil for Outram. If the cello sings the more ardently than the viola, it’s not by much. The ruminative and yearning second part of the work, composed in 1917 reflects tauter and more intense feelings, forlorn in the viola recitatives and an ending that can be variously interpreted as hopeful, defiant or (deliberately) misplaced in confidence.
 
The other works by Bridge are Pensiero and Allegro Appassionato, which are often programmed as a pair on discs these days, and make for an attractive and contrasting duo, the first thoughtful, the second driving and powerful. Paul Hindmarsh’s 1980 arrangement of the 1904 Allegretto is affectionately played.
 
Britten’s early works are full of glimmerings of her soon-to-be-mature finest qualities. The Elegy is especially mature for 1930, phrasing trailing off and evaporating in an expression of deep intensity and fragmentary loss. Reflection finds Britten exploring harmonic matters whilst Portrait No 2 ‘EBB’, again from 1930, arranged by Ourtam, is again an unsettled and in some ways unsettling piece – amazing to think that these were the products of a 16 year old. The mature Britten is represented by Lachrymae, a long-established part of the repertoire, launched by William Primrose at its première (does a performance by Primrose survive?). Outram’s performance is fast and quite plainly spoken. He clearly has little time for more overtly sombre interpretations and is consistently lighter on his feet (and fingers) than most, and even witty – try the pizzicato passage, for instance. His approach therefore is cooler and less angular than many that I’ve heard, and if the unveiling of If My Complaints is less heart-stopping than it can be, Outram and Rolton play it at a fine tempo. Slow tempi here tend to sap it of nobility. I sometimes wondered if the gaps between variations were not a little too extended.
 
Excellently recorded and well annotated this is another fine contribution to British viola music on disc. There have been many in the last decade or so, but Outram has been responsible for his fair share.
 
Jonathan Woolf

Previous review: Dominy Clements (March 2014 Recording of the Month)
 
Britten discography & review index