Includes work(s) by William Yeates Hurlstone.

Tracklist:
Michael BALFE (1808-1870)
The Bohemian Girl: Galop (1843) [1:26]
Philharmonia Orchestra/Nicholas Braithwaite
Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Variations on an Original Theme ‘Enigma’ Op. 36: X. Dorabella (1899) [2:41]
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 in C Op. 39 (1930) [5:41]
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Andrew Davis
Frederick DELIUS (1862-1934)
A Village Romeo and Juliet: The Walk to the Paradise Garden (1905) [10:49]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Myer Fredman
Percy GRAINGER (1882-1961)
Shepherd’s Hey; The Immovable Do (1908-13; 1933-42) [2:11; 5:04]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Nicholas Braithwaite
Sir Hamilton HARTY (1879-1941)
An Irish Symphony: The Fair-Day (1904) [3:01]
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Peter WARLOCK (1894-1930)
Capriol, Suite for full orchestra (1926-28) [9:47]
London Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Braithwaite
Lord BERNERS (1883-1950)
The Triumph of Neptune: Hornpipe (1926) [1:50]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Nicholas Braithwaite
Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)
St. Paul’s Suite for strings Op. 29 No. 2 (1913) [13:28]
English Chamber Orchestra/Imogen Holst
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) [16:08]
rec. Jan 1979, Kingsway Hall (Balfe); Jan 1974, Walthamstow Assembly Hall (Elgar); Jan 1970, Walthamstow Assembly Hall (Delius); Aug 1978, Kingsway Hall (Grainger; Berners); April 1976, Kingsway Hall (Harty); Sept 1978, Watford Town Hall (Warlock); Jan 1968, Walthamstow Assembly Hall (RVW)

R E V I E W:

A fine introduction to Musical Britain

When I first saw the advert for this CD I assumed that it was the ‘sweepings up’ from the floor of the Lyrita studios: it was all the bits and pieces from their vinyl pressings that could not find a home elsewhere. Yet two things made me modify that view. Firstly I know that there is a vast amount of material awaiting re-release (the mono recordings of Jacob, White, Ireland and Wordsworth, for example) and secondly, as I listened to this CD I realised that it made a fine introduction to Musical Britain. I remember as a child books called the ‘Boy’s Guide to’ … Field-craft, Trains, Racing Cars et al. Perhaps this, in a more PC age, could be referred to as the "Individual’s Guide to British Music"?

The CD opens with a piece that was written when Great Britain was a ‘land without music.’ The Galop is probably the most famous excerpt from Michael Balfe’s best known opera: The Bohemian Girl. And of course it was once a Tommy Beecham ‘Lollipop’. Perhaps Balfe’s twenty-nine operas do not signify in the early 21st century when compared to G&S, Tippett or Benjamin Britten, but in his day he was a seriously popular composer. And Ireland – Balfe was born in Dublin - was at that time part of the United Kingdom!

I usually baulk at excerpting from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. My exception is the annual outing of Nimrod at the Cenotaph: I can forgive anything in those circumstances. So I suppose I am not really happy about one short variation being given here. Yet here it is - Dorabella which follows on from Nimrod and is a complete change of tone, mood and emotion. We hear the ‘stammering lightness’ and ‘merry chatter’ of Elgar’s helper and admired Dora Penny. It is a lovely piece that actually does stand alone … just about … although I feel that it is much more telling and effective following that great Beethovenian variation in the complete work.

And how often do we hear the P&C March No.5? Even enthusiasts of ‘Grunge’ cannot have avoided ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ in their lives’ journey. But how many know the other four (five)? I guess most people over the age of thirty-five will recall No. 4 in G being played as the recessional at the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding. The rest are little known and rarely heard. But please note that this late - it was composed four years before Elgar’s death - march is rather good. And the interesting thing is that most of us come to it afresh. It has not accrued the baggage - good, bad and indifferent - of being an alternative National Anthem played at the Proms.

I am not an opera fan, but I have always loved The Walk to Paradise Garden by Fred Delius. I know the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet and realise that it has a tragic context in that work. However, I got to know the piece on an old Beecham release of Delius orchestral works on Decca Eclipse and have had my own programme for this work ever since! So I suggest that listeners dump the libretto and see this piece as a nature poem – descriptive of whatever landscape or mindscape moves them most.

Percy Grainger is a rare personality. He wrote a vast amount of music that is little played these days. I am not a fan of his, yet I do appreciate that he was probably a wayward genius. And a few of his works do have the capacity to move me: most I find entertaining. The majority of listeners will know his ubiquitous Country Gardens which was arranged for just about every instrumental combination possible. Yet Shepherd’s Hey and the Immovable Do presented here deserve greater popularity. The latter piece was inspired by a leaking harmonium which continually sounded a ‘high C’ throughout the performance of whatever Grainger was playing. Shepherd’s Hey is based on the folk tune ‘The Keel Row’. Incidentally, the score was dedicated to Edvard Grieg. Both miniatures are worthy additions to the repertoire and would make excellent encores - if given the chance.

Our musical exploration moves back to Ireland. This time it is the second movement of Sir Hamilton Harty’s fine Irish Symphony – subtitled The Fair-Day. Most people will associate Harty with the Hallé Orchestra which he conducted between 1920 and 1933. Yet he was also an accomplished composer who wrote not only the present work but a wonderful piano concerto, a violin concerto and a number of other excellent pieces. Fortunately, most of these were released on Chandos a number of years ago and are still available. Additionally, Naxos has contributed their recordings of the Symphony and the Piano Concerto. Harty is a composer well worth investigating. The present piece is a fine evocation of a ‘Fair Day’ in Ireland that must have been familiar to the composer as a young man. Look out for the fiddler tuning up and the fine reel!

Everyone knows that Peter Warlock was a pseudonym. His real name was Philip Heseltine. He took the name of Warlock after some involvement with occult mysteries after time spent in Ireland during the Great War. More often noted for his superb songs, Warlock composed a mere handful of works for orchestral forces – including An Old Song, the Serenade for Frederick Delius and the Capriol Suite. Best known in its string orchestra incarnation, this latter work was originally given as a piano duet. Latterly it was arranged for full orchestra – this is the version we hear on this CD. The Suite is based on tunes found in an antique dissertation called ‘Orchesography’ which was supposedly penned by a certain ‘Capriol’. The programme notes inform us that the Suite was rejected by a number of publishers: this is hard to imagine since we now regard the work as one of the minor masterpieces of 20th century music. Apparently Warlock sold the work for a mere 25 guineas!

Lord Berners’ real name is much more impressive – Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson: it sounds as if it were straight out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. He was an artist and a ballet producer whose day-job appeared to be that of a diplomat. Moving in the rarefied atmosphere of the Sitwells it is not surprising that he was an eccentric. The Triumphs of Neptune was conceived by Sacheverell and eventually became a successful feature for the Ballets Russes. The Hornpipe does not press on to the limits of musical invention, but it is attractive and does justice to its nautical origins. It is well worth discovering other music by this fascinating, if somewhat odd, composer.

Gustav Holst’s St Paul’s Suite surely needs no introduction or recommendation to readers of these pages. Yet sometimes it is easy to forget that this work comes from the same pen as The Planets. The work is conducted here by the composer’s daughter Imogen: to my ear it is one of the best recordings of this work in the repertoire. It is a Suite that must be listened to in its entirety and not excerpted.

The last piece is a major masterpiece. Along with Tippett’s Double Concerto and Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro it is one of the most important essays in string writing in British musical literature. The Tallis Fantasia is a work that seems to gather up the whole tradition of England – its landscape, its literature and its religion. It is impossible to listen to this work without being aware of the whole sweep of history – both musical and otherwise. In one sense it is a timeless work, yet in another it is as much a part of twentieth century music as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue or Berg’s Violin Concerto. The Fantasia is a visionary score which marked its composer out as a major figure in the British musical scene.

Most cognoscenti of British music will have all these works in their CD collections. This release is a bit of a pot-pourri. Yet consider this. It is good to take the opportunity of listening to a variety of pieces played end to end - now and again; it reminds us of our whole musical heritage. And lastly if you know anyone who is edging towards an appreciation of the native music of the British Isles – this is the present for them. In either case – Buy it!

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Alun Hoddinott. Conductor: David Atherton. Soloist: Gervase de Peyer.

The inaugural batch of truly new Lyritas came out in January but review copies have until now been in short supply. This is the first disc from that batch and it is gloriously successful.

On offer here are two enduringly fresh glories of the British choral renaissance united by the Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Vernon Handley. Each work eschews the cloying fustian of Victoriana. The applied sensibility of the two composers is very much of the twentieth century. The two works appear together for the first time and make a substantial and frankly irresistible offering.

You will have noted the analogue origins. This need hold no fears for any purchaser. The sound is intrinsically splendid and remains so quite untroubled by the passage of arms from analogue to digital. Simon Gibson the transfer engineer held in his hands the impossibly exalted expectations of a generation or two of listeners and has met those expectations – long may he labour over those tapes. I am fascinated to hear what he does with the intrinsically glorious tapes of Boult’s version of the Moeran Symphony, Del Mar in Bax 6 and Rignold’s of the Bliss John Blow Meditations and Music for Strings. Precious cargo indeed!

Turning first to the Hadley – which has a track per movement. The best demonstration of the successful transfer is in the silky sheen of the violins in the Andante tranquillo of the Hadley (tr. 2, 3:50-4:30). Even with headphones and the volume turned up high I could only ever just hear a subtle hush underpinning Carl Pini’s con molto amore violin solo in the third movement and again his poignant solo under the words … and buttercups in the finale. The rich ominous tones of the bass drum at the start of the finale – where the choir and soloist join for the first time induces an honest and wondering shiver. At the end the concatenation of the sung words The trees so high, forever and farewell continues to lend this work and this recording towering emotional power. Even if you have the equally superb Chandos version you need this one as well.

Then to the Finzi Intimations: a personal favourite. How liberating it is to have the horn call from eternity, right at the very start, sing out with such pregnant tension without the slightest hint of LP rumble. It simply floats free and launches this major work with serenity and the promise of revelation. Both percussion and heavy brass register with a completely apt gruffness and a bright glow in the Now, While the Birds … We can forgive Finzi the Waltonian wand with which the percussion voices are touched. The same goes for the brass for that matter at (tr. 8 2:53 and 3:21; tr. 9 0:22). The recording stands up supremely well to those ringing massed choral cries of Shout round me! It was always adroitly balanced with as much attention to projecting massed fortissimo outbursts as to confiding asides. The woodwind graces that reach out to the listener from time to time as in the flute-trilling birdsong that dynamically entwines I love the brooks (tr. 14) are done with touching fidelity. At the start of tr. 10 Our Birth is but a Sleep … the purity with which the timps and brass are rendered is a thing of sheer joy. Just one blemish – a series of barely audible distant clicks in tr. 10 at 3:20, 3:33, 3:40 and 3:44. Back to the positive though: in tr. 13 listen for the cavernously hoarse tuba morphing into a rumba – a similar coup to be found in the finale of Finzi’s Cello Concerto.

Those who may have looked askance at the Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra have no reason to be critical. Handley had been conducting that orchestra and choir since the 1960s. He made several Bax recordings with them in the 1960s for the Revolution label. There is nothing here that is poor or amateurish. There are some extremely demanding moments at which the choir more than meet the challenge. One example is in tr. 10 at 1:22 where the chorus, coming in cold, hit the word God, on a high exposed entry, slap bang on the note. On the words ‘We in thought will join your throng’ they project a lovely radiant tone without a hint of ferocity.

This is the version to have. It is superior to all others although the wonderful Gilchrist on Naxos comes close. The Langridge/EMI is excellent from the point of view of orchestral sound but the tenor singing is marred by an excessively wobbly vibrato and much the same applies to the Hyperion. You may be less allergic to this factor than me but in this work where the music and the words are of equal significance I find that cycling throb in the voice a real obstacle. Listen to Partridge at And O ye Fountains … and to the explosive crescendo in One delight.

These recordings first appeared separately on LP, the Finzi in 1975 as SRCS75 and the Hadley in 1979 on SRCS106 coupled with the same composer’s Vaughan Williams tribute One Morning in Spring – the latter conducted by Boult. The Boult item will reappear as part of the April release programme under SRCD 245 with other Boult Lyrita recordings: Butterworth: Two English Idylls; Banks of Green Willow; A Shropshire Lad; Warlock: An Old Song; Hadley: One Morning in Spring; Howells: Procession; Merry Eye; Elegy for viola, string quartet and strings; Music for a Prince.

The liner-notes for the present disc are by William Mann (Hadley) and Diana McVeagh (Finzi). The sung words are given in the booklet in full although following the shifting narrative stance of the Hadley demands mental agility from the reader/listener.

As is common with Lyrita the exact date and location of recording sessions is not given.

Matchless versions of major works by Hadley and Finzi. An outstanding achievement by composers, performers and technicians.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Eugene Goossens most ambitious and epic work, The Apocalypse, has had few performances since its premiere in Sydney Town Hall in 1954. It is a grand work, full of colors and drama, and in the words of conductor Myer Fredman, “the orchestration is brilliant.” This recording was made to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1982. Sir Eugene Goossens was born in London. He studied music first in Bruges and Liverpool, and then in 1907 received a scholarship to study under composer Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music. He went on to win the silver medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and was made associate of the Royal College of Music. The Apocalypse is the only oratorio Goossens composed.

Music of dissonant discontinuity and conflagration.

In this disc Lyrita steps about as far away as you can go from their accustomed heartland. This is music of dissonant discontinuity and conflagration – especially in the symphony. Its upheavals and eruptions are expressed in pointillistic silvery fragments and vertiginous stop-starts and mood-swings.sample We are immersed in this pool of imaginative effects immediately in Gerhard's Fourth - and final completed - Symphony. It stutters, creeps, excoriates and bawls. Previously recorded by Naive and by Chandos this its world premiere recording. In that sense it is an awesomely honest document recorded in the last year of Gerhard's life. In addition however it shouts the ultima thule of 1970s exclusivity and ivory towers.

The Violin Concerto is written in more beguilingly compromising tones. Here there is a connection with melody and an evident allegiance for the long melodic line even if it does have an astringent after-taste. Yfrah Neaman with his unmistakable silver thread of tone is as dedicated and fluent an interpreter as his BBC colleagues. In the finale Gerhard gives us a buzz-saw pell-mell climactic display - not above borrowing from Sarasate in mood rather than detail. Overall the concerto can be loosely and rather unsophisticatedly bracketed with the two Rawsthorne concertos, the Frankel and the Fricker; the latter reissued this month on Lyrita. The silence at the end of the concerto demands a burly if misty-eyed cheer from even the most impassive of listeners.

The BBCSO and its then conductor Colin Davis put this music through the hoops. Did anyone at the time think that these works would be recorded more than once. In the studio they must have thought they were recording these works for all time. The results certainly suggest that.

The completely satisfying notes are by MusicWeb writer Paul Conway one of the rising and risen authorities on twentieth century British music. Paul’s article on the Gerhard symphonies is well worth your attention … and mine. However don’t miss Guy Rickard’s article while you are here.

Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

The life of George Lloyd, as Lewis Foreman’s exemplary booklet notes tell us, was something of a heroic struggle against misfortune, ill health and the indifference of the musical establishment.

Born into a musical family in Cornwall in 1913, Lloyd started to learn the violin at the age of five and this enabled him to participate in local musical performances. Subsequently he continued his violin studies in London, with no less a figure than Albert Sammons. Harry Farjeon, the brother of the poet Eleanor Farjeon, was his composition tutor. Early works included three symphonies - the third played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1935 under the composer’s baton - and two operas, Iernin and The Serf, dating from 1934 and 1938 respectively. The latter was produced at Covent Garden conducted by Albert Coates where it was well received. All seemed set for a successful career.

During the Second World War Lloyd served as gunner on the North Atlantic convoys. On one such voyage in 1942 Lloyd’s ship was sunk due to a faulty torpedo and Lloyd was severely affected by shell-shock. Moving to his wife’s home country of Switzerland, and with her constant support and encouragement, Lloyd endeavoured to resurrect his musical career. The physical and psychological damage caused by his wartime experiences made this something of an uphill struggle. It is against this background of convalescence that Lloyd wrote his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies.

Lloyd was then commissioned to write an opera for the 1951 Festival of Britain, John Socman, which was premiered in Bristol in May 1951 by the Carl Rosa Opera Company. Although popular with audiences the critics were not impressed and this contributed to a further decline in Lloyd’s health. Moving to Dorset, he established a career as a market-gardener for the next twenty years, only returning intermittently to composition.

It was during the 1970s that the support and advocacy of figures such as Charles Groves, John Ogdon and Edward Downes led to a renaissance in performances of Lloyd’s music. Downes in particular programmed several of Lloyd’s symphonies with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra (later BBC Philharmonic) and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Concerts in Manchester and elsewhere led to the three recordings presented on these Lyrita discs. Subsequently Lloyd himself recorded much of his output for the American Albany label as a result of the enthusiasm of director Peter Kermani. This further raised Lloyd’s profile and he himself was delighted and reinvigorated by the attention his music received. Leaving his business in Dorset, he moved to London and resumed composition. Several new works followed, many premiered under the composer’s baton, in Britain and the United States. Audiences were delighted by the approachability of Lloyd’s scores. “Buckets of Dollars” was the composer’s delighted response. The onset of heart failure in the autumn of 1996 eventually led to his death, aged 85, two years later.

So what of these pioneering performances under Downes’ baton? I’ve not heard the composer’s own later recordings, but Downes as we have seen was a great admirer of Lloyd’s music and this is reflected in the drive and commitment of the Lyrita performances.

The storminess of the Fourth Symphony’s opening Allegro moderato surely reflects the demons that a traumatised Lloyd was trying to lay to rest in the post-war years. Bold fanfares alternate with woodwind figures before the music settles down to Bax-like melodic figures, ostinati and sequences building a powerful sense of tension. Dramatic passages alternate with sunnier episodes, but the music never loses impetus and builds to a powerful climax. Towards the end wailing woodwind and gunshot cracks on timpani give way to a calmer passage before a brief return of the opening fanfares end this powerful music.

High, still strings open the Lento tranquillo, creating an atmosphere of stillness which contrasts with the first movement, although Lloyd’s use of chromatic figures prevent the music from becoming too restful. This leads to a more animated central section that would not be out of place in one of Tchaikovsky’s suites, before an abridged return of the initial music.

The drama of the first movement and songfulness of the second are contrasted with the vivid dance music of the Allegro scherzando. George Lloyd’s melodic gifts come into their own here and conductor and orchestra appear to relish the sheer joie-de-vivre of the music. What would Beecham have made of it, I wonder? Buoyant, vivace passages are contrasted with a slower section that again seems to suggest inspiration from Russian music.

A horn melody over tremolo strings introduces the last movement. This builds to a powerfully affirmative melody before Lloyd launches us into a joyful moto perpetuo, largely based on one or two themes. The sheer energy of this movement is remarkable. A contrasting central section with woodwind and running figures on lower strings clouds the music for a time before Lloyd brings back the initial section and the symphony romps home to an affirmative close.

Lloyd wanted the Fifth Symphony to represent a “psychological journey” with each movement representing a particular stage in that pilgrimage. The first movement Pastorale is indeed a representation of bucolic innocence with its gentle woodwind solos and arabesques. Although Lloyd says in his programme notes for the work that he has omitted brass and percussion from the movement, apparently this does not extend to horns which can be clearly heard at 2:53 and 6:12. Overall the delicacy of this movement reflects Lloyds own desire to counter against the “over thick and opulent excesses of the late Romantics” Lloyd’s use of a flattened seventh here and there recalls Nielsen’s use of this device in his music.

The second movement is entitled Corale and starts with solemn brass chords before embarking on what Lloyd describes as an “ecclesiastical” tune. He likens the serious tread of this movement to the austere Calvinism observed in Switzerland at the time he was writing this symphony. To emphasise the solemnity Lloyd omits violins and violas. This generates a dark processional mood throughout the movement.

With the Rondo Lloyd works with a gossamer-like texture and chattering woodwind and strings. More animated episodes contrast effectively with the return of the Rondo theme itself.

The fourth movement is marked Lamento and here Lloyd uses the full orchestra for the first time in the work. The music now touches on depths that have hitherto been avoided. An emphasis on darker colours and heavy brass create something of a doom-laden atmosphere which is swept aside by the Finale (Vivace). As in the Fourth Symphony Lloyd now seeks to create a positive conclusion to the work by way of contrast after the dark character of the previous movement. Bustling strings and bright themes lighten the mood and bring the symphony to a positive conclusion.

The Eighth Symphony followed another period of self-doubt during which Lloyd had concentrated on non-musical activities. The work was written in 1961 although the orchestration was not completed until 1965. The first performance did not take place until 1977! The BBC broadcast of this symphony did much to alert people to Lloyd’s music and the subsequent resurgence of his career could be said to date from this time. In the Eighth Symphony Lloyd is harmonically more adventurous than in the Fourth and Fifth, and there is a surer grasp of material.

The first movement Tranquillo – Allegro opens with a dreamy introduction, featuring descending motifs on woodwind over a carpet of strings, before a sforzando chord heralds the start of the Allegro proper. Scurrying strings and syncopated rhythms alternate with more lyrical passages. Lloyd’s writing for brass is especially memorable and builds to a powerful climax at 14:30 before a culminating statement of the lyrical music. The music of the slow introduction returns at the end and the movement concludes with an uneasy calm.

The Largo opens with tremolando strings and harp figurations, creating a mysterious atmosphere. Again the music seems slightly Baxian in feel. The main part of the movement is a slow march which Lloyd contrasts with allegretto interludes. These alternate and build to a powerful statement of the main theme at 9:12. The opening music returns at the end.

Lloyd likens the final Vivace movement to the tarantella of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, and there is certainly the same sense of moto perpetuo to be felt in the two works. Harmonically the music is unsettled with constant brass interjections propel the music towards the conclusion, relieved only by a short interlude just before the end which recalls the Largo.

“I was determined not to write long, highly organised symphonies full of Elgarian splendours”. So wrote Lloyd in a programme note, and in many ways his music can be seen as a personal reaction against what he viewed as the excessive tension and drama of several contemporary composers. There is little of the apocalyptic menace of Walton’s First or Vaughan Williams’s Fourth, or the close motivic workings of Sibelius. Lloyd seems more interested in working with blends of orchestral colour or contrasting - and admittedly memorable - themes rather than working these into a closely argued framework. Listeners unfamiliar with this music who have come to think of the twentieth-century symphony as a vehicle for expressing the darker events of the time may be surprised at the lightness of touch and consonance of harmony Lloyd uses in these works, particularly when you consider his own struggles. Despite his statement above, these are long symphonies by any standards. Lloyd is generally successful in controlling the contrast, pace and development of his ideas in a way that constantly holds the listener’s attention.

The performances are first rate. Downes and the Philharmonia realise the changing moods of the music to perfection, and play with genuine commitment. The sound and balance of these late-analogue recordings is excellent and a very believable concert-hall balance is created. As usual with Lyrita the presentation is of a high standard, with fascinating programme notes by Lewis Foreman and the composer himself.

-- Ewan McCormick, MusicWeb International

British composer Peter Racine Fricker was one of the first to be heavily influenced by the early 20th century masters Bartok, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, and his style is an assimilation of these influences combined with his own very distinct musical voice. Fricker’s compositional catalog exceeds 160 works, and includes all genres except for staged opera.

The Vision of Judgement performance presented here is conducted by Charles Groves, and features the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It was broadcast on BBC on October 14, 1980. Symphony No. 5 for Organ and Orchestra features Gillian Weir on organ, as well as the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis. It aired on the BBC on May 5, 1976, and was performed live from the festival hall.

‘For me music is as exciting as a sporting event. I wish that … critics and public could get as worked up about new music as they do about football and cricket’. This cri de coeur from composer Peter Racine Fricker (1920-1990) captures the passion and conviction with which he approached his craft. Fricker was born on 5 September 1920 in Ealing, London. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, London and entered the Royal College of Music in 1937. Upon demobilisation he resumed formal composition lessons with the Hungarian emigre composer Mátyás Seiber, who had lived in England since 1935. In 1952 he was appointed musical director of Morley College (succeeding Michael Tippett) and held this post for the next 12 years. During this period he was also a Professor of Composition at the RCM. Fricker was the first British composer to make his reputation entirely after World War II. Among the first composers in Britain to be influenced by the music of Bela Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Fricker assimilated aspects of their very different styles into a distinctive voice of his own. He proceeded to build an impressive body of work in his highly expressive, urbane and freely atonal language.

Classical Music

A few months ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Lyrita's reissue of John Foulds's Dynamic Triptych for piano and orchestra (coupled with Vaughan Williams's Piano Concerto, 3/93). Now, from the same company, we have a new disc entirely devoted to some of the composer's orchestral works, and a splendid addition to the catalogue it is too. Foulds is a somewhat elusive and fascinating figure of English music, and this well balanced survey of his music should do much to enlarge his popularity and win new friends.

Throughout most of his career he was principally known for his light music (the once popular Keltic Lament is one such example), and he also had to devote a large portion of his time to musical arrangements and unrewarding musical hack-work. Here, we are given the opportunity to explore some of his finest 'serious' works, which reveal Foulds as the innovator, mystic and, in the short Overture Le Cabaret, Op. 72a, entertainer. After the breezy, light-hearted merry-romp of Le Cabaret (originally part of his incidental music for Sacha Guitry's play Deburau, based on the life of the nineteenth-century French mime artist Jean-Gaspard Deburau), we come to one of his last surviving pieces for orchestra (many of his late compositions, composed in India where he died in 1939, remain lost), the ''Pasquinade Symphonique'' No. 2, Op. 98, which is here receiving its first ever recording. Foulds planned three works with this title, which would have eventually formed a suite, or Symphony in Pasquinade form. The first of these was subtitled the ''Classical'', the third, had he lived to complete it, would have been the ''Modernist'', and this one—the slow movement of the suite—is subtitled the ''Romantic''. The work has a striking, immediate appeal, despite the many influences that seem to tumble forth in quick succession (everything from Sibelius to Puccini). Michael Oliver, when reviewing Pearl's excellent recording of two of his string quartets (3/88), described him as ''garrulous, omnivorous magpie of a composer'', and it is true that by nature he was an insatiable eclectic. However, even when the influences seem to be at their most apparent, as in the highly Respighian April-England, the listener is always acutely aware of Foulds's own distinctive voice.

The remaining pieces on the disc reveal the mystical side of Foulds's creativity. The suite entitled Hellas, for double string orchestra, harp and percussion, dates from 1932, and is an arrangement of earlier piano pieces from 1910 and 1915. Although the suite is clearly an evocation of ancient Greece, the modal writing and scoring for strings also give it an unmistakable English feel. All but the last movement (''Corybantes'') are in slow, measured time and exert a hypnotic, compelling spell over the listener. The most substantial work on the disc, and possibly one of Foulds's most powerful and important creations, are the Three Mantras Op. 61b. These are the only surviving remnants from his aborted opera on Indian myths, Avatara, which he worked on for a period of ten years (1910-20) and which, as Malcolm MacDonald says in his excellent booklet-notes, remains shrouded in mystery. The outer Mantras (representing Action and Will respectively), both brimming with memorable ideas and invigorating rhythmic invention, are Foulds at his most dynamic, whilst the central Mantra (Bliss), an extended slow movement of some 13 minutes incorporating a wordless female choir, is a captivating and magical movement of great beauty.

Barry Wordsworth and the London Philharmonic respond to Foulds's music verve, commitment and enthusiasm, and the recording is of the highest Lyrita standard.

-- Michael Stewart, Gramophone [5/1993]

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.

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.

‘If [a composer] has “something to say”, it can be said only through his technique; he has no control over “inspiration”. The surest way of writing dull music is to sit down with one’s head full of “Beauty” or “Socialism” instead of crotchets and quavers’. This no-nonsense approach to his craft has served Gordon Crosse well during his long career as a creative artist. Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire on 1 December 1937. He won a place at Oxford University, where he studied with Egon Wellesz and Bernard Rose between 1958 and 1963. In the spring of 1962, following the advice of Peter Maxwell Davies, he studied for three months with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome. From 1964 onwards he combined composition with various teaching appointments at the Universities of Birmingham, Essex and King’s College Cambridge. After growing disenchantment with his profession, he gave up composition altogether between 1990 and 2007. The five works presented here all date from the 1960s. It was a period of great success and acclaim – in 1966 he was granted the Vaughan Williams Composer of the Year Award for his ‘outstanding contribution to British music’ and in the same year an article in The Times devoted to his output began with a quote referring to him as ‘the most exciting composer to have appeared in Britain since Richard Rodney Bennett’.

This album of Arnold Cooke’s Symphonies 4 and 5 were originally broadcast on the BBC in 1975 and 1981, respectively. Arnold Cooke said of his compositional style, “My music is mainly based on traditional procedures and principles… I do not have any particular theories of composition, just a natural inclination for it.” Cooke tended to steer away from passing compositional fads, staying true to his ‘style.’ Meirion Bowen said of this recording of Symphony No. 4, “the format is entirely that of the traditional four-movement symphony- crystal clear to follow, perfectly proportioned in the best academic traditions.” The works are performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.