Classical Editor: Rob Barnett  Reviewers: Rob Barnett, Ian Lace, Len Mullenger, Paul Tonks, Colin Scott Sutherland, David Wright, Jane Erb, Gairt Mauerhoff,  Ian Marchant, Reg and Marjorie Williamson

November 1998

COMPETITION WIN a CD of your choice from Crotchet

---

George GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue; Concerto in F; An American in Paris André Previn (piano) and conducting the London Symphony Orchestra EMI CDM5 66891 2
		Crotchet Amazon (USA) Soundstone (USA)

I have always loved this recording and I welcome it back to the catalogue most warmly. This fabulous recording was first released in 1971. It is one of the first releases in EMI's new series, "Great Recordings of the Century" - and these performances certainly qualify for that superlative. The collection is superbly produced and engineered by the renowned team of Christopher Bishop and Christopher Parker, and it features André Previn at peak form in the days when he was in London producing such classic recordings as his critically acclaimed cycle of Vaughan Williams symphonies, his complete Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony, and a blistering Walton 1st Symphony that is still the yardstick when judging rival versions. This, for me, is the way to play Gershwin. The slightly understated Gramophone criticism, of the day, said: "...the disc has great virtues...Previn plays well, as you would expect, and there is virtuoso playing from the LSO..." The CD booklet notes are in the form of an appreciation of these performances by Brian Morton and it is worth quoting a salient paragraph - "...Even the most sceptical of critics is prepared, at least, to pay lip service to the American's genius, even if only as a 'popular' composer. What Gershwin certainly is, however, is badly performed. The concert works require a touch that is not within the orthodox canon. Chords are not there to be played whole and uncoloured, but broken. There should be ambiguities in the tonality, hung notes, phrases splayed athwart the pulse. There should be no right angles, no straight edges." (The bold italics are mine to emphasise this point).

Previn, with his versatile background of jazz, show business and film music, as well as conventional concert music, was the ideal interpreter of Gershwin bringing a freshness, spontaneity and above all a sparkling joie de vivre to these interpretations. Just listen to the opening of the Rhapsody in Blue, for instance: the sheer joy of the clarinet's wail complete with the cheeky little twist in its tail, is counterbalanced by emphatic timpani and a really saucy answering call from the trumpet played "in the hat". Previn convinces the London Symphony Orchestra to play as if they were born to the jazz idiom and they play their hearts out for him giving him, as the Gramophone critic says, virtuoso performances. The big tune of the Rhapsody that everybody remembers seems to take on an extra dimension under Previn. I cannot ever before recall being reminded of that bitter sweet feeling or a yearning - almost a mourning - for lost times - that feeling that Delius captured in his Paris.

As for An American in Paris, well, for me, this performance is the one. You might have to listen for a lifetime to hear a better performance than this. This American... is delighted to be in Paris, for him Spring is in the air. (In some other readings I get the impression it is Autumn.) Again there is that attractive devil-may-care spirit, the deliciously vulgar, witty turns of phrase. The big romantic tune first appears with a sardonic edge, its cynical, world-weary - the sort of picture you might imagine of a know-it-all, seen-everything-before Yank before he succumbs to the charm of the capital of romance. (But see what Gershwin, himself, said of his idea of what the American was doing in Paris in my review of the Michael Tilson Thomas recording below.)

Of the Piano Concerto it is worth quoting Morton again..." Consider the extraordinary opening... In most performances it is presented like a portal to some grand classical statement, shiny and unblemished, faux-Corinthian. Previn approaches it with sympathetic freshness. It's immediately clear that this language is modern American, and far from 'classical'. Even the familiar contention between soloist and ensemble has a different function here. The piano not only plays within and against the group, but also across its angles.. the magnificent trumpet passage in the slow middle section, played here by Howard Snell, has an edge of raw intensity, alluding to the spirit of the blues without using blues intervals in a remotely orthodox way..." My comments in the preceding paragraphs apply equally well to Previn's view of the Concerto. He penetrates to the very soul of this brilliant music - so often associated with the brash vivacity, and the sentimentality of New York. In the outer movements, he propels the music so that it bounces along strongly; his reading is crisp but articulate Listen how movingly he shapes the lovely soulful melody at about 6:00 in the first movement. As for his performance of the lovely Adagio - Andante con moto second movement; it is a revelation, a complete joy: the sympathetic playing of the LSO is sublime and Previn's cadenza is a study in hushed concentration and acute sensitivity.

A classic recording that must be in every Gershwin lovers library
Ian Lace

We have a compilation of Gershwin reviews

---

The Dvorák Piano Concerto recording dates from 1977, the Schubert from 1963.

The Dvorák Piano Concerto, dating from 1876, has always been overshadowed by its later and more celebrated, more often performed Violin and Cello Concertos. On the suface it shares non of the glittering showmanship bravura passages of so many other late nineteenth century piano concertos; and its themes do not linger in the memory as indelibly as those in Dvorak's other two concertos. Yet it has that kind of subtle, more restrained beauty and fascination that reveals itself more and more on repeated hearings. A work that has grown beautifully insidiously on this listener. This piano concerto certainly held a fascination for Richter and it was chosen by him, much to the surprise of his many admirers, for a Royal Albert Hall concert given during the heyday of his early celebrity. This recording followed soon after and it demonstrates his affection for the work. He is joined by Carlos Kleiber who did not make excessive numbers of visits to the recording studios but when he did it was often an occasion (One remembers his monumental recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for instance). The collaboration of Richter and Kleiber lifts this work so that we can fully appreciate its strengths. It is a genial, high-spirited concerto; few shadows cross its path. Folk material is a strong element in its make-up. The long first movement (nearly 19 minutes duration) is consistently delightful with a lovely lyrical main theme that skips and dances along through the movement and reaches a very affecting climax at about 14:36. The Andante is very appealing with its misty, dreamily introspective pages, contrasting with faster more extrovert, sometimes wry, observations. Richter's reading, throughout, is a model of lucidity, poetic eloquence and glittering dexterity.

Schubert's 'Wanderer Fantasia' is monumental and monumentally difficult. Quoting from Bryce Morrison's notes: "Few pianists have been more closely associated with the Fantasie's alpine challenge than Richter, first amongst an élite able to subdue even the most ungrateful difficulties (including a notorious passage in running semiquaver octaves and shuddering tremolandi in the first movement, and final pages which pile Pelion on Ossa) leaving him free to concentrate on Shubert's purely musical quality. Implacable rhythm, a capacity to switch dynamic extremes without any loss of impetus, an almost viscereal force and manic propulsion offset by an uncanny conjuring of lyricism and stillness, are merely a few of the characteristics that make Richter a supreme master of the 'Wanderer' Yes, indeed; this performance had me sitting on the edge of my seat in awe and wonder, what more need I say?. Ian Lace

Performance

Sound

The two concertos were recorded in 1960 and the recording of Gaspard de la nuit dates back to 1967. The refurbishments are first class so that every little detail is as sharp as a gnat's kneecap. The pp writing for harp and woodwinds in the first movement, for instance, is as clear as one could wish for and the strands of Ravel's often complex textures are satisfyingly transparent.

As Bryce Morrison says in his most interesting CD notes, Samson François was "a mercurial genius...(who) believed essentially in a frisson and mood of the moment that made his performances wildly unpredictable." Conductors must have approached the concert platform with trepidation whenever they shared it with this erratic genius. You feel this glorious by-the-seat-of-the-pants spontaneity in this celebrated recording.  The outer movements of the G-Major Concerto, here, are vibrant and thrilling. François's reading gives an exciting feeling of inspired improvisation; skittish, restless, dynamic. In the finale he is splendidly imprecise going for a steep crescendo, for instance, instead of a marked fortissimo descent, and he races dangerously ahead of Cluytens but without risking the structure, balance or feel of the whole. Even though he nicely balances the statement of the lovely poignant dreamy theme of the solo opening of the Adagio assai central movement in the one hand with the rather consolatory accompaniment in the other, I felt disappointed with his casual, rather detached manner. But then later in the same movement, he impresses with beautifully moulded runs beneath the cor anglais and then the other wind instruments as they reiterate the theme. Here is the delicacy of sun-glittered raindrops in the wake of an April shower.

In the Concerto for the left hand, he enters like a tiger and in the quieter sections, is as tender as a lamb (I just wish he had been this expressive in the slow movement of the other concerto) only to bound back all ablaze. Again as Bryce observes, "... his performance keeps everyone on the qui vive. Nothing is consciously worked...". Cluytens conjures up awe-inspiring, vividly-coloured accompaniments, coaxing vibrant, virtuoso performances from every section of the French orchestra. You are carried away by their spicy playing from the wild and dangerous to the limpid and pellucid. Your attention is gripped and held always. The jazz elements, particularly strong in the G-Major concerto are played with a witty insouciance and insolence. This is a strong, proud, haughty left hand concerto accompaniment; the dark opening pages are as disturbing as they are arresting. The toy-soldier like march in the middle treads with just the right mixture of hauteur and irony and at the finale the orchestra leaves with a bang.

Gaspard de la nuit is, of course, a set of three atmospheric pieces for solo piano. François's Ondine suggests intertwining ripples on sun-speckled water but with dark and possibly dangerous undercurrents. He steers Le gibet along in a certain detachment through the sinister, desolate, hope-abandoned staccato landscape and his Scarbo seems to be a sly, mischievous and horribly malevolent hobgoblin, not one to turn one's back on judging from François's creepy portrait.

Ian Lace

Performance

Sound

	Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949) Four Last Songs. 12 Orchestral Songs. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano); George Szell conducting the Radio Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin and the London Symphony Orchestra EMI CDM5 66908 2
		You may buy this disc here

Occasionally reviewers are sent an album which quite simply awes them. This is such a disc. At the time of its original release Gramophone's critic wrote: "...a heavenly record, so beautiful that it goes against the grain to analyse

it." Exaggeration? Not a bit of it. This record is truly a masterpiece: a great meeting of extraordinary talents - the consummate artistry of Schwarzkopf and the glorious accompaniments of Szell, so often criticised for bing cold and aloof in performance, here inspiring the two orchestras to heights of breathtaking beauty in this opulent music. This CD truly deserves to be labelled a Great Recording of the Century.

This was the second recording that Schwarzkopf had made of the Four Last Songs The first had been with Otto Ackerman and the Philharmonia in 1953 - by 1949, after years of light lyric soprano roles such as Zerbinetta, Schwarzkopf had developed fuller tones sufficiently to suit the work. As John B. Steane, the eminent Gramophone critic, remarks in his eloquent notes "... the two performances are complementary, one does not have to choose between the freshness of the one and the experience of the other. (The first performance of the work, at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, in May 1950 had been not by a lyric soprano but by the mighty Wagnerian Kirsten Flagstad under Furtwängler.). In speaking about Schwarzkopf's performance at the Royal Festival Hall a few days after this 1965 recording of the Four Last Songs, Steane continues, "Schwarzkopf, whose conductor was Barbirolli, sounded essentially as in the Szell recording, a warm radiance in the tone, ample resources to make the voice sound out clearly and yet to meld with the instruments, and a deep humanity in all."

Strauss completed his late, lovely masterpiece, the Four Last Songs between May and September 1948. A fifth song was started but not finished. Sadly, barely a year later, the composer died without ever hearing them in performance.  Throughout his life Strauss had shown a distinct penchant for the soprano voice - one only has to recollect the three magnificent but demanding soprano roles in Der Rosenkavalier for instance. It is therefore fitting that this sublime last work with its fine vocal writing and opulent orchestrations (with glorious string parts), should be given to the soprano. The songs, sad but serene, suggest journeyings: through the day, through the seasons and through life. There are so many joys in this recording. I would just single out a few before I pass onto the 12 songs. Clearly Schwarzkopf's lovely silken tone; her effortless, seamless, floating, soaring singing that follows the winged spirit in "Beim Schlafengehen" (Going To Sleep) [and of course throughout all the four songs] is wondrous to hear. Then there is the lovely horn solo over softly caressing strings that closes "September" on an exquisite note of departing sadness for the departure of Summer; the melting beauty of the violin solo that distinguishes "Beim Schlafengehen"; and just everything in the haunting "Im Abendrot" (At Gloaming) - if music can be called heavenly then this is it! The closing orchestral pages are truly magical.

Strauss's 12 songs here recorded were written between 1897 and 1948. All are memorable and impressive. They are quite varied and give Schwarzkopf opportunities to show off her technique and considerable expressive powers, and Szell the opportunity to provide equally persuasive and glowing accompaniments. The most famous, perhaps, and the most beguiling are "Morgen" (Tomorrow) heartrendingly beautiful (again with a beautifully conceived violin solo over flowing harp arpeggios); and the sublime little lullaby, "Wiegenlied" (Cradle Song). To mention one or two of the other songs: the contrasting "Muttertändelei" (Tantalizing) is a light, wryly humorous look at motherhood with Schwarzkopf cooing, proudly and possessively over her new baby with the orchestra taking a more realistically ironic view of her exaggerated affections/affectations. "Die helligen drei Könige aus Morgenland" (The Three Holy Kings from the Orient) is Strauss' Nativity celebration which captures all the wonder of the star of Bethlehem, the closing orchestral pages shimmer gloriously; the string writing is bewitching but then the string writing (and playing) for all these songs is particularly rich. "Ruhe, meine Seele" (written in 1948) seems to forecast Strauss's imminent death. It is shadowy, brooding and foreboding and Schwarzkopf and Szell penetrate its dark soul.

In passing I would just like to draw attention to another very good recording of these works - that by in 1978 for CBS Masterworks by Kiri te Kanawa with Andrew Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra.

But rush out and buy this great reissue.

Ian Lace

Performance

Sound

	Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959) Bachianas Brasileiras Nos 1,2 5* & 9. Victoria de los Angeles* (soprano); Heitor Villa-Lobos conducting theOrchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française. EMI CDM5 66912 2
		You may buy this disc here

These celebrated recordings were made with the composer himself wielding the baton so we must regard his interpretations as definitive. Certainly this must apply to this recording of No. 5 (ingeniously scored for soprano and eight cellos) made famous by the sublime, effortless singing of Victoria de los Angeles. It's not just her beguiling way with the well known tune of the opening Aria (Cantilena) but just listen to the way she negotiates, with aplomb, the traps of the following Dança with its long held notes, serpentine harmonic and rhythmic twists and rapid fire staccatos.

This CD includes the 1st 2nd 5th and 9th Bachianas Brasileiras whereas the original 1957 LP, displayed on the cover of the CD booklet, included No.6 but omitted No.1 recorded two years later. Villa-Lobos was largely self-taught although he absorbed some of French influence during a stay in Paris. He researched deeply into Brazilian folk music and an intense nationalism is evident in his work. In many compositions he synthesised many different traditions of Brazilian music - colonial, Indian and urban - into his music.

He also had a deep veneration for Bach and in his Bachianas Brasileiras suites, he attempted to fuse the soul of Brazil with the spirit of Bach. One is continually impressed with the inventiveness in the contrapuntal writing and colourful orchestrations that explore some odd instrumental combinations and the unusual and arresting usage of those instruments.

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 is again scored for eight cellos. The first movements is predominantly genial with the composer exploring an impressive range of sonorities and rhythms. The central movement contrasts shadowy, emotionally intense material with a sentimental love theme while the last movement is a jazzy fugue.

No. 2 is scored for orchestra and is in four movements. In this suite the Bach connection is most tentative and the material the most programmatic. The opening movement is a vivid portrait of a Rio loafer (characterised by a tenor saxophone); one guesses that he is brash and tipsy and later you hear him riding his nag and romancing his gal; we now have an intriguing 'Song of Our Land' which is somewhat darkly introspective and it reflects the candomblés and macumbas of black voodoo cults; the third movement is a catchy Dança that swirls, slides and pecks - a trombone playing an important, slightly boozy role. But it is the last movement which lingers in the memory. This is a lovely evocation of little country train puffing along the track; it is very realistic with Villa-Lobos using most colourful and vivid orchestrations.

No.9 was scored for string orchestra and is slow and introspective with a rather remote feeling before the texture becomes richer and warmer, the music growing more animated and voluptuous.

A fugue concludes the work which oscillates between vitality and despondency.

The sound is variable from the very good to the acceptable. In the second suite some orchestral textures sound somewhat congested. Nevertheless this is another attractive album and it makes an ideal introduction to Villa-Lobos.

Ian Lace

Performance  

Sound  

	Nino ROTA Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. Norrköping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kristian Ruud. BIS CD-970 [63:18]
		You may buy this disc here

Following on from the recent release, by Chandos, of the Nino Rota Piano Concertos, reviewed on this site recently, these are world premiere performances of two more considerable concert works by this renowned composer of film music. While there is very, very little music here that we know from the film scores, the symphonies, No. 2 in particular, show recognisable traits that would develop into Rota's successful film scores.

Rota's First Symphony, written over the years 1935-39, has considerable charm and appeal. It speaks directly in the late Romantic tradition, there's no hint of the avante garde writing that was beginning to occupy the attention of so many other composers at this time. The opening movement has an open-air freshness, its feet seem to be firmly rooted in the Italian soil. It opens calmly but grows increasingly animated and dramatic with colour and melody.

The Andante has a cloistered serenity, strings ascending heavenwards while tuba and trombones give some underpinning devotional gravity. One is reminded of the religious epic film music of Miklós Rózsa. The Scherzo is light and frothy, skipping gaily along in childlike innocence; indeed, one is reminded of childhood games and loud boisterous horseplay. The Finale is dramatic and full of conflict: dark vs light; sinister vs heroic. Any film director would be delighted to consider such material.

The Second Symphony was written mainly between 1937 and 1941, when he was teaching in Taranto in the remote, extreme south of Italy; and completed in 1975. The work's opening movement has a similar beginning to the First Symphony, tranquil and speaking of a simple Italian rural life dominated by the church. It soon intensifies, however, and is full of action and emotion.

The second is a merry, but strongly accented Tarantella with a lovely trio section. There is some nice intertwining string writing. The stream of the music mood broadens out into a more deeply felt peroration and sometimes it gave me mental pictures of some medieval pageantry as that at Sienna. At one point there is a faint pre-echo of the love music from Il Gattopardo (The Leopard). The Andante has its roots in plainchant, the Respighi of Concerto Gregoriano is not far away. The Final Allegro vivace is all gaiety. You feel there is a party in the village street; bells summon all to the feasting and dancing first under the hot sun and then under the stars. Much of this symphony is of the stuff that film scores are made.

Rota wrote two further symphonies (it is to be hoped that BIS will record them). The Fourth Symphony (Sinfonia sopra una canzona d'amore) was sketched in 1947 and was drawn on several times for film sound tracks such as The Glass Mountain and Il Gattopardo.

Ruud and the Norrköping SO give strong performances of these works. Highly recommended to Rota fans.

Ian Lace

	Malcolm ARNOLD  Symphonies Nos 7 and 8    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley Conifer CDCF 177
		You may buy this disc here

These are première recordings made in 1991. Arnold's Seventh Symphony is his bleakest. Its anger reminds one of that of the first three movements of Walton's First Symphony but unlike that work, where one senses the anger is controlled and directed, this fury at length screws up into hysteria. But the Walton connection is strong because there is also something of Walton's wicked wit and harsh brilliance in this music and, in fact, it was finished at Walton's home on the Island of Ischia in September 1973. The work is dedicated to Arnold's children, Katherine, Robert and Edward. The CD's note writer, Piers Burton-Page, comments, "The composer explained at the time of the first performance, that each was loosely portrayed in one of the movements. Cryptic, because this symphony nevertheless has outbursts of orchestral ferocity unequalled elsewhere in his output and one suspects - unless these are portraits of savage cruelty - that this laconic explanation goes only part of the way to explaining the music's meaning."

The symphony opens in anarchy with a heavy tread, screeching strings and pungent, angry, brass staccatos, then "oompah-oompah" brass chords and impish twittering woodwinds. The tempo then relaxes but the mood darkens, with pleading and despairing strings wanting, one feels, to flower into some sort of lyricism but they are brusquely thrust aside by the oompah brasses.

Later we hear some particularly sickeningly grotesque jazz and an angry episode, like so many frenzied bees buzzing before furious bass-drum hammerings break in. A hollow-sounding, totally despondent Mahlerian cowbell summons the closing of this long, uncomfortable movement. The second movement is dominated by a solo trombone intoning disillusionment over mournful strings. Later there is an extended passage for untuned percussion which Piers Burton-Page thinks might be connected with Arnold's tragically autistic son, Edward. This cold, empty, hammering, which increases and decreases in sound and intensity, is heard over tremolando strings before the tempo increases rapidly until we reach the hysteria we had met in the first movement. The sombre pessimistic ending of this movement contrasts with the sardonic forcefulness of the finale in which Arnold apes the music of the Irish group, The Chieftains. The cowbell halts return of darker figures, to allow some chink of hope before the work ends.

The shorter Eighth Symphony is again harsh, although the prevalent temperament is somewhat lighter. The first movement carries many moods from brooding drama and conflict, to lyricism and comic pomposity. Music from one of the last films he scored, The Reckoning, is used - an attractive, jaunty Irish marching tune. The second movement is elegiac but with bleak desolate wind solos and the finale has a quicksilver brilliance with a welcome xylophone solo that is bright and light.

Vernon Handley and the RPO are superb, meeting all the tricky challenges of these complex works in terms of rhythm, articulation, intonation and precision of ensemble.

Ian Lace

Notes on Arnold from Len Mullenger

For thirty or so years, I have been attending Recorded Music Societies (Gramophone Societies as we used to call them) and other musical events, and for most of that time, I cannot recall Malcolm Arnold being treated seriously as a composer. When I presented a programme to celebrate his 75th birthday in 1996, I asked 'Is his music loved?' 'Is he a great composer' (and hoped I could demonstrate that he was) and I then challenged my audience by demanding to know how they felt about the fact that it was his 75th birthday. Did they feel anything at all? Rumble, rumble round the room.

I think that for most people Arnold is something of an enigma. He seems to be a parochial composer, and often inward -looking at that;  perhaps his music does not travel - for instance, I could not find a single mention of Arnold in any of Andrew Porter's books of concert reviews. The music of Elgar and Walton has certainly travelled abroad, and that is loved. Perhaps for rather fewer of us, so is the music of Alwyn - but I fear that few love the music of Arnold. He is recognised by my musical friends as a composer of some good music, even funny music (Tam 'O Shanter and the music for the Hoffnung Festivals) and of course his major contribution was regarded as being a film music composer, which probably damned him in the eyes of the less enlightened musicophiles - so his music is admired rather than being loved. For most of that time I cannot pretend to have been much different. I loved the English Dance suites but gradually became aware that there was a darker undercurrent in Arnold's music, as exhibited in some of the other Dance Suites, which have gradually become more introspective, reflecting at times, the disillusionment he felt with his own life as well as the depravity the English wrought on the three Celtic nations. I suspect that, like Bax, Arnold regards himself as a Celt at heart. There is not much that is carefree or life-enhancing in the first of the Scottish Dances. The andantino in the Cornish Dances has whistfullness, regret and melancholy, bringing memories of the gaunt chimney stacks and relics of stone pumping houses that still remain throughout parts of Cornwall. It might be expected that the Irish dances would be more lively - but they too are permeated with a feeling of loss.On hearing the Welsh dances we are inhabiting a different mind-set. There is little jollity here; the music is desolate, hard, harsh, numbing , unrelenting and even threatening - in spite of the dance rhythms.

The core of  Arnold's output is the symphonies - and how familiar are they?  They are all different and a pretty tough, uncompromising lot some of them are. Arnold is a great tunesmith and the one symphony that may lay claim to being loved was the Fifth symphony. It has such a marvellous tune in the slow movement, fully worthy of Alwyn or Walton. But listen to what happens when it reappears in the finale. Arnold completely destroys it like a spoilt child in a moody temper or perhaps something deeper even than that. We remain perplexed. The symphony received mixed reviews on its first performance. Jeremy Noble called it 'a jolly neo-romantic confection about which the less said the better' - clearly it was that tune that stayed in his mind. The anonymous Times reviewer said it 'suggested an active personality in an advanced state of disintegration'. I must quote Christopher Palmer more fully, regarding the finale:

'In the slow movement there is this great, glorious tune, just too beautiful, too pristine, too perfect, like a fashion model. This is a paragon of a tune - and make no mistake it is a wonderful tune, all set to return in fortissimo, full-orchestra triumph, as the culmination of everyone's hopes and dreams and aspirations, when, deliberately and cynically and cold-bloodedly, he trashes his tune, destroys his own beautiful creation. Magnificent shining edifice one moment: blackened, smoking ruin, E-minor ash, the next.'

But even in the big tune in the slow movement there are glimpses of sadness and despair. In a BBC review it reminded Arthur Peacock of  a marble tombstone, bearing an inscription of consoling texts - but slowly the lid of the tomb slides back and the horror within can be glimpsed.

I believe all Arnold symphonies, and much of his other music, is autobiographical and we are allowed to see this 'horror within'. Arnold has not always loved himself which is possibly why it is so difficult to love his music. Yet, like Mahler or Shostakovich, he is willing to face up to himself in his symphonies. He went through years of depression, had personal and family health problems, became an alcoholic and after the failure of his second marriage became suicidal.  It is all there in the music and that is why his music is so powerful, personal and moving. The unremittingly intense and sinewy seventh symphony, reviewed by Ian above, seems to me to represent the composer at the depths of this great despair and he is hammering at the inside of his skull to escape it - use is made of the cow-bell in ways Mahler never imagined. This sombre seventh symphony has to be played in an empty house at full volume and I promise you that it will remain with you for weeks after that!

At this very moment Rob Barnett is preparing a biographical article on Malcolm Arnold which will appear on the Arnold web site in due course.

In recent years we have been put in the fortunate position of having all the symphonies available on disc. There is a continuing cycle with Andrew Penny on Naxos, Vernon Handley on Conifer and a stalled cycle from Richard Hickox on Chandos which reached Symphony No 6. I believe there to have been a further  symphony recorded but it seems unlikely that there will be any further releases. I find this disappointing because the combination of Hickox's conducting and Chandos' sound would have made that my first recommendation for a complete cycle.Notwithstanding, the Conifer recordings are outstanding and Handley is well known as a champion of English music. For me the above recording can be awarded five stars.

However there can really only be one choice for those new to this music and that is the Naxos cycle with Andrew Penny. The National Symphony of Ireland play beyond themselves and Naxos have managed to give us top class recordings of revealing depth in a natural acoustic. As you can buy three of these discs for the price of one of the others it is no wonder they have been selling in tens of thousands. Add to that the displacement of the composer's own recording of the Dances on Lyrita SRCD 201 by the Naxos disc which includes the only recording  of  the Four Welsh Dances and there is no argument. If you are unaware of this composer collect the Naxos series as it emerges. If you wish to pick and choose audition the others, starting with the disc above which has sole representation in the catalogue.

Naxos recordings (as at November1998)

8.553406  Symphonies 1 & 2 The National Symphony of Ireland  Andrew Penny   buy here

8.553739 Symphonies 3 & 4 The National Symphony of Ireland  Andrew Penny   buy here

8.553540 Symphony No.9 The National Symphony of Ireland  Andrew Penny   buy here

8.553526 English Dances Set 1, Set 2, Four Scottish Dances, Four Cornish Dances, Four Irish Dances, Four Welsh Dances Queensland Symphony Orchestra Andrew Penny   buy here

These disc were private purchase and not offered for review

Visit the Malcolm Arnold Web site

	JANIS IVANOVS (1906-83) Symphony No 4 Atlantis (1941) * 52:26 Rainbow - Symphonic Poem (1939) 10:33 Latvian National SO/Vassili Sinaisky * Dzintars Women's Choir Campion Cameo 2007 62:59

I cannot over-praise Campion for their endeavour and enterprise in recording the orchestral works of the Latvian composer Janis Ivanovs. Amongst much else Ivanovs wrote 21 symphonies and a number of  concertos. If you have not heard his melodically inventive and 'fresh as a daisy' Violin Concerto do yourself a major favour and buy Cameo 2004 now. His music (especially during the period 1930s through to early 1950s) is resolutely tonal. It breathes good tunes.

There have already been two Marco Polo CDs of the early symphonies but No 4 was not amongst these and in any event, though the performances were creditable and the recording quality fine, there was room for improvement in the zest given to the music.

The disc proclaims itself as Volume 3. Presumably the violin concerto disc is volume 1. Volume 2 will almost certainly include the first symphony (the score for which was reportedly lost) alongside the other early symphonies.

Ivanovs Rainbow (Symphonic Poem) in D Major dates from 1939. It is a grandiloquent miniature sketch of wispy impressionism: harp figures, woodwind solos and a restrained enchantment. Its style is an amalgam of the French school leaning toweards Ravel and the Russian romantics: early Stravinsky, Rimsky (Sadko), Kachaturyan and perhaps Glazunov in his lighter textured style. It reminded me also of Bax's Spring Fire. At 5:40 a gloriously wallowy melody arches higher and higher. The solo violin at 8:00 is touchingly done. Ultimately the piece lacks shapeliness and at least one of the climaxes sounds contrived rather than convincing. That said there is much to enjoy here and little to demean. A rather lovely little essay. The recording dates from 1975 and is afflicted with some distant hiss.

The Fourth symphony dates from two years later and the war years. Dubbed Atlantis by the composer it was first conceived as a scenic multi-media work with dance, pantomime, theatre and special lighting.

It opens Sphinx-like - gazing sombrely into the chasm. The movement is entitled Ira Dei Legenda (The Message of Plato). The music is rather like the darker episodes in Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony with dashes of Scriabin and early Miaskovsky (symphonies 1-3). At 3:48 a tune shambles in and along like something from Shostakovich. This soon boils towards a restrained climax which is held in reserve. There is a forbidding obsidian edge to the proceedings (especially from 10:12 to the end) which many will find utterly compelling. A saxophone puts in a surprising appearance at 10:11 and also ushers the movement to a close. Its swipes at slivers of the movement's tune are soon taken up by other instruments. There is even a tolling bell.

The second movement (Poseidon - Papylon - capital of Atlantis) opens with material from the first movement in impressionistic mood underlined by a female chorus. Their contribution is slightly Delian even recalling Warlock in Corpus Christi. The cor anglais solo at 5:00 sounds distinctly like Vaughan Williams but the strongest influence is Miaskovsky. I am sure that during Ivanovs' conducting years (1933-1944) he must have directed Miaskovsky's symphonies. At 8:00 we hear a characteristically defiant trumpet signature which could easily have come from Miaskovsky.

The third movement (Aedes Sacra - religious ceremonies) is the shortest of the three. It is vigorous and opens with a strident and distinctively rough incantatory trumpet call - the same heard in the previous movement. This is repeated by horns and trombones. Tempestuous clarinet and flute solos drive things along. A desolate serenade with a harp descending figure (4:40) repeated under woodwind solos is one of the highlights of the piece continued by a romantically ripe solo trumpet. A great horn section chant also stands high in this movement (8:54).

The final movement has as a superscription: "On a dreadful day, On a dreadful night, The Island of Atlantis disappeared, drowned in the sea." (Plato) The great country and its city are gone. The depths of the ocean fall asleep and "... only the wind wails over a desert of waves for thousands of years." Its darkness seems occasionally to come from Bax a composer whose music Ivanovs would not have known. The last movement overall has a chilling and forward thrusting power with a sense of victory borne high on stormclouds.

The Russian-toned French horns sound exactly the bon mot for this music. The Riga Orchestra (Latvian NSO) has this music under its fingertips and in its sinews. As for the conductor Vassily Sinaisky (whose Russian Season recording of the Sibelius tone poems is very much under-valued) is committed to Ivanovs in the most practical way and has directed his music for many years. Perhaps broadcasting organisations and orchestral managements will surprise and delight us by allowing him to conduct some Ivanovs in the future. Neeme Jarvi 'made' Tubin's reputation an international one. I am sure that Sinaisky could do the same for Ivanovs. My only criticism would be that I suspect that the symphony would gain from a little more urgency. I am not familiar with the score and although there has been a previous Melodiya LP recording there is nothing you could call an international performing tradition.

Ivanovs is another example of a fine composer of Baltic stock whose music just has not travelled. It used to be said the Vaughan Williams' music did not travel. It has now defied that adventitiously imposed limit. If we are prepared for adventure (and reward) we will be open to Ivanovs' strangely haunted music. We will soon happily count works such as these two orchestral essays as minor treasures of the repertoire. I urge you to try this disc which I recommend. I strongly recommend the Violin Concerto which has everything and like Sleeping Beauty lies unrecognised.

(c) Rob Barnett

	PÁLL PAMPICHLER PÁLSSON :Lend Me Wings - Six Songs for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1992/3)Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1982)Concerto Di Giubileo for Orchestra  Rannveig Frída Bragadóttir (mezzo-soprano), Sigurdur Snorrason (Clarinet), Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Petri Sakari  Lotus Classics 9620CD

Pálsson is certainly a powerful and individual voice. He has an impressive command of orchestral colour and the players are no doubt grateful for the virtuoso parts he writes for all sections of the orchestra.

Lend Me Wings is a collection of six songs: two with settings by authors from Iceland, the remaining four being of German origin. In the opening title song, the singer watches the flight of grey geese wishing she could fly to exotic lands with them. The mood is of desperation turning to despair as the birds
disappear from view. The music almost becomes hysterical in the singer's yearning's and longings for escape. The raising and spreading of wings, then the beginnings of birds' flight, is cunningly evoked at the beginning using, I guess, triangles and gently brushed cymbals. There is some impressive writing for brass choirs and Bragadóttir, who has a pure yet strong voice that projects over Pálsson's large orchestra, thoroughly convinces in communicating the sense of Hulda's verses. Spring Sun is lighter in mood welcoming the sun and warmth of Spring with some fine writing for the woodwinds to evoke the sounds of nature; yet, again, the mood darkens as though the poet senses the transience of Spring's beauty. Indeed it ends with a deep, mournful bell toll leading straight into and setting the mood for A Young Widow Sings to Herself, the third song, which drones through its course as grief wastes away the life of the widow. There is no relief to her anguish and Pálsson creates a most unusual sound like a never-ending plague of thousands of insects relentlessly hovering and buzzing. Bragadóttir sings of this bottomless pit of despair most movingly. Folk Song, about a loved one lying dead on some distant battle field, is a mournful elegy with effective writing for just brass, harp and percussion. In The East is another nightmare poem of death and destruction, rape and pillage with the orchestra in more assertive mood with angry timpani and brass fanfares before the music develops and moves into a bleak landscape with eerie ghostly string figures. Once more this mood sets the scene for the longest song based on Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game, The Last Glass Bead Game Player. An old man sits playing the game surrounded by the desolation of a war-ravaged landscape. This atmosphere is skilfully drawn including a masterly glass-bead sound using harp, vibraphone and marimbaphone.

The Clarinet Concerto begins in a serious reflective mood with strings and timpani playing a slow heavy theme which is soon interrupted by a restless almost eerie staccato from the clarinet. At length the mood lightens and the music becomes a contest between the plaintive and tragic-comic and the heavily antagonistic forces which constantly threaten to crush any humanity in their path. The second movement is calmer, more peaceful but with a certain nervous edginess and the third movement, the most interesting, begins with a virtuoso orchestral passage which opposes a Gregorian chorale rising from the background. This chorale becomes a major theme and there is much use of bells.

The Concerto Di Giubileo still lurks in dark places - rather too much one might think for a work with such a title. Again there is virtuoso writing for every member of the orchestra but it treads too heavily for this reviewer.

If you experience difficulty in obtaining this disc try the Lotus web site or e-mail htautscher@lotusrecord.co.at

Ian Lace

This disc was private purchase and not offered for review

	Moritz MOSZKOWSKI ( 1854-1925) Piano Concerto in E-Major. From Foreign Lands. Marcus Pawlik (piano); Antoni Wit conducts the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra NAXOS 8.553989 [61:01]
		Crotchet

If I were a castaway on a desert island and given the choice of only three concertos to keep me company, this would have to be one of them because its enchanting melodies and its genial disposition could not fail to raise my spirits.

I first came across the name Moritz Moszkowski when I bought a Decca LP in 1969 called España. It was a collection of orchestral works inspired by the colour and rhythms of Spain. One of the items was the orchestral version of Moszkowski's Spanish Dances, originally scored for piano. I was impressed enough, and my curiosity stimulated sufficiently, to snap up the Vox recording (STGBY 647) of Moszkowski's Piano Concerto, with Michael Ponti and the Philharmonia Hungarica conducted by Hans Richard Stracke, when it appeared the following year. I was bowled over by it. Hyperion recorded it with the Paderewski concerto as the first in their Romantic Piano Series, in 1991, with Piers Lane and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk. (Hyperion CDA66452); and other recordings have appeared on the Ondine, CBC and Audiofon labels Now comes this Naxos super budget version.

Before I listened to the new Naxos recording, I took down the Vox/Ponti recording and listened to it once more as a comparison to Pawlik's reading. I have to say that for me Ponti still remains supreme (over Lane as well).

Moszkowski's Concerto, composed in 1898, is in four movements and in the unusual key of E-Major. It is elegant but outgoing, sunny and boisterous but also tender; its melodies are truly memorable and in the Andante, achingly beautiful.

The opening Moderato is substantial - the timing of Pawlik's reading is 12:54. There are many glittering bravura passages in this movement and both Ponti and Pawlik impress with their virtuosity - Ponti and Stracke are lucid, and powerful, and sensitive by turn while Pawlik is perhaps a little more thoughtful and restrained. Ponti is superb in the beautiful Andante, he tiptoes through the hushed, delicate, filigree structure of the early part of the movement with considerable grace. Wit's accompaniment lacks charm, it's heavy-handed, considerably inhibiting Pawlik's more sombre reading although how much this might be due to the engineering is difficult to say. However, when it comes to the big Romantic theme, Pawlik can compete with Ponti in terms of expressive intensity. The most memorable movement in the concerto has to be the very demanding quick-silver Scherzo. Here Ponti wins hands down. His sheer dexterity is breath-taking. The pacing, tempi, dynamics, shading and phrasing are perfection but most importantly Ponti's playing conveys an irresistible joie de vivre that escapes Pawlik (and, almost, Lane). This joy spills over into the exuberant last movement which almost reminds one of Paris nightclubs and the can-can. Here Pawlik does let his hair down and he and Wit are a match, if not slightly better than Ponti and Stracke. But its the lasting impression of the headlong vitality and radiance of Ponti's Scherzo that lingers in the memory; if you see this LP in a second hand shop snap it up. (I understand that it has been transferred to CD in a two box VOX set with concerti by Rubinstein, Scharwenka and Thalberg (CDX5066).

An appreciation of Moszkowski is well overdue. He composed operas, ballets, orchestral suites, songs, concertos and chamber music yet his reputation rests mainly on this concerto and a few piano pieces. He was a considerable concert pianist and a respected influential teacher - many illustrious pianists such as Joseph Hofmann were amongst his students. He was held in high esteem by Liszt. He helped Paderewski with the publication of his works and for a time he coached Sir Thomas Beecham in orchestration. Yet he died in near poverty in Paris in 1925.

The Suite for Orchestra: From Foreign Lands is undemanding light music - vignettes of musical styles from Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland and Hungary. All are pleasant but mostly unmemorable. The strongest, not surprisingly, considering the success of the Spanish Dances, is the Spanish - molto vivace movement. Antoni Wit and the Polish orchestra play these little pieces with appropriate dash and colour.

In short this new Naxos is worthy of serious consideration but for the Concerto go for Ponti.

Ian Lace

	VISSARION SHEBALIN (1902-1963) Symphony No 2 in C sharp minor Op 11 (1929) 21:52 Symphony No 4 in B flat major 'The Heroes of Perekop' (1935 rev 1961) 25:00 Russian Overture Op 31 (1941) 11:37 Russian Cinematographic SO/Sergei Skripka OLYMPIA OCD597 rec Oct 1996 [58:38]
		You may buy this disc here

Shebalin, the Siberian composer, pupil of Miaskovsky and teacher of  Denisov and Gubaidulina among many others, wrote five symphonies. Olympia have all five in their catalogue.

The 1941 Russian Overture is stridently earnest and triumphant without being unduly garish. Borodin and Arensky are constant influences without in any way dimming Shebalin's individuality which is also characterised by a special way with the strings. The brass writing in the overture recalls that in Miaskovsky's early symphonies; that special blend of Scriabin-like mountain-scaling ecstasy and tragedy in victory. The bell-like peroration (10:49) is very effective and uplifting.

From 1929 comes the brief two movement second symphony from a Knussen-aged composer. The work is busy and goes off in many directions questing and probing. The piano adds to the orchestral colours. Everything is pretty serious and there is little in the of jocular work for any part of the orchetsra. The occasionally vinegary lyricism and constant striving remind me of the work of Alan Rawsthorne during the 1940s. Although Borodin and Mussorgsky are mentioned as influences in Per Skans typically excellent (English only) notes (6pp) this is not a straightforwardly tuneful piece. It is not in any sense a counterpart of the immediately charming Sinfonietta (1949) nor is it out of the same genie bottle as the two winning concertinos (1929-32). It ends impressively in a spidery filigree of sound. The second movement is forward pushing. Moment comes and go quickly. Clouds gather and dominate the skyline momentarily. They are broken apart by the wind and new clouds and shapes form. Sunsets and sunrises succeed each other each with new shapes and colours. Listen to the sweet carolling repose to be found at 6:00-7:40. This is succeeded by a ghostly world of etiolated charm glimpsed in an old mirror - all conjured up by the strings.

Miaskovsky is able to invoke the same magic as also is Bax in his farewells to the world of mortals. The work ends in inexorably climbing celebration.

The fourth symphony was written 15 years after the event referred to in its subtitle. The battle of Perekop was a important morale miledstone in the Russian civil war. The defeat of a numerically overwhelming force of White Russians by the Reds won for the Soviet Union the whole of the Crimean peninsula. The first of the movements opens subdued and serious - almost an elegy for those Red soldiers fallen in the victory. The elegiac feel touches more bases with Miaskovsky than Hindemith (pace Per Skans' notes). Elegy gives way to increasing tension as if keyed up for battle and the occasional stormy brass onslaught may suggest the first skirmishes (8:10). However elegies are never far away and they are finely sustained by Skripka and his orchestra occasionally pre-echoing Khachaturyan in Spartacus (9:03). The heroism is wonderfully caught and held up to the sun from 11:10 to almost the end of the first movement which finally fades back into autumnal gold.

The second movement is clangs along with serious mien sounding a little like Shostakovich. Elegies and thin high strings weave to and fro but from this emerges a soldier's hymn on flutes and this develops a strong stride (3:10) spurred by trumpet-calls, stentorian horns (4:03) and bellowing trombones. A dangerously banner waving march appears at 10:00 and the colours are suddnenly bright, chins are firmly set and heroic stances are struck but despite the caricaturing the music has a breathing life winningly projected. The march fades into a surging finale capturing the heights. That final swelling, spreading and receding climax is not fully convincing but glows satisfyingly.

This disc is recommended warmly. Olympia discs are sold at mid-price. They are well worth exploring. You are unlikely to feel cheated. However pushed into choosing between the concertinos disc and this one I would marginally favour the former. Then again you would miss the glories of the symphonies and the Russian Overture.

(c) Robert Barnett

You should note that there is also an Olympia CD of Symphonies 1 and 3 (OCD577).

	VISSARION SHEBALIN (1902-1963) Concertinos (Violin; French Horn) Sinfonietta, Symphony No 5 Various (see below) OLYMPIA OCD 599 [70'33]
		You may buy this disc here

Vissarion Shebalin is little known and that we van hear so many works by him is down to the little trumpeted enterprise of Olympia. Their catalogue is varied and has much to appeal to the searcher after rare symphonic music. At one time it had many old friends from the Melodiya catalogue but those releases seem to have been deleted as licensing arrangements came to an end. To replace them we now have many new recordings and rarer birds from the neglected depths of the Melodiya catalogue. Best of all though are Olympia's commissioning of new recordings to fill in gaps in the Melodiya and Russian Radio archives. Thus they have commissioned recordings of Shebalin's second and fourth symphonies to fit around symphonies 1, 3 and 5 which have been recorded previously or of which radio tapes existed and all of which are in the Olympia catalogue. The only mystery is why they have not recorded the missing Miaskovsky symphonies especially numbers 2 and 14. In any event let us return to Shebalin.

Shebalin (pronounced shebal-een - with the emphasis on the last syllable) was born in Omsk in Siberia. As a student at the Moscow conservatory his teacher for composition was Miaskovsky. He became a leading teacher at the Moscow conservatory numbering among his pupils Tikhon Khrennikhov, Veljo Tormis, Edison Denisov and Sofia Gubaidulina. As director of the conservatory have achieved the highest standing in Russian musical academic life but in 1948 his music was condemned as formalist by his own pupil Khrennikhov and he was removed from the directorship. In 1953 he lost the use of his left hand but continued to compose righthanded.

Concertino Violin and orchestra Op 14 No 1 (1931-2) 10:18
Boris Shulgin (violin)
USSR Academic SO Orch Ensemble Gennady Provatorov
stereo rec Moscow 1978

This is characteristic of the genre represented by the violin concerto by Rakov and others: a cool romanticism and burgeoning melodious talent. Russia seems to have a tradition of pocket violin concertos. This one is in three movements; each taking less than 4 minutes. There is a neo-classicism in the first movement which recalls the Holst Double Concerto and RVW’s Concerto Academico.

However the dessicated language of neo-classicism is never allowed complete thrall. The music has an essential irresistible lyricism.

The final movement is jolly and undemanding.

Concertino for horn and orchestra Op 14 No 2 (1930) 12:16
Boris Afanasiev (horn)
USSR R&TV SO / Nikolai Anosov
(stereo rec 1962)

Once again there is a certain coolness. The language is slightly more astringent than the preceding violin work. The first movement has a fugitive feeling: a slightly hunted sense. The Russian horn has an fruitily unexpurgated tone which delivers heroism, jauntiness, magic and a final rough impatient gesture.

The second movement limns in the strings wavelets gently lapping the side of a lake. The horn sings gently over them. This is a lovely and loving moment with much Baxian or Debussian material at 1:03. This is surely meant to summon up images of a Summer afternoon. Then follow darker plangent green depths at 2:02. The finale is brusquely ruthless, Prokofiev-like with generous helpings of dash and lash. All ends in a Korngoldian flourish.

Each of these movements end well Why are these concertos not played by our Young Musicians Of The Year, never mind the great names of our day?

Sinfonietta of Russian Folk Themes Op 43 (1949-51) 17:10
USSR R&TV SO/Alexander Gauk 1954 (rec mono rec 1954)

This begins like Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. The sound is veteran and the strings sound thinnish. A great stamping theme epic is mixed with a warm Russian folksong like a survivor from Borodin’s second symphony or Rimsky’s Antar. We even get an aural glimpse of RVW at 3:21 at the end of the first movement. The second movement deploys woodwind in Finzian cantabile over a pizzicato accompaniment. This is develops into a devout ecclesiastical procession, serious but with an eye for natural beauty. This last element soon rears up into a great burgeoning passion. The movement is full of the most imaginative constructs. The third movement is a fast folk dance for strings touched in with a tune which is almost (but not quite) We Three Kings. Warlock and Holst and RVW also De Falla are all recalled consciously or otherwise. This is I suppose rather old-fashioned but what does time and chronology matter in face of such entertaining music. The finale takes us again to the massed string writing of RVW (Concerto Grosso or Partita) but is not as successful as the other three.

Symphony No 5 Op 56 (1962) 30:19
USSR State SO/Yevgeny Svetlanov
mono rec live Moscow 1963

This is as vivid as you would expect from anything conducted by Svetlanov enhanced by the event of a live recording. The Andante allegro has live coughs accompanying slatey grey clarinet musings beginning in darkest mystery like Tchaikovsky 5. The work was written at the end of Shebalin’s career and life. After this subdued start a theme launches briskly on strings rather like a Russian Tippett (listen for echoes of the Concerto for Double String orchesta). Shebalin is rather good at string textures and this soon boils into activity for the full orchestra. Shebalin sounds something like Boiko in his Tchaikovskian accents of the first movement.

The second movement is a bleakly friendly Lento. There is an infinitely sad Miaskovskian lullaby and some challenging string writing. A miniature dance in sunlight for oboe and then clarinet comes forward and the whole orchestra take up a tramping Borodin-like dance. There is climax for full orchestra at high intensity with horns topping the moment off in glorious abandon - almost Hollywood in its freedom.

The third movement is a short (3:02) allegro con fuoco glinting, twisting and turning; stamping, furious, sparking and flinty. This is a happy brightly toned whirling picture.

The finale continues the strata defined by the third movement. There is a good strong theme asserted at 00:49: a long winding theme punctuated by a stuttering horn. There are raucous trumpets (2:02) and RVW-like stuttering which dissipates into an extended episode for the strings gently settling into peaceful perpetual dusk. Sheblain will not allow himself an easy colourful or heroic ending.

The symphony was dedicated to Miaskovsky and is fully worthy of the master's name. Coughing provides an aleatoric counterpoint to all the movements but it is no real distraction and is preferable to the processed feel of so many recordings. Here is a real concert experience.

© Rob Barnett

---

	Thea Musgrave Concerto for clarinet and orchestra, The Seasons, Autumn Sonata (Bass Clarinet concerto) Victoria Soames (clarinet and bass clarinet), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thea MusgraveCala CACD1023 [73.55]
		You may buy this disc here from Crotchet

	Thea Musgrave The Seasons, Helios, Night Music Nicholas Daniel (oboe),  Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Kraemer Collins 15292 [59.50]
		You may buy this disc here from Crotchet

	Thea Musgrave Horn Concerto with Elgar Symphony No.1 Michael Thompson (horn), The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland conducted by Bramwell ToveyNYOS 004 [76.51]

For many composers we have a surfeit of discs to choose from; for Thea Musgrave we have only three and these come with reservations - not, I hasten to add, over the performances or the recordings, but over choice of couplings. Two of the discs duplicate a major work and the third has a less than satisfactory, or apposite, coupling. All three are performed most fittingly by Scottish orchestras and one is conducted by the composer.

Thea Musgrave (1928 -  ) read music at Edinburgh University under the guidance of Sidney Newman and Hans Gal and then studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris for four years (1950-1954). Her early compositions were tonal, a style to which she later returned. At a 1953 Dartington Summer School she met William Glock and through his advocacy became aware of the late Viennese serial composers, Schoenberg and Webern, and also the compositions of Charles Ives, whose influence can be heard on The Seasons on two of the present discs. Her compositions of the 1950's tended towards chromaticism and the chamber opera The Abbot of Dimmock (1955) incorporated Schoenbergian  sprechstimme. In 1958 she attended Tanglewood and met Aaron Copland and Milton Babbitt ,and her work became quite experimental. Eventually, she found that style of composition limiting and inexpressive and unsuitable for opera which has been her main output and her last serial composition was Sinfonia of 1963. Since then she has forged her own path, her major output being eight operas although no recordings are available as far as I am aware. She married and became resident in America and is still actively composing, often with a particular artist in mind such as  Victoria Soames in the bass clarinet concerto or as in Helios written for Nicholas Daniel and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, both works are featured on the recordings under review, performed by their dedicatees.

Thea may have started out being influenced by Schoenberg, Webern and her teacher William Glock but that is not how I hear her music at all (I have not heard any of her operas). To my ears her music  is modern but approachable, sensitive and responsive without any sudden unnecessary dramatic outbursts that leave you wondering what on earth hit you. Her compositions would certainly leave the old ladies unruffled on the front row! She does not write big tunes for her soloists in the way Alwyn or Walton did - parts for her soloists tend to be rather spiky but cushioned by a lyrical underpinning in the orchestra.

---

Of the three discs under review, the starting point for newcomers must go to the CALA release. Cala is a small, enterprising, label owned by the conductor Geoffrey Simon. All three works are conducted by the composer who also writes the programme notes in a dispassionate, third person style, partially used here with permission from Geoffrey Simon.

The Clarinet Concerto (26:20)(Royal Philharmonic Society Commission, 1968) was written for Gervase de Peyer who made the first recording (Argo ZRG726 8/75), which is rather academic as it is not currently available and it is unlikely Polygram will get round to re-issuing it. The composer writes that the concerto depicts a struggle between unequal forces - the individual versus the crowd. The soloist begs support from sections of the orchestra and does this by the peripatetically moving to different sections of the orchestra and persuading them to play as separate units independently of the conductor. This same idea is also taken up in other works of hers such as the Night Music for chamber orchestra which has two horn players doing the same (ARGO 702 nla) and in the Horn Concerto (see below). In one unusual alliance the soloist pairs up with an accordian which is particularly well caught in this recording.

I have always loved the sound of the bass clarinet, particularly when used by Shostakovich, but I have never previously heard it used as a solo instrument in a concerto. Again the sound has been beautifully caught by the engineer (Graeme Taylor) and I have been fascinated by the range of the instrument. The Autumn Sonata is a dark, brooding, atmospheric concerto in six parts (21:38) and was commissioned by the present soloist, Victoria Soames, who gave the first performance at the Cheltenham Festival in 1994. Musgrave had previously set a poem by the Austrian Poet, Georg Trakl, in "Wild Winter" and was inspired to write this piece by other of his writings. Each section of the Concerto is prefaced in the score by short fragments from four different poems. Thea Musgrave describes each section as follows:

i Oscuro e misterioso

A dreamer approaches a dark menacing forest, where crows scatter at the sound of black footsteps.

ii Svegliato

Mysterious dark forces awaken and bells toll the alarm

iii Alla marcia, con furore

The echoing sound of deadly weapons erupts and culminates in a pounding march, the major climax of the work.

iv Lamentoso

Eventually the march subsides and the dark flutes of Autumn greet the ghosts of heroes. Here the ancient chant, Dies Irae, is embodied in the musical texture in much the same way as it was in the setting of the Trakl poem in "Wild Winter".

v Oscuro e misterioso

A reprise of the opening section.

(Here we have the bonus of two Bass Clarinets as an offstage instrument "shadows" the soloist and the work momentarily becomes a double concerto for Bass Clarinet.)

vi Adagio sostenuto

The coda where .... the music .... culminates in a quotation from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata."

Finally the black mood is dispelled and the music fades; was it really a memory or just a dream?

The middle work on the disc is orchestral: "The Seasons" (25:26) and was a commission from The Academy of St Martins in the Fields in 1988 to celebrate the composer's 60th birthday; the first performance was conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. This work is in four movements (Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer) and each movement was inspired by paintings rather than poetry. Musgrave had visited the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and on viewing Piero di Cosimo's "Caccia Primitiva", which depicts "a frightening image of fire and destruction built around a wild and gory hunt scene" she was struck by the idea that various art works that depicted the four seasons could also "become a metaphor for the cycles in the life of man". This work is tonal, tuneful, optimistic and very enjoyable. The four sections follow without a break

The "Autumn" movement was inspired by  Caccia Primitiva and Picasso's "The End of the Road" and depicts a violent tempest. Raindrops plink in the strings together with lightening bursts from trumpets and percussion (including piano) with the wind creaking in the contrabassoon.  Tubular bells have a prominent part eventually intoning the Dies Irae as the end of the road approaches. "Winter" is despair in an icy landscape derived from viewing Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Frozen Delaware" Only a solo oboe gives hope among the searching, crooning, string phrases and there is a brief quotation from the "Star Spangled Banner" which will re-appear in Summer. The thaw comes in "Spring" where the melt water dripping from the ice is clearly heard, the awakening birds and finally the cuckoo as the harbinger of spring; the painting here was Van Gogh's "The Sower". Finally "Summer", a movement of rejoicing and celebration with extended Ivesian section juxtaposing the Marseillaise, the Star-Spangled Banner and enthusiastic timps.. The paintings here were Van Gogh's "Le 14 juillet a Paris", Jasper Johns' "Flag" and Monet's "Rue St-Denis, Festivities of June 30, 1878" (reproduced on the cover above). For Nature this is the final liberation from Winter; and for Man, liberation from tyranny.

Glasgow City Hall is obviously a good recording venue as the engineers have produced a very natural recording with good depth to the orchestra and a "hall feel" without the undue resonance that BIS often achieve.

---

The Collins issue also includes the Seasons which is coupled with Helios and Night Music.  Helios  [16.53] was premiered at the St Magnus festival, Orkney in 1995. Helios, the Greek God who drove the sun chariot across the sky is represented by an oboe (as Jennifer Barnes's booklet notes point out, Helios was, quite appropriately, the son of a Titan named Thea). The piece depicts Helios traversing the sky, having to ride through a storm, and slowly fading peacefully on the other side in readiness for another journey the next day. The disposition of instruments here is interesting. The horns and woodwind form a  V shape with the trumpet at the apex. This represents the chariot which is pulled by four white stallions represented by a flute, oboe, bassoon and clarinet/bass clarinet, all sitting in a row in the apex just in front of the trumpet. In front of them is the massed strings creating the storm with the solo oboe out front (Robin Williams). With the aid of the booklet diagram this seating (and standing) plan can be discerned in the recording.

Night Music [19.15] is an earlier work from 1969 and was a BBC commission. Musgrave describes this piece as a 'dream landscape', a series of moods that shift rapidly and unpredictably. Here we have two peripatetic horn players who at first sit close, playing harmoniously together and later move to the front, on either side of the conductor, at some distance apart becoming highly animated, with one finally slowly moving off stage. Musgrave is recreating the waking moments from sleep when the 'reality' of a dream slowly slips away and consciousness emerges. Whether intentional or not there are, at times, strong resemblances in the string writing to Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht ,with bowed strings floating  high over rapid pizzicato strings. We reach a loud central choppy section with chirruping woodwind and braying horns, not at all a nightmare; just an active and pleasant dream from which we slowly emerge. The two hornists are Robert Cook and Harry Johnstone.

I find little difference in performance between Thea Musgrave and Nicholas Kraemer. Kraemer is perhaps punchier and a touch faster in the two outer movements which whips up the excitement a notch higher, particularly in the Ivesian section of the final movement. The Collins recording is more analytical with the Cala having a more burnished sound with more hall feel, This makes Winter seem colder in the more analytical and slightly more distant Collins recording. Thea is more involving in the opening of Spring, possibly because of the closer recording but also because there is a smoother, more legato feel to the strings with the woodwind and brass slightly less intrusive. She is slightly slower in the final movement but, as with Klemperer, this produces a stronger sense of inevitability and forward propulsion: the less is more approach. But it is Kraemer and the collins sound who are more confrontational in the Ivesian section. Both are marvellous and make the music sound interesting and attention grabbing which does not help in a decision at all. The Cala does have the imprimatur of the composer, who frequently conducts her own works, and has the coupling of two major works so has to be an eventual first choice, if a choice has to be made.  This is not to decry the status of Helios and Night Music which are both fascinating works. I could not choose and just had to purchase both.

---

The Horn Concerto was completed in 1971 and had a première recording  from Barry Tuckwell conducted by the composer and coupled with the magnificent Concerto for Orchestra (Decca Headline HEAD 8; never released on CD). The present recording is the first on CD and is greatly welcomed. As with many of Musgrave's works there is an orchestral spacial context and there is often an instrumental seating plan prefacing her scores. In the horn concerto, the percussion are arched around the back of the orchestra, a trumpet on either side and the trombone and four orchestral horns as a group, who sometimes act as a reflection so that the soloist's themes blast around the auditorium, or even move out of the orchestra and surround the soloist, who then pit themselves eyeball to eyeball with the orchestra. Musgrave rightly describes this style of work as "dramatic abstract" and frequently use peripatetic groups of instruments or soloists. As with all youth orchestras, the students play with fervour and dedication and I have no reservations about Michael Thompson in comparison with the earlier recording. This disc would receive an unreserved commendation were it not for the coupling which, to my mind, is unsuitable and although extremely well played has a very slow adagio in which all tension and forward propulsion is lost. There are many better recommendations for this work than this one. The recording is superb with the soloist well caught, and was made in City Hall, Glasgow, produced by Andrew Keener. It is full price; and I was prepared to pay that for a work lasting only 22 minutes from this 77 minute disc... but will you I wonder? Even so it is still half the price of a concert ticket, if one could actually anticipate the chance of hearing this work performed 'at a venue near you'. I have to split my vote.

Horn Concerto  Elgar  

Len Mullenger

All these recordings were personal purchases and not received for review

---

	Ronald Stevenson Sing a Song of Seasons - Song Cycles  A Child’s Garden of Verses (R L Stevenson): Nine Haiku (Keith Bosley): Border Boyhood (MacDiarmid) The Art Song Collective: Richard Black Piano/Wills Morgan Tenor/Moira Harris Soprano. Musaeus MZCD100 (Obtainable from The Ronald Stevenson Society 3  Chamberlain Road, Edinburgh EH10 4DL)

In an essay ‘Composing a Song Cycle’ (first published in the Ronald Stevenson Society newsletter (Vol 3/2 Autumn 1996) and subsequently  in the double issue of ‘Chapman’ vols 89/90) Stevenson propounds some fascinating even heretical ideas on the perennial subject of ‘words for music’ which reveals the fact that, as a composer, his respect for the words, and for their form, whether Poem or Prose is highly individual and shows a creative sensitivity uncommon enough today. He writes:-

"Another problem of setting words to music is this: every musical motif or theme contains the germ of its own development: set words to it and the development of the musical idea has to be subjugated to the development of the verbal idea. The music has to yield to the words: like a creeping plant, it has to be trained to a trellis. This problem can be overcome partially by a careful selection of the text."

He goes on, like an enthusiastic child to divulge the intensity of his inspiration (speaking of the ‘Border Boyhood’ cycle in particular): There are recurrent references to the wood throughout the cycle. Can you remember the first time you entered a wood as a child? I can. Suddenly to be encircled by shadows and to see the shadows become luminous with blue-bells - this was magic ! I’ve tried to evoke the suddenness of this experience by a single chord in the opening song.

… The emerging melody is treated in variation-form in a piano interlude. Another recurrent motif is the river. It meanders in and out of the music of my song-cycle as it does in the Border landscape.’

This essay illuminates this particular cycle which was commissioned by Peter Pears for the 1971 Aldeburgh Festival. A setting of the prose writings of MacDiarmid, it is symphonic in scope, with an arch-like form built around the central Intermezzo for piano alone - a moment of hushed stillness in the midst of the cathedral-like woods. Here ‘even the robin hushes his song in these gold pavilions’

Stevenson again, whose sense of formal coherence is well demonstrated in the huge 80 minute long Passacaglia on DSCH, constructs his cycle of verses from Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘A Child’s Garden’ with a judicious selection of poems which reflect the passing of a day, and of the pageant of the seasons - choosing verses that deal with the sensual (wood-smoke, train travel, bed in summer, the swing) and in which the child is engrossed in solitary play, his only companion the Shadow!

The formal element of the 17th century Japanese Haiku also attracted  Stevenson who describes them as suggesting ‘the use of pentatonic and heptatonic scales, completing a twelve-note sound spectrum’ These fine performances by the Art Song Collective are authoritative - the group very close to the composer, and attendant at the annual July symposium of the Society at Garvald. I cannot help however yearning for the first broadcast performance of the RLS cycle when, with a characteristic touch, the composer employed the voices of two children with the tenor. Nevertheless this welcome disc must win many new friends to the music of this fascinating composer.

Reviewer

Colin Scott Sutherland

---

	FRANCIS POTT Farewell to Hirta Cello & Piano. David Watkin (cello); Howard Moody (piano); Francis Pott (piano). Guild GMCD 7141
		You may buy this disc here

This expansive work for cello and piano (almost an hour in performance) happily acknowledges its antecedents in Beethoven and Brahms - and in Bridge and John Ireland, the latter influence most noticeable (the composer himself also acknowledges Elgar.) The Sonata however is full of original thought and emotive music of considerable power - played with great assurance and conviction by the excellent soloists. Without a score for such a big work, which was some 12 years in completion, it is necessary to write subjectively, but the Sonata’s richly coherent structure is impressive enough. There are four movements - cyclic in that the solemn opening gently repetitive 2-chord pattern recurs, like the tolling of a bell, at the end of the work. The two outer movements make much of deeply felt adagio passages despite some agonised climaxes.

The composer, Francis Pott, a pupil of Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood (as well as of the pianist Hamish Milne) reveals that the Sonata was written in memory of his father (died 1983) and that the Finale, written in the year of his mother’s death (1995), "fought its own way out in exceptionally unpromising circumstances … in emotional terms it is thus the product  of sharper memory than what precedes it…"

With an opening B minor and a second subject in F minor a curious tritonal relationship is established which carries the emotional burden not only of the first movement but seems to suggest the anguish underlying the whole concept, perhaps also embodied in the  quotation from Alun Lewis which heads the score of the final movement:

"Out of the depths of the sea

Love cries and cries in me

And summer blossoms break above my head

With all the unbearable beauty of the dead."

Yet there is a vein of optimism throughout the work, expressed in sonorous cello lines. In the Scherzo, placed second, the questing cello line seems to ask ‘Why’ - its drooping figures over Rawsthorne-like piano figuration suggesting resignation which however is duly overcome with a great melodic surge. The third movement is a short cadenza for the cello solo - which has much relevance to the overall material and mood, and none at all to any kind of virtuosic showmanship. The composer, in his full and well written sleeve note uses the word ‘songful’ - in fact ‘rhapsodically songful’ which is fully realised in the music and for me places the Sonata in the top rank of significant British chamber music of these recent decades. Pott’s penultimate paragraph is a ‘credo’ that few composers today have dared to utter.

It is no surprise to find that the two solo piano compositions draw their inspiration - in the first instance via the poet Vernon Watkins - from the sea. ‘Hunt’s Bay’ - a stretch of the Welsh coastline - recalls for me the mysterious doings in a cave related by Dermot O’Byrne in his tale ‘Ancient Dominions’ (1) and by Arnold Bax in his First Symphony. The final piece, from which the CD takes its title, is an impressionistic illustration of the magic that any vista of St Kilda (Hirta in the Gaelic) presents to a romantic such as this young composer so obviously is. I would warmly recommend this disc to all lovers of English chamber music - and to all ‘Brazen Romantics’.

Reviewer

Colin Scott-Sutherland

---

	FREDERICK MAY String Quartet in C minor; ALOYS FLEISCHMANN Piano Quintet. Hugh Tinney (piano) Vanbrugh String Quartet. Marco Polo 8.223888
		You may buy this disc here

This CD is an exciting pairing of important contrasting works by two under-appreciated composers. Listening to the first of these I felt, on first hearing, as I did when I first discovered the chamber music of Franz Schmidt - this quartet has an equally powerful intensity and flashes of a rare beauty that makes me want to hear more. Frederick May was born in Dublin in 1911. His musical training with Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob was followed by a period of study under Egon Wellesz (it would have been Berg had Berg not died in 1935).

This combination of influences gives this particular example of May’s work a unique blend of an innate native lyricism and a musical cosmopolitanism that is totally free from any trace of the parochial while yet retaining a down-to-earth stability. His only String Quartet dated 1936 is an early work, written shortly after his return from Vienna, and clearly demonstrates the effect his European studies had on his origins. It is a strong work, dominated by the hegemony of semitonal movement yet illuminated by flashes of lyricism that, if anything, recall Bax (whom, like Fleischmann, he must have known.)

The opening Allegro Inquieto sets the mood with its dramatic, quasi-dodecaphonic gestures, and the contrasting lyricism of the second subject theme. The portentous opening is relieved by a sunnier episode before an agitated fugal development releases the intervallic tension with gradually widening intervals. An appealing fragment of melody achieves prominence, and recurs later in the work, before the return of the opening material in an extended Coda. The first violin, escaping in ‘lark-like trills’ is abruptly brought down to earth in what the composer describes as representing ‘the enclosing darkness of Fate’. Without a break the scherzo-like Impetuosamente follows.

Rhythmic gestures, in which the semitone remains prominent, prolong the dark mood of the opening movement - with little respite in the central section whose eerie harmonics and wide leaps were written as May learned of Berg’s death. The last movement Lento Espressivo (which could well stand on its own and was the first to be written) begins reflectively with a long-breathed fugal melody, its imitative phrases intertwining like the flow of a river. The mood, with its almost folk-like touches, recalling his training with Vaughan Williams, is serenely beautiful, but one of resignation rather than of peace. A lovely tune, rather like Butterworth’s Loveliest of Trees relieves the semitonal tension - and soon reveals its relationship to the important lyrical melody of the first movement (though this might perhaps be the other way around?) The Vanbrugh Quartet, resident in Cork, here give a finely-wrought account of this fascinating music.

Aloys Fleischmann was born in Munich in 1910 but lived for many years in Ireland as Professor of Music from the age of 24 at Cork University. His Piano Quintet was written in 1938 and first performed by the Kutcher Quartet with Fleischmann’s mother Tilly (a pupil of Stavenhagen) as pianist. The Quintet, a lighter work than the May quartet, contains some powerful piano writing, here handled with magisterial assurance by the Irish-born pianist Hugh Tinney. The angular octave leaps of the opening quickly develop into a series of sectional mood-variations, the quasi-pastoral material hinting at things Irish, yet distilled through classical origins, and treated with considerable emotive power.

A gentle lyrical introduction on viola to the Andante Tranquillo second movement is not however so peaceful as it at first appears. There is a dark undercurrent of nostalgia that recalls, in the piano figuration, the mood of such pieces as John Ireland’s second Trio, with its overtones of war - and develops into a restlessly protesting impetuoso central passage. The sombre mood returns and the movement ends in a kind of quiet resignation. In complete contrast the brief scherzo opens briskly in a folk-like mood. There is lots of melodic interest - a quasi-Irish violin melody, with much Delian dotted triple rhythm. The movement gradually slows into the final Allegro molto into which it bursts without a break. This has a driving tarantella-like rhythm (also heard in the first movement) and here again the opening octave figure of the work is prominent. A slower but dramatic central section leads to a resumption of the opening rhythm, and a broad modal theme in keyboard octaves ends the work.

This is a most convincing advocacy for both these compositions.

Reviewer

Colin Scott-Sutherland

---

	FRANK BRIDGE Songs: Janice Watson/Louise Winter/Jamie MacDougall/Gerald Finley/Roger Vignoles (piano)/Roger Chase (viola) HYPERION CDA67181/2
		You may buy this disc here

When most I wink H5, If I could choose H12, The primrose H13, A Dirge H21, The Devon Maid H25, Dawn and Evening H26, Two Heine Songs H27, Blow, blow, thou winter wind H33, Go not, happy day H34, Night lies on the silent highways H36, A dead violet H38, Cradle song H46, Lean close they cheek H50, Fair daffodils H51, Adoration H57, So perverse H6, Tears, idle tears H62, The Violets Blue H70, Come to me in my dreams H71, My pent-up tears oppress my brain H72, Three songs H76, All things we clasp H77, Love is a rose H81, Dear, when I look into thine eyes H85, Isobel H102, O that it were so! H105, Strew no more red roses H109, Where she lies asleep H113, Love went a-riding H114, Thy hand in mine H124, So early in the morning,O H130, Mantle of Blue H131, The last invocation H136, When you are old and gray H142, Into her keeping H143, What shall I your true love tell? H145 'Tis but a week H146, Three Tagore songs H164, Goldenhair H165, Journey's end H167.

Almost two-thirds of Frank Bridge’s sixty or so songs belong to his early years - that is, up until about 1907/8. The general consensus (Anthony Payne, Professor Banfield, and here in the excellent sleeve notes by Michael Pilkington) is that Bridge, rather less well read in literature than his compatriots, wrote thoroughly professional songs which however probe none too deeply into the inner meanings of the verses he chose to set (many of which appear to have been selected by, or to please, his teacher Stanford.) Whatever the truth of that may be there is no doubt at all that, amongst those earlier songs that belong convincingly to the Edwardian salon, there are many of great charm and beauty. Bridge was mostly interested in instrumental composition, though, as Michael Pilkington points out, he still elected to write songs even although they remained unpublished for a considerable time and must thus have experienced some poetic compulsion. It is perhaps true to say that the finest of his songs (from that standpoint) are also now the most popular and well-known - Go not, happy day, E’en as a lovely flower, Come to me in my dreams and the astonishing Love went a-riding.

It is well known that, in the Piano Sonata of 1921/24, written in response to the death in action in 1918 of Ernest Farrar, Bridge’s expression underwent a kind of ‘sea-change’. While this development is less clearly marked in the songs, these two CDs usefully divide his vocal output, with the first disc recognisably covering the early years - up to around 1908. It was not long before the first strophic settings gave way to a freer treatment - favouring a varied second verse (in poems of three stanzas), frequently returning at the end to the opening music - while setting a single stanza or two verses entails repeating (usually) the earlier words. His choice of poets is unusual - of these 45 songs only two each are to words of Shakespeare and Herrick - Shelley (3), Keats (2) and Tennyson (3) are also represented. Yet there are nine settings of Heine (written between 1903/8) and four of Matthew Arnold. Both the latter occur roughly within certain periods, which does suggest that Bridge reacted musically to these particular poets.

The poems overall are in the main love songs - often melancholy, though the emotion is not oppressive. There are echoes of John Ireland and of Quilter - but the obvious influence is of German lieder. I hear echoes particularly of Joseph Marx (curiously Bridge’s unfinished Allegretto for viola and piano resembles quite closely the fugal subject in the 4th movement of Marx’s A major Violin Sonata.) There is also a markedly French influence in the expressive modulations which are very reminiscent of Fauré. The first disc   concludes with the three songs for voice and viola - with the expressive instrumental obbligato pointing the emotion even more cogently than the vocal line - foreshadowing in its intensity the sonorities of the 1917 Cello Sonata - surely one of the loveliest chamber works in British music.

The second disc contains only three songs from this earlier period - and after 1908, no further songs appeared until 1912 - and by 1913 (with Strew no more roses (Arnold) and When she lies sleeping (Mary Coleridge)) foreshadowings of the mature Bridge become clearer. Almost as if the discovery of Mary Coleridge’s verses set something free, the next song (May 1914) is Love went a’riding, a song unique in his pre-war output (‘tho So early in the Morning shares something of this ecstasy). The developing freedom of harmony and form of the next few songs is evident, although Tis but a week (to words by Gerald Gould) seems to hint retrospectively at his earlier settings of Dawn and Evening and Come to me in my Dreams) Apart from a brief and curious throwback in Joyce’s Goldenhair this development reaches its peak in the fine settings of Tagore, with their rhythmic, harmonic and melodic freedom. Here the theme of ‘hopelessly tragic love’ is fully expressed - with only the final Journey’s End (Humbert Wolfe) to suggest a final and totally negative mood. ‘There were to be no more songs’ … says Pilkington.

The composer is well served in this recording. Not many will have had the chance to consider Bridge’s songs in isolation - and the committed soloists sing quite beautifully - with a sensitive accompaniment as we would expect from Roger Vignoles, and richly expansive playing from the violist, Roger Chase. This is a must for all lovers of English song.

Reviewer

Colin Scott-Sutherland

Visit the Frank Bridge web site on this server- a Len Mullenger Commission

---

	SILVER APPLES OF THE MOON: Irish Classical Music. Irish Chamber Orchestra/Fionnuala Hunt. Black Box BBM 1003
		You may buy this disc here

SILVER APPLES OF THE MOON: This enigmatic quotation from Yeats conceals an evocative selection of string music - relating, in its lush tangy harmonies to the music of Warlock and Moeran. It is characteristically Irish, at one moment sentimental, at another full of foot-tapping geniality. Irish classical music really only came into its own with the advent of the Republic. The composers represented here all however took equally important parts in Irish musical education - the two most notable being John F Larchet (a friend of Moeran and Director of Music at the Abbey Theatre) and Aloys Fleischmann, who from the early age of 24 held the chair of music at Cork University. It could well be that the name most familiar on this disc might be that of Joan Trimble, better known perhaps in her dual role as pianist with her sister Valerie. Her contribution, a three movement Suite, is in essence more cogent in idiom that the others (except Fleischmann) the music having some of the harmonic acerbity of John Ireland. It loses none of its Irishness in the eloquent slow movement - the Finale an energetic ‘birl’.

Thomas C Kelly (1917-85), who taught at Clongowes Wood College, has written many arrangements of Irish folk music. His Three Pieces for Strings dates from 1949. The opening Pastoral (the enchanting melody written originally for the fairy child’s song in ‘The Land of Heart’s Desire’) is followed by a dark hued cello Lament. The final Reel, with its minor cast, is far more than a piece of dance music. His O’Carolan Suite in five movements in Baroque style is for solo violin and strings, and based on melodies of the ancient Irish harper (1670-1738), Planxty being an old dance form. Arthur Duff’s popular Suite opens with a reflective melody in traditional Irish dress recalling Midir’s love for Etain. The cheery ‘Windy Gap’ of Wicklow is followed by a poignant reminiscence of the Messiah performance of 1742. The Dance of Daemar recalls Tir nan Og and all is swept away in the final Fiddler’s Reel. John F Larchet’s Macananty’s Reel just possibly the homecoming of the famous Fairy King of Scarbo, - is contrasted with his Dirge of Ossian, a funeral hymn from the Glens of Derry. The most substantial work is however Fleischmann’s Elizabeth McDermott Roe - the separately published (1952) 3rd movement of The Humours of Carolan - but its reference to the Irish harper, unlike Kelly’s, is a transition of the mood of the melody to the 20th century, exploring its darker aspects, evoking the bleaker side to that ‘land beneath the visiting moon’. Irish music is not well represented on CD, and more of this calibre would be very welcome.

Reviewer

Colin Scott-Sutherland

---

	The Scottish Romantics: Impressionistic Piano Works Murray McLachlan, piano Divineart 2-5003 [78:26] Hamish MacCunn: Six Scottish Dances, Valse John Blackwell McEwen: Four sketches for piano, Sonatina for Piano, Three Keats Preludes, On Southern Hills, Five vignettes from La Côte d'Argent Alexander C Mackenzie: Refrain, High Spirits, Chasse aux Papillons, Trois Morceaux, Harvest Home Available from Tindle House, Beach road, South Shields, NE33 2QX

---

I do not recommend that this interesting anthology be heard at one sitting. Nor should listeners expect 78 minutes of music that sounds Scottish. Only MacCunn’s Six Scotch Dances, which are hugely enjoyable, robust and extremely well written for the piano have a Scotch flavour. These are not anaemic transcriptions but original pieces which may simply be dismissed as Victorian. The Kerchief Dance has a classical feel about it recalling both Mozart and Beethoven. The Plaid Dance is wonderfully evocative particularly after the drama of the Dirk Dance.

The other piece of MacCunn’s is a Valse which is a slow improvisatory piece with a meandering melodic line and a curious chromaticism.

The pieces by McEwen are more substantial and of greater purport although the quality varies. The Four Sketches begin with a dark prelude which hints at the Funeral March in Chopin’s second sonata; it is a picture of brooding but eventually clearing skies. It has an ambiguous rhythm. The brief Quasi Minuetto is in 5/8 time and has a flippant, casual nonchalance. The Elegy is another uneasy piece whereas the final Humoreske is also ambiguous. And yet these pieces have a depth belied by the title of sketches.

The Sonatina is structurally satisfying and is a rewarding work with a clear and uncomplicated texture. And it is what it claims to be ... a short sonata. The central slow movement has a marvellous directness. The finalé is a scherzo of uninhibited fun. There is no overstatement, no extremes, no pomposity or grand empty gestures. It is music for music’s sake.

One can but hope that Murray McLachlan records McEwan’s Piano Sonata.

The Three Keats Preludes are evocative, Debussy-like, charming miniatures which convey their respective titles. This is followed by a more substantial triptych On Southern Hills conveying moods rather than melodic or thematic material. The music lacks depth and spends an inordinate amount of time in the upper register of the piano. I have never heard White Oxen to be so delicate. Debussy’s arabesques are behind the second piece Drifting Clouds and the overlong finalé lacks a sense of direction. The Five Vignettes from La Côte d’Argent were written in 1913 and are appealing because of their simplicity and brevity. It is attractive but rather pale music.

Mackenzie’s music has lucid thematic material and makes proper use of the most expressive register of the piano. High Spirits and Harvest Home are exciting pieces calling for a pianist with a cool head and steel fingers and McLachlan does not disappoint. Chassé aux Papillons also calls for dexterity and skill and is successfully evocative. Schumann’s Arabeske is not far away. The Trois Morceaux recalls Chopin not only in style but also in the titles: Valse, Nocturne and Ballad. Well written and instantly likeable. The Nocturne is especially fine, the gem of the disc.

A welcome disc ... very welcome indeed.

Reviewer
David Wright

Performance

Recording  

---

	AMERICAN MASTERS (Three Symphonies):ROY HARRIS Symphony No. 3 (1937) 17:09 rec 1961, RANDALL THOMPSON Symphony No. 2 (1931) 27:44 rec 1968, DAVID DIAMOND Symphony No. 4 (1945) 18:52 rec 1958 NYPO/Leonard Bernstein The Bernstein Century series SONY CLASSICAL SMK60594 64:04
		You may buy this disc here

Here are recordings of three tonal and melodic American symphonies.You are destined to make life-log friends with them.

ROY HARRIS SYMPHONY NO 3.

I have been a keen supporter of Roy Harris’s music ever since I heard the RCA Victrola LP of the Boston SO/Koussevitsky account of No. 3. Wasn’t it coupled with some Sibelius: Pohjola’s Daughter? All very apt as this symphony, with its single movement, has obvious Sibelian references (Symphony No 7) without being totally in thrall. Harris adds his own brand of intensity and emotional concentration usually concentrated on the longest singing lines on the strings but also distinguished by stormy monumental brass. Listen out also for the yearning flute at 5:25 leading into a great chorale and the same instruments arabesquing leaf-fall at 7:00.

Harris builds a delicious tension at 7:24 onwards with lightly undulating Sibelian rustlings and a magical vibraphone note resonating three times (8:00). The twists and turns of a typical Harris melody (established long before this symphony - try the first symphony 1933 and see what I mean) are irresistible. At 10:20 we get a resolute striking of attitudes soon to develop into an exciting Waltonian brass and drum dance echoing down eternity (12:50). The antiphonal effects pervading the heights and depths of the orchestra register wonderfully in the refurbished 20 bit sound (13:23). The sense of tragic homecoming is tangible in the closing minutes.

There are few better performances than Bernstein’s though sad to say I have never heard Mata’s nor Ormandy’s. This collection, anyway, is special. I hope that if you do not know this piece and you like Sibelius, Janacek’s Sinfonietta or Szymanowski you will want to hear this symphony. How sad that Bernstein did not record the other symphonies.

RANDALL THOMPSON wrote three dynamic symphonies but he is better known for his choral music. This SYMPHONY NUMBER TWO (four movements) is perfection. It is lithe, well-judged in length, poetic (especially in the second movement), exciting and rich in antiphonal dialogue. The third movement bubbles, capers and jumps: a feverish cauldron. There is then a substantial central pastoral interlude with much Sibelian birdsong for cor anglais, oboe and flute. It even swoons like Bax and perhaps Delius.

The finale opens with a feeling of decisive steadily paced resolution and gradually accelerates the confident march into a Waltonian complex of colliding tides and recollections of the first movement's themes. At 2:40 we get a hint of exhilarating syncopation (which always makes me think of Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante). This slips with inevitability into a determined Tchaikovskian finale: perky, joyous, irrepressible, cheeky. There is nothing dense or less than pellucid about this work - a gem and in a recording and realisation worthy of the work.

The Thompson is lighter than Harris 3 but not at all flippant or inconsequential. The best way of thinking about it is as a midway point between Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony (in its poise and balance) and the scampering and dark-toned energy of the British composer E J Moeran. There is a good collection of all three Thompson symphonies on Koch International but the performance of No 2 though creditable, and with quite a jolt to it, does not equal the Bernstein. Just listen to his yieldingly responsive control of tempo towards the end of the finale from 7:10 onwards!

DAVID DIAMOND’S FOURTH SYMPHONY opens in grand impressionistic, surging romantic melos - all swirling banks of mist. This is quite Sibelian and also surprisingly like Rubbra (Symphonies 3 and 4 and piano concerto) sometimes. The colours are touched in with highlights from the solo piano. The theme resolves into a spider-web gossamer march. Roy Harris puts in an appearance once or twice. This first  movement is extraordinarily attractive. The second of the three movements kicks in with solo piano wrestling with starkly high harsh trumpets but this relaxes into an at first reverent and then increasingly passionate string dream which caught me thinking of Finzi’s New Year Music or In Terra Pax.

The last movement is busily headlong but despite (or because of) the attractions of the two preceding movements this does not quite meet  the symphonic challenge. This is the oldest of the four recordings.

It comes as a jolt to realise that this recording was made forty years ago. There is a hint of hard glare in the strings and the more strident brass. I have the Delos recording which is excellent technically but it does not have Bernstein’s heavenly responsiveness to the music. There are some loveable Tippett-like touches and a Rubbra is not lost sight of. The off-beat cross the bars brass chord punctuation works wonderfully with long woodwind lines from 6:00 onwards but it does not end convincingly; it simply ends.

Nevertheless some memorable music here.

I know these recordings of the Thompson and Diamond quite well. In the early 1980s BBC Radio 3 broadcast a series of rare recordings celebrating the American symphony. My wife taped both for me and I loved the Thompson instantly and the Diamond’s opening bars have been etched onto my memory for many years.

Design values are excellent. Print is legible. Recording information is plentiful. Brief notes by Jackson Braider. Sound as refurbished from CBS is fresh and lively with none of the dazzling audio glare I recall from the original British CBS LPs.

The warmest recommendation for this fine set.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

---

	WILLIAM SCHUMAN (1910-1992) Symphony No. 3 (1941) 30:56 rec 1960 Symphony No. 5 (1943) 16:35 rec 1966 Symphony No. 8 (1962) 31:10 rec 1962 NYPO/Leonard Bernstein Bernstein Century series SONY CLASSICAL SMK63163 78:57
		You may buy this disc here

Sony Classical deserve every praise for opening up their archives and reissuing this finely constructed and satisfyingly memorable music. The disc is superbly well-filled both in terms of timing and musical quality. The third symphony is amongst the strongest and most dazzling of American symphonies but little trumpeted.

William Schuman’s consistently athletic, muscular music has strong architectural features and is not short on beauty and excitement. It is a pity that Schuman and Piston who have both written music of great beauty, tragedy and power have so often been bracketed as producers of arid music. This could hardly be further from the truth.

Listen to the Tippettian long lines of the first (of the two) movement of the Third Symphony finding unknowing pre-echoes in the British composer’s Concerto for Double String orchestra and predicting string textures in Tippett’s Corelli Fantasia. Schuman was clearly influenced also by Roy Harris’s own third from four years earlier. There are the same striding long lines and the resonant eerieness of the coursing echoing strings seems to reach out towards the masterful Roy on many occasions. This is also a symphony of conflict completed in the year in which the USA was drawn into World War Two. Great brass monolithic figures are also in fulsome supply creating the impression of towering canyons. Sibelius also comes into play in the chirping woodwind figures (12:00 in Track 1) and surely this is part of the impact of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony. I also detect a dash of Shostakovich in turbulent mood. Rather like the Schuman violin concerto (definitely worth hearing in the DG performance - Zukofsky, Boston SO, Tilson Thomas) first impressions of some of this music may be off-putting.

Persist though and the rewards are very great. Schuman occasionally goes into Quiet City mode and his way with the chaste solo trumpet is distinctive (track 2 2:50). His slippery quiet strings (5:20) are also a Schuman hallmark. At about 9:50 the mood changes and a sinister running and rattling energy rushes across the canvas. The woodwind dance, slide and sing linking into a strongly punctuated figure for horns, offset by a warm cosseting lyricism, jangling percussion and jagged strings. A motoric energy is released in the last five climactic minutes with yet more of the Harris-like string chorales hymning a desolate Sibelian sadness. All rises to a rushing helter-skelter close, explosive pizzicato strings, fast-tramping strings, anthracite-edged brass, coruscating into yet more rushing and tumbling string figures gathering into a drumbeat-driven, gun-shot-syncopated close making one of the most exciting finales in all music. This gives me that frisson of excitement I associate with grand moments in music. I recommend this and the Bernstein/NYPO performance without reservation. The dynamism and mood-creation of this performance out-points Bernstein’s later recording on DG.

The short 3 movement Fifth Symphony is for strings alone. It again recalls Tippett and there is much less Harris now. Occasionally Holst seems to be an influence. The music is only a tad less openly tuneful than the third symphony but still very approachable. Sometimes the music reaches out towards Vaughan Williams (Concerto Grosso or Partita - not Tallis - that comes at the end of the second movement) or Elgar (Intro and Allegro). The introspective sauntering middle movement is back to Roy Harris ‘night on the prairie’. Four years later Karl Amadeus Hartmann was to write his own fourth symphony for strings and much of the mood of the first two movements of the German work is similar to that in the Schuman. An awkward forward-slashing pulse opens the last movement which seems to have learnt the odd lesson from Britten’s string writing. A delicacy characterises the music somewhat like Simple Symphony or Sir Roger de Coverley but with uncanny harkings back to Tippett (Concerto for Double String Orchestra) as well as Schuman’s sterner material. The ending is unconvincing but this should not obscure much attractive music.

In the words of Dumas ‘Twenty Years After’ Schuman’s fifth symphony muse is darker and grimmer. In the three movement eighth we seem to get a picture of some lost Cimmeria of Edgar Rice Burroughs, faintly oriental and minatory. The bell noises remind me of the Tippett of Praeludium. As the music becomes increasingly complex and intricate we realise that Schuman’s world has not changed but his language has been transformed into something akin to that of Benjamin Frankel in the symphonies and later period Alan Rawsthorne. This is not as approachable as the other two symphonies on this disc. In the second movement mountainous string themes seem to struggle up precipitous cliff-faces or meander across forbidding mental landscapes with visions approximating to those grainy pictures of devastated WW1 battlefields. Gripping and bellowingly angry brass provide a contrast at 6:50 (track 7). Is this a reflection of Schuman’s life-experience or a synthetically-produced mood? Third movement big bouncy brass - feverish strings - gamelan clatter at 1:52 track 8.

The booklet provides superb precise discographic detail as well as being a model of good design and legibility. Economies have been made on the notes. They have been assembled from the original issues. Edward Downes’ notes for No. 8 are especially strong and engaging.

This is quite simply a disc full of wonders and chief among these is the treasurable and living third symphony which eagerly awaits your ears and your affections.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

---

COMPETITION WIN a CD of your choice from Crotchet

Return to: Classical Review Index   Classical Music on the Web (UK)