William Wolstenholme: Organ Music on Priory

William Wolstenholme has been ill served by the recording industry: there are (not including the present disc) only seven of his works available in the current Arkiv CD catalogue. In fact, I cannot recall being at any organ recital or church service in recent years when his music was played.

I have been a fan of William Wolstenholme ever since hearing the late Charles MacDonald playing the Finale in B flat on the organ of St. Olave’s Church, Marygate, York. This was over thirty years ago. It was subsequently recorded on a compilation of organ music from churches in that city. Many years later I enjoyed Dr. John Kitchen’s performance of the Organ Sonata No. 1 in F major played on the organ of Coats Memorial Church, Paisley, Scotland (Priory PRCD 805).

A brief note on the composer’s life and work may be of interest. William Wolstenholme was born in Blackburn, Lancashire on 24 February 1865. He was blind from birth and was was educated at the Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen. He showed considerable promise as a musician and impressed Henry Smart who agreed to take him as a pupil. Alas, Smart died before lessons began. He was duly trained in music by Dr William Done of Worcester. He also studied the violin under Edward Elgar. Wolstenholme appeared at a Worcester Philharmonic Society in a performance of the Mendelssohn G minor piano concerto. In 1887 he went up to Oxford University where he later graduated as a Bachelor of Music.

In 1888 he was appointed organist and choirmaster of St Paul’s Church, Blackburn and began to consolidate his position as a teacher, recitalist and improviser. Fourteen years later he accepted the post of organist at All Saint’s Church Norfolk Square, Paddington and afterwards at All Saints, St. John’s Wood. In 1908 he undertook a major concert tour of the United States. This secured his ‘international’ reputation. William Wolstenholme died in 1931.

Although he is primarily regarded as a composer of organ works, his catalogue includes choral music including a cantata, Lord Ullin's Daughter, for soloist, chorus and strings, numerous anthems, madrigals, song cycles and a number of detached pieces for piano, harp, mandolin, violin, viola and oboe.

Stylistically, he has been referred to as the ‘English Cesar Franck’ and although this may be unfair to both composers it is a reasonable rule of thumb and gives the listener a good idea of the kind and quality of music to expect. It is also possible that he can be bracketed with Alfred Hollins and Basil Harwood.

The recital gets off to a great start with the fine Concert Overture No.2 in G which was dedicated to Roger Ascham, one-time Municipal Organist of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. This is written in a ‘loose’ sonata form and manages to balance a serious ‘first subject’ with a lyrical and lighter second. It is a well written work that showcases the composer’s style and achievement. This is a good place to begin to explore this music.

The Serenata is a little more ephemeral, but even here Wolstenholme shows his fine melodic skill and ability to create an enchanting piece of music. The Scherzo in B flat is a neat and attractive piece that uses the tonal colours of the organ to good effect. The Romanza has a lovely, sustained tune that epitomises its title. There is nothing ‘churchy’ about this music: it is quite simply a ‘love-song’. The following ‘Allegretto’ from the same set of pieces is a nicely balanced little number that certainly charms. However, there is nothing ‘slight’ about the Fantasia in E, Op.33 No. 1. This is a long, involved, complex piece that explores a variety of moods and instrumental registrations. The work is cast in four parts, with a ‘vigorous opening motif’ followed by a lovely ‘andante espressivo’ showcasing an oboe melody. There follows a contrasting maestoso section before the work ends with a competent but never academic, fugue. It is possibly the most important work on this CD.

The ‘Allegro scherzando’ has shades of Elgar about it whilst the Epilogue explores slightly deeper waters as a well-balanced work progressing from a dissonant opening chord which is followed by an impressive ‘allegro’ before giving way to an adagio section. The composer juxtaposes both harmonic and contrapuntal resources in this remarkable but quite short work.

The Cantilene in A flat is another example of Wolstenholme’s attractive ‘intermezzos’ that combines interest with superb craftsmanship and with a greater depth that the genre usually demands.

The composer’s ‘greatest hit’ is probably the bi-partite work Die Frage & Die Antwort. I have come across the sheet music for this work dozens of times in second-hand bookshops – in both organ and piano formats. And there is a sad tale to this heart-easing work. Michael Harris relates that both pieces were written for Wolstenholme’s fiancée Maud Baldwin. They were composed in 1895. Sadly, the marriage was never to be: her family circumstances prevented the union. Neither she nor the composer was to subsequently marry. This is a truly beautiful work that becomes all the more poignant on hearing the story behind it. The original ‘question’ was quite obviously ‘answered’ with an emphatic ‘Yes!’

The final work in this comprehensive retrospective of William Wolstenholme’s music is the stunning Finale in B flat. This is not a ‘finale’ in the Vierne sense of the word: it is not quite so virtuosic. Yet, it makes an excellent recessional voluntary. This work was dedicated to Alfred Hollins.

Michael Harris is Organist and Master of the Music of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. He is also an academic at the Ian Tomlin School of Music in Napier University in that city. On this CD he is ‘out of area’ playing the excellent Henry Willis II organ at Christ Church, Port Sunlight which is on the banks of the Mersey. The full specification for this instrument is given in the liner notes. Organ enthusiasts will be delighted to know that this organ is the only surviving four manual instrument by that particular builder to remain in its original form – apart from the addition of a modern blower. It was extensively restored between 2005 and 2008 by Henry Willis and Sons.

My only niggle is that the programme notes did not give the dates of all the pieces played: I was able to find this information on-line quite easily.

This is an excellent new CD that fills a major gap in the repertoire of British organ music. All of these works deserve to be played in recitals and given as voluntaries at church services.

Finally, nearly a hundred years ago Harvey Grace wrote about William Wolstenholme as follows: - [His] music is pre-eminently a cheerful one. His compositions have a healthy ring about them, and also much of the flavour of old English songs and dances... While he never sounds a very deep note, his skimming over the surface is done so gracefully that one feels [disinclined] to complain.” Grace further notes that it is a ‘striking fact that the man who has composed the most uniformly happy organ music of today is one whose life has been spent in total darkness.”

It is a good summary of the music presented in this CD.

Track Listing:

William WOLSTENHOLME (1865-1931)

Concert Overture No.2 in G major, Op.61 (1907) Serenata in A (1900) Scherzo in B flat (1912) Romanza Op.17 No.1 (1900)Allegretto Op.17 No.2 (1900)

Fantasia in E major, Op.33 No.1 (1901) Allegretto scherzando (c.1908)

Epilogue (1913) Cantilene in A flat major (c.1905) Die Frage (The Question) (1895) Die Antwort (The Answer) (1895) Finale in B flat major (1895) [6:41]

Michael Harris, the organ of Christ Church, Port Sunlight

PRIORY PRCD1047

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review first appeared.

Frank Bridge's Two Poems

Frank Bridge's Two Poems are based on the now largely forgotten writings of Richard Jefferies. Amongst many other things, this author essayed on life in the English countryside. He was a nature mystic. Perhaps his philosophy is best summed up by the quotation 'The sun was stronger than science; the hills more than philosophy.'

The first of the two poems is scored for a small orchestra and has the following written on the manuscript from The Open Air, a book written in 1885, ‘Those thoughts and feelings which are not sharply defined, but have a haze of distance and beauty about them, are always dearest.’ Paul Hindmarsh well describes this miniature as a ‘restrained essay in veiled sonority, sensuous chromaticism and ambivalent tonality.’ It is not quite pastoralism, but comes close. The use of oboe and muted strings lend credence to this impression.

The second poem is in fact a little scherzo. Unlike the first, it has parts for brass and percussion. It differs, too in the fact that this poem is actually harmonically obvious and the formal structure is much more up front. It is more extrovert in its tone. Bridge has applied Jeffries words from The Story of my Heart to the score, “How beautiful a delight to make the world joyous! The song should never be silent, the dance never still, the laugh should sound like water which runs for ever.”

Frank Bridge's Two Poems can be heard on Naxos 8557167, Lyrita SRCD243.

Proms Watch 2011 Week 5

This is the fifth of my Proms-Watch analysis of British Music being performed during the 2011 Promenade Concert season. This is a rather good week...!

Friday 12th August

Film music at tonight’s Prom – so there are a few pieces by British composers. Certainly the Henry V Suite derived by Muir Mathieson from William Walton’s great score will be most welcome. Richard Rodney Bennett’s music to Murder on the Orient Express is well known to film music buffs as is John Barry’s (John Barry Prendergast, born in York) Out of Africa. A rare treat will be a medley of tunes from the James Bond films, including music by John Barry, David Arnold and George Martin. Other composers include Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann and Jonny Greenwood who is a member of the rock band Radiohead. The BBC Concert Orchestra is conducted by Keith Lockhart.

Saturday 13th August

It is great to have a concert devoted to music by Richard Rodney Bennett (who turned 75 this year) and Elizabeth Maconchy. The Matinee at the Cadogan Hall includes the Debussy-inspired Dream Dancing which was written for the London Sinfonietta in the 1980’s. Also by Bennett, the Jazz Calendar was originally a BBC commission and was choreographed by Frederick Ashton. Elizabeth Maconchy is represented by her Romanza, which is ‘touch-minded’ but ‘soulful’. The other composer is Henri Dutilleux with his Les Citations.

The Saturday Evening ‘comedy’ prom appears to be an open-book. No listings are given on the BBC Prom Website. It is billed as Classical for Starters.

Sunday 14th August

This is another great night for British music. The Proms guide notes that this is ‘a recreation of a Britten concert conducted by the composer at the Proms in 1963 with a contemporary twist provided by Joby Talbot.’

Talbot has written a Chaconny in G minor (after Purcell) which I guess is the twist. Britten realised his own version of this piece in 1948. The major event in this concert is the masterpiece Spring Symphony. The other two works are the Cantata Misericordium and the orchestral Sinfonia da Requiem.

There is a large group of soloists, plus the Trinity Boys Choir, the BBC Singers, Symphony Chorus and Symphony Orchestra. It is all held together by Mark Wigglesworth. Promises to be a highlight of the season.

Monday 15th August

The matinee concert at the Cadogan Hall is an all British event with music by Frank Bridge and his one-time pupil Benjamin Britten. This excellent recital includes Britten’s early Phantasy for oboe and string trio and a two-piano reduction of his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. The ‘master’s’ works include the great Piano Quintet in D minor and the second of his Three Idylls. The performers include Nicolas Daniel (oboe), Tom Poster (piano) and the Aronowitz Ensemble. A great concert.

The evening concert is given over to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre and their conductor Valey Gergiev.

Tuesday 16th August

A big night for British music with a performance of Arnold Bax’s great, but rarely played Second Symphony. A contemporary reviewer wrote in The New York times that 'in this symphony even more than in his first symphony... there is... in the second movement, the Celtic feeling that is characteristic of many of his works; there are themes, there are harmonies of tender, wistful beauty, not free from a pleasing melancholy, but these pages only relieve and enhance the heroic character of the work as a whole, the defiant pages or those of doubt and questioning until there is at the end submission to the inevitable, if not lasting peace. These final pages, artfully simple, leading to silence, are among the most eloquent and impressive in the symphony.'

The remainder of the concert includes Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Samuel Barber’s ubiquitous Adagio for Strings, Bela Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No.4 in C major.

Andrew Litton is in charge of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Wednesday 17th August

No British music at tonight’s Prom. However a good selection of works by Russian composers. The first half of the Prom features Shostakovich’s The Age of Gold-suite and his Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor. After the interval Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka is given in the 1947 version followed by Tchaikovsky’s tone poem Francesca da Rimini.

Thursday 18th August

Again, no British music at tonight’s Prom Concert. The first work, Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra is by the Austrian-born composer Thomas Larcher. It is a BBC commission. The reminder of the concert is given over to Anton Bruckner’s massive Symphony no.5.

The late night concert is a jazz-oriented event featuring Hungarian music.

This week has been another fabulous week for lovers of British music. Three important works from Benjamin Britten, Arnold Bax’s superb Second Symphony, Bridge and Britten chamber music and Walton’s Suite from Henry V. But not forgetting Elizabeth Maconchy and Richard Rodney Bennett...

English Music for Viola on Naxos

It is almost unbelievable, but true, that at the present time there are nine versions of Rebecca Clarke’s fine Viola Sonata in the CD catalogues. Three things spring to mind about this fact. Firstly, this Sonata is a work that fully deserves as much exposure as possible. It is quite definitely a major masterpiece. Secondly, it is an excellent expression of the fact that both British music in general and women’s music in particular, have seen a huge increase in availability over the past two or three decades. Having said that there is much to be done on both accounts. And finally, there is the down side – there are comparatively few Sonatas for viola in the repertoire: any worthy ones are likely to be played much more often by performers than their violin or cello equivalents. This paucity of material also reflects the need of violists to arrange, or have arranged other music for their instrument.

This present CD can be seen as a compilation in two parts. Firstly there are the two sizable works -the Clarke Sonata and the newly discovered Suite by Theodore Holland. Secondly there is a selection of small-scale, but important works by five major names in British music: three of these are arrangements.

I do not want to give a detailed analysis of Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and piano. However four comments are worth noting. Firstly this piece is an undoubted work of genius; it does not need repeated hearing to realise that this is one of the great works of the genre.

Secondly, the Sonata was composed in 1919 for the Coolidge Competition. She wrote it under the pseudonym ‘Anthony Trent’. Interestingly, the winner of the first prize was Bloch’s Suite for viola. Thirdly, Rebecca Clarke was not a prolific composer: the only other work of similar size and scope to this Sonata was her 1921 Piano Trio.

And fourthly, the sound world of the Sonata is complex. It would be easy to write this work off as a concatenation of a variety of post-romantic styles. For example the listener will easily detect the influences of Claude Debussy, English folksong, Ravel and the impressionism associated with the Ravel-inspired music of Vaughan Williams. However, I believe the main influence has to be Brahms. Yet the overall impression of this twenty-minute long, three movement sonata cannot be described as a hanging together of other composers’ styles. The total effect is quite definitely Rebecca Clarke’s own.

I was immediately impressed by the two short pieces by William Walton. They are new to me – at least in this particular arrangement by Matthew Jones. The Canzonetta was based on a thirteenth-century Troubadour’s song which the composer had researched for his film score to Henry V. It is not an exact transcription of the song; however the piano does echo the sound of a strumming stringed instrument. The melody is profound and moving. The following Scherzando is also inspired by the troubadour tradition, but is a little spicier than music of that earlier era would have allowed.

Arnold Bax’s Legend for viola and piano is a dark-hued and introspective work that explores the composer’s fascination with the Celtic twilight. It was composed in 1929 for Lionel Tertis whom Bax had met at the Royal Academy of Music. If there is any criticism of the piece it is that for a work lasting some ten minutes, there are many mood changes. This ranges from ‘the downright sinister to the dreamlike’ in the space of a handful of bars. Yet it is a well written piece that exploits the ‘voice’ and technique of the viola. There is no suggestion as to what the ‘legend’ may actually be.

The four Frank Bridge pieces, Berceuse, Sérénade and Elégie, are well known in their original guise for either violin or cello and piano: the final Cradle Song was originally a mezzo-soprano song to words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. All four numbers work well for the viola and are welcome additions to the repertoire. They were transcribed by Veronica Leigh Jacobs, who was a friend and confidante of Rebecca Clarke.

I had not heard the short Intermezzo by Arthur Bliss before. This miniature was transcribed by Watson Forbes from the middle movement of the composer’s Piano Quartet dating from 1915. Bliss played the viola and also contributed an important Sonata for that instrument. He once described is a ‘the most romantic of the instruments: a veritable Byron in the orchestra’. He added that the viola’s ‘rather restless and tragic personality makes it an ideal vehicle for romantic and oratorical expression.’ The transcription may have been made before the original work was first performed: however it was not published until 1950. It is a light piece that plumbs no great depths, but is attractive, ‘nimble footed’ and melodic. Watson Douglas Buchanan Forbes (1909-1997) although born in Gloucestershire was a Scottish violist and classical music arranger. From 1964 to 1974 he was Head of Music for BBC Scotland.

I have loved the Romance for viola and piano by Ralph Vaughan Williams since first hearing this piece some twenty years ago. The work was discovered amongst the composer’s papers after his death. It was probably composed around the outbreak of the Great War and may have been written for Lionel Tertis. His friendship with Tertis resulted in Flos Campi and the Suite for Viola. Paul Spicer has well described this work as being ‘small in scale but large in dramatic effect.’ It is a fine balance between the pastoral opening and the involved central climax of the work.

For me, the great discovery of this CD is the Suite for Viola and piano by Theodore Holland. I will need to hear this work a number of times and, perhaps, a perusal of the score may help to gain a better understanding of this piece. However on first hearing, this is a fine work that is both attractive and beautiful in its execution. The Suite is in three well-balanced movements that are approachable and satisfying. The mood of the entire suite is typically optimistic however there are some moments of reflection, especially in the ‘romance.’ This is not a derivative work: it is not easy to tie down the influences. Certainly there is little in the way of ‘modernism’ but neither are there any ‘farmers in smocks’.

The opening movement has some of the most involved music that maybe owes something to Bliss’s Viola Sonata. However the tension of the opening bars soon gives way to a more lyrical conversation between soloists.

The Romance is truly lovely with ‘haunting’ but never despairing music. This is passionate, soul searching music that moves the listener. It is almost impossible to hear this movement without being baffled as to why this work has been ignored for so long.

The final ‘allegro vivace’ has a trippy, ‘jazzy’ feel to it, without it being jazz. It is a movement of two parts – the lively outgoing outer sections contrasting with a mysterious, introverted middle section. This Suite in D for viola and piano is certainly one of my major discoveries of 2011 (so far). I hope that Holland’s music can be explored in greater detail in coming years.

This is an excellent CD. The programme is well-balanced, with a good selection of original works and arrangements. The two major pieces are stunningly and convincingly played by Matthew Jones and Michael Hampton: the shorter works are also given enthusiastic and sympathetic performances.

This is essential listening for all chamber music enthusiasts, be they committed to the cause of British music or not. The repertoire of original music for viola and piano is not huge; however this CD disc has presented a few new discoveries to the interested listener. It deserves every success.

Track Listing:

Rebecca CLARKE (1886-1979) Sonata for viola and piano (1919) 
William WALTON (1902-1983) Two Pieces for Viola and Piano (transcribed by Matthew JONES) Canzonetta & Scherzetto (1948-1950) 
Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941) Four Pieces (transcribed by Veroncia Leigh JACOBS) (1901-10) Arnold BAX (1883-1953) Legend for Viola and piano (1929) 
Arthur BLISS (1891-1975) Intermezzo (transcribed by Watson FORBES (1909-1997)) (1914) Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) Romance for Viola and piano (published posth.1962) Theodore HOLLAND (1878-1947) Suite in D for viola and piano (1938)

Matthew Jones (viola) Michael Hampton (piano)

NAXOS 5.572579

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

Franz Reizenstein: New Web Site

A very short post today. I am delighted to see that the new Franz Reizenstein website has gone online at:- Franz Reizenstein.com

Reizenstein is one of the ‘forgotten’ twentieth century composers.’ He was born in Nuremberg in 1911 and studied piano with Leonid Kreutzer and composition with Paul Hindemith. However he came to the United Kingdom in 1934 continued his career in this country under the auspices of Ralph Vaughan Williams and the pianist Solomon. During the Second World War he was interned in the Isle of Man.

After the war, he taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music and in the United States at Boston University.

His works are mainly for chamber ensembles and piano solo; however there are a number of orchestral pieces including a concerto for String Orchestra and a variety of concertos for piano (2), violin and cello. He also wrote the film music for The Mummy (1959) and The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)

Unfortunately he has not been well represented in the CD catalogues – Arkiv notes only seven recordings containing his works however, the new website list some 17 discs.

Grove Dictionary has suggested that Franz Reizenstein’s ‘compositional style evinces a synthesis of the contrapuntal vigour and terse motivic process of Hindemith with the lyrical expansiveness of Vaughan Williams and the English tradition’.

So please have a look at this great new website.

Peter Dickinson: Piano Music on Naxos

I cannot quite recall the first piece of music by Peter Dickinson that I heard. Something tells me that it was probably the Three Statements for Organ. At least I have a copy of that work in my library which I recall buying at Biggars Music Shop in Glasgow in the early ‘seventies. However, whatever the piece was, it would hardly prepare the listener for the piano music on the present CD.

I noted in a review of that particular work that ‘they seem to hold a middle ground between improvisation and control. The three pieces use note-clusters, wide melodic leaps and chords built on fourths for their effect. They are interesting, if a little dated in their sound-world.’ Certainly this sound world could not be further removed from the Rags, Blues and Diversions on this CD. Yet in some ways this is typical of the composer.

It is not necessary to give a biography of Peter Dickinson here: I have already given a thumbnail sketch in my review of his complete solo organ works, also released by Naxos. However one point needs to be clearly made. Dickinson is not a composer to be readily classified. Some artists develop linearly: for example Stravinsky with his romantic, neo-classical and serial periods. Other composers write in the same style all their musical careers with only subtle changes of emphasis. Peter Dickinson explores a number of trajectories at one and the same time. Now, I do not claim to know the entire sweep of his compositions, but I do understand that his works cover the gamut from jazz to serialism and from aleatory writing to electronic manipulation and playback. And then there is Ragtime...

The Naxos sleeve notes give a succinct resume of what this CD is all about: - it is simply a collection of his eccentric and often amusing rags, blues and take-offs. Perhaps any danger of taking these works too seriously and trying to ascribe some higher meaning is negated by the word ‘take-off’. Pastiche can be a difficult and sometimes dangerous art. It is often used pejorative by critic in the manner say that Bloggs has written a pastiche of Delius’ in the sense of ‘an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.’ On the other hand these works are not parodies, which can be defined as ‘an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect’. Pastiches these works may be, but parodies certainly not.

However, the blurb on this CD is on one sense misleading. There are some very serious pieces of music presented here that demands the listener’s full attention. For example, the Paraphrase II which began life as a motet is not really about ragtime, blues or any other popular genre. It is deeply thought out work that is serious intent and execution. In the same manner the Vitalitas Variations, which is the earliest piece on the CD is a work that is not immediately approachable. However, this piece is perhaps one of the most important presented here. In fact, it had another life as a ballet score, having been choreographed by the Mexican dancer Gloria Contreras. There is a chamber and orchestral versions of this work in Dickinson’s catalogue. And certainly the Three Satie Transformations, in spite of being billed as a send-up of a composer who sent up Clementi and others, is actually an extremely effective work in its own right that will hardly make ‘Top of the Pops’, but certainly is attractive, rewarding and often moving.

However, I guess that it is the pieces such as Bach in Blue, the Patriotic Rag, the Wild Rose Rag that will get played on Classic FM (assuming that they ‘discover’ this CD). These are all accomplished examples of the art of pastiche. Perfectly done, never over-stated and never ‘knocking’ or destroying the original models. More serious, but equally approachable are the gorgeous Four Blues which are ‘trance-like versions of hymn-tunes. Perhaps the Five Diversions are a little bit more challenging than the ‘rags’ and are certainly often reflective and introverted but even here the fun and the humour are apparent and lead to a ‘lively and brash ‘ conclusion.

The composer plays all these pieces in a convincing, satisfactory and ultimately enjoyable manner. It is perfectly clear that he is at home as a composer and a performer in this plurality of styles.

As these are mostly ‘World Premiere Recordings’ it is not possible to compare versions. Suffice to say, that virtually any one of these works would make an excellent addition to any concert programme as a main item of perhaps as a novel encore.

This is an excellent CD. However as noted above there is a serious side to what is billed as ‘eccentric and often amusing.’ I like virtually every track on this disc. However I could just about manage to get by without the rags and the blues. The Paraphrase and the Vitalitas are much more enduring and demanding works that deserve to be in the repertoire for all time.

Track Listings:
Peter Dickinson (b.1934)

Wild Rose Rag (1985);Blue Rose (1979);Paraphrase II (1967);Concerto Rag (1980);Quartet Rag (1976); Vitalitas Variations (1957); Three Satie Transformations (1970); Bach in Blue (2004); Hymn-Tune Rag (1985); Patriotic Rag (1986); Four Blues (1973); Five Diversions (1963)

Peter Dickinson (piano)

NAXOS 8.572654

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review first appeared

Proms Watch 2011 Week 4

This is the fourth of my Proms-Watch analysis of British Music being performed during the 2011 season. This is a rather good week...!

Friday 5th August

This week’s activities (the Proms-week begins on Friday as the First Night was on a Friday) is dedicated to a performance of Gustav Mahler’s massive Symphony No.2 in C minor ‘Resurrection’ played by the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra with their conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Interestingly, this is the second symphony by Mahler performed in four weeks. Would that honour be given to a British Composer...?

Saturday 6th August

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain features Benjamin Britten’s excellent Piano Concerto with Benjamin Grosvenor as the soloist. This is an excellent choice for a concert dedicated to ‘young people’ and will hopefully allow the audience to see that BB wrote much fine orchestral music as well as his more famous operas and songs. Other works include selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and a certain Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra. Mr Prokofiev is a London-born composer who ‘has produced Dance, Electro & Hip-hop music under a variety of different guises.’

So a great night for British composers.

At the late night Prom, Nigel Kennedy performs music by J.S. Bach.

Sunday 7th August

On Sunday listeners have yet another opportunity to hear Mahler. This time it is his Das klagende Lied in the original version. This is coupled with Christian Tetzlaff playing the solo part of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major. The BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra along with a galaxy of soloists are conducted by Edward Gardner.

So no British music tonight. And someone at ‘Auntie’ seems to have a soft spot for Gustav Mahler!

Monday 8th August

Khatia Buniatishvili plays Franz Liszt and Sergei Prokofiev at the lunchtime time concert at the Cadogan Hall. This includes Liszt’ great Piano Sonata in B minor.

The evening concert has no British music. However it is a great night of Scandinavian music. Three major works are given by one Finnish, one Norwegian and one Danish composer, Sibelius, Grieg and Nielsen respectively. Pity they could not have found a work by a Swedish composer to truly reflect the ‘extended’ Scandinavian region. And what about Iceland?

Naturally there is no British music tonight.

Tuesday 9th August

Things get much better today! Simon Holt, a North Countryman born in Bolton, Lancashire is represented by the London Premiere of Centauromachy. I have no idea what this will sound like, but the augers seem to suggest that it will be an excellent piece of music. Certainly it would appear to be a million miles away from minimalism and ‘pop’ crossover.

I am delighted that Frank Bridge’s orchestral masterpiece Enter Spring is being given an outing tonight. This is one of the finest tone poems in any musical tradition.

This work is sunny, turbulent, colourful, exuberant and melancholic all in the space of twenty minutes. At the end of the work spring is truly ushered in.

And an extra piece by Bridge too – ‘Blow Out you Bugles’ set for tenor and orchestra.

Other works in this concert include Saint Saëns’s massive ‘Organ’ Symphony and Marcel Dupré’s Cortege and Litany played by the organist Thomas Trotter.

Wednesday 10th August

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s evening is devoid of any British music. However there are a number of fine works Perhaps the highlight of the evening is Sergei Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony in E minor. However, it is good to hear Franz Liszt’s tone poem Mazepa and Reinhold Glière’s rarely performed Concerto for Coloratura Soprano with Ailish Tynan.

The late night Prom is devoted to music by the American, Steve Reich.

Thursday 11th August

British music all the way tonight with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestras concert. Vassily Sinaisky conducts works by Elgar, Holst and Bridge. The only interloper is Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 3 which is a realisation of his Violin Concerto by Dejan Lazic for piano and orchestra. I do wonder why he bothered? Are there not enough great piano concertos in this world?

The concert gets off to an excellent start with Frank Bridge’s Overture: Rebus which dates from the year before the composer’s death. It is supposed to portray how a rumour spreads. This is a romantic and stylish work that is truly worthy of the composer. It is certainly not in the ‘modernist’ style of his late string quartets or Piano Sonata.

After the interval Julian Lloyd-Webber plays the solo part of Gustav Holst’s Invocation.

The concert concludes with a performance of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. I wonder what the encore will be?

This week has been a great week for British music enthusiasts, with three works by Frank Bridge, Britten’s Piano Concerto, a Simon Holt premiere, Elgar’s 'Friends Pictured Within' and a rarely heard piece of Gustav Holst. Well done!

Granville Bantock: The Witch of Atlas

The Witch of Atlas (Tone Poem No.5) has been one of my favourite Granville Bantock tone poems – since first hearing it on Hyperion. I recently found this review of the work’s full-score in the Musical Times and feel that it is well worth quoting. It is hard to imagine how such a wonderfully beautiful work can be virtually ignored by the world of classical music.

The Witch of Atlas was first performed at Worcester during the Three Choirs Festival in 10 September 1902.

“Mr. Bantock is one of the most industrious of composers. His facility seems remarkable even in these days of technique run riot. The work under notice is programme music of the most pronounced type, the full score which lies before us containing long quotations from Shelley's poem. The music must consequently be judged as programme music pure and simple, and no other standard should be applied.

It is essentially one of those modern works in which beautiful orchestration ‘per se’ must be regarded as a valuable asset. It is here carried to such a pitch of perfection, the orchestral colour is so beautiful in itself and so successful in its suggestion of poetical ideas, that it can be enjoyed on its own account and defended as an end in itself, instead of merely a means to an end.

Shelley’s poem presents a composer with a 'programme' after Mr. Bantock's own heart. Such lines as-

'Tis said she first was changed into a vapour,

And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,

Round the red West when the sun dies in it...

...call for, and at the hands of our composer receive, very delicate and fanciful treatment. Sustained pp chords for trumpets, trombones, and tuba (all muted), soft harp arpeggios, persistent, fluttering little string figures pp above gently-sustained melodic phrases for oboe, horn, solo violin, and solo viola, produce a piece of exquisite colour and poetic suggestiveness. In great contrast to this delicate conception stands the Marziale con anima illustrating

the words:-

And then she called out of the hollow turrets

Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

The armies of her ministering spirits--

In mighty legions, million after million.

Here the composer produces sonorous effects, such as Liszt and Tschaikovsky loved. We have the same reiteration and sequential treatment of one-bar phrases, the same rushing chromatic scale passages in tutti strings, or tutti wood-wind, the same rhythmical energy which may mean a great deal or nothing at all, according to the listener's views on programme music. Fortunately Mr. Bantock is not without a keenly-developed sense of beauty, and though in this symphonic poem his colour-sense is more markedly in evidence than that of thematic beauty, we do not mean to imply that the work is all colour, et praeterea nihil [and nothing more]. A long-drawn melody of considerable beauty is developed at some length in the section describing how Old Silenus is 'teased' by Driope and Faunus to 'sing them something new,' and how they

...found the lady lone,

Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

Then again, at the words (we must use the terms generally applicable to a choral work) ‘For she was beautiful: her beauty made the bright world dim,' etc., we meet with much that charms and interests, both melodically and harmonically, apart from all considerations of orchestral colour. Taken as a whole the work is a notable effort in a direction towards which modern music seems to trend, and conductors who appreciate a poetic and convincing musical interpretation of a beautiful poem, and a masterpiece of orchestral scoring, may be recommended to give Mr. Bantock's work a hearing.'

The Musical Times 1 February 1904 (with minor edits)

Proms Watch 2011 Week 3

This is the third of my Proms-Watch analysis of British Music being performed during the 2011 season. Things are definitely improving...

Friday 29th July

A rare chance to hear Frank Bridge’s tone poem There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook which has been described by Rob Barnett on MusicWeb International as being ‘the depressive mildewed poetry ... continues the theme of darkness in music and hovers close to the instrumentals in Warlock's Curlew.’

This is part of a concert that includes Arthur Honegger’ Pacific 231 & his Pastorale d’été. Other works include Alban Berg’s concert aria ‘Der Wein’ (1929) which is a setting of three poems from Charles Baudelaire's ‘Le Vin’, Niccolò Castiglioni’s Webernian Inverno in-ver (1973) and Claude Debussy’s orchestral masterpiece La Mer. Well done the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their conductor Oliver Knussen!

Saturday 30th July

The programme does not detail the music in the ‘family prom’ ‘Horrible Histories.’ However, the evening concert is a treat for British music lovers. Midori plays the solo part in William Walton’s magnificent Mediterranean-kissed Violin Concerto. Other works in this Prom include Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and the Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome and Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata. Once again, well done to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons.

Sunday 31st July

This is an all Rachmaninov night with some works that do not get played quite as regularly as the famous concertos and the Second Symphony. These include Spring, the Women’s and Men’s Dances from Aleko, the renowned Vocalise and the superb The Bells. No British Music today.

Monday 1st August

Monday afternoon sees chamber works by the Frenchmen François Couperin, Jean Baptiste Lully, Jean Philippe Rameau and Michel Monteclair. The evening concert has Beethoven’s Symphony No.4 in B flat major, Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No.5 in F major ‘Egyptian’ and concludes with Franz Liszt’s 'Dante' Symphony. No British Music today.

Tuesday 2nd August

Another great night for British music. The only non-indigenous piece is Richard Strauss’s mischievous tone poem Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Nevertheless, it depends on how one regards Percy Grainger. I guess everyone knows that he was born in Melbourne, Australia and died in New York. However, he is often seen as an honorary British composer. Whatever the conceit, it is good to have his Suite: In a Nutshell and his Irish Tune from County Derry. However the main event is a performance of Edward Elgar’s great Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little as soloist. The orchestra is the BBC Symphony conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. The concert opens with a short choral work by Elgar ‘There is sweet music’. This is truly a night to look forward to! Grainger at the late-night prom too!

Wednesday 3rd August

Alas, Wednesday brings no piece by British composers. However the Prom is an excellent programme of music by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Henri Dutilleux. The main event is a performance of the complete ballet score for Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Popularity is maintained with the ever popular Bolero and Debussy’s Prélude à L'après-midi d'un faune. No British Music today.

Thursday 4th August

Robin Holloway’s BBC Commission, the Fifth Concerto for Orchestra receives its World Premiere tonight. It should be a work well worth hearing. The remainder of the concert includes Richard Strauss’ Four Last songs and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No.2 in D major.

The late-night concert by the Tallis Scholars does not, alas, include any Thomas Tallis or other British composers. It is an event devoted to the exquisite music of the Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria.

This week is a great week for British music enthusiasts, with two major Violin Concertos (Elgar & Walton) a tone poem by Frank Bridge, a premiere by Robin Holloway and a couple of short works by Percy Grainger.

William Alwyn: Prelude and 'Derrybeg Fair' from The Fairy Fiddler (1925)

In 1985 I acquired a copy of the Stewart Craggs’ and Alan Poulton’s catalogue of William Alwyn’s music. This was before the days of the Chandos and Naxos cycles of the composer’s works. At that time there were only a handful of Lyrita LPs of the symphonies, a song cycle or two and the Derby Day Overture. On turning to the ‘orchestral’ section of that book I was overwhelmed by the number of works that had not been recorded: I believed then that most never would be. Furthermore, a generally accepted axiom at that time stated that Alwyn had destroyed virtually every work written prior to the Rhapsody for String Quartet of 1939. I remember spotting the first two works in the catalogue: Derrybeg Fair and the ‘Prelude’ from the opera The Fairy Fiddler. The entries suggested that the editors had been ‘unable to trace’ the manuscripts.

The Fairy Fiddler was the first attempt that William Alwyn made at writing a ‘stage-work’: it was composed between 1924 and 1926 when the composer was in his late teens. The work was never quite finished. In fact, the present pieces would appear to be the only extracts that came near to completion.

Andrew Knowles has provided a short synopsis of the opera plot: - ‘Terry, the Fiddler has lost his art of playing, and Clodagh, whom he loves, has been stricken dumb by the evil machinations of the Witch of Roona. The fairies come to their aid, and by a magic spell Terry gives his voice to Clodagh, and though dumb himself now, is able to play on his fiddle again.’ Not a profound scheme perhaps, but a good, satisfying fairy tale with a ‘happy-ish’ ending. The libretto was written by the Irish poet and dramatist Gertrude Hind (1877-1951)

The music for the Prelude is a minor masterpiece. It can be listened to as a ‘tone-poem’ without having to read into it a programme derived from the opera. It is a truly beautiful work that shows considerable promise and invention. Derrrybeg Fair is a prelude to the last scene of the opera and describes a typically lively Irish fair in County Donegal. The work is in ternary form with vigorous music opening and closing the extract. However the middle section, which introduces the lovers’ theme, is bewitching. Interestingly, the Derrybeg Fair music was performed as a standalone work in 1926 and then again in 1936. I guess it has lain dormant since then.

Let us hope that Dutton Epoch or Naxos chose to record the last, few orchestral works in the catalogue that remain unheard.

This work has been released on Dutton Epoch CDLX7270 and can be purchased from theDutton Vocalion Wepage

Proms Watch 2011 Week 2

This is the second of my Proms-Watch analysis of British Music performed during the 2011 season. I am disappointed that the situation is considerably worse than it was last week.

Friday 22nd July
The BBC Philharmonic’s new Chief Conductor Designate Juanjo Mena gives a great concert of music by Ravel, de Falla and Debussy. I love all these works, especially Claude Debussy’s Images which is spread out in three sections over the evening – with de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain with Stephen Osborne as soloist being a major highlight. Naturally, as this is a Spanish Nigh there is no British Music. Although if asked, I could have suggested a few pieces by British composers that reflect the mood of the Iberian Peninsula. What about the Britten/Berkeley Mont Juic for example?

Saturday 23rd July
This evening is dedicated to a ‘Human Planet Prom’ with music by Nitin Sawhney. Other performances include music by Ayarkhaan (Sakha Republic), Bibilang Shark-Calling Group (Papua New Guinea), Khusugtun (Mongolia), Rasmus Lyberth (Greenland), and Enock Mbongwe (Zambia).

Sunday 24th July
This morning’s concert is also dedicated to a Human Planet Prom and also has music by Nitin Sawhney. It is not clear from the BBC Prom Website if this is different music to Saturday or a re-run of the same event.
Big night for Verdi enthusiasts - his masterly Requiem is performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus, the BBC National Chorus of Wales, the London Philharmonic Choir and the BBC Symphony Orchestra all conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Only this one work tonight.

Monday 25th July
At last there is a wee bit of British Music! However it is at a lunchtime concert, so anyone working will probably miss it! Two Fantasias by Henry Purcell and a new piece by Sally Beamish- Reed Stanzas (String Quartet No. 3). The concert concludes with Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B minor.
The evening Prom is given over to Gustav Mahler’s massive Symphony No.9

Tuesday 26th July
Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta, Bartok’s Piano Concerto No.1 and Liszt's relatively rarely performed Faust Symphony feature in tonight’s Prom. No British Music today.

Wednesday 27th July
The first half of the Prom is all music by Frenchmen: Hector Berlioz’s Overture ‘Le Corsair’, Gabriel Faure’s Pavane and Pascal Dusapin’s String Quartet No. 6, 'Hinterland' ('Hapax' for string quartet and orchestra) This is his second feature at the Proms in two weeks!! After the interval Stravinsky’s Firebird is given in its complete form.
The late night concert is Indian music. No British Music today.

Thursday 28th July
Today’s concert is largely a Beethoven night – with the First and Seventh Symphonies. Included is the Flute Concerto by Marc-Andre Dalbavie before and Elliot Carter’s Flute concerto after the interval. Emmanuel Pahud in the soloist. No British Music today.

So the score for this week is ‘three’ works by British composers, albeit chamber works lasting just under twenty minutes in total! That is unless one counts the film music by Nitin Sawhney however, he is not listed as a ‘composer’ in the Proms Website list of composers.
Hmm.

Carlo Martelli: Symphony, Op.4 (1955-56)

Apart from a few pieces of ‘light’ music such as Persiflage and the Jubilee March, I have never heard any significant work by the London born composer Carlo Martelli. This present Symphony is certainly an eye-opener and is in a totally different league to these more ephemeral pieces – at least from the point of view emotional power, concentration and architecture.

There are four things that need to be said about this excellent Symphony. Firstly, although it may not be the greatest example of the genre from its era, it is a fine, important work that is both challenging and interesting and compares favourably to symphonies by Frankel, Searle and Gardner. Secondly, one needs to bear in mind that the composer was only 19 years old and was still studying at the Royal College of Music. Although there is nothing precocious about this music, it is a superb early work that any composer would and should be immensely proud of. There is much here that is original, in spite of some nods to Shostakovich and other contemporary figures. Thirdly, the quality of the instrumentation shows great skill and imagination – much of the score is unsettling but the use of colour and texture is satisfying. And finally, it is hard to believe that a work which showed such promise has been virtually ignored for over half a century. I know that this has affected many symphonies by British composers from this era, but in Martelli’s case it is especially unfortunate as the work was initially widely fêted and was then subsequently forgotten.

This work has been released on Dutton Epoch CDLX7270 and can be purchased from the Dutton Vocalion Wepage.

Arnold Bax: Tintagel - a review by Neville Cardus.

On Saturday 7 October 1922, Arnold Bax’s tone poem Tintagel was performed at the Leeds Festival. Neville Cardus was there to record his impressions of the piece for the Manchester Guardian.

At the morning concert a tone poem called Tintagel, of Arnold Bax, was played, and very beautifully played, by the London Symphony Orchestra.[1] The music made one think furiously of the pace of some of our English composers are moving at nowadays. Only a decade ago Mr. Bax was in the forefront of them, but now, though Tintagel shows his style to have developed naturally, he is definitely one of the right wing, and using an orchestral technique quite old fashioned compared with that of Holst or Bliss. For Mr. Bax apparently is still content with a homogenous orchestral texture, with massed tone and – may one call it? – the post-Wagnerian resonance. He does not seek to split up his colour and individualise his pigments.

Tintagel, the composer tells us, is only in the broadest sense programme music. The intention of it is ‘simply to offer a tonal impression of the castle crowned cliff of Tintagel, and, more especially, of the long distances of the Atlantic, as seen from the cliffs of Cornwall on a sunny but not windless summer’s day.’

This work, one believes, preceded the fine ‘November’ poem of Mr. Bax [2]. At any rate, November shows a more concentrated power than Tintagel, which falls into harmonic coldness at the end just when it needed to have burned into splendour. Still, the singleness of conception in Tintagel makes you feel the composer had really something to express and was heart and soul in his job. The mood of his music is set harmonically and the melodies or themes come but fitfully through the orchestral mass, falling over the surge of it like gleams of faint sunshine. A repeated descending chromatic figure is reminiscent of that which runs through Isolde’s narration in the first act of Tristan, and Mr. Bax intended it to be reminiscent –for the Tristan legend has associations with Tintagel. At the end of Mr. Bax’s poem a theme comes through the orchestral ebb and flow which is intended to suggest the castle ‘fronting the sun and wind of centuries.’ But the theme is melodically commonplace, and so, with the orchestra losing power at the climax, the work ends, leaving one’s expectations frustrated. Still, with ‘November’ in mind also, Tintagel promises great things from Mr. Bax before long: he is one of the least obtrusive of the younger English composers, but maybe his voice will be heard long after others have failed from sheer hoarseness.

The Manchester Guardian 9 October 1922 Neville Cardus (with minor edits)

Notes:

[1] Conducted by Albert Coates

[2] Graham Parlett notes that the short score of November Woods was 1914. However it was orchestrated in 1917 and was first performed at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester by the Halle Orchestra on 18 November 1920. The short score of Tintagel was completed by October 1917. The full score was finished in January 1919. The first performance was given by Dan Godfrey and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Bournemouth on 20 October 1921.

[3] Tintagel can be read a ‘love-poem’ to Harriet Cohen, Bax’s mistress, who spent time with the composer at Tintagel. The work is dedicated ‘For Darling Tania (Bax’s name for Cohen)

Proms Watch 2011: Week 1

A brief post to notice British works given during the 2011 season of Promenade Concerts. I have long felt that the BBC lets down both contemporary and historical British composers. I love many different traditions of Classical music- from Ravel to Reich and from Weber to Webern, so I do appreciate much in the Proms season that does not come from these native shores. However, it is important that the BBC does further the cause of British music and I wish to keep a check on this over the coming weeks. Lastly these Prom-Watches will act as an aide-memoire – reminding me and any readers as to what is on from the British perspective.

Friday 15 July

Alongside Liszt, Janáček, and Brahms there is a short piece by the Cambridge-born composer Judith Weir (b.1954) Stars, Night, Music and Light. This is a 2011 Proms Commission. However it a really short piece lasting c. 4 minutes.

Saturday 16th July

This evening is dedicated to a performance of Rossini’s William Tell.

Sunday 17th July

This is a big day for British Music enthusiasts. In the afternoon organ recital there is a performance of Judith Bingham’s The Everlasting Crown play by Stephen Farr. This work last more than 35 minutes. Other works by Jéhan Alain, J.S Bach and Franz Liszt.

In the evening, an extremely rare performance of Havergal Brian’s massive Gothic Symphony with over a thousand performers. One of the highlights of the entire season!

Monday 18th July

Mahan Esfahani harpsichord plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations. However the main event is Beethoven’s’ Triple Concerto alongside music by Pascal Dusapin and Messiaen. No British music today.

Tuesday 19th July

Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Weber’s Oberon Overture and Johannes Brahms Double Concerto. At the late concert is a performance of Quintet in C major, D956 by Schubert. No British Music today.

Wednesday 20th July

Two great works tonight. Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor and Bedrich Smetana’s Má vlast. No British Music today.

Thursday 21st July

Jean Sibelius wonderful Symphony No. 7 alongside his lesser-known Scènes historiques. After the interval there is a performance of Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Janacek’s Sinfonietta. No British Music today.

So the score for this week is three works by British Composers – two by contemporary artists and the Havergal Brian Gothic Symphony.

Arnold Bax & CDs

In the early seventies I remember looking at the list of Arnold Bax’s compositions in Grove in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow: there seemed so many of them. I guess that I had heard a couple of pieces that had been released on the old Revolution label - I think they were The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew and the Viola Sonata. There were others available, but in those days I could not afford to buy everything I wanted. Besides, there were also albums of music by Led Zeppelin and Yes to buy! Yet, I had been hooked on Bax’s music: the sound-world had captured my imagination. Being a Scot, with Irish and English blood in my veins the music was designed to appeal to all those facets of my inherited character.

One thing is certain: as I looked at the listings of symphonies, piano pieces, tone poems and chamber music, I knew that I would never hear them all. None of my friends had heard of Bax: he was certainly not performed in the concert halls of Glasgow and Edinburgh. I imagined that these evocative titles such as The Garden of Fand, Tintagel, In the Faery Hills or Rosc-catha would remain closed scores, as it were, for the rest of my life.

Fast forward 35 years. Who would have believed that there would be at least two versions of each of the works presented on this CD? In the wider context virtually every major work by the composer would be available – including four cycles of the symphonies! Yet his music is rarely played in concert halls and recital rooms. This year’s Proms is a rare treat for Bax lovers, however the fact remains that most listeners engage with Arnold Bax by way of the iPod and the CD player rather than ‘live’.

Arnold Bax: Winter Legend for piano & orchestra

The Manchester Guardian reviewer gave an excellent précis of Winter Legends, which may be derived from the programme notes: it is worth quoting. ‘There are three movements: The first is a gradual assembling and forging of various elements into a triumphant climax, the second, on the whole darker in tone, reaches a serene close, and the third, beginning starkly, comes to an end with the return of the sun after a long Northern Winter.’

It is not necessary to elaborate on this description and give a detailed analysis of Winter Legends. However, I think that it is essential to discuss three things: the work’s formal status, the extra-musical associations and the influences.

Firstly, is Winter Legends a symphony or a piano concerto? During the nineteen-twenties Bax had written his first three symphonies. Lewis Foreman has suggested that the composer had a bit of a stylistic crisis when it came to formulating his Fourth, which duly appeared in 1931. Almost as a preliminary to that great work he composed Winter Legends which has the formal characteristics of his symphonies which typically involved three movements with an epilogue. On the other hand, Andrew Burn notes that Bax did not view this present work or the earlier Symphonic Variations as being ‘conventional piano concertos’. In fact, the composer described Winter Legends as a ‘sinfonia concertante’. He told Adrian Boult that ‘the use of the piano was more akin to an important orchestral instrument’. To the listener, there is nothing simple or straightforward about the piano part: I guess it taxes the technique of the soloist to the extreme. However it not conceived in terms of mere technical display, nor is it a competition between piano and orchestra. There is a conversation between the two elements; however, it is more dialogue than dialectic. Bax regarded the formal construction of the piece as being too rhapsodic and ‘free’ to be a symphony as such but was probably content for it to be regarded as one if the listener or critic so chose.

Secondly, Andrew Burn has pointed out that Bax may or may not have had a ‘programme’ in mind when he composed this work, but he certainly never revealed what it might have been. In fact, Bax wrote in the programme notes for Winter Legends that the piece does not have ‘any communicable programme. The listener may associate what he hears with any heroic tale or tales of the North – of the far North, be it said. Some of these happenings may have taken place within the Arctic Circle.

‘Legends that once were told or sung

In many a smoky fireside nook

Of Iceland, in the ancient day

By wandering Saga-man or Scald.’

Bax concludes by suggesting that ‘there is nothing consciously Celtic about this work’.

Even the most cursory of hearings reveals a composition that is packed with musical adventures and covers a whole range of emotions – from ‘joy to sadness, triumph to despair, violence to peace and both love and hate’.

In fact, when I have listened to this piece, I have tended to see it as a major ‘love story’ especially written for the composer’s lover and muse, Harriet Cohen. Certainly a study of this relationship would suggest that Bax (and Cohen) would have traversed many of the emotions present in this work.

Thirdly, it would be easy to suggest that as there is ‘Northern’ colouring to this work, there must be some debt to Jean Sibelius. It is not quite as simple as that. There is little stylistic similarity to Sibelius. Bax has made use of an ‘intricate and closely woven polyphonic texture’ which is very different to the largely harmonic and homophonic writing of Sibelius. However there are similarities of ethos. The contemporary reviewer in The Manchester Guardian suggested that ‘the way in which ... the first movement is built up is strikingly analogous to many of Sibelius’s symphonic movements.’ Finally, furthering the idea of ethos rather than detail, it may be proposed that ‘there is more than a suggestion of the same master’s En Saga.’ Interestingly, the composer originally dedicated the work to the Finnish master but later changed it to Harriet Cohen.

When I first heard this work back in 1987, I considered that it rambled a little: I did not feel that it hung together properly. However after a number of ‘hearings’ the material seems to fall into place. Perhaps the problem was that there is such a huge range of emotion packed into what is a relatively short period (38 minutes).

I love this work in spite of a feeling that it is not quite equal in quality from the first to the last bar. There is a sense that there are pages of genius in Winter Legends that are set alongside music that is not quite so imaginative. Yet the overall impression is of a fine work that manages to hold the listener’s attention from beginning to end.

The first performance of Winter Legends took place at the Queen’s Hall on 10 February 1932 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adrian Boult. It was performed shortly afterwards in the United States with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky. Harriet Cohen later made a radio studio recording of Winter Legends and this is available on Dutton CDBP 9751.

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review first appeared

Thomas Hardy: When I set out from Lyonnesse - a host of settings.

When I set out for Lyonnesse,

A hundred miles away,

The rime was on the spray,

And starlight lit my lonesomeness

When I set out for Lyonnesse

A hundred miles away.

What would bechance at Lyonnesse

While I should sojourn there

No prophet durst declare,

Nor did the wisest wizard guess

What would bechance at Lyonnesse

While I should sojourn there.

When I came back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes,

[None managed to surmise

What meant my godlike gloriousness],

When I came back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes!

Ever since reading this poem at school, it has been one of my favourite pieces of poetry - by Thomas Hardy and in the English language. To me it is evocative. I probably first heard it read at about the same time as I came across Arnold Bax's tone poem Tintagel. A few years later I discovered Gerald Finzi's fine setting of these words as the second song of the great song-cycle Earth and Air and Rain. However, looking in the indispensible volume by Bryan N.S. Gooch, David S. Thatcher & Odean Long, (Musical Settings of late Victorian and modern British literature: Garland Publishing 1976) I discovered at least a dozen other settings. I confess to knowing none of them!

Frederic Austin

Rutland Boughton

John Woods Duke

Gerald Finzi

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs

Sidney Harrison

Fritz Bennicke Hart

Irwin Heilner

Christopher Kaye Le Fleming

Tom M. McCourt

Katherine E. O'Brien

Charles A. Speyer

Leslie Walters

In fact out of this the above list I have never heard of Duke, Le Fleming, McCourt, O' Brien, Speyer or Walters. One wonders how good, bad or indifferent these settings are? I am inclined to imagine that at least one or two of them will be little masterpieces. I wonder if any of them will ever turn up in recitals or on CD.

Sir Charles Stanford: Memorial Concert

This excellent article is written by the composer, performer and musicologist Marion M. Scott and is an excerpt from a book of her selected writings being edited by Pamela Blevins. It is posted here with grateful thanks.

LONDON, Dec 23 – The Bach Choir rarely gives a concert without impressing on it a certain dignity of matter or manner, an outcome of fine feeling and long years of intellectual culture. But seldom can it have done anything more impressive than the invitation concert which it gave under R. Vaughan Williams in memory of Sir Charles Stanford[1]. First there was the concert hall (that of the Royal College of Music) holding some thousand people, a place absolutely outside the mart of seats bought and sold for money, and associated wholly with the love and learning of music.

On Dec. 18 the audience that drew together within its walls came from the most intellectual and artistic circles in London, professional and amateur. The program to which they listened in quiet absorption had been framed with wide vision. It paid tribute to Sir Charles Stanford as an outstanding British composer, as conductor of the Bach Choir from 1885 to 1902, and as a pioneer in the restoration of Purcell’s works to their rightful place in music.

Beginning with the massive chorus “Soul of the World,” for chorus and orchestra (in which Purcell anticipated by many years Handel’s great choral effects) there followed Stanford’s symphonic cantata “Stabat Mater,”[2] for soli, chorus and orchestra.

This work has been criticized in the past as of uneven excellence. The orchestral prelude and intermezzo and the great pages in the finale still remain the things most impressive, but the fine thoughts in the second and fourth movements are undeniable, and the quartet of solo voices and the chorus are treated with the sense of beauty and fitness characteristic of Stanford’s best work.

Elsie Suddaby, Dilys Jones, [3] John Adams and George Parker acquitted themselves fairly well in the quartet – Elsie Suddaby happily overcoming the tendency to vibrato she showed at the start – but the ensemble would have gained by more cohesion and inspiration. The honors of the performance rested with the conductor and choir.

Six of Stanford’s songs, sung by H. Plunket Greene [4] as he alone can do them, and accompanied by D. Liddle[5] with perfect understanding and sympathy, gave glimpses of Stanford’s genius at its most tender and intuitive. Another aspect was presented by the unaccompanied part songs – an arrangement of “O’ Breathe Not His Name” and “The Blue Bird” – the latter undertaken at a pace and poise such as Stanford himself used, but blemished by the energetic sopranos and by a drop in pitch.

The Irish Rhapsody No. 4. by Stanford, and Bach’s cantata, “God’s Time Is Best,” completed the long program. In the first the London Symphony Orchestra played with the same beauty of tone and intelligence they had shown in the “Stabat Mater”. In Bach’s cantata they developed an inclination to drag the conductor’s beat. Yet neither this nor some unpleasant tone in the alto entries could shake the serene loveliness of the performance, and when the long concert ended it did so upon a deep impression of beautiful music.

M.M.S.

Marion Scott, January 6, 1925, Christian Science Monitor

NOTES:-

[1] Stanford died on March 29, 1924.
[2] Stabat Mater was first performed at the Leeds Festival 1907.
[3] Elsie Suddaby (1893-1980), lyric soprano premiered Gerald Finzi’s Dies Natalis in 1940. Dilys Jones, soprano often performed Bach, Parry, Elgar.
[4] Harry Plunkett Greene (1865-1936) Irish baritone, writer, biographer of Stanford, son-in-law of Sir Hubert Parry.
[5] D. Liddle is probably a typographical error. Samuel Liddle (1867-1951) was Greene’s accompanist.

Manchester, Classical Music and British Composers – Part Three: The International Series.

The International Series is little better for British Music than the Manchester Proms and the Summer Season.

The first concert in October is a fine recital by Wayne Marshall, with works by Bach, Liszt, Vierne and the ubiquitous Toccata from Widor 5.

Yuri Simonov conducts the Moscow Philharmonic with works by Rachmaninov and Mussorgsky. However this is an interesting programme. Rach. 2 in NOT performed but the lesser known 1st Concerto and the even less well known 1st Symphony.

Craig Ogden does include a couple of short pieces by Kent-born Gary Ryan, Lough Caragh and Rondo Rodeo. Emma Kirkby ignores the British element completely. However Harry Christopher’s The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra do give two fine pieces by Henry Purcell – the ‘Come, ye sons of art’ and Act V from The Indian Queen. Well done!

Freddy Kempf avoids British music. However the story improves with The Tallis Scholars. Gabriel Jackson (born in Bermuda!) Tallis himself, John Sheppard and the Italian, Gregorio Allegri. But the surprise is a piece by ‘North-West’ composer Robin Walker, although it seems that Walker was actually born in York – on t'other side of the Pennines.

Jonathan Scott manages to squeeze in Murrill’s arrangement of Walton's Crown Imperial and Herbert Brewer’s take on Elgar’s Chanson de Matin.

The Manchester Camerata concentrates on Bartok, Kodaly and Haydn whilst the great John Lill plays music by Mozart, Schumann, Prokofiev and Beethoven. But no Bax, Ireland or Bridge!

In February 2012 Camerata Salzburg under the baton of Tomas Hanus will give a performance of Britten’s attractive Simple Symphony. This contrasts well with the Mozart Divertimento in F KV138 and Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings.

Natalie Clein gives an important recital of cello solo music by Bach, Kodaly and the Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. Alas, she does not perform solo works by Leighton or Walton.

One cannot fault the performance of J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion by the St. Thomas Choir, Leipzig in their 800th anniversary year.

Perhaps the major British music event is the New London Consort’s realisation of Henry Purcell’s opera King Arthur. This is a ‘lightly-staged’ production narrated by Merlin the magician. The brochure promises ‘an A-list cast of early music specialists...’

Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Mozart, Schubert, Lutoslawski and Saint-Saens, but nothing by a Briton.

The Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse performs Berlioz and, Saint-Saens.

Jaques van Oortmerssen gives an organ recital with music by Bach Liszt, Franck et al. And finally, the St Petersburg Philharmonic under Yurin Temirkanov celebrates 50 years of St Petersburg and Manchester being ‘twin cities.’ This really annoys me. Why does it have to be an all Russian programme? Twin cities, Manchester & St Petersburg- why not a Walton Symphony or a Rawsthorne Concerto or a work by John Foulds?

Perhaps the Hallé is off on a trip to the Russian city- let’s hope they give an all British programme – but somehow I doubt it.

Now I do not expect all British concerts, nor do I think likely that the ‘concert promoters and organisers’ will choose to avoid Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninov. What I find disappointing is that there are three major works by Saint-Saëns and none by RVW, Alwyn, Bax, Rubbra, Simpson etc. Apart from the excellent Purcell King Arthur, there are no major works by British composers – they are all tit-bits.

Even more depressing is the total lack of interest in music written in the Manchester area. Where is the Alan Rawsthorne, the Eric Fogg, the John Foulds, the William Walton, the John McCabe, the Peter Hope...

And just as importantly, where are the contemporary compositions by local musicians? The only work that claims to be by a 'living' ‘North West’ composer is actually written by a Yorkshireman!!

Manchester, Classical Music and British Composers – Part Two: Summer Season 2011

Many of the events in this brochure have been and gone. However May 2011 was not a great month for British music. The Hallé gave Beethoven’s Overture: Egmont, Bruch’s inevitable Violin Concerto No.1 (he actually wrote three!) and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5. The Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra also concentrated (hardly surprisingly) on Tchaikovsky.

May 5 was a red letter day. After Sibelius’s En Saga and Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, Mark Elder and the Hallé performed Elgar’s Enigma Variations. However the only British piece in their subsequent concert was that composer’s P&C No.4. The BBC Philharmonic played Haydn, Dvorak and Shostakovich, but nothing home-spun.

Andrew Wilde, on 11 May gave a recital of music by Chopin, Beethoven and Mozart. We can pass over Loudon Wainwright III.

Once again the Hallé came up trumps on 14 May. After a Handel Overture and Mozart’s Symphony No.39 in E flat major they performed one of Benjamin Britten’s masterpieces – Spring Symphony.

However their next outing was a concert of Sibelius, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky. Lang Lang ignored British music in favour of Beethoven, Albeniz and Prokofiev. (£56.17 for a ticket!!)

The Manchester Camerata played two works by Felix Mendelssohn – the Violin Concerto Op.64 and a narrated version of the Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Early June brought a performance of a single movement from Elgar’s Sonata in G for organ, played by Stephen Cleobury- why not the entire work?. The rest of the programme was Bach, Liszt and Widor. The Sixteen with Harry Christopher devoted their efforts to the music of Tomas Luis de Victoria.

The Royal Northern College of Music under Yan-Pascal Tortellier gave Bartok, Copland and Gershwin. On 29 June Trevor Pinnock & Friends will include Purcell’s Airs and Dances from The Fairy Queen. Bach and Handel make up the rest of the programme.

The Cheetham Symphony Orchestra will give works by Brahms and Berg, including the wonderful Violin Concerto with Fiona Robertson as soloist.

So the summer season is a little brighter from the British perspective with two undoubted masterworks –the Enigma Variations and the Spring Symphony.

The next post on this subject will consider the ‘International Series.’