Herbert Howells Part songs.

The advertising script for this remarkable new disc from SOMM Recordings notes that Herbert Howells “composed a significant body of lyrical, often pastoral part-songs characterized by rich harmony and expressive text-setting.” Over the past few decades much of Howells’s catalogue has found its way onto disc - the organ works, the orchestral scores, the sacred canticles, services, and anthems. Performers have also explored his piano, chamber, and solo vocal music. This substantial new anthology of his part-songs now reveals a facet of his output that has long been underrepresented, both in the record shops and the recital rooms. In fact, all but one of these are premiere recordings. What has never been in doubt is Howells’s affection for the English lyric tradition - exemplified by his settings of Walter de la Mare, William Blake, and the older English poets - and his equal skill in handling words, whether sacred or secular.

If there is a unifying undercurrent to the repertoire on this disc, it is the subtle balance between a kind of pastoral ease, and an emotional shadow that hangs over some of these songs, especially those written after his son Michael’s death in 1935.

Even though several of these songs were composed with a children’s chorus in mind, they are all performed here by the Mira Ensemble. The group, whose name means “admirable,” was formed in 2025 and brings together professional upper‑voice singers from across the United Kingdom. For this debut SOMM album, the ensemble appears in an octet of four sopranos and four altos. They are directed by the Newcastle‑born conductor, composer, academic, editor, and orchestrator Tom Edney, with the demanding piano accompaniment supplied by Nick Salwey.

I have aligned the dates of these part-songs to the ‘List of Works’ in Christopher Palmer’s Herbert Howells: A Celebration

The earliest songs on this disc are The Shepherd and A Croon (both 1915-17), An Old Man’s Lullaby (1917) and, particularly, The Tinker’s Song (1916?). They are characterised by Tudor modality, with the occasional false relation. This may have derived from his then current interest in Thomas Tallis and the English Renaissance. There is also a healthy respect towards Howells’s teacher Charles Villiers Stanford. One thing in common is the assured pianism of the accompaniments.      

There are two unison songs on this album, The Wonderful Derby Ram (1922) setting an old rhyme and Spanish Lullaby (1923), to an early text. Both are still in Howells’ earlier style. A slightly more advanced mood is heard in the Golden Lullaby (1920). The liner notes explain that My master hath a garden (1923) is influenced by Gustav Holst: “Shifting metres, subtle polyrhythms and parallel fourths with modal inflections evoke Holst’s distinctive sound world.”  Tune Thy Music, to words by Thomas Campion, completed in 1927, looks to Howells’ later music, with the notes suggesting it is precursor to the Collegium Regale Te Deum (1945).

Moving into the next decade, a particular favourite of mine is the vibrant Sea Urchins (1935). This is a set of ten songs for children’s or ladies’ voices preceded by a vivid Overture. Gladys Balcomb’s verses evoke holiday scenes with a charm recalling Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, seasoned at times with the light lyrical touch of John Betjeman. The collection offers considerable variety: some are in unison, others in two parts, and the level of difficulty ranges widely, with several written for “alert youngsters.” Among the images conjured are a child’s first trip to the beach, the ubiquitous landlady, a holiday express train, a knitting grandmother settled on the sand, and an adventurous clamber along the cliffs. The liner notes omit a pleasing detail: this cycle was composed especially for the Reigate and Redhill Music Festival and was first performed there in March 1936 under Walter Stanton.

A Yuletide number is included: George Wither’s A Christmas Carol: “So now is come our joyful feast /Let every man be jolly” (1958) is shaped into a form that moves beyond the typical carol sung by wassailers. There is a melancholic edge to these otherwise jolly words.

This was one of Howells’s last contributions to the genre. The final example was The Summer is Coming (1964), not included on this disc.

Also from 1958 is Pink Almond: this is a setting of a verse by Katharine Tynan, Irish poet, and novelist. Once again, it is introverted and reticent in mood.

This is not a disc to hurry. I agree with MusicWeb International reviewer Nick Barnard that the repertoire is best heard in discrete, chronological sections, as a uniform listening style can easily obscure the individuality of the pieces. The vibrant Sea Urchins cycle, however, uniquely benefits from being taken in at a single sitting.

The performance by Mira is marvellous, poised and consistently engaging. Little needs to be said about the excellent liner notes by Tom Edney, the splendid recording quality, and the overall presentation of this album. Full texts of all the songs are included, and everything is produced to the characteristically exacting standards of Siva Oke and SOMM Recordings.

I look forward to a follow up album from Mira. Looking at the above-mentioned catalogue in Christopher Palmer’s study, there is certainly sufficient material for at least one more volume.

Track Listing:
The Wonderful Derby Ram (1922)
Sweet Content (1931)
Piping down the valleys wild (1938)
A Croon (1915-17)
My master hath a garden (1923)
The Key of the Kingdom (1948)
Sing Ivy (1924)
To music bent (1933)
A Golden Lullaby (1920)
Bunches of grapes (1933)
Pink Almond (1958)
A Christmas Carol (1958)
The Shepherd (1915-17)
Spanish Lullaby (1923)
Sea Urchins (1935)
– Overture
– Happy Street
– Many Rainbows
– The Sea-Side Landlady
– Granny sits beside the sea
– The Barrel-Organ
– A Seaside Lullaby
– The Lair on the Cliff
– Lindy’s Ballet Shoes
– The Musical Train
– The Open Air
An Old Man’s Lullaby (1917)
The Tinker’s Song (1916?)
Tune thy music (1927)
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Part songs
Nick Salwey (piano)
The Mira Ensemble/Tom Edney
rec. July 2025, St. George’s Headstone, Harrow, London
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0725

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

William Walton (1902–1983): Two Pieces for Strings from Henry V

The relationship between music and cinema has rarely yielded a more brilliant partnership than that of composer Sir William Walton and actor-director Sir Laurence Olivier. One of the great films to emerge during the Second World War was Laurence Olivier’s production of William Shakespeare’s Henry V. Filmed in Technicolor and conceived partly as an artistic morale booster for a nation engulfed in global conflict, the movie was a triumph of vision and execution. Its myriads of stars included Leslie Banks, Felix Aylmer, Robert Helpmann as well as Olivier in the title role.

The timing of the film's premiere carried immense historical and emotional weight for the Allied forces and the British public. Released just under six months after the Normandy Landings in June 1944, it struck the public imagination with a force that few cinematic projects have ever matched. The parallel between King Henry’s cross-channel invasion of France and the contemporaneous D-Day landings was unmistakable. The film was dedicated to ‘The Commandos and Airborne Troops of Great Britain – the spirit of whose ancestors it has been humbly attempted to recapture in some of the ensuing scenes...’ Naturally, many other men and women from many countries were involved in that decisive campaign.

To match the epic scale and deep emotional resonance of the narrative, Olivier turned to the foremost British composer of the era. William Walton composed the score for the film during 1943-44; the soundtrack was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Walton’s music proved to be much more than a mere background accompaniment; it was an integral narrative voice that captured both the heraldic splendour of Agincourt and the intimate human tragedies of war.

Recognizing the enduring artistic value of the score outside the cinema, musicians quickly sought to bring Walton's creation to the live stage. In the years following the film’s release, several arrangements of the music were made for use in the concert hall. Suites were extracted by Malcolm Sargent (under Walton’s aegis) in 1945, Muir Mathieson (1963) and Christopher Palmer (1990). Among the most enduring fragments of this monumental score are the two quiet interludes written for the film's more reflective moments. The Two Pieces, The Death of Falstaff and Touch her soft lips and part, were included in these Suites, but were separately authorised for performance. They are scored for strings alone, offering a striking, intimate contrast to the brass-heavy, symphonic grandeur found elsewhere in the full cinematic score.

The first piece provides a poignant farewell to one of Shakespeare's most beloved comic creations, though its inclusion in the film required some dramatic license. Interestingly, Falstaff does not have a death-scene in Shakespeare’s original play: it was interpolated into the film by Olivier. This structural change allowed the film to bridge the transition from the old life of the young king to his grave new responsibilities. Falstaff, played by George Robey, was a ‘boon companion’ to Prince Hal, although he did receive some harsh words from the king. Walton captures the sorrow of this broken friendship with remarkable economy. The Death of Falstaff is in the form of a passacaglia (a recurrent theme in the bass with variations in the treble part). It is noble, dignified, and affectionate in its gentle and restrained exposition. The strict, repeating bass line anchors the music, mirroring the inevitability of death, while the upper strings weave a tender tapestry of grief.

The second movement shifts focus from the passing of an old friend to the painful separation of young lovers torn apart by duty. Touch her soft lips and part, is heard during the scene depicting the soldiers preparing to depart for Honfleur. It underscores the human cost of martial ambition, capturing a moment of quiet stillness before the storm of battle. Pistol, one of Henry’s old Eastcheap drinking partners, is saying his farewell to Mistress Quickly; the other troops are taking leave of their wives and sweethearts. Walton utilizes muted strings to evoke a sense of fragile intimacy and impending nostalgia. The music is tender and wistful in its perfectly stated romanticism, leaving an indelible impression of warmth and vulnerability that balances the historic pageantry of the grander tale.

Listen to English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Julian Lloyd Webber on YouTube, here. It is taken from Naxos 8.573250 (2015)

With thanks to the Programme Book of the 2017 English Music Festival where part of this essay was first published.

Quiet Summer Evening: British Light Classics

The opening paragraph of the liner notes gives a succinct definition of light music. Nearly six decades ago, Andrew Gold - who led the BBC Light Music Unit between 1965 and 1969 - summed up his role as programming “music where the tune is more important than what the composer does with it”. That crisp description of what we now tend to call light classical still holds. Its defining strength remains what Gold called its “immediacy of appeal,” the quality that continues to secure the loyalty of many listeners. I would add approachability, quality of orchestration and a deft handling of mood and atmosphere to this description.

One niggle to get out of the way: The liner notes could have been more fulsome, especially on their discussion of each work. All dates of composers, the pieces, and the arrangements should have been given. I have provided these where possible.

The concert opens with Geoffrey Bush’s Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings dating from 1940. While he is noted for music across a wide range of genres, including two symphonies, several concertos and six operas, he remained at heart a miniaturist with a particular flair for chamber and vocal writing. His aesthetic is often (but not always) characterized as “a blend of English pastoral warmth and crisp neoclassical poise.” The Rhapsody is lyrical, with just a little angst here and there, that suggests the turbulent date it was written. Yet, overall, it engages the mind in reminiscing about happier times gone by and looks forward to peaceful days to come.

The notes do not tell what forces Ulster composer Terence Higgins originally wrote his Vers le Sud for. It has been arranged here by David Stowe for violin and orchestra. I find the overall impact a little out of kilter – true, there is mood music that reflects languid days in the South of France, but the jazzed-up violin passages do seem a little out of place in this supposedly atmospheric evocation. What is it about Messrs Higgins and Stowe that their D.O.B.s are hidden from view?

Clive Jenkins’s Fantasy for Horn & Strings (2002/2009) gently evokes an English landscape at dusk, with just a hint of shadow in the background. It blends melodic poise and fine craftsmanship with a touch of mischievous charm, giving the soloist music that sings as naturally as it speaks.

Nigel Brooks’s Sunday Afternoon for bassoon and orchestra gently potters along, giving the listener an impression of a peaceful ramble through a suburban landscape - summoning images of playing children or strolling lovers. It is beautifully scored and presents a memorable solo part superbly played by Sarah Watts. The piece was written specially for this release.

Sarah Watts is also represented by her enigmatically titled Everything Is Somewhere Else, also for bassoon and orchestra. If I had been the record producer, I would have separated this and the last number by another work. Whilst reviewing this I suddenly discovered that I had changed composer and track, fooling me into thinking it was the same piece! Yet this ever so short intermezzo is delightful at every twist and turn.

The Five Pieces for Clarinet & String Orchestra by Clive Jenkins are given picturesque titles, of places in and around his native Plymouth which may or may not help the listener. The set opens with the brisk Richmond Walk, a reference to a promenade by “the tranquil waters of Stonehouse Creek," though the music presents a bit of a contradiction. Jenkins explains that “Plym Valley has woods and a boulder-strewn river with weirs”; appropriately, this is introverted, and not particularly “light” in character. Equally reflective is the tone poem, Tamarside, named from the broad estuary between Devon and Cornwall. The “bustling” fourth movement imagines The Barbican in Plymouth, an area of historic quays, narrow cobbled streets, lively pubs, and a gin distiller! The finale is Drake Circus, which according to Google Earth is a modern-ish shopping mall. The area looks as if it had been knocked about a lot – either by German bombs during WW2 or by over-zealous town planners. Overall, this is a charming suite.

The liner notes explain that Andy Meyers “studied conducting, piano and horn at Trinity College of Music, winning the Ricordi Prize for conducting and, as a collaborative pianist, the Elisabeth Schumann Prize for Lieder and the Dorothy Hawes Prize for French Song.” His scores include Encore une fois, Cantilena, Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite, and a Sinfonietta Concertante alongside various concertos. The Serenade for Horn and Strings (no date given) is another piece that is too short: it just gets going when it concludes. It is lyrical throughout, with a definite touch of melancholy.

Gordon Jacob can always be relied on to deliver the goods. The brief and pleasant A Little Waltz is the second number in his Four Sketches dating from 1976. This little movement has a lyrical, dance-like mood with gracefully turned phrasing. As a digression, the third movement (not heard here) is a desideratum: the lumbering L'Après-midi d'un Dinosaur is a humorous play on Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

One of the loveliest tracks on this disc is Luke Whitlock’s Lullaby. Whitlock was invited in 2022 by Clive Jenkins to contribute a horn‑and‑orchestra piece for this present album. The result is an expressive, mood‑shifting miniature in which soloist and orchestra both share the focus, conjuring something gently nostalgic and half‑remembered. Quite beautiful.

I love Edward Elgar’s Canto Popolare in its original context as part of the sweeping overture, In the South. It was originally heard at the tranquil turning point in this otherwise imposing work.  The melody is anecdotally based on a "found" tune Elgar had heard a shepherd singing while visiting Alassio, Italy - though, in fact, it was his own invention. I can just about enjoy it in the composer’s violin and piano version. However, this present arrangement for violin and orchestra by Clive Jenkins takes it entirely out of context. I am sorry - I just don’t dig it!

Lennox Berkeley’s short Andantino has a tangled provenance. Originally written in 1945 as part of A Festival Anthem, op. 21 no. 2 (for SATB choir and organ to mark the end of the Second World War), the present music was associated with the words ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ He later recast this section as an independent work, arranging it for cello and piano. Unusually for Berkeley, the mood here is entirely pastoral, contrasting with his more prevailing neo-classicism. The liner notes suggest that it is as English as a day in summer. The present arrangement for cello and strings was made by Clive Jenkins.

The penultimate piece is an arrangement of Frederick Delius’s Romance for cello and piano. This delicious work dates from around 1896 when the composer was resident in Paris. It was “lost” until rediscovered in 1976 and given its first modern (possibly even premiere) performance by Julian Lloyd Webber. The only criticism would be the overblown intensity for such a short piece.

Finally, the listener is treated to Don Shearman’s eponymous Quiet Summer Evening. The notes explain that this British musician who died at the age of 92 enjoyed a distinguished career as a pianist, collaborating with leading entertainers such as Norman Wisdom and Russ Conway. This contemplative miniature crosses multiple stylistic boundaries, nevertheless, it is quite lovely.

Taken as a whole, Quiet Summer Evening offers a generous survey of near-contemporary British light‑classical idioms, performed with evident affection and sympathy by Peter Fisher and his Chamber Ensemble of London. It is aided by a great recording. Not every arrangement convinces, and a few pieces feel more like sketches than fully realised statements, but the prevailing impression is one of craftsmanship, tuneful ease, and lyricism. The soloists play with character and sensitivity throughout. The programme’s mixture of the familiar, the rediscovered and the newly minted gives it a pleasing sense of variety. As the title track gently closes the disc, it leaves behind exactly what light music at its best can still provide: moments of calm, colour, and charm.

Track Listing:

Geoffrey Bush (1920-1998)
Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings (1940)
Terence Higgins (?) (Arr. David Stowe (?))
Vers Le Sud
Clive Jenkins (b.1938)
Fantasy for Horn & Strings (2002/2009)
Nigel Brooks (1926-2024)
Sunday Afternoon
Sarah Watts (?)
Everything Is Somewhere Else
Clive Jenkins
5 Pieces for Clarinet & String Orchestra (2003/2013-14)
Andy Meyers (?)
Serenade for Horn & Strings
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
A Little Waltz (1976)
Luke Whitlock (b.1978)
Lullaby (2022)
Edward Elgar (1857-1934) (arr. Clive Jenkins)
Canto Popolare (1904/?)
Lennox Berkeley (1903-89) (arr. Clive Jenkins)
Andantino (1945/?)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934) (arr. Clive Jenkins)
Romance (1896/?)
Don Shearman (1932-2024)
Quiet Summer Evening
Peter Cigleris (clarinet), Sarah Watts (bassoon), Alexei Watkins (horn), Michael Mace (cello)
Chamber Ensemble of London/Peter Fisher (violin, director)
rec. August 2023, St George’s Church, Pinner View, Harrow
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0727

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

From Palace to Pavement: Roman Holiday and Auric’s Art

The 1953 film Roman Holiday is in my top ten not only for the superb performances by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, but also for its glorious travelogue of Rome, one of my favourite European cities.

A young princess, disillusioned by the endless grind of ceremony, speeches, and tightly choreographed appearances, reaches a quiet breaking point during a goodwill tour of Europe. In Rome, the pressure becomes too much, and she slips away into the night, determined - just for a few hours - to experience life without titles, attendants, or expectations. Her escape leads her into the orbit of an American journalist who recognises her but chooses, for his own reasons, to play along with her desire for anonymity.

Roman Holiday unfolds as a gentle, sparkling portrait of freedom tasted in stolen moments: the thrill of wandering a city without a schedule, the pleasure of ordinary encounters, and the subtle shift that happens when two strangers meet as equals rather than as roles. It is a film suffused with charm, buoyed by Audrey Hepburn’s luminous freshness and Gregory Peck’s understated warmth, celebrating the magic of a single day that feels wonderfully, impossibly unencumbered.

Upon its release, the French reviewer Jean de Baroncelli praised Roman Holiday as a rare delight, calling it “this adorable film, sprinkled all over with blue flowers,” and celebrating its power to console viewers weary of films obsessed with “the ugliness, the filth, the sadness of our poor world.” Although the film failed at the Venice Festival - people scorned it…they curled their lips”—the critic argues that its very simplicity was its virtue. Audiences and juries dismissed it because it was “a vulgar romance between a princess and a young journalist” with “not the slightest message,” no propaganda, only “the sweetness of being young and alive.”

He laments that Roman Holiday was relegated “to the toy department,” like other light, gentle films overlooked in favour of “heavy war machines.” Yet, he insists that such neglect cannot last: one day, he writes, critics will have to acknowledge the public’s pleasure and allow “gaiety to triumph over pretentious boredom.”

Across the Atlantic the film critic M. Brog writing for Variety 8 (1 July 1953), praises Roman Holiday as a beautifully mounted romantic comedy that marks a welcome change of pace for William Wyler. The critic highlights how Wyler “used the ancient buildings and streets of Rome as a colourful and beautiful backdrop,” making the city “an unusually effective, without being obtrusive, part of the entertainment values.” Wyler’s return to comedy is described as “all to the good,” supported by a “fine script” by Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton. The reviewer notes that the princess’s adventures with Gregory Peck are “natural and amusing,” generating “continual chuckles with laugh highlights.” Everyday incidents “getting a haircut, taking a wild motor scooter ride, being arrested” are said to be made “very entertaining,” culminating in a lively escape from the princess’s secret police. Crucially, the bittersweet ending was deemed both logical and satisfying: the princess resumes her royal role, and the reporter sacrifices his exclusive story for her sake.

Georges Auric (1899–1983) was a versatile French composer of remarkable versatility, moving with ease between avant‑garde circles, ballet, opera, and an extensive career in film music. A member of Les Six, the group informally linked to Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie, he first gained attention as a talented teenager, with early works performed by leading Parisian musical societies. His association with Cocteau shaped much of his artistic outlook, and Auric’s music often blended irony, clarity, and a reaction against the lush harmonic world of Debussy.

Auric became one of the most sought‑after film composers of his generation. His collaborations with Cocteau included Blood of the Poet (1930) and the celebrated Beauty and the Beast (1946), whose atmospheric score remains one of his most admired achievements. He also wrote for major French and British directors, contributing to À nous la liberté! (1931) and the British classic The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). His international reputation grew further with Moulin Rouge (1952, and his first American score for Roman Holiday (1953).

Listen to the main title track from Roman Holiday, here. Georges Auric's score (assisted by Victor Young) opens with whirling woodwinds and shimmering textures, establishing the film’s playful tone and the sense of a city alive with promise. As the strings begin the principal melody, the music acquires a lyrical warmth that mirrors Princess Ann’s gradual shedding of royal constraint.

A contrasting, more animated section - led by trumpets and passed energetically around the orchestra - introduces the film’s comedic dimension. This jumpy, good‑humoured writing underscores the spontaneity of Ann’s adventures and the growing rapport between her and Joe. Later, the lyrical theme returns, subtly varied, suggesting emotional depth beneath the film’s surface sparkle. The score’s final flourish has brass punctuating the orchestra’s exuberant restatement of the theme.

Sir William Walton: Castaway on Desert Island Discs, 1965

On 19 July 1965, the English composer William Walton was the guest on Roy Plomley’s long-running radio programme, Desert Island Discs. He would have been 63 years old at the time. Although not producing quite as much as in earlier years, he had recently heard the premiere of his Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963), the revised version of the opera Troilus and Cressida (1954, 1963) and just a few weeks earlier, his setting of W.H. Auden’s ‘Anthem for the Feast of any Apostle,’ The Twelve for mixed chorus and organ. At the time, he was living in La Mortella, Forio d’Ischia with his wife, Susana.

Walton’s first selection was Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella played by the Cleveland Orchestra, under the composer’s baton. This witty neoclassical ballet transforms supposed Pergolesi originals into bright, rhythmically fresh music for commedia dell’arte characters. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella (1920) cast a long shadow over the musical landscape Walton entered in the early 1920s, its bright neoclassical reinvention of eighteenth‑century sources setting the tone for a new aesthetic of clarity, wit, and rhythmic edge. Although Walton never imitated Stravinsky, his early works - Portsmouth Point, Façade, the Sinfonia Concertante - breathe the same air: wiry, brilliant orchestration, a playful modernisation of older dance and march idioms, and a theatrical, slightly satirical sparkle. Pulcinella helped define the climate in which Walton’s distinctive, more English voice first took shape.

The second selection was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major (K.459). Walton probably warmed to this work because of its bright, agile keyboard writing, its poised yet spirited orchestral dialogue - especially the deft interplay with the winds - and its classical clarity all align with qualities he prized in his own music; the concerto’s mixture of elegance, rhythmic lift and lightly theatrical wit speaks directly to Walton’s taste for brilliance and economy, making K.459 the kind of Mozart he would have esteemed instinctively. The performance was by Rudolf Serkin ad the Columbia Symphony Orchestra under George Szell.

Next up was Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.29 in B flat major, performed by Louis Kentner. Walton likely viewed this Hammerklavier Sonata with a mix of reverence and recognition. Its explosive rhythms, massive structure, and sheer economy of notes mirror his own musical values: tight control, brilliance without fluff, and an unyielding logic. The sonata's mix of grandeur and physical energy matches Walton’s appetite for lean, dramatic music. It is exactly the kind of Beethoven that would have simultaneously terrified and thrilled him. Interestingly, Kentner, along with Yehudi Menuhin, had given the premiere performance (the original version) of Walton’s Sonata for violin and piano, on 30 September 1949.

An unusual choice was Henze’s Five Neapolitan Songs (Fünf neapolitanische Lieder) dating from 1956. This is a 17-minute cycle for baritone and chamber orchestra setting anonymous 17th century Neapolitan poems. The texts provide an eclectic mix of earthy humour, tenderness, and fatalism. Henze imbues the music with his characteristic blend of lyricism, intense colour, and lightly modernist edge. Listening to these settings suggests William Walton undoubtedly enjoyed these songs for their theatrical flair, clear‑cut orchestral colour, and refined craftsmanship - qualities that match his own tastes. The soloist in this record was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Richard Kraus.

The fifth selection was Joan Sutherland’s brilliant rendition of ‘Come per me sereno’ from Bellini's La Sonnambula. Here, Amina’s wedding day in a Swiss village unravels when she is discovered sleepwalking into the Count’s room, provoking Elvino’s jealousy. Only the villagers’ definitive proof of her innocence restores trust, allowing the opera to close in reconciliation and radiant relief.

For his next selection, William Walton chose Debussy’s Six épigraphes antiques, as subtly orchestrated by Ernest Ansermet. This remarkable work was originally drawn from incidental music Debussy wrote in 1901 for Pierre Louÿs’s Chansons de Bilitis, before being reimagined by the composer for piano duet in 1914. Ansermet’s orchestration, completed in 1939, restores the music to its original theatrical scale while maintaining its intimate charm. Across all six movements, Ansermet treats Debussy’s modal harmonies and graceful melodies with a light, almost ritualistic touch. The scoring favours luminous textures - muted strings, delicate woodwind solos, and harp arabesques - that suggest the half-imagined antiquity Debussy loved to conjure. 

What emerges is not a symphonic transformation but a sensitive illumination. Ansermet understands that these pieces thrive on suggestion rather than statement. His orchestral palette allows Debussy’s evocations of ancient Greece - filtered through Symbolist imagination rather than archaeology - to shimmer with renewed colour, retaining their enigmatic, dreamlike poise.

I was surprised by Walton’s next selection, Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 (1926–28). Not only in his choice of this work, but the fact that it was the “one work he would choose to keep if the other seven were to be lost in the surf or melted in the sun.”

These Variations were the first large‑scale orchestral work to employ the twelve‑tone method, marking a decisive moment in Schoenberg’s stylistic development. Premiered in Berlin in December 1928 under Wilhelm Furtwängler, it unsurprisingly provoked a scandalised reception, reflecting the polarised musical climate of the Weimar Republic. The score unfolds in an Introduction, a clearly stated theme, nine sharply characterised variations, and a Finale, all derived from a single series or tone row and its permutations. Its orchestration is unusually rich - four of each woodwind, expanded percussion including flexatone, harp, celeste, mandolin, and full strings - allowing Schoenberg to explore a kaleidoscope of colours. The work also incorporates the BACH motif, a gesture of historical homage within its rigorously modern idiom.

Walton would have admired the op. 31 for its taut construction, its rhythmic energy, and its brilliant orchestration. Schoenberg’s variations show a fierce, almost classical discipline beneath their modernist surface – of lucid argument, and momentum that aligns with Walton’s own taste for bold and concentrated music.

Finally, Walton turned to his own catalogue for his Symphony No. 2. Commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the city’s charter, the work was composed fitfully between 1957 and 1960 from his home in Ischia. It belongs to his mature, late-period style, arriving some 25 years after his extraordinarily successful but tragic First Symphony as a complete contrast. Whereas the First was expansive and hard-edged, the Second is terse, polished, and emotionally restrained.

John Pritchard conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the premiere during the Edinburgh Festival on September 2, 1960. Unsurprisingly, critical evaluation was mixed; many contemporary reviewers regarded it as old-fashioned, conservative, and stuck in the past because it clung to a tonal basis. Today, the symphony can finally take its rightful place as a brilliantly crafted, unjustly overlooked landmark of 20th-century British music.

For his luxury item, a small sculpture was a novel choice. One wonders what Walton was imagining. Would it have been a piece by Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth or the pioneer of Pop Art, Eduardo Paolozzi?

His book choice was equally distinct. James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is a massive comparative study of myth, ritual, and religion, arguing that human cultures evolve from magic to religion to science. Ranging across global folklore, it explores fertility rites, sacred kingship, and sacrificial traditions, profoundly shaping modern anthropology, psychology, and literary imagination. It has been issued in various editions, including one-volume abridgements. I assume Walton would have wanted the 12-volume third edition published between 1906 and 1915 to pass away many a lonely day.

Seventeen years later, William Walton would return to the BBC studios on 27 March 1982 for a second edition of Desert Island Discs.

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry : Piano Music Volume 2

This is the second instalment of Christopher Howell’s survey of Charles Hubert Hastings Parry’s piano music. The first was reviewed here, and here.

Sonnets and Songs Without Words: Book 2 was composed over an eight-year period, with it being completed and published in 1875. The liner notes explain that this collection had its roots in the days when Parry was courting Maude Herbert. They were to marry in 1872 although the union was to remain problematic for many years. At one time, Parry was “ordered off” by Maude’s mother, leading perhaps to the first number, the “stoical” Resignation. Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso set two contrasting moods. L’Allegro delights in daylight, music, and lively company, while Il Penseroso turns inward to night, study, and quiet reflection. Together they sketch a life balanced between outward joy and inward thought. Parry provides a muted commentary on these two poems in the second and third eponymous Songs. Overall, this is an introverted collection of pieces that, despite their nod to Mendelssohn, are more inward and personal than salon‑bound, showing a young composer testing emotion, rather than virtuoso display. This collection is a “first recording.”

Parry was a past master at writing Suites that nod to Baroque exemplars. One need only think of the early Suite de pièces, the Partita in D minor and the Lady Radnor’s Suite, with the English Suite between them, to recognise this expertise.

A near-contemporary review by Stanley Bayliss of the Hands Across the Centuries: Suite (pub. 1918) suggested that compared to the Shulbrede Tunes it failed. The critic felt that although they “attract the attention,” they show signs of hurriedness. Yet this contradicts Charles L Graves’s contention that here “he happily justified the title by a dexterous accommodation of eighteenth-century conventions to modern idiom.” He quotes Parry’s friend, disciple, and assistant Emily Daymond (and the Suite’s inspiration and dedicatee) as stating that “Over and over again, he would rewrite something because ‘it must be the very best I can do.’”  

The liner notes suggest that despite the historical background to the Suite, Parry has expressed “unease and emotional isolation” from a difficult marriage to Maude. Howell also suggests a kindred spirit with “the sea and weathers experienced on Parry’s beloved yacht, The Wanderer.” Whether I fully agree with this contention, there is little doubt that the sea is present in the opening Prelude (which also nods to a Bach fantasia) and in the “lapping wavelets” of the “capricious” Courante. Parry scholar Jeremy Dibble has noted the “Brahms-tinged Passionate Allemande and the “expressive” Quasi Sarabande which was played at the composer’s funeral. This seriousness is dismissed by the cheerful Gavotte and Musette and the Quasi Minuetto before all is blown away by the Lisztian Whirling Jig. Surely this final number would make a splendid encore for any recital of British music.

The main event on this disc is a distinctive performance of Hubert Parry’s Piano Sonata No.2 in A major, completed in 1878. I first heard it played by Anthony Goldstone (Albany Records TROY 132, 1994) on the composer’s Hagspiel grand piano at Shulbrede Priory in Sussex. Despite the historical significance of this recording, I was unmoved by the tone and balance of the instrument. During 2023, I appraised Richard Deering’s account of both sonatas on the Heritage Records HTGCD140-41 (reviewed here) and there discovered a reading that I could do business with. I am equally impressed with Howell’s account here.

The liner notes remind the listener that although the Second Sonata was finished before the First, Parry wished it to be known as the second, as it seemed to be a “logical development from the less ambitious first.” Confusing! The work was dedicated to his “close friend” Tora Gordon on the engagement to Victor Marshall. Jeremy Dibble notes that Parry’s affection for Tora was “deep but necessarily restrained.” The sonata was a “perfect outlet for his sense of loneliness” from his “increasingly unresponsive” wife, Maude.

The opening movement adopts a modified sonata design, effectively a rhapsodic play on two contrasted themes, one of which may conjure up “a vision of Tora.” The Adagio con sentimento that follows may glance toward the early Romantics, yet its harmonic language is unmistakably Wagnerian. Tender and reflective, it unfolds in a sophisticated binary structure, each half containing two distinct ideas. The Scherzo dances along in a lively 6/8 with a few unexpected twists. The finale, an Allegretto, is a deftly crafted rondo, its genial refrain framing two contrasting episodes and propelled by a succession of striking modulations; towards the close, it nods back to both the first movement and the Adagio. Listeners who cherish Brahms, Schumann and Schubert will find much to enjoy in this warm‑hearted, affectionate sonata which is in no way a pastiche or parody.

This recital of Parry’s piano repertoire is well‑judged, sympathetic and alert to every shift of mood and character. Howell beautifully captures these diverse historical threads - from Baroque frameworks to high-Romanticism - synthesising them to highlight an important, if not fully recognised, voice. It is supported by an outstanding recording.

I am indebted to Christopher Howell’s outstanding liner notes in preparing this review; they are engaging, informative, and refreshingly untechnical. A résumé of the soloist and his discography is also provided. The disc’s cover features a contemporary print of the Royal College of Music on Prince Consort Road.

There is ample scope for a third volume to round off this absorbing survey of Parry’s published piano music. One can only hope it appears before long, bringing to completion what has already proved a fascinating exploration of a too‑often overlooked corner of his catalogue.

Track Listing:
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918)
Sonata in A major (1876-77, pub.1878)
Sonnets and Songs Without Words: Book 2 (1867-75, pub.1875)
Hands Across the Centuries: Suite (pub. 1918)
Christopher Howell (piano)
rec. 2023, Studio of Griffa e Figli, Milan, Italy
Da Vinci Classics C01138

 

Constant Lambert’s Some Recent Works by William Walton Part 2

Constant Lambert continues his 1928 discussion of some "recent works" of William Walton: 

The music for the entertainment Façade [1] includes, in its different versions, work ranging over several years, although the only published numbers are of recent date. For the benefit of those who have not heard Façade it may be explained that the entertainment consists of a series of poems by Miss Edith Sitwell, spoken through a megaphone to the accompaniment of six instruments, namely, flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, 'cello and percussion. Both orchestra and reciter are concealed by a screen decorated with a large mask, through the mouth of which the megaphone protrudes. The poems are recited, for the most part, 'senza espressione', but with the utmost precision and variety of rhythm.

The collaboration is most successful, and one can think of no other composer who could so well supply the musical equivalent of what has been admirably described as 'the hallucinated vision, the glassily clear technique, the curiously profound wit of Edith Sitwell's poems. In the early version of' Façade the music did little save add a background of strange arabesques and unexpected timbres to the poems; in the later versions, the music is much more clearly formed and there is a greater wealth of thematic material. The orchestral suite, though a very enjoyable work, represents only one side of Façade, for the composer has chosen the more brilliant and satirical numbers for adaptation and one may search in vain for the pastoral charm of 'Daphne' or the sinister atmosphere of 'Four in the Morning'. The composer has kept closely- and in my opinion, too closely - to the form and rhythm of the poems. He has not always realized that certain passages have but little meaning when divorced from their peculiar method of presentation; thus, in the fourth number we are given nothing save a rather perfunctory crescendo passage to take the place of the brilliant cadenza for voice which (in the entertainment) leads from the tango to the pasodoble.

The only piece in which he has departed from the original form of the poem is the Tarantella-Sevillana, [2] perhaps the most successful number in the suite, where the original material has been considerably expanded into a brilliant burlesque of the 'Mediterranean' style.

Siesta, [3] a charmingly scored piece for small orchestra, may at a first hearing strike one as being rather slight, yet is nevertheless very solidly and ingeniously put together. To those ignorant of Walton's early work or of the unpublished numbers of' Façade' the quiet melancholy of this piece may come as a surprise, though in reality it is more typical of the composer than the boisterous high spirits of' Portsmouth Point.

Both emotionally and technically speaking, this piece represents a transition. The ingenious counterpoints and cross rhythms of the quiet first section foreshadow the slow movement of the Piano Concerto, while the nonchalant waltz-tune with which the work ends might have come out of' Façade 'for there is a sadness underlying its apparent frivolity that is reminiscent of much in Miss Edith Sitwell's poetry.

After Siesta there was a distinct pause in the composer's output, but clearly it was a case of' ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ (delaying the inevitable), for with his last work, the Sinfonia Concertante, Walton more than fulfils the high hopes raised by 'Portsmouth Point' and 'Façade'.

It is to be noticed that when a composer has at last attained assurance both in his ideas and their execution, his work has more in common with his earliest compositions than with those immediately preceding his last work. The composer often expresses his personality more completely in his first tentative efforts than in more proficient but less subjective work. that succeed them. When we find that a composer is able to express with the assurance won by his later works the essential thought of his earlier works, we may be confident that he is on the right track, and so it is with pleasure that we notice in the Sinfonia Concertante [4] not only the brilliance of Portsmouth Point and a Façade but also the deep feeling of the best parts in the early piano quartet. The not too suitable title might perhaps lead the ignorant to expect the usual up-to-date pastiche of the classical manner (based for the most part on material that Bach or Handel would have disdained to use for a bridge passage) but the classicism of the Sinfonia Concertante lies not in any external mannerisms but in the absolute concision of form with which is expressed a genuine emotion. 

This work is an advance toward both a greater richness and a greater simplicity. A certain unnecessary complication has hitherto been a feature of nearly all Walton's work (the only criticism would make of Portsmouth Point, for instance, is that its difficulty is out of proportion to its length and scope); and even the Sinfonia he seems at times strangely uninclined to present his ideas with the bareness that would actually throw them into higher relief than does the rich but not always essential arabesque with which he surrounds them. This stricture aside, however, one can but admire the concision originality of form, the wealth of vigorous thematic material and the ease, reminiscent of Borodin at his best, with which these themes are combined. The slow movement with its delightful cross-rhythm is perhaps the most satisfying, but the work is essentially a whole and the coda of the scherzo-finale, in which the themes of the previous movements are freely woven together, is no mere academic device but the natural consequence of the ideas themselves.

Those critics, whether amateur or professional, whose one interest in a work lies in the detection of influences may murmur ‘Prokofiev’ at one or two passages, but if he has in any way derived from the Russian composer it has been from his best qualities, his clarity and his lyricism, for the Sinfonia Concertante is entirely free from the empty virtuosity that spoils so much of Prokofiev's otherwise admirable work. The entire absence of affectation (whether the urbane affectation of the Parisians or the bucolic affectation of the English) would alone earn it distinction, and to my mind it is not only the most satisfactory of modern concertos but one of the finest works of this decade.

Naturally one cannot tell as yet whether this work is merely a passing efflorescence of Walton's talent or whether it is the beginning of a series of fine works: the composer's progress, though outwardly erratic, has in reality been steady, and if while maintaining his past brilliance he can remain unmoved by the petty vogues and reactions which trouble the musical world of to-day, there is every hope that his last compositions are but a presage of what is to follow. He has already given proof of such vitality and fecundity of imagination that the musical world will look forward to his next important work; one can form but little idea of his future development save that of all modern composers he is the least likely to remain in a groove.

The Dominant Volume 1. No.4 February 1928 p.16-19. 

Notes:

[1] Façade needs little introduction. It has been assessed as Walton’s most mercurial creation, evolving from the private 1922 “entertainments” with Edith Sitwell’s recited poems into a sequence of orchestral suites and later a full ballet. Its characteristic is the fusion of modernist wit, popular dance rhythms, and incisive instrumental colour, all supporting Sitwell’s surreal verbal gymnastics. The original chamber ensemble gave the music a cabaret‑like sparkle; the later orchestral incarnations expand its brilliance without losing its sly, jazzy edge. Across all versions, Façade remains a uniquely stylish hybrid - satirical, quick‑witted, and irresistibly theatrical.

[2] The Tarantella‑Sevillana does not appear in the original recitation version of Façade, but it is included as the concluding number of Suite No. 1. Walton added it to the suite because its brilliant orchestral colour and high‑spirited rhythmic drive made an ideal, crowd‑pleasing finale for the concert‑hall incarnation of Façade.

[3] Siesta (1926) is one of Walton’s most captivating early miniatures, a warm, unhurried evocation of Mediterranean heat. Its gently rocking rhythms, soft brass colours and wistful melodic turns suggest a lazy afternoon drifting by. The piece is brief, but its atmosphere is unmistakable: sun‑drenched, slightly nostalgic, and already showing Walton’s knack for clear, elegant orchestral writing without any hint of grandstanding.

[4] The Sinfonia Concertante was composed in 1926–27 as a ballet score for Diaghilev, who rejected it. Walton then reworked the material into the present three‑movement work for piano and orchestra. It received its premiere at London’s Queen’s Hall on 5 January 1928 in a Royal Philharmonic Society concert broadcast by the BBC, with York Bowen as soloist and Ernest Ansermet conducting the Royal Philharmonic Society Orchestra. Walton later described the first performance as “bloody, though the applause tumultuous. The work was terribly under‑rehearsed; in fact, the players just about knew the notes and that was all.” The Sinfonia Concertante is a bright, sharp‑edged early Walton score, full of rhythmic sparkle, neo‑classical poise, and a distinctly urban wit. Its percussive piano writing and lean, 

glittering orchestration give the whole work a youthful, slightly ironic brilliance rather than any claim to profundity.

In closing, this essay traces William Walton’s artistic maturation, arguing that his early, eclectic experiments with atonality and jazz prepared him to forge a distinctly national yet globally appealing voice. The author positions the overture Portsmouth Point as Walton's breakthrough, praising its concise form, diatonic clarity, and sophisticated, non-formulaic integration of jazz rhythms. Through analyses of the mixed-media entertainment Façade, the melancholic transition piece Siesta, and the Sinfonia Concertante, the author commends Walton's trajectory toward formal economy and emotional depth.

Written with an engaging, assertive, and contemporary (1928) critical voice, the essay successfully balances technical insight with accessible aesthetic evaluation. Its primary strength lies in its nuanced defence of Walton's eclecticism, correctly identifying how diverse influences - from Catalan folk dances to jazz - combine into a cohesive style rather than a derivative pastiche.

However, the text occasionally suffers from sweeping generalisations, particularly its dismissive attitude toward contemporary British nationalism (RVW?) and its rigid critiques of Schoenberg and Prokofiev. The final paragraph leans toward repetitive speculation regarding Walton's future. Despite these minor flaws, it remains a compelling, historically grounded defence of Walton’s early genius.

Concluded.

Constant Lambert’s Some Recent Works by William Walton Part I

Constant Lambert’s writing about music remains one of the sharpest, wittiest, and most penetrating bodies of criticism produced by any British composer of the twentieth century. In Music Ho! (1934), his landmark survey of modern culture, he combines satire, polemic, and genuine analytical insight to argue that contemporary music had lost touch with vitality, popular culture, and emotional directness. Plus ça change! Lambert’s prose is urbane, ironic, and steeped in wide reading, yet capable of sudden, devastating clarity. He champions jazz and music-hall idioms as antidotes to what he saw as academic sterility, and he writes with equal brilliance on Stravinsky, Elgar, and the Ballets Russes. His criticism is never neutral; it is shaped by a composer’s ear, a conductor’s practical experience, and a moralist’s concern for artistic honesty. Even when one disagrees with him, Lambert’s arguments illuminate the musical landscape with uncommon style and intellectual bite.

In 1928, Lambert contributed a substantial survey of William Walton’s music to The Dominant, the short‑lived yet spirited British music magazine that ran from November 1927 to November 1929. Notable for its lively criticism and commitment to contemporary debate, The Dominant championed new British composers, challenged entrenched institutions, and offered sharp, often provocative commentary - an ideal forum for Lambert’s incisive advocacy of Walton. The present essay appeared in Volume 1. No.4 February 1928 p.16-19:

"Although the overture Portsmouth Point [1] is the first composition by which William Walton became known to the general public, it is by no means his first work on an ambitious scale.

Amongst the many interesting works that preceded it we may mention the early piano quartet, the atonal string quartet, the rhapsodical toccata for violin and pianoforte and the Fantasia Concertante for two pianos, jazz band, and orchestra. [2]

Though none of these works is lacking either in invention or technical proficiency, the composer has rightly chosen not to produce or revive them, for, interesting though they may be to a student of his work, they are too obviously the product of one particular influence, be it Schoenberg or Gershwin, not to come as a disappointment after the striking originality and freshness of Portsmouth Point.

This work (which takes its title from an amusing drawing by Rowlandson) was not only the most original and successful composition that Walton had yet produced but the first in which he struck a definitely English note.

I do not mean by this that he has in any way succumbed to the fabricated and pseudo-archaic nationalism that has proved such a blind alley to nine out of ten British composers, but that one finds in this work that spirit of clarity and decision combined with a robust good humour that has characterized so much of our art, whether in literature or painting. Eclecticism is the bugbear of those spirits who are too weak to stand without the help of some narrowly exclusive national or political formula, but there is no doubt that it is to the eclectic quality of his earlier work that Walton owes his capacity for producing works that are at the same time English and international in their appeal -  the first works, perhaps, since Boyce and Dibdin [3] to which this description may rightly be applied.

Although Portsmouth Point is only a few minutes long, it is one of the most sustained efforts I know of in modern music, for the form is concision itself and is a complete absence of the meaningless melodic and rhythmic repetitions that mar so much contemporary Work. It is possible, no doubt, to divide the work into exposition, development, etc., but the impression we receive is of one headlong section, an effect in no way weakened by the profusion of thematic material.

Melodically speaking, the work derives to a certain extent from traditional nautical tunes and from the more breezy English eighteenth century composers. It is interesting to note a similarity in certain passages to the symphonies of Boyce, although at the time the composer was completely ignorant of these works. Another melodic influence has been the 'sardanas' of Catalonia. These folk dances have nothing in common with the rest of Spanish music and are distinguished by their clear-cut form and vigorous melodic line; the tunes are often curiously English in atmosphere and therefore their Influence has in no way caused an inconsistency of style in Walton's music. (With the possible exception of Deodat de Sévérac [4] I know of no other composer who has been swayed by this delightful popular tradition.) From the harmonic point of view the work raises no problems. The style is broadly diatonic with a free use of diatonic discords but with nothing approaching either atonality or polytonality; we are presented with neither cliches nor innovations.

From the rhythmic point of view the work is fascinating; unlike so many modern works, it is no rhythmic tour de force that is incapable of development, but an experiment that points the way to a really intelligent use of jazz rhythms.

It has been unfortunate that those composers who have sought inspiration in jazz have not only made use of its exhilarating. rhythmic qualities but have incorporated also the more obvious harmonic cliches, the circumscribed form and the flat and uninspired melodic line that not even the utmost use of arabesque can save from deadness. Walton was guilty of this himself in the Fantasia Concertante, but in Portsmouth Point, though he has introduced the most violent syncopations of rhythm, he has applied them to his own melodic and harmonic basis and has steered clear of the monotonous foursquare rhythm that is the depressing though essential feature of modern dance music.

Like many of his works, Portsmouth Point has undergone several revisions - the revision, as usual, being on the side of simplicity and brevity. The final scoring (played at the Promenade Concerts this year) is a great improvement on the first version (played as an interlude at the Russian Ballet) [5] which was altogether too detailed and elaborate for so complex a work. It should be an axiom, surely, that the more complicated the essential texture of a work, the simpler should be its method of presentation. The ear cannot humanly be expected to follow the combined complexity and eccentricity of harmony, melody, counterpoint, and orchestration that is to be found in the stage works of Schoenberg, for example.

Notes:

[1] Portsmouth Point was written between Spring and November 1925 and was dedicated to the soldier‑poet, Siegfried Sassoon. It was premiered in Zürich, Tonhalle, 22 June 1926 (4th ISCM Festival) with the Tonhalle Orchestra, conducted by Volkmar Andreae. The first British performance took place at His Majesty’s Theatre on 28 June 1926, heard as an orchestral interlude in a ballet evening, played by the Diaghilev Ballets Russes’ resident ensemble under Eugene Goossens. Walton’s Portsmouth Point Overture crackles with swaggering rhythms, bustling energy, and bright orchestral colour, capturing Rowlandson’s boisterous harbour scene in a whirlwind of syncopation, high spirits, and youthful bravado.

[2] Lambert refers to Walton’s Fantasia Concertante for two pianos, jazz band, and orchestra. This work, composed between 1923 and 1924 has been lost. It is assumed that Walton imagined it would be played at one of Debroy Somer’s Savoy Orpheans concerts at the Queen’s Hall. At the time, Walton was experimenting with jazz‑inflected orchestral writing, and Somers’s band was one of the few London ensembles capable of performing such a hybrid score.

[3] William Boyce (1711–1779) was an English composer and organist whose church music, symphonies and theatrical scores made him a central figure in Georgian musical life. As Master of the King’s Musick, he helped codify the English choral tradition and preserved earlier repertoire through his influential Cathedral Music. Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) was a singer, actor, dramatist and prolific songwriter, recalled for his nautical ballads that shaped Britain’s maritime imagination. His one‑man entertainments, operas and theatre ventures made him a defining voice of late‑eighteenth‑century popular culture, influencing public morale during the Napoleonic era.

[4] Déodat de Sévérac (1872–1921) was a French composer whose music is inseparable from the landscapes and languages of southern France. He drew deeply on Occitan (Romance language of Southern France) and Catalan folk song, absorbing their melodic contours, dance rhythms, and vocal inflections into a very personal Impressionist‑tinged style.

[5] During the 1926 Diaghilev season at His Majesty’s Theatre, orchestral interludes were first used to bridge ballet scenes and provide audiences with glimpses of contemporary concert music. Conducted by Eugene Goossens, the resident orchestra performed a sequence of short works that reflected Diaghilev’s eclectic taste. These interludes offered a momentary shift from the stage to the pit, highlighting modern British and European composers while maintaining the evening’s theatrical momentum. Heard in this context, the music functioned both as atmospheric punctuation and as a showcase for the orchestra’s virtuosity during one of the Ballets Russes’ final London seasons. The list of composers is considerable, and included music by Lord Berners, Claude Debussy, Arthur Bliss, and Georges Bizet.

To be continued

Handel's The Harmonious Blacksmith

I found this little description of Handel’s delightful keyboard piece The Harmonious Blacksmith in an old book: Stories of Standard Teaching Pieces, by a certain Edward Baxter Perry. It was published in 1910 by Theo Presser Co. 1712 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

Edward Baxter Perry was an established American pianist‑lecturer whose books helped shape early‑20th‑century musical education in the United States. Blind from childhood, he had built a career not only as a performer but as a gifted communicator, someone who could make the European piano repertoire feel vivid and accessible to amateurs. By this point he was best known for his Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works, a series that blended musical explanation, anecdote, and gentle aesthetic guidance. His prose was clear, enthusiastic, and designed to help students and teachers understand what a piece was trying to express and how to listen to it with imagination.

In 1910 he published Stories of Standard Teaching Pieces, a companion to his earlier analytical volumes. It reflects the same mission: to democratise classical music appreciation for piano teachers, students, and the flourishing network of American music clubs. Perry organised widely used teaching repertoire by level and purpose, offering expressive cues, literary associations, and small narrative “legends” to help young pianists grasp a piece’s character. His writing from this period shows him at the height of his influence - an educator‑advocate who believed that understanding music’s emotional world was as important as mastering its technical demands.

The present anecdote does move into the realms of fantasy, however it is fair to say that for Perry, the literal truth of the story mattered far less than its power to ignite a student's imagination. In his view, a vivid myth was a perfectly legitimate tool if it helped a young player connect emotionally with the music. Writing with his characteristic warmth and descriptive flair, he introduced the piece to his readers with the following vivid narrative:

“This is decidedly the most famous of all Handel's works for the piano, was formerly in universal use, and still holds its own to some extent in popular favour, even appearing at times on the concert programs of prominent artists. It is a good study in clear, melodic phrasing, and crisp, clean-cut finger work.

It consists of a simple, cheerful theme with several increasingly difficult variations, a form once very much in vogue but now rather antiquated and seldom used. It is said to have been conceived under the following circumstances. Handel, who was living in England at the time, was on his way one summer afternoon to the chapel at Cannons [an estate near to Stanmore, Middlesex] to use the organ. He was caught in a sudden thunder shower and took temporary refuge in the village smithy. The sturdy, cheery smith was hard at work at his anvil and sang to himself as he worked, keeping time with the ringing rhythmic blows of the hammer.

This lusty, jovial song, to the fitting accompaniment of the hammer strokes on the iron, while the sparks flew in bright showers and the ruddy forge-fire glowed in the background, furnished Handel with the actual theme, as well as the general idea for this composition. This picture of simple village life and honest cheerful toil in old England should be borne clearly in mind by the player, and its mood reproduced in the music. Alas! for the hearty, healthy, happy yeoman of the old days whom it recalls! The type is wellnigh obsolete in our time.

The melody is supposed to be the song of the smith, note for note, as he sang it, and the suggestions of rhythmic hammer strokes, and clanging anvil, and flying sparks, are obvious and unmistakable. The atmosphere of the forge has been retained, but at the same time, mediocrity has been avoided.

This work is a bit of avowed realism, though written at a time when descriptive music was supposed to be unknown or disdained. The fact is that its beginnings are to be found even among the works of Handel, Haydn, and most of the other so-called severe classicists. Even Bach in his dance forms was pictorial."

 A little more factually than Perry, The Harmonious Blacksmith is the later nickname for the Air and Variations that closes Handel’s Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430, published in 1720 as part of his first harpsichord collection. Handel himself called it nothing more than an air with variations; the colourful title only emerged a century later, probably when the Bath music‑seller William Lintern - a former blacksmith - issued the piece separately around 1822. Romantic tales of Handel being inspired by a blacksmith’s hammering are Victorian inventions, but the tune does have earlier roots, echoing material in Playford’s English country dances and in Handel’s own youthful opera Almira.

Listen to George Frideric Handel’s The Harmonious Blacksmith played by Wilhelm Kempff on YouTube, here.

Bach Organ Landscapes Volume 10

Paraphrasing the advertising material for this new disc, one learns that Organ Landscapes was conceived as a long‑term artistic project (2017–2026), comprising ten double albums and two vinyl editions. It presents Bach’s organ music as a body of work shaped by instruments, buildings, and changing artistic perspectives, rather than as a single interpretative concept. Each recording contributes to a broader musical and cultural picture, documenting selected repertoire and an ongoing engagement with questions of context, sound, and interpretation across different acoustic environments.

The first CD in this present recital (Volume 10), performed by organist, harpsichordist, and conductor Jörg Halubek, presents seven works by J. S. Bach in arrangements or adaptations for the late‑Romantic organ. Alongside original organ and harpsichord compositions, it includes pieces written for other media, notably the Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) and the famous Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major (BWV 1068). They are performed here on the Wilhelm Sauer organ of St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, an instrument built and remodelled in 1889/1908.

Several of these were arranged by Karl Straube (1873–1950). Deeply influenced by Max Reger’s dense, orchestral organ writing, Straube believed Bach’s music should be realised with the full expressive power of the modern organ. His approach was not antiquarian, but devotional; he aimed to reveal its emotional depth through Romantic means, reimagining Bach rather than "correcting" him. Issued around 1913, his editions were inspired by the Wilhelm Sauer organs he championed: instruments boasting huge dynamic resources, complex stop‑changing mechanisms, and widely contrasting divisions.

These editions became deeply influential in early 20th‑century German church and conservatory life, establishing an opulent, orchestral Bach as the prevailing norm. While the historically informed performance movement later pushed back against this entrenched tradition - leaving Straube’s editions to be valued chiefly today as documents of reception history - they remain invaluable for understanding how Bach was heard in the early 1900s. Straube overlaid the scores with dynamics Bach never imagined, introduced legato phrasing, and thickened textures to suit large Romantic instruments.

The other composers represented here - Max Reger, Wilhelm Middelschulte, and Sigfrid Karg‑Elert also held a deep respect for Bach’s organ music, though their approaches differed. Reger valued “orchestral registrations” but prioritised “contrapuntal density,” expanding textures and adding chromatic inflections. Middelschulte’s Chaconne transcription transforms the violin masterpiece into a grand, symphonic structure. Karg‑Elert, by contrast, sought harmonic colour, exploiting delicate, often Impressionistic registrations, evident in his arrangements of the Air (BWV 1068) and the Pastoral Symphony (BWV 248).

Interestingly, Straube later underwent a radical “conversion” in the 1920s, abandoning his late‑Romantic aesthetic for a more “Baroque‑authentic” style influenced by the Orgelbewegung (Organ Reform Movement), whereas Reger and Middelschulte, for different reasons, continued to work within a fundamentally Romantic/symphonic conception of Bach’s music.

The second CD of the set pivots to an entirely different interpretative world, presenting Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). My first encounter with it came in the early 1970s via Karl Richter’s harpsichord recording for the Archiv Produktion Bach Edition, followed by pianist Glenn Gould’s legendary 1981 account for CBS Masterworks - exquisitely played, if inevitably punctuated by his vocalising. These days my preferred version is András Schiff’s 2003 ECM recording – once again for piano. Until this present release I had not heard it performed on the organ.

Bach’s Goldberg Variations (c.1741) form the fourth part of the Clavierübung (Keyboard Practice). He described it as “an aria with diverse variations for a two‑manual harpsichord, composed for the refreshment of music lovers.” Anecdotally, it was written for his pupil J. G. Goldberg to play to Count Keyserling as a remedy for his insomnia, though this attestation has since been disputed.

The set opens with an ornamented aria built over a ground bass that underpins all thirty variations. These include a complete cycle of canons at increasing intervals before it closes with a playful quodlibet weaving together popular song melodies of the day.

o the Goldberg Variations work on the organ? Halubek's transcription suggests they do. He describes the composition as “diary‑like,” a sequence of episodes without a fixed goal. The historically styled Central German, three‑manual organ at Trinity Church, Regensburg, dating from 2020 is sympathetic to Bach registrations. The thirty‑two sections “invite register combinations” that can sound novel to the ear. Though the fast movements call for crisp, articulate registrations, the organ’s wide range of stops lets the listener follow the shape of the whole cycle, from the French Overture of the 16th variation through the many canons to the final quodlibet, and in doing so offers a persuasive alternative to the harpsichord or piano.

The well-illustrated booklet lacks detailed notes on these works and their arrangers. Organ specifications are given for both instruments, as well as a biography of the organist, harpsichordist, and conductor, Jörg Halubek.

This tenth volume of Organ Landscapes serves as a fascinating study of Bach’s music as it was shaped and reshaped by the fashions of different eras. By contrasting the lush, orchestral "devotion" of the Straube era with his own lucid, "diary-like" realisation of the Goldberg Variations, Jörg Halubek bridges the gap between Romantic “enthusiasm and excess” and modern clarity.

Track Listing:
Arrangements of Bach’s Music.

CD1
Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863-1943)
from: Partita No.2 in D minor (BWV 1004): Chaconne
Karl Straube (1873-1950)
Prelude in A major (BWV 536)
Max Reger (1873-1916)
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV 903)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
from: Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) Pastoral Symphony
Karl Straube
Prelude and Fugue in C major (BWV 547)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert
from: Suite No. 3 in D major (BWV 1068) Air célèbre
Karl Straube
Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV 542)
CD2
Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) (pub.1741)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Jörg Halubek (organs)
rec. 2024, St. Thomas’s Church, Leipzig; 2025, Trinity Church, Regensburg Germany. 

Berlin Classics 0303620BC

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.

It's not British, but...Poulenc: Music for Two Pianos

The recital opens with one of my favourite pieces by Francis Poulenc: L'Embarquement pour Cythère. Composed in 1951, it is the only published number linked to his score for the film Le Voyage en Amérique, though its exact origin remains a bit of a mystery. It was originally requested by the American piano duo Robert Fizdale and Arthur Gold (affectionately called "Les Boys") for a 1952 concert in New York. Poulenc described it as "an evocation of the banks of the Marne, so dear to my childhood," and impudently suggested to the duo, "I don’t think you should include it in your programme, but rather keep it as a bombe-surprise for an encore...” In Greek mythology, Cythera (French Cythère) is an island associated with the birth and cult of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Ancient sources describe her rising from sea‑foam near the island before travelling on to Cyprus. In art and literature, “going to Cythera” becomes a poetic metaphor for journeys toward love, beauty, and sensual longing, which is exactly the symbolism Poulenc draws on in L’Embarquement pour Cythère.

The Concert champêtre was completed in 1928, having been originally developed as a concerto for harpsichord and orchestra. It was composed for the legendary harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, whose pioneering performances and teaching played a significant role in the 20th-century revival of the instrument. As the liner notes explain, Poulenc later expanded the solo part for the piano, a version he frequently performed himself. He also arranged a reduction of the orchestral score, effectively creating an authorised version for two pianos. Interestingly, Karl B Schmidt in his indispensable catalogue recalls Poulenc’s comments that “the piano version of the Concert champêtre is only a poor substitute, you hear me right, a poor substitute.” Yet, fittingly, Landowska gave the work its private premiere, with Poulenc himself accompanying her on a second piano.

The concerto unfolds in three distinct movements. The opening is introduced by slow, solemn, and slightly discordant measures, which quickly give way to an Allegro molto in a bright, 18th-century style full of the cheerful irreverence typical of Poulenc at this time. This is followed by the central Andante, a tender, melodically and harmonically exquisite inspiration. Finally, the Presto finale (très gai) masterfully sets Handelian brilliance against Stravinskian bite, all held firmly under Poulenc’s neo-classically disciplined control.

The Élégie for 2 pianos is one of the most heart-breaking numbers that Poulenc composed. It was written during the summer of 1959 to commemorate the death of his friend, the French aristocrat, soprano, pianist, and patron of the arts, Marie-Blanche de Polignac. The piece begins wistfully before building up into a considerable climax with increasingly “bittersweet” chords. The subtitle of Élégie is “en accords alternés,” and this is represented by chords being passed back and forth between the players until they come together for the tormented coda. It is given a suitably tragic performance here. Amusingly, Poulenc left a note in the score instructing the pianists to perform it with a relaxed, spontaneous feel: "as if you were improvising it, a cigar in your mouth, a glass of cognac on the piano."

The ambitious Sonata for two pianos takes a little bit of effort to fully unearth. This is not an example of Poulenc’s lighter, satirical style but instead demands engagement with weighty and often emotionally charged music. Here we have drama, darker episodes, chorale-like textures, and not a few “soaring” melodies thrown in for good measure. Aggressive dissonances are sharply contrasted with passages of achingly beautiful material. Composed between 1952, Poulenc wrote the piece for the above mentioned “Les Boys,” who premiered it during a BBC broadcast in London on November 2, 1953. Poulenc later noted that it was begun in a room at the Hôtel Beauvau in Marseille during December of 1952 which was the same hotel that Chopin stayed at with George Sand upon returning from Majorca.

Structurally, the sonata is built around its emotional core: the third movement lyrical Andante lyrico. The Prologue introduces contrasting, stormy themes, while the Allegro molto offers a dynamic scherzo with a cool centre. After the Andante provides the work’s reflective heart, the Epilogue revisits earlier material, framing the entire sonata with a haunting final thought.

One of the reasons I looked forward to reviewing this disc was to hear Le Voyage en Amerique. I knew about the score but have never had the opportunity to hear it. Poulenc devised the music for the eponymous film in 1951. Wikipedia explains that its plot deals with a French couple travelling to America for their daughter’s childbirth - she had married a GI - confronting culture shock and rediscovering their quiet life’s value back in La Belle France.

As to the music, much of it is in a “popular dance hall style” with lots of swing, panache, and vivacity. Yet, on the other hand, there is a touch of the “melancholic” acting as a kind of sympathetic undercurrent. The performance as presented here is made up of noticeably short cues, sometimes only a handful of bars long. Is that a “pistol” shot in the fourth section, a piano lid falling shut or a box of bolts falling on the floor?

The final part of the “suite” gives a reprise of L'Embarquement pour Cythère this time with the addition of an accordion. Very Gallic.

What makes this release truly remarkable, however, is that the liner notes explain the original holograph (manuscript) was lost. The present transcription had to be produced “by ear” entirely from the film’s audio soundtrack. This kind of ability always impresses me; a touch of genius is required to make such a realisation.

Poulenc provided Yvonne Printemps, an old friend and collaborator, with two songs for the film: Chanson de marin and Adieu maison. Only the latter has been included on this disc, as there has been a previous recording made of the former. This is a pity.

This release is an essential addition to any French music enthusiast’s library. Antony Gray and Rob Hao navigate Poulenc’s distinct sound world with complete assurance, balancing his trademark music-hall irreverence against the profound, darker undercurrents of the Sonata and Élégie. Alise Seliņa’s brief accordion contribution adds a wonderful touch of Parisian nostalgia, while Helen Miles delivers a poignant Adieu maison. Even if Poulenc grumbled about the two-piano Concert champêtre, it sounds marvellous here. Combined with the remarkable “ear-transcription” of the lost Le Voyage en Amérique score, this beautifully recorded disc offers a deeply rewarding, thoroughly authoritative recital.

Track Listing:
Francis Poulenc (1889-1963)
L'Embarquement pour Cythère (1951)
Concert champetre (version for 2 pianos) (1928)
Élégie for 2 pianos (1959)
Sonata for 2 pianos (1953)
Voyage en Amérique (transcr. Antony Gray) (1951)
Adieu Maison (1951)
Antony Gray (piano); Rob Hao (piano); Alise Seliņa (Accordion); Helen Miles (soprano)
rec. 2025, Wathen Hall, Lonsdale Road, London.
Divine Art ddx 21149

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.