At last a version of this legendary work for pleasure, analysis and study.

I am normally something of a 'completist' when it comes to music. And that includes works that may not necessarily reflect a composer at his or her best. If Bloggs wrote 101 songs then, if at all possible there should be at least one fair recording made of each – if for no other reason than to provide context. The best can then be compared to the not so good and can be seen to shine. Ivor Gurney may be an exception to this rule: there is much debate about his ‘unplayable and un-publishable’ songs and chamber works yet many folk want to give these an airing - even if it means damaging the composer’s reputation. Imagine a neophyte finds a CD of Bloggs’s Unknown Songs. Further, imagine that they are not very good. Could this put our friend off not only Bloggs but also English lieder? Perhaps they would be best left un-played and unrecorded? Other issues arise, such as the composer’s intentions. Did they regard these pieces as worthy? Or did they suppress them? This argument has surfaced with the repristination of the early music - which had been believed destroyed - by William Alwyn and suppressed works by RVW. I hasten to add that I am grateful for these CDs and have especially enjoyed hearing the former’s tone-poem Blackdown and the latter’s Heroic Elegy.

Let us turn to The Crown of India. Most Elgar enthusiasts will know the Suite derived from this ‘Imperial Masque’. It has been issued in a number of recordings over the years, including a fine version from Chandos with the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Alexander Gibson. The March of the Moguls has also been a popular extract. However, up until this present CD, it has not been possible to hear the complete work in its original format. The question is: is this a worthwhile project?

Firstly let’s dispose of the anti-Imperial argument. There are two (at least) approaches to history. One is, I guess relative and the other is absolute. Some people will refuse to give any credence to an historical personage if they were involved in any activity that is now regarded as politically incorrect, even if it was not always regarded in this light. Men like Cecil Rhodes and Clive of India are despised or at best belittled by ‘liberal’ society. Yet, surely it should be possible to admire the achievement of a woman or a man who did much good work with their involvement in world affairs. Obviously parts of their careers can be justly criticised, but the person themselves cannot be separated from their milieu. Few people in the world are truly forward-thinking: most of us, both living and dead are and were children of our time.

I can hear people condemning this present work as jingoistic - as imperial nonsense. It is a work that sets the British Empire up against the people of India. As such it could be argued that it should be consigned to the dustbin of musical history. We no longer think in terms of Britain Ruling the Waves (except at The Last Night) nor do we necessarily regard the British way of life as being something that must be imposed on other cultures. Things, perhaps, work the other way round these days. So can we justify listening to and perhaps even enjoying this Masque? Only if we can enter the historical setting in our mind’s ear without too many feelings of guilt! However, we ought to judge this work - or any work - on its musical and literary merits rather than its political and cultural resonances down through the years.

The Crown of India is a masque that was written and performed in 1912 to celebrate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Delhi. This was part of a ‘durbar’ in that city as part of the celebrations for their coronation as the Emperor and Empress of India. The masque was commissioned by a certain Oswald Stoll and combined a libretto by Henry Hamilton and the music of Edward Elgar. The work was given its first performance at the Coliseum Theatre in London on 11 March 1912. The masque ran for two performances a day for two weeks. At that time the Coliseum was a variety theatre rather than the opera house we know today. Ironically, Diana McVeagh points out that Elgar’s music was performed alongside a programme that included “gymnastic equilibrists, a ventriloquist, a Russian harpist, a scene from Barrie’s The Twelve Pound Look, continental mimes, with the Tannhauser Overture as interval music.” It must have been quite an evening!

The work was conceived in two tableaux, separated by an interlude: it is made up of a dozen pieces or scenes. The first tableau is entitled ‘The Cities of India’ and the second ‘Ave Imperator’. The format called for the personification of ‘India’ and the cities of Agra, Delhi, Calcutta and Benares and also England (not the United Kingdom) by St. George. The chorus consisted of a cast of thousands including Mogul Emperors, Princes, Guards, Executioners, Courtiers, Fan-Bearers, Ladies Attendant Syce (grooms), Litter Bearers, Heralds, and Trumpeters. The work is scored for contralto, bass, chorus and orchestra. However it was not conceived for a symphony orchestra as such but a typical theatre ‘pit’ band of the era although it was considerably ‘augmented’.

It will be helpful to note the tableaux in a slightly simplified list:-

1(a) - Introduction, and (b) Sacred Measure
2 - Dance of the Nautch Girls
2(a) – India greets her cities
3 - Hail, Immemorial Ind! (The Homage of Ind)
4 - March of the Mogul Emperors
5 - Entrance of John Company
6 - Rule of England (St. George’s Song)
7 - Interlude
8 - Warriors' Dance
9 - Cities of India
10 - Crown of India March
11 - Crowning of Delhi
12 - Ave Imperator

In the first tableau the cities of Calcutta and Delhi, personified by the two speakers, plead to be made India’s capital city. In the second, the Emperor rather diplomatically resolves the contention. He states that “… Delhi to be his capital names, And of his Empire, further makes decree, Calcutta shall the premier city be”.

Percy Young has noted that in the early months of 1912 Elgar had moved into Severn House and was conscious “not only of its nobility but also its expense.” So it is fair to say that the commission came at the right time and contributed to the finances.

It is important not to be too critical about the text of the masque. It is easy to write off Henry Hamilton’s libretto as ‘doggerel’ but it was very much a period piece: it is what would have been expected at the time. However, the composer was not overly impressed with the political tone of the words but was able to see the possibilities it presented for producing a colourful score. Elgar was able to cut a number of the worst parts of the text and began composing the music and falling back on mining some earlier works and sketches as he did so. Music rescued from The Sanguine Fan, Falstaff and the Apostles has been identified.

So what are we to make, musically at least, of this massive period piece? Percy Young in his 1955 study of the composer has captured its mood. He writes that “despite the skilful spread of motive, there is no genuine consistency in The Crown of India, but vivid flashes of imaginative treatment, combined with instances of tenderness and charm.” It is a judgement that holds well today.

The make-weights on the second CD are useful additions to the catalogue of Elgar’s imperial, or less pejoratively, his ceremonial music. The Imperial March Op.32 was composed in 1896-7 and was the composer’s first essay in this genre. It was commissioned by Novellos to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. At the same time Elgar also received a commission to write The Banner of St George. The Imperial March received its first performance at a Crystal Place concert on 19 April of the same year. Interestingly, this piece is more in the style of what Eric Coates was to compose some quarter of a century later. There is no great pretence at writing profound music – instead it has a tune that has “a spring in its step, and a sunny dance-like trio”. Elgar was not the first to compose this kind of March. Parry had written a fine example in his incidental music for Hypatia. It was however his first essay in what was to become a long line of ceremonial marches. Diana McVeagh notes that it was the Imperial March that “first carried his name throughout the land”.

The Coronation March Op. 65 is a totally different piece. Gone is the light-heartedness of the earlier piece, to be replaced by music that has a depth of emotion and variety of mood that is rare in a work of its genre. The March was a ‘laureate’ work commissioned for the Coronation of King George V in 1911. It has been well said that the composer is mourning the death of the old King rather than cheering the accession of the new. In many ways it has the air of a funeral march rather than a rumbustious paean of welcome for the monarch. I have no doubt that this is one of the best marches that Elgar wrote – or anyone else for that matter. One strange fact associated with this piece is the fact the composer had already written the main opening theme for a projected ballet based on the tales of Rabelais! It is assumed that he abandoned this project because of Victorian prudery and pressure from his wife Alice.

I have always had a soft spot for the Empire March even if it is not the best of the bunch. This work was composed in 1924 to inaugurate the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in that year. It is interesting, if somewhat poignant, that this is one of the very few works to be completed after the death of Alice in 1920. The Elgar Society webpage suggests that “it is but a pale shadow of his earlier marches, lacking the distinctiveness and decisiveness of melody which so characterised his more successful marches …” Yet there is an interest in these pages and a certain backward glance to happier times.

I am not quite sure why Chandos have chosen to give two versions of The Crown of India – one with the spoken text and one without. I would have thought that a single version would have sufficed for what is a very uneven work. However, if it had been a single CD, there would have been no room for the three Marches. Furthermore, I doubt if this work will receive many concert performances, in spite of the fact that the Elgar Society have just published the full score. I imagine that if it is performed it will be in the edited version.

All this being said, and I have not really made my mind up about this piece yet, this CD is a must for all Elgar cognoscenti even if they are, like me, not over-enthusiastic about the main event. I enjoyed some of this music. I certainly enjoyed the fine performances by Sir Andrew Davis, the soloists and speakers and the BBC Philharmonic. I appreciate the amount of work that Anthony Payne has invested in this project to realise the score. But was it worth it? I will probably not listen to this work again but I will occasionally play The Crown of India Suite. However, it is important to know that a version of this legendary work is available for pleasure, analysis and study. The amount of effort that has been required to realise this masque may seem to some a little excessive and perhaps misdirected.

Perhaps the project can best be summed up in two quotations from the sleeve-notes. The first is from Nalini Ghuman: “( The Crown of India is) a fascinating work of imperialism: historically illuminating and often musically rich, it is nevertheless a profoundly embarrassing piece - a significant contribution to the orientalised India of the English imagination.” And the second is written by Andrew Neill. He concludes his essay by suggesting that ‘although Elgar’s subject is now out of fashion we can hear how, despite its tendentious nature and poor quality, Elgar rises above Hamilton’s text with colourful music of great variety … it may not be India, but it is Elgar, who did this sort of thing better than anyone else.”

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Romantic music for the screen - smooth and touching.



GUNNING Poirot Variants. 1 La Móme Piaf. 2 Under Suspicion. Cold Lazarus. Rosemary and Thyme Caprice. 3 Rebecca. 4 Pollyanna. Firelight. When the Whales Came. 5 The Hollow. 5 Little Pigs. 6 Lighthouse Hill • Rumon Gamba, cond; BBC Phil; 1 Martin Robertson(sax); 2,5 Nicole Tibbels (sop); 2 Matthew Compton (acc); 3 Craig Ogden (gtr); 4 Julia Bradshaw (vc); 6 Yuri Torchinsky (vn) • CHANDOS 10625 (75:50)


Some 20 years ago a friend alerted me to a limited-edition recording of the score for a British television documentary, Yorkshire Glory . This gloriously lyrical music in a richly pastoral vein was my introduction to the work of Christopher Gunning (b.1944), a composer who is reinvigorating the timeless tradition of Vaughan Williams, Holst, Finzi, et al. However, this pupil of Richard Rodney Bennett as well as Edmund Rubbra can, when appropriate, also demonstrate an acute awareness of postwar developments in English music, as this generous and varied compendium of his film and television music over the past two decades makes clear.


This collection marks the first time in Chandos’s indispensable movie-music series when a living composer has directly participated in the presentation of his scores. Gunning has prepared special versions for this particular project in the form of small-scaled but through-composed tone poems, not the customary sequence of disconnected excerpts. So the listener can experience this disc as a kind of multimovement suite of diverse moods, because of the high consistency and individuality of the writing.


Although only a few of the films and television series will be familiar to American audiences, two of the well-known highlights open the program. The Poirot Variants for saxophone and orchestra—a totally independent work from the composer who gave us the lovely Thames Rhapsody for the same combination (available on a Dutton Epoch disc of several years ago)—is based on the well-known wily and insinuating theme that introduced the popular BBC series starring David Suchet. The following piece, for accordion and orchestra, is derived from music for the acclaimed film biography of French legendary singer Edith Piaf, La Vie en Rose . The alternation of film and television scores continues with the 1990s thriller Under Suspicion starring Liam Neeson, and the great television dramatist Dennis Potter’s final effort, Cold Lazarus. Both of these illustrate Gunning’s darker and more melodramatic side.


Then follow a number of lesser-known television productions: a sprightly, folk-inflected caprice for the series Rosemary and Thyme ; yet another adaptation of the romantic perennial Rebecca (a haunting prelude for cello and orchestra); the family-styled Pollyanna (full of the usual good tunes); two individual Poirot episodes— The Hollow and Five Little Pigs— and finally an obscure British film (never issued here), Lighthouse Hill.


The most impressive compilations here are drawn from two somewhat better-known films, the romantic dramas Firelight of 1997 and When the Whales Came, the earliest score included, from 1989, where Gunning’s use of an eerie soprano vocalise recalls Vaughan Williams’s Scott of the Antarctic music. Both of these emphasize Gunning’s exceptionally scenic imagination and his natural gift for the telling and memorable theme garbed in a lustrous orchestration.


As always in this series, conductor Rumon Gamba, the BBC Philharmonic, and the Chandos recording staff offer this endlessly appealing music in the best possible light. Anyone who loves the traditional school of English music will not be disappointed.


FANFARE: Paul A. Snook


The case of Christopher Gunning has been well and truly taken up by Chandos. Last year we had two of his six symphonies and the oboe concerto (review). Now the genre that brought him to wide attention is tackled.

It's mostly suave music for television. We start with the Poirot Variants for sax and orchestra. This is a combination he has tackled before in On Hungerford Bridge on ASV (review). A smooth fantasy touches on train rhythms, Buenos Aires dance-halls and a worldly romantic lassitude. Martin Robertson's saxophone presents the music without rough edges, subtle and undulating: not a trace of rasp. La Môme Piaf - 2007 film – quite rightly fears no cliché in deploying the accordion. It's all very romantic. Under Suspicion leaves such smoothness behind in a gruff nightmare-image speaking of the ruptured emotional landscapes of late Malcolm Arnold … though tenderness does arrive. The Cold Lazarus (1996) music is at first ascetic and doom-laden with whip-like dactyls reaching out. From this Fahrenheit 451 chill arises the most glorious romantic theme - almost Born Free or Howard Hanson Second Symphony. The Rosemary and Thyme Caprice has the closely recorded Craig Ogden confiding Scarborough Fair to the listener in an English countryside evocation. Rebecca showcases the cellist Julia Bradshaw in another dark-clouded piece completely in keeping with the brooding and intensely romantic spirit of the Daphne du Maurier book. It's well worth hearing. Innocent folk voices abound in Pollyana which is heavily freighted with charm. Woodwind solos and piano are prominent. Firelight - 1997 film - is among his most popular scores yet is quite low key and contained. This is not a grand statement and the music is heavily characterised by Yuri Torchinsky's tremblingly vulnerable violin. When the Whales Came - 1989 film - is quite naturally threaded through with the spirit of the sea. There are added elements such as a slowed whale-song recording (like Hovhaness and George Crumb, in that sense only) and a vocalising soprano. The Hollow and Five Little Pigs are from Poirot episodes. The first is very romantic and memorable. The second is sly and ambivalent in mood as voiced by the solo violin. Lighthouse Hill - film, 2004 - is again hyper-romantic and rounded in its progress. I was rather sad that there was nothing here from Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male or from Porterhouse Blue or from Middlemarch.

A wide soundstage complements a lavish audio image each of which articulates the often simple textures yet meets with a fierce embrace the grander statements.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

A Gramophone Disc of the Month



HOLST The Planets. 1 Beni Mora. Japanese Suite • Andrew Davis, cond; BBC PO; 1 Manchester CCh • CHANDOS CHSA 5086 (SACD: 78:25)


As unlikely as it seems, this appears to be the only SACD of Holst’s orchestral tour de force currently listed on ArkivMusic; another on Chesky, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz, is available on British websites.


Both sonically—in two or five channels—and musically, this is a very impressive Planets . Certain labels have always had a distinctive sound, and this is especially true of Chandos. The sound of this disc is typical of Chandos’s best orchestral recordings: There is more sense of the hall—in this instance Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall—than on most other labels, a feature particularly evident in SACD mode, but the recording still is immediate enough to pack a real wallop. Listen, for example, to the organ pedal in “Saturn,” or the ffff full-organ glissando at the end of “Uranus.” The dynamic range in “Mars” is huge, and the offstage women’s voices in “Neptune” come from some unknown place. The BBC Philharmonic, surely among England’s top orchestras by now, plays superbly; “Mercury” is on the button, “Jupiter” polished rather than ragged as so often heard. The women of the Manchester Chamber Choir sing with pure tone and perfect intonation, again a refreshing change from most versions. Sir Andrew Davis, now a seasoned veteran, gives a reading of which Sir Adrian Boult would have been proud, atmospheric in “Venus,” light in “Mercury,” and monumental in “Saturn.” Put another way, “Mercury” is mercurial, “Saturn” saturnine, “Jupiter” jovial. This Planets would be a high recommendation in stereo; for multichannel listeners it’s a must.


This release is titled Holst: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 ; Volume 1, which turned out to be the final recording by the late Richard Hickox, included four ballet scores from late in Holst’s career. (The reviewer for a well-known British magazine cited the “splendid and fulsome sound” of that disc, perhaps illustrating Shaw’s observation that England and America are two countries separated by a common language.) According to Chandos’s Ralph Couzens, the series was to have culminated in The Planets , but the plan obviously had to be revised. Volume 1 was reviewed in Fanfare 32:6 by Peter J. Rabinowitz, who found some of the scores rather weak; I suspect that, rather than marking any decline in Holst’s creativity, the problem lies in the differences between the music Holst wrote for amateurs (including at least two of the works in Volume 1) and for professionals. The three works in the present volume were not only all written for professionals, but date from around the same time: The Planets was written in 1914–16, the Japanese Suite during the composition of The Planets , and Beni Mora (subtitled “Oriental Suite”) a bit earlier, in 1909–10. Of the two shorter suites, Beni Mora , inspired by a trip to Algeria, is the more interesting. The Japanese Suite was written for a Japanese dancer, who provided Holst with the themes; for once (in contrast to the Second Suite for Military Band and his many choral folk-song settings), the themes seem to limit Holst’s imagination, and the work lacks the vitality of Beni Mora.


The shade of Boult looms large over these performances; his recordings of the two shorter works for Lyrita (SRCD 222) still sound terrific, and are a bit more incisive than Davis’s mostly admirable readings. As for The Planets , of course, Boult was the conductor of the informal first performance in 1918, and his five recordings, particularly the two stereo versions for EMI—dating from 1966 and 1978!—are uniquely authoritative. But Davis’s interpretation is compelling in its own right, and Chandos’s sonics blow away even EMI’s fine sound. This SACD is superb both musically and sonically, and Davis’s grasp of Holst’s idiom bodes well for further volumes in Chandos’s Holst cycle. Highly recommended!


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan

Also available: Ginastera: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 / Mena, BBC Philharmonic

This is the second in our three-volume series of Juanjo Mena's idiomatic exploration of Ginastera's orchestra works with the BBC Philharmonic. The series was started to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest of all Argentinean composers, Vol. 1 - receiving uniformly high praise. This album features a late work, lesser-known, yet rich in surprises, namely the Second Piano Concerto. Here the keen musicality and sweeping virtuosity of Xiayin Wang meet the sumptuous sound of the BBC orchestra. It succeeds her recording of concertos by Tchaikovsky and Khachaturian with the RSNO which was made Editor's Choice by Gramophone. It is coupled with the exotic early ballet Panambi, heard complete with a concluding contribution from the Manchester Chamber Choir.

What pushes this release over the top is the brilliant fiddling of James Ehnes, combined with the incredibly intelligent idea of putting all of Bartók's string concertos together on a single disc. Ehnes, for his part, is just as comfortable on the viola as he is on the violin. He digs into the rustic Hungarian melodies in the finale of the Viola Concerto or the beginning of the Violin Concerto No. 2 with a richly resonant gusto that never turns crude, while at the same time his impeccable intonation gives the slithery chromatics of the First concerto real shape and direction. He's a phenomenal artist, make no mistake. Gianandrea Noseda's accompaniments are very good--bracing and very well paced. As so often from these forces, however, the orchestra is a touch bland--never less than proficient, most of the time a good bit more than that, but also not as arresting and colorful as it could be. Still, as I said, the quality of Ehnes' playing and the value of the program earn this disc a top recommendation. Anything less would be churlish.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This landmark recording is the first album devoted entirely to the music of Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998). A composer, conductor, pianist and singer of remarkable versatility, she long remained in the shadow of her father, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Here, at last, her artistry takes centre stage. Featuring world-premiere recordings of some of her most significant orchestral works, the album reveals a distinctive musical voice - eloquent, assured, and deeply personal. Together, these performances stand as a powerful testament to her creativity and resilience, illuminating the experiences of a woman of colour in twentieth-century Britain.

If the first three piano concertos have the heft and communicative power of Lloyd's larger middle-period symphonies, the Fourth has a close affinity to the Ninth Symphony, which was completed the previous year. Both pieces exhibit an impish sense of fun, tempered by profound feelings of yearning and regret. George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large-scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd's four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. © Paul Conway