The Reception History of Alan Rawsthorne’s Concerto for String Orchestra (1949): Part 3

Discographic Overview. In 1963 Alan Rawsthorne journeyed to the Soviet Union in the company of Alan Bush, as representatives of the Composers’ Guild. Whilst there, they performed several of their works. Subsequently, (1983) the Russian record company Melodiya issued a few of these on a double LP. This included Rawsthorne’s Second Symphony ‘Pastoral’ and the Concerto for String Orchestra coupled with Alan Bush’s Nottingham Symphony and Birthday Overture. To my knowledge this has never been reissued: I was unable to find a significant review.

In 1965 the Little Orchestra of London released an LP of the Concerto for String Orchestra coupled with Peter Racine Fricker’s Prelude, Elegy and Finale (1949) and Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade for Strings (1939). It was reviewed in The Gramophone (August 1965) by Edward Greenfield. who claimed that Rawsthorne had been ‘thinly, almost shabbily treated over [his] sixtieth birthday celebrations’ so this present disc made ‘some amends.’  Rawsthorne is ‘one of those composers who benefit specially from the sort of repetition made possible with a record.’ The composer’s style, Greenfield felt, is not ‘usually easy to grasp in the memory at a first hearing, yet the argument is the very opposite of unmemorable once the essentials have been grasped.’  This is especially true with the Concerto with ‘its strong, aggressive first movement…’ followed by a ‘thoughtful slow movement that seems at first to add coda upon coda, but which in fact is very surely constructed.’  And finally, ‘the rondo-like finale with a fugato doing far more that spin out argument…it reconciles the main subjects of the first and last movements.’ Edward Greenfield was equally enthusiastic about the Fricker and the Berkeley despite having one or two minor complaints about the quality of the recording. In all cases the playing was ‘passionate and convincing…’

Anthony Payne (Tempo Spring 1966) welcomes the LP of string music by Rawsthorne, Berkeley and Fricker and reminds the listener that these composers ‘have of late been ousted from the public eye by the younger generation and who, in the present works at least, have made a break with parochial Englishry without being influenced by the Schoenbergian revolution.’ He writes that, in Rawsthorne's Concerto for String Orchestra, ‘we are faced with sadly undervalued music…for it is a rich and complex work, and one which needs several hearings of the sort a gramophone easily affords, before its subtleties fall into place and prove their memorability.’

The Concerto for String Orchestra was re-released by PYE in 1969, coupled with Rawsthorne’s Piano Quintet (1968) and Cello Sonata (1948). John Dressler (2004) notes that the Concerto was further reissued in 1997 on CD: I cannot find any other reference to this re-release.

BBC Radio Classics issued a CD of a broadcast of the Concerto made in 29 September 1966 by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It included music by Moeran and Bliss. This CD has been subsequently deleted.

In 1999 Naxos released an important CD of orchestral works by Alan Rawsthorne including the Concerto for String Orchestra, Light Music for Strings, Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra, Concertante Pastorale for Flute, Horn and Strings, the Suite for Recorder and String Orchestra and the Elegiac Rhapsody for String Orchestra.  The last three works were ‘world premiere recordings.’  The Gramophone (July 1999) regarded this CD as ‘yet another Naxos/British music bull’s eye, comprising an imaginative programme realized with great sympathy by all involved.’ Andrew Achenbach thought that the ‘most substantial offering here [was] the resourceful and magnificently crafted Concerto….’  The orchestra gave a performance which ‘in its emotional scope and keen vigour, outshines Sir Adrian Boult’s (now deleted) 1966 radio recording with the BBC SO…’ David Lloyd-Jones and the Northern Chamber Orchestra bring ‘a more thrusting urgency in the outer movements, he also locates an extra sense of slumbering tragedy in the Lento e mesto.

Conclusion.  I believe that two considerations lead to the Concerto for String Orchestra’s ultimate   success. Firstly, Rawsthorne has written a piece of music that stylistically takes a ‘middle road’: it neither emulates the then-current hegemony of Ralph Vaughan Williams, nor experiments with the nascent modernism being explored by Humphrey Searle and Elisabeth Lutyens and soon to explode into avant-garde music driven by Darmstadt. Secondly, the argument of the Concerto is sustained from the first bar to the last: stylistically the entire piece is thoroughly integrated. This is a hugely satisfying work that engages successfully with tragedy, passion and humour. Alan Rawsthorne’s Concerto for String Orchestra is a masterwork: it is one by which the composer will be remembered in perpetuity. 

Discography: 

1. Alan Rawsthorne/USSR State Symphony Orchestra, Alan Rawsthorne, Concerto for String Orchestra, Symphony No.2 ‘Pastoral’, Alan Bush/USSR State Symphony Orchestra, Symphony No.2 ‘Nottingham’, Birthday Overture, Melodiya D012687-90 (2 LPs) (c.1983)
2. Leslie Jones/Little Orchestra of London, Alan Rawsthorne, Concerto for String Orchestra, Lennox Berkeley, Serenade for Strings, Peter Racine Fricker, Prelude, Elegy and Finale, Pye Golden Guinea Collectors Series GSGC 4042 (Mono) and GSCG 14042 (Stereo) (1965) Reissued on Collector GSGC 7060 (LP) (1969) coupled with University Ensemble of Cardiff, Piano Quintet and George Isaac/Eric Harrison, Cello Sonata
3. Sir Adrian Boult/BBC Symphony Orchestra, Alan Rawsthorne, Concerto for String Orchestra (rec. 1966), Arthur Bliss Music for Strings, E.J. Moeran Sinfonietta, BBC Radio Classics 15656 91632 (1996)
4. David Lloyd-Jones/Northern Chamber Orchestra, John Turner (recorder) Rebecca Goldberg (horn) Conrad Marshall (flute) Alan Rawsthorne, Concerto for String Orchestra, Concertante Pastorale for Flute, Horn and Strings, Light Music for Strings, Suite for Recorder and String Orchestra, Elegiac Rhapsody for String Orchestra and Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra Naxos 8.553567 (1999)

Bibliography
Dressler, John C. Alan Rawsthorne: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2004)
Frank, Alan, Modern British Composers (London, Dennis Dobson Ltd., 1953)
McCabe, John, Alan Rawsthorne: Portrait of a composer (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Poulton, Alan, ed, Alan Rawsthorne, Essays on the Music (Hindhead, Bravura Publications 1986)
The files of De Gooi, The Observer, The Times, Western Morning News, The Creel, The Gramophone, Music Review, Musical Quarterly, Musical Times, Notes, The Radio Times and Tempo.

This essay was first published The Creel: The Journal of the Friends of Alan Rawsthorne Volume 8, No.3, 2017