Paul Reale is best known as an esteemed educator but his composing career blossomed in the latter part of his career. The three works on this album – the Cello Concerto “Live Free or Die”, Piano Concerto No. 1 and Piano Sonata No. 6 ‘The Waste Land’ – all display Reale’s signature use of expressive melody, Baroque counterpoint, references to many types of jazz, and extensions of tonality. World premiere recordings.

Classical Music

This disc remains an essential component of any collection of English music.

This is justifiably one of the most famous discs in the Nimbus catalogue. When it was first issued all of the works contained on it were new to CD. It includes the complete orchestral music of George Butterworth, the composer who was regarded as one of the great white hopes of the English Musical Renaissance – Vaughan Williams dedicated his London Symphony to him – but whose life was tragically cut short during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
 
Butterworth is known nowadays principally for his songs. Apart from arrangements of English folksongs, these were mainly settings of Housman from his collection A Shropshire Lad, poems which not only reflect the English pastoral tradition but also commemorate the transience of human happiness. Housman himself hated musical settings of his poetry, but ironically enough his words struck a chime with many composers in the early years of the twentieth century – Vaughan Williams, Somervell and Orr all created song-cycles from his texts. There are a very considerable number of other works inspired by the same material. Butterworth’s settings were incorporated in two cycles, A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill, the latter more complex and the former mainly strophic treatments that strike an instant chord. Towards the end of his life Butterworth’s music was tending towards greater depth and his later song-cycle Love blows as the wind blows (settings of Henley) contains an overwhelming masterpiece in his setting of the otherwise unremarkable poem Coming up from Kew. His orchestral rhapsody A Shropshire Lad draws on material from the first song of his early cycle, but develops it in a way that presages greater things to come – masterpieces that were, alas, never realised. It is the only one of his orchestral pieces that does not draw on English folksong for its material. It breathes an undeniable air of the countryside of the Welsh borders. The two English Idylls are smaller and lighter, but The banks of green willow develops its folksong material with a surer hand and rises to considerable emotional heights in its comparatively short duration.
 
Since Boughton’s 1986 recording there have been a number of other discs (including re-releases) of the complete Butterworth orchestral works including performances by Sir Adrian Boult (Lyrita, coupled with miniatures by Howells, Hadley and Warlock), Neville Dilkes (EMI), Sir Mark Elder (on the Hallé’s own label, coupled with works by Delius and Grainger), and Sir Neville Marriner (on a Double Decca with pieces by Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams and Warlock). Some of these are more smoothly and assuredly played than here, but Boughton’s performances are packed full of feeling and have plenty of passion. None of the alternatives offer this coupling. The Parry suite was also recorded by Boult (now re-released by Lyrita coupled with his other Parry interpretations). It was also given by Richard Hickox in a 1984 recording which is now only available as part of a five-disc set of his EMI recordings of British music. Hickox also recorded the Bridge Suite as part of his invaluable complete Bridge cycle for Chandos.
 
Nevertheless this disc remains very special. Every collector I know has a copy of it in their library. Boughton’s readings, particularly of the Butterworth works, are superb. For these recordings the string complement of the English String Orchestra was expanded to full orchestral size, and the playing of the woodwind in particular is superb. At 5.50 the trumpets peal across the full orchestra with all the heartbreak not only of Housman but also of the lost generation of British artists who were to fall on the Western Front. The violin solo at 7.41 has an unbearable poignancy. At the end the flute solo sounds properly quasi lontano as marked. Elder with the Hallé is rather slower (over a minute longer), but the closer recording is less atmospheric and there is no sense of distance in the flute solo at the end. Marriner is better recorded but his speeds seem very fast in places – the strings at 4.45 are hardly tranquillo as marked – and the trumpets at 5.44 are more conventionally triumphant than tragic. Boult is even quicker - he cuts three minutes off Elder’s timing - and the atmosphere is lost in this uncharacteristically rushed performance and very prosaic recording. No, in the complete sets of Butterworth orchestral music Boughton is the conductor who best captures the magic of the scores. For these readings alone, this disc remains an essential component of any collection of English music.
 
-- Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Though Mendelssohn's genius was clear at the age of 16, when he wrote his Octet, he was not quite so precocious as Mozart. The first six of his string symphonies were all written in 1821, when Mendelssohn was 12 years old. Each work is cast in a simple three movement, fast/slow/fast form, and no movement lasts more than five minutes. There are many influences. The shadows of Mozart, Haydn, J. C. Bach, Handel and others fall over the music, and the quality of invention is somewhat juvenile, but with each succeeding work one sees a growth of inspiration, particularly in slow movements. The English String Orchestra play these works in lively fashion...Boughton's choice of tempos seems unfailingly adroit.

-- Gramophone [3/1989]

Classical Music

At the heart of this CD is the cellist Raphael Wallfisch. He not only performs these pieces with the utmost musicianship but they were also all written for him. Since the BBC NOW play with their customary skill under William Boughton, about as well established an expert on his native British music as one could wish to have, this CD is home and dry. The Hoddinott Hall is one of the best acoustics in the country and Lyrita's engineers have, as usual, produced a splendid sound. I did wonder about the slight left-placement of the cello but that is where soloists usually sit so it may simply reflect reality.

Joubert's work is, as the title states, in two movements. Each lasts a little over 11 minutes. Considering it is scored for only double woodwind, horns and strings, it displays a wide range of instrumental colours and is not only impressively coherent but also makes a very pleasurable sound. There is plenty of energy in the work. This is not a pastoral idyll one can allow to just wash over you. Joubert keeps one firmly engaged throughout and reminded me that I have neglected my sole Joubert CD prior to this, the First Symphony, also on Lyrita.

The late Robert Simpson was a very important symphonist and composer of string quartets. His musical structures require close attention from his listeners. This concerto, one of a mere handful, is typical of his later style. It was in fact his last orchestral piece. It consists of a theme and eleven variations played without a break and lasting very nearly half an hour. It is by turns lyrical and dramatic, ending quietly. Though the orchestra is large the textures are always clear and I found myself gripped by his typically involved musical argument right up to the 'calm resignation' of the coda, described thus in the excellent notes by Paul Conway.

Finally Christopher Wright has come to my attention only recently, having heard an extract from his lovely Violin Concerto of 2010 (Dutton CDLX 7286), so I was not surprised to discover that his Cello Concerto is also a fascinatingly individual creation full of lovely sounds but also of much energy and momentum.

We do not hear many different cello concertos in the concert hall. Those by Elgar, Dvorak, Schumann and Shostakovich are deservedly the most frequently performed. The three recorded on this CD are of a quality and approachability to match such as Saint-Saëns, Hindemith, Martinu and Walton. They should most certainly not be allowed to lapse into obscurity.

- Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

At the time of the first performance of The Planets, Holst was suffering severely from the neuritis in his hands which plagued him all his life. Much of the actual writing out of the massive score had to be undertaken by his pupils at St Paul’s School under the composer’s supervision. As a result the score presented a considerable number of problems for performers because of missing dynamic markings although it is invariably clear what these should be. The score was newly edited by Colin Matthews and Imogen Holst in 1979 to supply these and to correct various other misprints in earlier editions. Even so The Planets is not a work that could ever be easy to play. It presents many problems not only of technique but also of balance to inexperienced players. One of these occurs almost immediately in Mars where Holst introduces a solo for the “tenor tuba” which is usually nowadays played on the euphonium. I suspect this to be a mistake; the euphonium, a brass band instrument approximating in that medium to the cello, is rather too soft-edged to make the right sort of impact. Karajan in his 1960 Vienna recording employed a tenor “Wagner tuba” which produced a more incisive effect but stood out from the orchestral balance uncomfortably at other points in the score; I do not know what instrument William Boughton uses here, but it sounds sharper-edged than a euphonium and is pretty well ideal. I suspect however that it may have been assisted by microphone placement, since later in the movement it recedes into the orchestral mix. Its duet with the trumpet towards the end (at 4.59) does not sound ideally matched. Also rather backwardly balanced is the Albert Hall organ which does not assert itself through the texture in the same way as in the superbly engineered and ideally balanced recording Charles Dutoit made in Montreal for Decca. Better that, I suppose, than the horribly electronic effect which Karajan achieved in his later Berlin recording for DG; considerably toned down in later re-masterings.
 
Boughton’s speed for Mars is nicely judged, not too hectic but with plenty of power; and one can for once clearly hear the col legno strings tapping away in the opening bars. This is a work which the Philharmonia could play in their sleep, and the technical difficulties pose no problems for them. The opening of Venus restores calm, with a poised horn solo provoking a dreamy response from the woodwind, and Bradley Cresswick produces a beautifully recessed violin solo at 2.08. This is indeed Venus as “the bringer of peace” and not the erotic goddess of love with which we are all too often presented. Perhaps the celesta at 7.50 could be more clearly audible and defined, but it is marked pianissimo in the score, and better that than an over-amplified sound. The same instrument comes through nicely in Mercury¸ which is taken at a steady speed which enables plenty of detail to be heard. Then again at 1.15 where its part is marked “solo” in the score, it does not balance either the flute which precedes it with the melody or the clarinet which follows. Here is a case where some discreet spotlighting really is needed. There is one passage at 2.34 (returning later) which never really comes off in performance – the strings and woodwind who have been playing a two-beat rhythm in 6/8 are suddenly instructed for two bars to play with a three-beat rhythm, indicated by forte accents. At Holst’s Vivace marking it is extremely difficult for the players to make this distinction clear, and the performance here succeeds no better than any others that I have heard.
 
Jupiter bustles along with plenty of jollity, but Boughton does not observe the ritenuto at 1.34 which Holst indicates as leading into the molto pesante tune on the horns – no more than do many of his rivals, including Sir Adrian Boult who gave the first performance. Oddly enough when this passage returns later on, Holst omits the ritenuto marking, and since the passages are otherwise identical one wonders whether the first marking might be a simple error which has remained uncorrected. Boughton treats the central ‘big tune’ as a country dance and not as a patriotic hymn, which is quite correct, but properly allows a slight broadening towards the end of the passage which is marked maestoso. When the tune occurs at the very end Holst indicates that a single crochet of the new speed should be the equivalent of a full bar of the previous one; Boughton observes this precisely, but many conductors make a further broadening to match Holst’s new tempo marking Lento maestoso – I think this is probably needed to give the ‘big tune’ is full breadth, but what Boughton does here is what Holst indicates.
 
The opening of Saturn is nicely poised, and for once the low bass oboe solo at 1.24 is properly piano as marked – it must be very difficult to achieve this dynamic level in the extreme low register of the instrument, and the Philharmonia player here does better than Dutoit’s rather more fruity oboist in Montreal. As the music rises to a climax, Holst marks the score Animato and indicates that the bells should be played “with metal striker”. In a footnote to the new edition of the score the player is advised to use a rawhide mallet “to avoid damaging the bells”. This is what we are given here although the sound is clearly not what the composer had in mind. Many conductors turn the Animato into a violent acceleration - Holst gives no metronome marks in his score, but in his very fast recorded performance of the movement as a whole does lend this interpretation some credence. Boughton here keeps the two tempi closely balanced, to the considerable advantage of the music. When the music dies down again the bells return, marked pianissimo and to be played with a “soft felt striker” – but here they recede too far into the background as a consequence. They are clearer even on Holst’s old 78s, although what we hear there does not sound at all like a “felt striker”. The organ pedal which underpins the music could also be more palpable. Dutoit in Montreal gets this passage just right, and the result makes more of what could otherwise be regarded as an over-extended “dying fall”.
 
The Albert Hall acoustic suits Uranus perfectly, with the timpani passages which can frequently be obscured in a halo of reverberation sounding ideally precise. The xylophone solo which is so often highlighted - with grotesque results in Adrian Boult’s 1954 reading - is properly balanced with the rest of the orchestra. The timpani could however be more defined at 2.49 (the part is marked “solo”) although they are better eleven bars later and thereafter. The notorious organ glissando at the catastrophic climax also blends into the background slightly too much, and the timpani solo at 4.40 is not really distinct enough either. The tempo of Neptune, shown as Andante in the score, is all too often taken by conductors to read Largo molto, but Boughton keeps the music flowing. However the recording here does not give any definition to Holst’s subtle orchestral effects; the tremolos in the highest register of the harps are almost inaudible and the subtle interplay of the harps with celesta and muted violins is more clearly evident in the superb engineering that Decca provide for Dutoit. Holst may have required that the orchestra should play pianissimo and with “dead tone” throughout, but he devoted considerable ingenuity to the provision of variety in the texture, and it would be nice to hear more of this. The unnamed chorus, set at a distance as Holst requires, could also be slightly more palpable, and their internal tuning sounds slightly insecure at the admittedly extremely difficult chromatic passage at 6.16. At the end they fade nicely if rather rapidly into the distance.
 
The coupling with the ballet music from The perfect fool is a well-conceived one, since the music of the two scores has much in common. This again is music that is not easy to play, but Boughton is nicely forthright in the Dance of the spirits of the earth even if the following Dance of the spirits of water could be more gracefully romantic and the final Dance of the spirits of fire is a bit brash. In the booklet note written in 1988 Geoffrey Crankshaw makes a plea for “some act of rescue” for the complete score of the opera – over twenty years later we are still waiting. At the time he was writing there had only been a BBC recording from the mid-1960s, where Imogen Holst had laid violent hands on the score, abridging some passages and introducing a spoken narration to clarify points of the plot. In her book on her father’s music she was very rude about the “intolerable” libretto (written by the composer) and Crankshaw also adduces the “poor” text as a reason for the score’s neglect. This really does the composer an injustice. Although at the time of its first performance critics suspected allegory, the plot is really a light-hearted satire on opera in general, and a very funny one at that. What it really requires is a production that takes the music extremely seriously, thus making the contrast between the vocal writing and the nonsensical words even funnier. The BBC recording of 1997 (currently available on the internet) did that, with the exception of the miscasting of Richard Suart - a very good comic baritone in the Savoy operas - in the central role of the Wizard, giving a G&S slant to music which really demands a Wagnerian singer in the Hunding/Hagen mould. Vernon Handley does take the score seriously, obtaining superb performances elsewhere and giving us every note of the score as Holst wrote it. Could somebody now please take another look at the score, giving us a properly high-class Verdian tenor for the Troubadour and a Wagnerian bass-baritone as the Traveller? Holst’s parodies of Verdi and Wagner are not only first-class satire, but are also uncomfortably convincing when they are given full weight.
 
There are a great many extremely good performances of The Planets in the catalogues – and this is an extremely good one. There are also a few which give us exactly this coupling with the Perfect fool ballet music, including a very good one by Sir Charles Mackerras with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; recordings by Solti and Mehta, both available coupled with Boult’s early 1960s Perfect fool, are rather superficial by comparison. The minor imperfections in balance - largely the result of the natural problems in Holst’s own scoring - in this Nimbus recording are not serious enough to prevent a strong endorsement for Boughton’s performance. On a purely personal level I stand by Dutoit’s Decca version, both for its more individual view on the score and its superlative if less natural engineering.
 
-- Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This set is offered at a special price: 4 discs for the cost of 2.

Many young violinists' debut CDs come and go without making much of a mark, oftentimes less because the performers are untalented as because their repertoire failed to stand out in a crowded field. Another disc of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, or Kreisler has to be truly outstanding to stand out.
Daniel Hope scores on both of these points: he and his collaborators give excellent performances, and he (and, presumably, his teachers, managers, and label executives) chose a program which cannot help but stand out from the pack. The danger in such a program--lesser-known contemporary works--is failing to live up to the technical and interpretive challenges. Hope needn't worry.
A child prodigy, Hope was just 21 when this program was recorded, and he had already had the opportunity to discuss the Schnittke and Takemitsu works with their composers. The performances here are indeed excellent, and Hope has no difficulty distinguishing himself from his peers.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (3/00, p.77) - "...cannily programmed and thoughtfully executed..."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Claude Debussy, Vincent Persichetti, William Alwyn, various composers.

Classical Music

Classical Music

William Boughton and Adám Fischer bring an elegant romanticism to these works, mercifully free of sentimentality. A classy disc for days when the world gets too much with us.

Born in Cape Town, John Joubert won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, his successful career as a university lecturer and composer keeping him in England thereafter. Inspired by Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way (from Remembrance of Things Past), Temps Perdu is an inventive set of variations ‘each exploring some aspect of the memories evoked by the original’. The finely crafted Sinfonietta is notable for the imaginative writing for solo woodwinds, while the song-cycle The Instant Moment indelibly expresses widely contrasting reactions to the experience of love.

Bernard van Dieren was an Anglo-Dutch composer whose name was well-known in London musical circles in the 1920s and 1930s. Though born and raised in the Netherlands his music was little known there and he spent most of his adult life in London where his music was more discussed than played. He was praised extravagantly by some, and condemned equally fiercely by others. For various practical reasons, his music was more elusive than his personality, and the great achievement of these recordings is that for the first time we will be able to become familiar with a representative selection of his orchestral music in fine modern performances. The so-called “Chinese” Symphony is one of van Dieren’s most impressive early works. Entitled just Symphony Op. 6 by the composer, it was written between 1912 and 1914, and is scored for five soloists, chorus, and orchestra. It was based on German translations of ancient Chinese poetry. These were taken from Die Chinesische Flote, a popular volume of translations by Hans Bethge (1876-1946) published in 1907. Poems from this book were also set by Schonberg, Webern, Wellesz, Strauss and most famously by Mahler (Das Lied von der Erde). Though van Dieren was familiar with the work of some of these composers, we don’t know if he had encountered Mahler’s masterpiece before writing his symphony. Only one poem appeared in both works- Der Trinker im Fruhling.

Classical Music

Classical Music