The Overture is urbane in sound.
Although there are a couple of good tunes, the overall impact is one of 1950s
film music. This is no criticism. The main theme is busy, scuttering and quite
suggestive of a quick stroll along Piccadilly or Oxford Street on a summer’s
evening. The harmonies are bright, imaginative and softly dissonant. Certainly,
the final subject is a powerful, romantic tune the I wish would last much
longer. The orchestration is marvellous. Berkeley has written a score that
sparkles from start to finish, with just one or two reflective moments. It may
not be ‘light music’ in the manner of Eric Coates, Trevor Duncan or Ron Goodwin
but this vibrant little Overture has all the joie-de-vivre that one expects of
music that is designed to be enjoyed rather than analysed.
The Listener 9 July 1959 reported on the Fifth Concert. Scott
Goddard reminded the reader that ‘two new overtures commissioned for the Light
Music Festival made their appearance on Saturday evening.’ He began with Gordon
Jacob’s Fun Fare which ‘is what the
title suggests, the kind of fare one expects from this composer who knows as
much as any musician working at present in this country the fun to be got from
making a completely expert orchestral score and from expressing high spirits in
a few ideas dressed out in gay, extrovert music. This is a display piece: it
shows off an orchestra’s virtuosity and well played as it was this evening, it
is an amusing experience for connoisseurs of that sort of entertainment.’ I
include this critique of Jacob’s overture, as I guess it has been forgotten,
but based on the review it deserves an occasional outing.
Turning to the Berkeley offering,
Goddard writes: ‘[this] new piece, which followed [the Jacob] after half an
hour’s mixed bill, is baldly styled An Overture and thus gives no clear clue to
its intentions. Not unexpectedly it is finer line-drawing that the Gordon Jacob
work and also less immediately warming. The brow is worn a millimetre higher.
For sheer craftsmanship in technique of orchestral display there is nothing to
choose between the two.’
The Daily Telegraph (6 July 1959) reviewer John Warrack was not
over-impressed by the concert overall. He writes: ‘Light music’s peril is that
is may remain stuck in a kind of no-man’s land halfway between ‘straight’ music
and commercial slush’ and citing the poet Francis Thompson he suggests that it
may be ‘pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross Road...’ Warrack makes the interesting suggestion that
‘all real composers ought to be able to produce light music…’ If only that were
the case. Remarking on Jacob’s Fun Fare
Overture he thinks that it is ‘an expert job’ with one drawback. It ‘spends its
time getting ready for the first-rate comedy piece it always seems about to
turn into and then abruptly stops.’
I think that his view of the
Berkeley is interesting. He considers that the music displays ‘a private
friendliness rather than public entertainment.’ This is a good description of
the composer’s music in general: it is always suave and polished, no matter the
genre.
On the other hand, Warrack
believes that Berkeley can ‘produce a couple of broad tunes, and he attacks the
light music problems in his own terms – the only ones for an honest artist.’ As
for the rest of the concert, he enjoyed the suite from Porgy and Bess ‘admirably sung by Heather Harper and John
Hauxvell.’ It made him long to see the opera again. The Multi-Colourtone
Electronic Instrument did not impress him: ‘New sounds are not compulsory.’ The
device ‘imitated some organ tones and ingeniously produced a range of amazing
nasty sounds of its own.’ John Warrack must be glad that he did not live on the
21st century with its plethora of electronic synthesizers and
keyboard.
There is clearly a strong
argument for a definitive modern recording to be made of both Berkeley and
Jacob’s Overtures.
Lennox Berkeley’s Overture in B
flat can be heard on You
Tube. The score is currently published by Chester’s.
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