The music is the winner here. It is all too easy to lump most British
music from the 20th Century into some kind of comfy-chair
pastoral blandness. Paul Watkins, in the third volume of his survey
of British music for Cello and Piano (see reviews of Volume
1 and Volume
2), shows how three widely differing works, written over a three
year period at the end of World War II, explode that myth. Watkins
is a great champion of British music and his playing throughout displays
all the commitment and passion – together with a rock solid technique
– that one could wish for. Of course, he is not the first to be such
a determined advocate. Two of the three sonatas here — the Rawsthorne
is replaced by the Ireland which Watkins performed on volume 2 of
the series — were recorded for Marco Polo by Raphael Wallfisch together
with pianist John York.
The disc opens with Edmund Rubbra’s serious and powerful Sonata from
1946. I like the detail that the liner lists the original dedicatees
as part of each work’s listing. The Rubbra’s is William Pleeth who
had served in the same regiment as Rubbra in the War. They became
lifelong friends and as well as this piece Rubbra’s Soliloquy
was written for Pleeth who is mainly remembered today as a founding
member of the original Allegri Quartet and teacher of Jacqueline du
Pré.
This is a serious piece of absolute music. The source of inspiration
seems to be baroque models but not in the neo-classical sense but
rather as a tribute to the purity of form and contrapuntal skill that
period of music encapsulates. The Chandos recording is close and detailed
with the cello just given a hint of prominence over the piano. Clearly
the Watkins brothers are very used to working together and the unanimity
of utterance is very impressive. One observation I would make is that
Paul Watkins favours an intense, almost febrile style, that on occasion
in this work seems not to chime with the element of emotional detachment
there is in some pages of the work. Wallfisch is better in this regard,
more inclined to use his vibrato speed as an expressive tool so when
he is playing high in the tenor clef it is not always with the fast
pressured vibrato Watkins mainly favours. The more recessed Marco
Polo recording, with much more acoustic around both instruments does
blur some of the piano’s contrapuntal writing for York – but these
are all matters of degree. As I wrote right at the outset – the music
is what emerges from either performance with its stature increased.
Interestingly, it is Watkins who is a fraction steadier in 2nd
movement Vivace flessible, but the closer recording give
more bite to his playing. Both players embrace the ‘flexible’ instruction
well – Wallfisch a fraction more mercurial but Watkins technically
rock solid. The Finale is the most impressive movement in an already
impressive work; a theme, seven [brief] variations and fugue quite
superbly crafted. The skill is the way the sections merge through
the arc of the work from slow preludial theme, gradually gathering
speed to the Con Moto Variation 5 before slowing back to the closing
Fugue marked adagio e molto sereno. This is also the movement – as
liner note writer Calum MacDonald points out - which most clearly
pays homage to its Baroque source of inspiration. The fugue occupies
just under half of the movement – I particularly like the way Watkins
pares back his tone initially – at a much slower speed than Wallfisch
– so the musical material slowly grows and blossoms from a very austere
beginning. Up until this point the two interpretations have been very
similar albeit that Wallfisch reaches the closing fugue a full minute
quicker than Watkins. I do not have a score to follow but cannot imagine
this due to any musical material being cut. The final fugue shows
a huge divergence. Watkins takes around 5:20 to cover the same section
Wallfisch plays in under 3:00! Watkins' unit pulse hovers around 60
beats per minute with Wallfisch up at 85. Interestingly both 'work'
- the Wallfisch flowing speed tricks the brain into halving the pulse
to just over 40 but there is a sense of a 'modern' andante rather
than the grand traditional baroque adagios that pre-dated historically
informed practice. Given the way in which this piece does
embrace baroque styles from a mid-20th century perspective my instinct
is that Watkins' is the truer reflection of what Rubbra had in mind.
I do have to repeat that I have no particular insight into the composer's
mind and both are very fine performances. Overall, with this glowingly
beautiful final fugue and a finer piano - in instrumental and recording
not performance terms - I would consider this the version to hear.
There have been other recordings on Somm, Dutton and Guild - none
of which I have heard.
The central work offered here is both the latest and the shortest.
Alan Rawsthorne's C major Sonata is a new work to me - but an exceptionally
fine one. It is a sad indictment of musical fashion that Rawthorne's
greatest works were written at a time when his brand of extended yet
tonal music was deemed old-fashioned at best. So no matter how compelling
works such as this one it is hard not to fear that appreciation of
his music will never achieve a critical mass of popularity. Using
the Proms archive as a measure of this would seem to bare out the
theory. Only two works - one a film score excerpt - performed since
the millennium, no symphonies ever performed at the Proms
and only his two piano concertos having any degree of 'popularity'
with nine and eight performance respectively - although ignoring a
single outing for No.2 in 2005 you have to go back another 20 years
for that concerto's previous hearing and 1967 for No.1. As an aside;
while in the Proms archive I checked Rubbra too. He has had
five of his eleven symphonies as well as other works performed including
some in the last two decades, yet the abiding impression is another
composer whose star has waned certainly as far as the BBC planners
are concerned.
Yet listening to the hugely impressive Rubbra Sonata or the cogent
and compelling power of Rawthorne's sub fifteen minute Sonata you
have to wonder why. Do not assume from the C major heading that the
latter will be a brief and breezy ride. MacDonald describes it as,
"a work of close thematic integration and overwhelmingly serious
import." The dedicatee of this Sonata was Anthony Pini, another
exceptional British cellist who combined being a principal of various
orchestras with an active chamber music career and teaching. His recording
of the Elgar concerto with Van Beinum is still worthy of consideration.
If there were passages in the Rubbra where I was not certain that
Watkins' high-octane playing always chimed with the essence of the
work here there are no such qualms. Indeed the concentrated intensity
of the writing suits the playing to perfection. From the work's opening
bars there is a sense of dark and uneasy forces at work. The quality
of the Chandos recording and the richly resonant Steinway D adds to
air of foreboding. The storm breaks less than two minutes into the
movement with much of the musical argument initially being taken by
the piano. From this point on the movement is a study in distilled
and focused dynamism, the solo cello riding the storm of the pianist's
accompaniment. The ending comes with abrupt dismissal - this is one
of those movements that 'feels' bigger than its four minute timeframe
would imply. The second movement adagio is the longest section of
the work, but there is little lightening of the mood. Even the central
poco piu mosso returns to the struggles of the work's opening and
the abiding impression is one of dark pessimism - "inconsolable
sorrow" is MacDonald's term. The finale manages to break the
gloom - more through a sense of energetic exercise rather than a spiritual
lifting of the prevailing mood. A return to the earlier emotions is
fractured by a sharply descending unison figure for both instruments.
In turn this leads to a recollection of the opening material of the
work. Just when it seems that cyclically the music will return to
the despair where it started in the very closing bars there is at
last a shift to the major and the work ends quietly on a consoling
unison tonic. Formally, musically and emotionally this is an impressive
and satisfying work. There have been several other recordings, usually
as part of a mixed British composer recital except for the Naxos disc
where it forms part of a survey of other Rawsthorne chamber works.
As mentioned before, since this is my first encounter with the work
I cannot comment in comparative terms - suffice to say this is a superb
rendition by any standards.
The disc closes with the marvellous Moeran Cello Sonata. This was
dedicated to the composer's wife and cellist Peers Coetmore. Theirs
seems to have been an unusual marriage, with neither party particularly
suited to the day to day mundanities of married life. But the relationship
did inspire Moeran to two of his greatest late works; the Cello Concerto
and this Sonata. The comparisons I made here were again with Raphael
Wallfisch on Marco Polo and the seminal performance by Coetmore on
Lyrita accompanied by Eric Parkin. Any keen Moeran collector
will have this latter version because of its historical significance
(coupled as it is to Coetmore's version of the concerto too). However,
it cannot be denied that neither the performance or the recording
is a match for either of the more recent versions. Coetmore's cello
as recorded is rather tubby but of greater concern is the sense of
effort that detracts from the essential vigour of the music. However,
it is important to take on board the basic tempi Coetmore adopts.
There is one passage in the finale where she adopts a much steadier
speed than either Wallfisch or Watkins either of whom are much more
dynamic here. However, there is an implacable build-up in her slower
tempo that is very effective. Unfortunately, she no longer has the
sheer technical power to crown that procession with the kind of vehement
dynamic outburst that Watkins produces in his performance. It should
be said that all three pianists are very fine. This is the most overtly
Romantic of the three sonatas on the disc and the ardent lyrical nature
of the music really does suit Watkins' style perfectly. Wallfisch's
special strength lies in the ruminative and reflective passages, but
he cannot match Watkins for sheer dynanism. In these later works,
Moeran seems to want to create an idealised Irish sound-world fusing
soulful ballads and wild jigs and reels. Returning to this work after
some time it did strike me what a powerful work it is. In many ways
more impressive and successful than the companion concerto.
Indeed, my abiding impression from this entire disc is of music that
deserves to be much more widely known. Great praise to the Watkins
brothers for producing such a convincing and enjoyable recital - I
return to my opening comment underlining the extraordinary richness
and diversity expressed in these three works. This is a typically
polished Chandos production; detailed and rich recording in 24-bit
(not SA-CD) at their favoured Potton Hall venue allied to excellent
tri-lingual liner notes.
I hope that the Watkins brothers are able to continue their evangelising
of these and similar works and transfer the success they have with
this repertoire on disc into concert-hall performances.
Nick Barnard
Rubbra review index
