Alpesh Chauhan’s début recording for Chandos – Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 (CHSA 5300) – met with widespread critical acclaim and awards, including recording of the week for both The Times and Presto Music, and the BBC Music magazine’s Orchestral Choice. This second volume – with the same forces – offers equally crisp and attentive playing from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, in another album that mixes well-known and less-heard Tchaikovsky. Three purely orchestral works form the core of the programme: Fatum (an early concert piece inspired by and dedicated to Balakirev), Hamlet (the last of his Shakespeare-inspired pieces), and Capriccio italien. These are interspersed with works conceived for the theatre: the Introduction to his opera The Queen of Spades and excerpts from The Oprichnik (an early opera) and The Snow Maiden (incidental music for a play by Ostrovsky). The album was recorded in Glasgow City Halls in SURROUND-SOUND and is available as a hybrid SACD.

KULLERVO

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a translation by Edward Fitzgerald of a selection of poems which were originally written in Persian and are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. There are about a thousand poems in the complete volume. British composer Granville Bantock composed this choral setting of the works. Part 1 premiered in 1906, Part 2 in 1907, Part 3 in 1909, and the complete works were performed in 1910 at Queen’s Hall. This four disc set is the only complete recording ever made of the work, and is made up of original BBC Broadcasts from 1968 and 1979.

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REVIEWS:

Those who want to hear Omar Khayyam in all its glorious monumentality will need to buy the Lyrita set. it’s one of the monuments in British music that needs to be heard.

– The Guardian

Del Mar’s soloists sing with urgency and passion. A hugely enterprising addition to Lyrita’s ever-growing catalogue.

– Gramophone

This lively 1979 revival of the complete work is well coupled with other less rare Bantock, especially Fifine at the Fair. Del Mar, an eminent Strauss scholar, has a sure feel for the orchestral writing of this era, well paced and translucent rather than weighty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Will be one of my discs of the year without doubt.

I have to admit to this being the disc I have most eagerly awaited hearing for some months. That being the case I am delighted to be able to report that it has fulfilled all my expectations if not exceeded them – let us all hope that the titling of this as ‘Volume 1’ really does augur well for an extended series of discs by this unique composer.
 
In recent years there has been a steady trickle of Brian’s orchestral works appearing on CD but when you dig a little deeper it becomes clear that these are in effect re-releases of performances where the originals date back some years. So in fact it is nearly ten years since the last ‘new’ recording – Psalm 23 on ClassicO [recorded 2002], then back into the 1990s for the abortive Marco Polo/Naxos ‘Brian Cycle’, the 1980s for EMI’s brief flurry of interest using the RLPO, and the 1970s for the Leicestershire and Hull Schools Symphony Orchestra’s brave traversal of several discs with Unicorn-Kanchana and CBS. This is by no means a complete survey but it gives you a sense of the piece-meal attempts to commit Brian to disc.  

Toccata Classics are proving to be valiant disciples of the Brian cause both on disc and in print. Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing the superb Havergal Brian on Music: Volume Two which Toccata have published. Both that project and this have been instigated under the watchful eye and guiding hand of the Havergal Brian Society and Brian expert Malcolm MacDonald. As part of the book review I commented - has ever a composer been so fortunate in their biographer / promoter as Brian with MacDonald? His knowledge, insight and understanding of this shamelessly idiosyncratic composer is little short of stupendous. That sense of dedication suffuses every element of this recording from the fascinating choice of repertoire on this well programmed CD to the fine engineering supporting excellent playing from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  

I have to admit that I have not heard any of this music before so I have no frame of reference with which to compare the current performances. Suffice to say there is an air of ‘rightness’ and conviction that is vital to bringing off this often quirky music. Having read the two volumes of Brian’s critical writings has only increased my appreciation of him as a composer. I have a suspicion that even among his more famous composer contemporaries he was the most knowledgeable about the latest developments in the musical scene. His journalistic writing shows him as an enthusiastic supporter of an extraordinarily wide and diverse range of then contemporary music. This, to my mind, adds significantly to his stature as a composer in his own right for instead of producing a mish-mash of musical influences his own work remains strikingly independent. It is well-known that he was largely self-taught as a composer but the choices he makes; structurally, harmonically or melodically are never made through ignorance instead they are guided by a quirky individualism. And therein lies the rub for the listener new to his sound-world; it can often seem that musical material is juxtaposed in a random and almost obtuse manner. Here is where Malcolm MacDonald proves to be such a valuable guide. Whether in this liner or in his definitive 3 volume study of the Brian Symphonies he makes it clear that in what might initially seem ramshackle and even chaotic there is actually a very sophisticated control of form and structure. Brian is dancing to a different tune and it can take the listener some time to ‘hear’ his message. Conductor Garry Walker has become fully attuned to the Brian idiom. As mentioned before these are strikingly confident and convincing performances – orchestras are phenomenally skilled these days but to project such security and conviction as is heard throughout this disc requires those exact same qualities to be projected from the conductor’s podium. It is rare indeed that such complex and demanding music is first heard played as here and it adds considerably to the positive impact of the disc. On the evidence of this disc Walker proves himself to be an interpreter of distinction.

Another remarkable thought is the fact that the works performed here span an astonishing 65 years. The earliest work is the 1903 Burlesque Variations on an Original Theme. Never performed in Brian’s lifetime this is its first professional performance. But why? Some Brian can be tough to digest on first sitting but not this work – it has instant appeal. Written when Brian was 27 it represents his first effort at large-scale orchestral composition. He scored the work for a large romantic orchestra with triple wind, standard brass – but including four trumpets – extended percussion, two harps and organ. Lasting some twenty-five minutes and consisting of a theme and seven variations this is a well balanced and fascinatingly wide-ranging piece. Yes there are moments where the orchestration feels opaque and indeed clumsy but these are repeatedly offset by passages of remarkable power, mystery and beauty. Why Burlesque Variations? – MacDonald offers a fascinating opinion; variation form recurs often in Brian’s works and usually he chose to take a banal/simple tune and then expand the seemingly limited potential of that melody beyond all expectation. Hence the Fantastic Variations of 1907 – based on ‘Three Blind Mice’ or The Symphonic Variations of 1916 – based on ‘Has anybody here seen Kelly?’ are just two examples. It is as if Brian is trying a kind of alchemy transforming the base material of a simple song into musical gold. Yes, the influences are often clearer here than in later Brian and clearly Elgar provided a model but I am pushed to think of any other work by a twenty-seven year old British composer from around the turn of that century of such confident quality. Although I know others will disagree I find Josef Holbrooke’s music to have an empty bombast and reliance on musical effect to which Brian never resorts while York Bowen is interesting and appealing but never challenging in the way Brian is. The closing pages of these variations do try to lift the simple tune onto a grandiose level which is beyond both the melody and the composer (at this stage in his career) but elsewhere there are brilliantly achieved musico-dramatic effects. Try Variation 2 – Tempesto and the simply gorgeously poignant Variation 3 – Elegy that follows. The latter is the emotional heart of the work and opens as a gently regretful valse triste very much in the style of the Nedbal or Sibelius works of that name before building to a powerful strenuous climax way outside the remit of those pieces. The return to the reflective opening is typical Brian in the rapid change of emotional direction before he builds it back to a climax of cinematic splendour. Subtle it is not but hard the heart not to be moved on some level – I love it. Curiously the London publisher Bosworth published the suite which contains Nedbal’s work in 1903 and it became the composer’s biggest hit. But the similarity is one of form nothing more. But it does point up another fact worth considering here; Brian’s music never sounds “English” in the pastoral sense of the word. More ‘stout and steaky’ than ‘cowpat’.

Chronologically, the next work on the disc dates from exactly fifty years later. How typically perverse of Brian in austerity Britain to produce a work that by title alone would seem to belong to the light music world of Edward German or Percy Fletcher. For sure this is lighter music than much of Brian’s output but it has far more substance and muscle than the bulk of the light music repertoire. Not that it is at all in tune with the prevailing trends in 1950s contemporary music either. Again, one has the abiding sense of Brian writing music that suited himself when it suited him. This proves to be another piece of instant appeal with the heart of the work being the second movement Reverie. Throughout the whole work and the orchestral writing – angularly expressive but with awkward parts for solo instruments and some thrilling brass scoring – there is a scale and sweep that is very impressive. Clearly this is not meant to be a work uttering the profoundest thoughts and feelings of the composer but it does show the confidence and expertise with which Brian handled his resources. I would suggest ignoring the titles – I couldn’t help wondering if Brian has used such deliberately twee and diminutive headings in a provocative and ironic manner. Here is another curious parallel – the central pair of movements are scored first for strings alone – the aforementioned Reverie, and then wind and horns - Restless Stream. Vaughan Williams did much the same in his almost exactly contemporaneous Symphony No.8 – although the wind scherzo comes first before the string Cavatina. Not that we can accuse Vaughan Williams of any kind of plagiarism – Brian’s Suite was not to be heard for twenty years (neither can the accusation be reversed – the Vaughan Williams was not premiered until 1956). The closing Village Revels is also the final music on the disc – again ignore the title, this is quite unlike any revel I can imagine but it provides an exciting conclusion to all the works here.

MacDonald explains Brian’s recurring use of the term Elegy to describe movements or individual works. This was the title ultimately given to a 1954 composition originally called A song of sorrow. Brian renamed it some sixteen years later when reassessing his back catalogue with a view to publication. The rationale being that the original title implied a kind of emotional one-dimension that does not encompass the full range of this very impressive work. MacDonald points towards a definition that encompasses both the classical laments of Ovid and the romantic poetic works of Goethe and others. As a critic Brian wrote enthusiastically about Busoni and MacDonald sees a link with such works as that composer’s Nocturne Symphonique or the Sarabande and Cortege. But influence or inspiration is all this link should be seen as. Again Brian has produced a work as striking in its individuality as its expressive power. Jagged and rugged energy courses through this work. There are more of the typical Brian Symphonic fingerprints here, a sense of a restless quest the music searching and unstable. Yet at the same time there is an underlying feel of something grand and ceremonial. MacDonald sees it as a long slow struggle from C minor to the light of C major. Elsewhere on the disc I am a little uneasy about Brian’s penchant for almost hyper-active percussion writing. By my reckoning the percussion should point a moment in the score – dynamic alone need not be a factor – for Brian there seems to be a percussive ‘happening’ in nearly every bar. But here, massed side-drums set against tip-toeing xylophone creates some rather special effects. Again I have nothing but praise for the bravura confidence of the playing of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. There is some truly thrilling brass writing here dispatched with total aplomb. Much as I enjoy the discovery of the Variations on this disc if I had to choose one work to represent Brian it would be this Elegy. As this represents its first recording I would suggest that that alone is enough to merit buying this disc.

My only relative musical disappointment on this disc was with the Legend: Ave atque vale which opens it. In its own right it is remarkable because it is the work of a ninety two year old man. The title which means ‘hail and farewell’ is taken from Catallus’ poetic elegy to his drowned brother written in about 56 BC. MacDonald describes it as being ‘crammed to bursting point with disparate ideas’ which is a sympathetic way of saying perhaps it has not been edited or structured with as much discipline as earlier works. To my ear – given that this is NOT a judgment borne of extended familiarity – it sounds too rambling and disparate in its elements. Here the percussion has an absolute field day throughout without really justifying their continuous presence in musical terms. Possibly this is the kind of work that Brian’s detractors might single out as showing his weaknesses. However, it has the great good sense not to outstay its welcome and by representing just seven minutes of over an hour of vintage Brian no collector need hesitate on this piece’s account. On a positive note it does act as an extraordinary tribute to the undying vitality and individuality of Brian to very end of his long life.

Hopefully, it will be clear by now that I consider this a very special disc – exactly the kind of high quality combination of rare repertoire, performance and technical presentation that collectors hope for. For those as yet unfamiliar with the Havergal Brian I think this could act as an excellent introduction. On the recent Testament release of the famous Boult/BBC performance of Brian’s legendary Gothic Symphony the disc concludes with an interview with the composer where he underlines the fact that he wrote music with little or no expectation of hearing it performed. Instead he was responding a personal creative imperative that could not be denied. How gratified he would be to know that finally his music is beginning to receive the attention is deserves. A Volume 2 from this same team is essential and this current disc will be one of my discs of the year without doubt.

  -- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

Bennett had a gift for human relationships – family, partners, friends, and fellow artists. Occasionally, his personal loyalty could become an obstacle to his creativity but overwhelmingly, his relationships were an inspiration. Each of the four works recorded here has connections to a significant individual in his life. The composition of his First Symphony coincided with the arrival in his life of Dan Klein, who would become his long-term partner. Zodiac is dedicated to the composer Elisabeth Lutyens, whose music and personality Bennett cherished throughout his life, despite her often caustic manner. A History of the Thé Dansant sets poems by his older sister, the poet Meg Peacocke, and doubles as a perceptive but unsentimental memoir of their long-dead parents. And Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune is dedicated to the conductor John Wilson, with whom Bennett shared a musical connection that deepened into a true and lasting friendship.

The recent partnership of John Wilson and BBC SSO on record reaches this second volume in their invigorating exploration of fascinating orchestral works by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Less well known than his widely famous film music (Murder on the Orient Express, Four Weddings and a Funeral, etc.), the orchestral works featured here display the versatility with which Bennett contradicted the dogma of musical modernism at the time of their creation (60s-70s), as well as an evolution of his compositional style towards a musical language that spoke to audiences everywhere in the world. From the glittering Symphony No. 2 – generating subtle yet engaging musical contrasts on a large scale – to the jazzy Concerto for Stan Getz – featuring the saxophonist Howard McGill who has established himself as one of the greats of London’s jazz scene – this album features works that break down the false walls between two musical worlds and will appeal to anyone willing to explore, discover, or simply enjoy great music.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and its Associate Guest Conductor John Wilson record for the first time together on Chandos, embarking on a new series devoted to the brilliant orchestral works of Sir Richard Rodney Benentt. While internationally famous for his dances, jazz creations, and film and TV scores, Bennett wrote sumptuous works of ‘concert music’ as he called it. This first volume reveals him as one fo the most brilliant natural talents to emerge in post-war British music. Influenced by both the American Songbook and his teacher Pierre Boulez, he also always strove to place melody- and emotional honesty- at the center of his music. These traits are coupled in the epic Marimba Concerto, an innovative piece for the composer, moving from a colorful and lyrical first movement to highly virtuosic passages and strikingly athletic cadenzas. The demanding solo part is tackled here by the multi-award winning Colin Currie, nowadays seen as the world’s finest and most daring percussionist, as well as a champion of contemporary music.

These recordings of orchestral works by William Wordsworth (1908-1988) are all performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Loughran or Stewart Robertson. These three works are original broadcast recordings from the BBC which aired between 1968 and 1979. These outstanding pieces are indicative of Wordsworth’s unique compositional style. He once wrote of his compositions, “I am quite convinced that I have something to say, and an individual way of saying it which the ordinary music-lover is capable is responding to if he is given sufficient opportunities.”

This two disc set contains two of Cyril Rootham’s most prolific works: Symphony No. 2, and Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. This recording of Symphony No. 2 is from a BBC Broadcast on January 28, 1984 featuring the Scottish Philharmonic Singers, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Vernon Handley. This recording of Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity is from a BBC Broadcast on December 18, 1975 featuring soloists Teresa Cahill, Philip Langridge, and Michael Rippon, the Trinity Boys Choir, the BBC Singers, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and conductor Vernon Handley.

English composer Arthur Butterworth (1923-2014) began his musical career as a choirboy at the young age of 7. Eventually, Butterworth studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied trumpet, conducting, and composition under Richard Hall. Arthur Butterworth wrote over 150 scores for various mediums. This two-disc release features his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 4, and Symphony No. 1. No.'s 1 and 2 are performed here by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and No. 4 is performed by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra.+ Especially notable is the 4th Symphony, whose premiere performance is featured in this recording.

"With his invigorating, revelatory Sibelius cycle behind him, Osmo Vänskä turns now to that other great Nordic composer, Carl Nielsen, and tackles his series of six symphonies for BIS, this time with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He loses no time getting into his stride with a muscular yet lyrical first movement to No. 1, aptly characterising its unusual marking Allegro orgoglioso' (the latter word means 'proudly'). The second movement, too, begins with ravishing intimacy but builds to a powerful climax." -- Barry Millington, BBC Music Magazine [reviewing Symphonies 1 & 6, also available as Bis 1079]

"...There is exhilaration, warmth and a kind of optimism through gritted teeth in the closing pages of the Fifth Symphony, but they only just counterbalance the violence, desperation and general unease. The ‘Melancholic’ slow movement of No. 2 is as dark as I can remember, and there are even premonitory hints of it in the preceding ‘Phlegmatic’ movement – to say nothing of the unsettling reminder just before the end of the ‘Sanguine’ finale. But it’s the Fifth that makes the more powerful impression – as it should. Listening to Vänskä’s performance one is continually reminded that it was written in the aftermath of the First World War. It’s as though Nielsen were asking how one could continue to be positive in the face of such revelations of ‘senseless hate’. The result is a performance that grips as a musical structure, an emotional journey and a philosophical statement... [T]here is simply no other version of No. 5 on disc that’s as convincing and compelling as a whole statement. ...And No. 2 can hold its own even against the excellent Blomstedt recording on Decca – superbly recorded, and with more sensuous charm, but perhaps a little too cosy in comparison. There’s nothing comfortable about this Nielsen." -- Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine [reviewing Symphonies 2 & 5, Bis 1289]

"How do you know that a new recording really has what it takes? For a critic the best answer is probably when he finds himself sneaking time out of his reviewing schedule to listen to it again – and again. Which is what has been happening for me with Osmo Vänskä’s Nielsen Fourth. It isn’t just that it’s powerfully conceived and compelling from first to last (and excellently recorded); the further the performance progresses, the more urgent and moving becomes that sense of what Nielsen called ‘yearning for life, for life’s essence’... [T]he sense of heroic, furious determination grows towards the finale, and is vindicated at the close as the great first movement melody re-emerges through fusillades of hostile timpani (in tune, for a change)... Vänskä’s account of the Third Symphony is almost as convincing. The first movement has terrific energy, and the finale benefits from Vänskä’s rugged determination. But impressive as the slow movement is, I miss the sense of awe, spaciousness and ultimate rapture in Herbert Blomstedt’s version – still my top recommendation. It’s a close-run thing, though, and Vänskä does have a particularly convincing view of the symphony as a whole statement. It’s the Fourth, though, that makes this disc a must-have." -- Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine [reviewing Symphonies 3 & 4, Bis 1209]

Carl Nielsen has sometimes been described as the most underrated composer of the 20th century, but most critics would certainly agree that his Six Symphonies, composed between 1891 and 1925, belong to the great classics of their period. Osmo Vänskä's cycle of the works with the BBC Scottish SO was recorded after his landmark series of the symphonies of Sibelius and before his highly acclaimed cycle of those by Beethoven. Originally released on three separate discs, these accounts of the Danish master's works were received with great interest by the reviewers, with the performance of the Fourth being described as 'of great character and fire' in International Record Review, the recording of Symphony No.5 called 'a first choice, full of intensity' in BBC Music Magazine, and the Sixth accorded reference status in Répertoire. For this boxed set edition, three shorter orchestral works have been included, namely the concert overtures Helios and Saga-Dream, and the 'pastoral scene' Pan and Syrinx. In these previously unreleased recordings, Vänskä conducts the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, which he led for twenty years and with which he has enjoyed such notable successes in music by Sibelius, Kalevi Aho and Rautavaara.

Includes suite(s) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

DISCOVER THE CLASSICS, VOL. 1

CHOPIN Piano Concertos: Nos. 1; 1 2 2 • Shura Cherkassky (pn); 1 Christopher Adey, cond; 2 Richard Hickox, cond; 1 BBC Scottish SO. 2 BBC SO • ICA CLASSICS 5085 (75:22) Live: Glasgow 1 12/3/1981; 2 London 8/30/1983


Shura Cherkassky, according to the liner notes, was sometimes a difficult man to accompany, as he would often change his mind on phrasing or tempos between the final rehearsal and the concert; thus, annotator Robert Orledge says, “some conductors were reluctant to appear with him,” citing as an example the sudden rush with which he plays the final section of the Second Concerto. I can see where this would be a problem. I recall a live performance I attended by a famous American pianist where, suddenly, the keyboardist rushed forward and left the orchestra behind, and I learned later that he did not rehearse the work that way. The difference, if I may say so, is that Cherkassky usually had good taste while the American pianist I heard usually played with poor style regardless of his tempo choices.


Well, as Cherkassky once said to me, “Some people like my playing and some don’t, but at least no one can say that I’m boring.” True enough. Yet I was beginning to doubt that this would be that fine a disc as the First Concerto started up. Conductor Adey plays it very slowly, with lots of romantic gush and goo, and moreover the first minute or so suffers from what is probably a crumply original tape. I was not expecting much. But then Cherkassky entered, and his bracing interpretation of the opening phrases acted like a wake-up call for the orchestra. (Having heard Cherkassky three times in person, twice with an orchestra and once in recital, and also being familiar with many of his recordings, I just don’t see that he would have wanted this concerto played so slowly to begin with. It just wasn’t in his nature, thus I believe that he bristled at Adey’s tempos in both the rehearsal and performance.) From this point on—thankfully—it is the pianist who leads the orchestra, forcing Adey to pick up his tempo or be left behind. One is immediately caught up in the excitement, which despite a sensitively shaped second movement continues on through to the end.


With the Second Concerto, we enter an entirely different world. Richard Hickox was one of the great, underrated conductors of his generation, a man who viewed music as dramatic expression and molded his performances that way. From the very first note, Hickox is on edge, and I mean that almost literally…he makes Chopin’s orchestration sound almost like Beethoven or Schumann, full of drama and bringing out all sorts of inner voices with tremendous clarity. The switch from Adey to Hickox is almost as dramatic as if one suddenly shifted from John Barbirolli to Igor Markevitch, but Cherkassky is entirely in his element. There’s a particularly delicious passage in the second movement when the piano’s descending chromatics clash on one note with the orchestra’s chord—exactly as written, but a detail that normally escapes one’s attention in most performances of the concerto. And Cherkassky’s last-movement cadenza is incendiary, as advertised. It’s a heck of a performance that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Cherkassky’s changes to the text of the score are certainly evident but, like Glenn Gould, they generally enliven and enhance the music. Of course, that would probably keep this disc from being your first choice for recordings of the two concertos, but as a second recording it is definitely recommended.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

The international reputation of Bernard Rands as one of the leading composers of his generation rests on over a hundred well-crafted scores of notable formal cohesion, dramatic intensity and lyrical beauty. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2013) was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in celebration of Rands's eightieth birthday year and as implied by it's title, the piece is for piano and orchestra rather than a piano concerto. Hence, the solo part is primus inter pares and is not required to play the conventional role of a protagonist striving heroically for supremacy over the masses. Canti del Sole, for tenor and orchestra (1983) describes a day's progression from dawn to dusk through a continuous setting of fourteen poems about the sun. The poems are arranged into two groups of seven. Music for Shoko: Aubade is an atmospheric mini-tone poem for English horn and string quartet (2017). It is dedicated to Bernard Rands's friend Shoko Suzuki in appreciation of their many years of friendship and her devotion to the composer's music. The piece is a transcription of the central 'Aubade' movement from the Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra, which was written for the soloist Robert Walters. The solo part of the chamber piece is identical to that of the concerto movement, while the orchestral music is accommodated, with adjustments, by the string quartet.

Dai Miyata has been playing the cello since he was three years old and has won all competitions since the age of nine. He was also the first Japanese to win the first prize at the 9th Rostropovich Competition in 2009, thus finally climbing the Olympus of the international virtuoso world. In a current co-production with DENON, MDG presents the artist, who is still far too little known in this country, with a very special programme: Edward Elgar's popular cello concerto meets the "Dark Pastoral", which David Matthews has recreated from unfinished drafts by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Cello Concerto is Elgar's last completed major work. Begun towards the end of the First World War in a rural idyll, it carries a tone of melancholy that is unusual for the Britishnational composer. The four-movement arrangement is more reminiscent of a baroque concerto grosso than of the romantic virtuoso concertos. And yet - or is it precisely because of this? - it continues to enjoy great popularity with the public. But the circumstances of the 1919 premiere were anything but conducive: there was hardly any rehearsal time, the conductor had his hands full with Scriabin's "Poème de l'Extase", so Elgar himself took the podium of the London Symphony Orchestra. " never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself" wrote the "Observer" correspondent, not without praising the work itself in the highest tones. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Elgar's pupil, has left only sketches for a planned cello concert for the legendary Pablo Casals. Only the slow movement is available in a fair copy, which however breaks off abruptly. In collaboration with the RVW Foundation, David Matthews has turned it into a playable piece, which he called "Dark Pastoral" because of it's elegiac character.

Includes waltz(es) by Johannes Brahms.
Includes work(s) by various composers.

This new release from BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra led by Grant Llewellyn features Violin Concertos by exclusively British composers, including Paul Patterson, Kenneth Leighton, and Gordon Jacob. The featured soloist in these works is violinist Clare Howick. Described by The Strad as “playing with beguiling warmth and affection” and by American Record Guide as “simply spectacular”, Clare Howick is at the forefront of a generation of inspiring violinists. As a champion of new music, Clare has premiered many new works, both on disc and in performance. She recently gave the world premiere performance at St John’s Smith Square of Violin Concerto No.2 ('Serenade') by Paul Patterson, a song-like, wistful and exuberantly sparkling work, which was specially written for her. This is the piece’s world premiere recording.

The pianist Zlata Chochieva is well known for creating unexpected associations. In "Chiaroscuro", her first album for naive (V7542, 2022), she had combined the worlds of Scriabin and Mozart, in whom she hears not only the same desire for clarity and weightlessness but also a similar poetic sense of rhetoric. Her next album ("i'm Freien", V7959, 2023), a homage to nature, revealed alongside Ravel's Miroirs and Schumann's Waldszenen a short cycle, so little known and graceful (Petite Histoire), by Felix Draeseke! No wonder she is now offering us, for her first album with orchestra, one of the most obscure works of Russian Romanticism, the Piano Concerto by Rimsky-Korsakov. Written in 1883 in memory of Franz Liszt, whose two opuses in the genre strongly influenced the author of Scheherazade, this Concerto, with it's monothematic structure, built on a Russian folk theme, had greatly impressed Balakirev, who was surprised to hear such an idiomatically written soloist part, from a composer who was not a pianist himself. At the age of fourteen, Zlata Chochieva had played the work under the direction of Mikhail Pletnev, then head of the Russian National Orchestra. This Concerto remains for her a "miracle of taste, poetry and inspiration". Her intelligent and limpid playing is ideally suited to the very delicate lyricism that Rimsky-Korsakov deploys throughout this astonishing score full of numerous and subtle contrasts. At the heart of this recording, where Zlata Chochieva is joined by the musicians of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the German conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens, surges the merciless ardor of Sergei Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. In a departure from the stormy way in which this formidable score (for the fingers) is generally approached by pianists, Zlata Chochieva prefers a certain sense of phantasmagoria, rightly recalling that Prokofiev, as a spiritual disciple of Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, enjoyed stories, old Russian fairy tales and legends. After this, we have a total change of atmosphere with the Jazz Suite for piano and orchestra by Alexander Tsfasman which concludes the album. An eminent disciple of Felix Blumenfeld, an incredibly talented pianist, to whom Shostakovich intended piano part of one of his film scores, Tsfasman introduced American jazz to the Soviet Union, and formed the first orchestra dedicated to the genre. In Russia, he premiered Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin, a composer for whom he had the deepest admiration. A brilliantly written, comforting and sincere score, his Jazz Suite sometimes evokes the American composer but above all Hollywood and Soviet film scores. Not without a most contagious and mischievous pleasure, Zlata Chochieva and Karl-Heinz Steffens revel in it's ingenuous charms (Snowflakes). 17 July 2024

Laura van der Heijden joins the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth for this album of British cello concertos. Frank Bridge's Oration, composed in 1929 - 30 was intended as an outcry against the inhumanity of warfare, and a tribute to the victims of the First World War. It's arch form single continuous movement exhibits the intense chromaticism typical of Bridge's output from this era. Commissioned by the Ukrainian-born cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Walton's Cello Concerto suffered a number of difficulties with regard to first performances (Piatigorsky suffered a mental breakdown; Walton missed the UK premiere because of a nasty road accident) but it has nevertheless become a staple of the repertoire. It was with this concerto that Laura van der Heijden won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, in 2012. The young British composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and then the University of Cambridge and King's College London, and rapidly established herself as one of the most talented and prolific composers of her generation. Earth, Sea, Air was written for van der Heijden, who gave the work's premiere in Glasgow in 2023, a week before making this recording with the same forces.

Born in Birmingham, Alpesh Chauhan studied cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. Alpesh has studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, participated in masterclasses with Juanjo Mena, Vasily Petrenko and Jac van Steen, and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the CBSO 2014-16. Newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker from the 21/22 season, he is also Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company. He frequently appears as guest conductor with acclaimed international orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

For this, his debut recording for Chandos, he has chosen a collection of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasias, alongside the Overture and Polonaise from the comic opera ‘Cherevichki’. The Tempest, from 1873 is based on the Shakespeare play, and shows that Tchaikovsky’s unique voice and style were already fully developed. Francesca da Rimini (based on the tale in Dante’s Inferno) was written only a few years later, but after Tchaikovsky had attended the premier of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Bayreuth – an influence discernible particularly in the brass chords. Cherevichki (the Slippers) is a revision of his earlier opera Vakula the Smith, based on Gogol’s Christmas Eve. Tchaikovsky’s Symphonic Ballad The Voyevoda is based on Adam Mickiewicz’s poem ‘The Ambush’, and is the first orchestral work to include the (newly invented) Celeste.

REVIEW:

Chauhan proves in this disc that he loves Tchaikovsky and is not afraid to show it, at a time when so many conductors appear embarrassed by the emotional intensity and try to tame the music, with results that are sometimes desiccated.

-- Gramophone

This disc is a double tribute. The first work, Pictured Within, is a collective effort conceived as a major project to mark the 60th birthday of conductor Martyn Brabbins, whose reputation in new music and British music is beyond reproach.

Following the pattern of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Pictured Within is a series of 14 variations on a theme, each of which takes up the character of the equivalent variation in Elgar’s work, the difference being that here 14 different composers have each contributed a variation in tribute to Brabbins.

Also on the SACD is Jaakko Kuusisto’s Symphony, a fitting tribute to the composer, conductor, and violinist who passed away in 2022. Illness left Jaakko no time to complete his work, so it fell to his brother Pekka – who conducts here – and Jari Eskola to finish it. The result is a powerful piece, full of familiar themes and melodies derived from Jaakko’s existing compositions, to which are added autobiographical extra-musical elements. The moving conclusion is a collage of fragmented phrases inspired by the signals emitted by lighthouses and ships, as if Kuusisto’s spirit had been sent out to sea.

SYMPHONIES NOS.1 & 2

Britten: War Requiem

Classical Music

BRITTEN: Violin Concerto / Cello Symphony