Robert Simpson wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1972 in response to a commission by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first performance of the symphony took place on 3 May 1973 at the Royal Festival Hall, under the direction of Andrew Davis. Another London performance took place on 29 March 1984, again in the Royal Festival Hall, with the Philharmonia, the conductor again being Andrew Davis. In both cases audience and press reception was unanimously enthusiastic. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, in a review in the Sunday Times headed “Power of Robert Simpson”, detected “some shattering personal crisis” and observed that the 4th and 5th Symphonies “compel all but the most rigidly advanced of listeners to take a closer look at this remarkable composer.” He found the Fifth “bolder, tougher and more mysterious in substance.” Simpson’s Sixth Symphony, of 1977, was commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with funds provided by the Arts Council, who later sponsored the recording of the Sixth and Seventh, and also contributed to a number of later Commissions. It received its premiere performance on 8 April 1980 at the Royal Festival Hall with The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves. Edward Greenfield wrote in his Guardian review: “Happily Dr Simpson’s metaphors are incidental to his genuinely musical imagination. So after the fragmentary germinal motives at the start, he turns very quickly to a bold tonal melody such as Nielsen might have written. One might even say that another of Dr Simpson’s great influences is represented too; he has often acknowledged his debt to Beethoven and here he has in effect written a Pastoral symphony for the 20th century, a view of nature observed not through the eye of the individual but through the microscope.”

With two orchestral collections already out from Chandos and a third on the bench Cyril Scott’s music is at last making its way.

He died nine years short of his centenary. Had he lived to experience that iconic event he would have seen a couple of articles and very little else. In the 1980s things moved on a little as it did for his copains Granville Bantock and Josef Holbrooke. For Scott this took the form of a rather lacklustre orchestral collection from Marco Polo. Since then there has been a Chris Howell anthology of piano solos on Tremula and three double CD sets of the solo piano music played by Wilfred De’Ath on Dutton. The BBC broadcast the one act opera The Alchemist as well as the choral piece La Belle Dame Sans Merci and most recently the Violin Concerto, itself rumoured to be included on the next Chandos Scott volume. Latterly the real impact on the musical public’s consciousness has come from those two Chandos collections which in repertoire terms substantially overlap the present disc; the only completely new works there being the symphonies 3 and 4 and Neptune.

There’s no direct competition between this disc and the Chandos pair. Lyrita have here gathered the contents of two LPs issued in 1975 and 1977 giving us Scott’s principal output for piano and orchestra. The recordings were the result of a volatile collaboration between Richard Itter, John Ogdon and the irascible Anglophile conductor and composer Bernard Herrmann.

Do not expect from these three works frank heroics in the Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov or Brahms mode. This is not solo pianist in adversarial contest with orchestra, pugilistic and then subdued. The First Piano Concerto was written just before the Great War. Beecham conducted at the premiere and the composer was the soloist. Latterly it was taken up by Kendall Taylor, Moura Lympany and Esther Fisher. The work is subtly perfumed with solo textures abounding and an overpowering atmosphere of mystery and idyllic lambency. After the Chinese hieratics of the first movement the second shares the enigmatic ritualism of John Ireland’s Legend and Forgotten Rite. The arcane beauties of the piece can be sampled in the dialogue of gong and celesta. Liquid Debussian touches create a meditative art nouveau kaleidoscope – a Klimt canvas in motion. The mood changes for the finale with its Handel-out-of-Grainger jocularity.

The beguilingly glittering waywardness of the First Concerto can also be heard - though with none of the oriental edge - in Early One Morning. The folksong itself is for the most part deeply subsumed, rising in enchanting Copland-like mist at 4:18. It is most clearly limned by the piano at 5:03 onwards. This is by no means the sort of conventional variations on a theme that Stanford produced for Down Among the Dead Men. The recording sessions were the first performance of the revision for single piano and orchestra. The original was for two pianos and orchestra.

The Second Concerto cannot be precisely dated but it is known that the composer was working on it in 1956. It is quite short and is in three movements. A tougher nut than the First Concerto, its themes are more subtle. Its haunted swaying harmonic world recalls an overgrown, lichen-festooned castle. Herrmann’s Xanadu was perhaps an influence; I wonder if Scott saw Citizen Kane? More plausibly we might hazard that the concerto was influenced by Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. There is a positively Baxian war-dance trope at 00:32 in I. Otherwise the stylistic links are as with the other works: with the last two piano concertos by Nicolai Medtner, the Symphonic Variations of Arnold Bax (contemporary with Scott’s First Piano Concerto) and with John Foulds’ Dynamic Triptych and Essays in the Modes.

The cover of the CD booklet is a detail from the cover of the LP SRCS81: a portrait of Scott at age 52 painted by George Hall Neale. The notes are by Christopher Palmer and Roger Wimbush and are taken from the original LPs which are:

SRCS-81 Piano Concerto No. 1 in C / Ogdon (piano) Herrmann LPO
SRCS-82 Piano Concerto No. 2; Early One Morning (Poem for Piano and Orchestra) / Ogdon (piano) Herrmann LPO

This is a generously timed disc presenting Scott’s subtly beguiling piano concertos. The first is the more instantly captivating of the two but the second has much to commend it. Superbly done.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

A composer who writes songs arguably allows us into a very personal side of his or her character. An instrumental composition gives us access to a composer's imagination and invention as far as the composer chooses to let us see, but a song shows a composer's highly personal response to a text - we hear how the composer reacts to another facet of creativity. We are not confined to the composer's own thoughts, and the best songs take us into a composer's creative mind. Cyril Scott's compositional style reflected the color and richness of his ideas. The songs on this release cover a period from his early 20s to when he was about 40. A few of Scott's songs became extraordinarily popular: they undoubtedly overshadowed the rest of his work. In many of his songs, he explored and developed his harmonic language, and set the mood and character of the text, so that the best can be explored at many levels. Some of them seem simple, but hide, as Edmund Rubbra, a composer and a student of Scott, put it, 'a good deal of artifice'. Repeated listening allow their richness of detail to sink in, and they become more and more rewarding.

I am absolutely delighted to have these fine works by a beloved composer back in the catalogue, especially in such beautifully committed readings as these.

Elizabeth Maconchy was a most distinguished composer, whose music is still under-represented in terms of commercial recordings, although her present discography is far from negligible. The complete recording of her string quartets (possibly her greatest achievement) is – fortunately enough – available again at bargain price (on Regis) as are her Clarinet Concertinos and Clarinet Quintet (on Helios, if I am not mistaken), which on the whole is not too bad, but there is so much that is still awaiting recording. Good news to know that Odaline de la Martinez is apparently busy committing some hitherto unrecorded works to disc for Lorelt. This is something to watch for indeed. Appropriately released in the composer’s centenary year, this Lyrita disc is thus most welcome since it restores one of Maconchy’s masterpieces back into the current catalogue, namely her magnificent Symphony for Double String Orchestra, and offers the first commercial recording of another major work, the Music for Strings of 1983.

The earliest work here is the overture Proud Thames composed in 1952, some sort of English Vltava, although “the Thames is shorter by many hundreds of miles than the Vltava” (Hugo Cole). The music is simple, direct and colourfully scored. A very fine concert opener all-too-rarely heard.

The Symphony for Double String Orchestra is a fairly substantial work in four neatly contrasting movements. The first movement opens with a vigorous call to attention (a five-note figure that will reappear later in the work, actually in the final movement). The two string ensembles are used either antiphonally or in unison, with some forceful contrapuntal writing (actually one of Maconchy’s strengths). The second movement opens with “a rocking figure” paving the way for a richly melodic, impassioned theme, that momentarily gives way to the sole violin’s reverie, but the music moves irrepressibly forward towards a mighty climax subsiding then into the opening mood before dissolving into thin air. The third movement is a light-footed Scherzo with the flavour of some rustic dance. The final movement is a concise, but none the less imposing Passacaglia. After the climax, the music again dies away calmly with a quiet, slow restatement of the very opening of the first movement. As already mentioned earlier in this review, I firmly believe that this is one of Maconchy’s greatest achievements and a magnificent work that should have earned a permanent place in the repertoire.

The very title of the Serenata Concertante clearly suggests that much emphasis is laid on the symphonic nature of the argument, which is possibly tighter than in the Symphony. Indeed, the first movement opens with a short introduction stating some basic material that will keep reappearing during the course of the work. The introduction leads into the animated Allegro main section. The second movement is a Scherzo. If Bartók is often – and rightly – mentioned as an important influence on Maconchy’s music, it is now Martin? who sometimes comes to mind, at least in this particular movement. The slow movement is a richly melodic and warmly lyrical arch supported by soft brass chords, over which the soloist freely muses. The work ends with a fairly extended Rondo, in which material from the preceding movements is briefly restated, thus emphasis the symphonic structure of the whole. It nevertheless ends with a beautiful, calm coda, as did the Symphony.

The Music for Strings, too, is in four movements. The dark-hued introduction of the first movement sets the predominantly sombre mood of the entire movement. The movement is another fleeting Scherzo ending “in a wisp of sound”. The dark, elegiac mood suggested by the viola in the first bars of the third movement is sustained throughout the Mesto that reaches an eloquent climax. The music slowly subsides leaving the viola alone. The tense mood prevailing in the preceding movements eventually brightens in the final that concludes with “an insouciant throw away ending”. On the whole, Music for Strings is a much sterner, rather more understated work than the Symphony, but one that any composer less modest than Maconchy would have proudly called Second Symphony for Strings. Another splendid piece of music, and a most welcome addition to Elizabeth Maconchy’s discography.

I am absolutely delighted to have these fine works by a beloved composer back in the catalogue, especially in such beautifully committed readings as these. This generous release is a must for all lovers of Maconchy’s music; others will find much beautiful music to enjoy here.

-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International

Nicholas Maw’s most fervent desire was to communicate directly with his audiences and produce material which performers would enjoy playing and Spring Music, written with the express purpose of diverting and entertaining an audience, finds the composer at his most uninhibited and freely expressive. Fresh, colorful and vibrant, this score has the exotic, open-hearted spirit of a curtain-raiser by William Walton or Alan Rawsthorne. In its final, slimmed-down version, it rapidly became one of Maw’s favorite pieces among his own output and he once described the long-breathed cello-led melody as ‘one of the best tunes I think I’ve actually ever written’. In 1995 Maw was commissioned by the BBC to write a work commemorating the 300th anniversary that year of the death of Purcell. Maw soon came to the conclusion that he wanted to round off his tribute piece with an example of a chaconne, a form in which Purcell was pre-eminent. The theme which Maw chose to embellish is derived from the first of his Life Studies for 15 solo strings. Taking his lead from Tchaikovsky, Maw decided that the main title should reflect precisely the reference vocabulary of the piece and so the piece became known for a while as Romantic Variations. Later still the title was altered to its definitive form of Voices of Memory: Variations for Orchestra. Described by Andrew Burn as ‘a major contribution to the genre’, the Sonata for Solo Violin was requested by Jorja Fleezanis, to whom the work is dedicated. In Maw’s Sonata for Solo Violin, the constraints of writing for a single stringed instrument in a four-movement, large-scale work are deftly surmounted by the composer’s gift for melodic lines and rhythmic invention. Each movement has a vivid sense of color, formal logic and onward momentum so that the writing, however demanding it may be, never suggests an arid study or a shallow technical exercise.

The opera centres on the love affair of Horatio Nelson, and Emma, Lady Hamilton. Completed in 1951, it was first performed in full in 1954. The British Embassy in Naples is the scene of a birthday party for Nelson, arranged to celebrate his victory at the Nile. He appears with ‘the sadness of the world upon his lips’ and while the other guests are dancing, Nelson, with Emma Hamilton, the Ambassador’s wife, beside him, hears a servant foretell his future unhappiness. This releases the passionate feelings of the couple for each other and the conflict in their lives.

A fascinating assembly of Holstiana. Three of these pieces have already appeared on record before, two of which—the colourful 1921 ballet, The Lure, and Dances from The Morning of the Year (an effective concert suite edited by Imogen Holst and Colin Matthews from Holst's 1926-7 choral ballet)—were available on an earlier Lyrita compilation from 1982, coupled with the ambitious 1904 scena for soprano and orchestra, The Mystic Trumpeter. David Atherton was the admirable conductor on that occasion, with the LSO enthusiastic protagonists and the engineers on top form. Wisely, then, this enterprising label has invited the same conductor (this time with the LPO) to continue the good work, and the result is this notably generous collection of absorbing rarities.

Just one work offers the chance for comparative listening, the haunting Invocation for cello and orchestra from 1911. Imogen Holst has observed that, from a textural point of view, this music presages many features of ''Venus'' from The Planets (indeed, if I'm not mistaken, the cello's opening senza misura passage even quotes a turn of phrase later used in that selfsame movement). Memorably recorded for RCA by Julian Lloyd Webber and Vernon Handley in 1983, this often magical creation is equally well served by these newcomers: perhaps Alexander Baillie is the more hyper-sensitive and tonally beautiful of the two soloists, whereas Handley is a rather more imaginative partner than Atherton. Its companion opus, A Song of the Night for violin and orchestra, was composed in 1905: a less characteristic essay, its central climax glows with romantic fervour, especially in a performance as passionately dedicated as this one.

From 1899 to 1906, Holst worked on his large-scale opera based on Indian mythology, Sita. Colin Matthews has put together this brief orchestral interlude containing music from Act 3: its excitable, very Wagnerian manners are striking, as, for that matter, is Holst's beautifully judged orchestral writing at the hushed conclusion. There's plenty more Wagnerian spectacle in Holst's earliest completed Indian-inspired creation, the 12-minute tone-poem, Indra, from 1903. This colourful, enjoyably rhetorical portrait-in-sound of the god, Indra, and his battle against the drought, again reveals a confident, assertive master of the orchestra, if not without an occasional touch of vulgarity in some of the more over-blown tuttis. The heartfelt, if not especially memorable Elegy in memoriam William Morris in fact comprises the slow movement of Holst's Cotswold Symphony from 1900. To begin with, Holst's processional is momentarily reminiscent of Magnard's glorious Chant funebre, though, as the music progresses, the comparison quickly becomes a cruel one! Finally, there's A Winter Idyll which, although the earliest work on this CD (it dates from 1897, when the composer was still a student at the Royal College of Music), is scored with no little aplomb; certainly, Holst's teacher, Stanford, would have approved of the felicitous transparency and sure design of this, his pupil's very first orchestral work.

In all, a most rewarding survey, handsomely played and engineered, and graced by extensive and knowledgeable booklet-notes from Lewis Foreman.

Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [6/1993]

Braithwaite’s engaging Holst proves well worth the wait

Nicholas Braithwaite’s effervescent 1980 account of the winsome Suite de ballet sounded stunning on black disc and continues to do so on silver (Decca’s peerless Kenneth Wilkinson was the balance engineer; the sumptuous acoustic is that of Kingsway Hall). All else is new to the catalogue. The three suites were set down in Watford Town Hall during summer 1993, while the Walt Whitman Overture was taped in the same venue in January 1988. The mind boggles at how performances and recordings of such superior quality can have remained mothballed for so long.

Holst composed the Overture and Suite de ballet during 1899 while on tour as repetiteur and trombonist with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. In neither will you glimpse any vestige of the mature composer (the overture doffs its hat to Brahms) but both parade a host of felicities and are given with palpable dedication here. Gordon Jacob made these skilful and sympathetic orchestrations of Holst’s two military-band suites in 1940 and 1945 (with No 2 renamed the Hampshire Suite – the majority of the folksongs it quotes hail from that county). Under Boult, No 1’s March bowls along with the greater unbuttoned panache, but there’s not much in it.

Commissioned as a test piece for the 1928 National Brass Band Festival, A Moorside Suite has long been a personal favourite (don’t deprive yourself of hearing the Grimethorpe Colliery Band’s unforgettable 1977 Decca recording, 3/86 – nla). Jacob’s affectionate reworking followed in 1952, and Braithwaite and the LPO relish its many deft touches. (On two copies I’ve tried there’s a tiny electronic-sounding blip at 3'04" in the haunting central Nocturne.) Attractively presented (the lucid and detailed booklet-essay is, curiously, uncredited), this release makes consistently enjoyable listening.

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [5/2007]

The opera opens with a Wizard working his mystical ways and summoning the spirits of air, fire and water in the form of a brilliant ballet. His plan is to wed the Princess who is destined to select a husband that very day. An older Mother enters with a drowsy sleep-prone son in tow. The Mother is obsessed with a prophecy her son will woo and win the Princess. There is an elixir of course and once drained the man who does so will be loved by the Princess. The Wizard tries some of this on the Princess. The Mother has already switched it for pure water while administering the elixir to her yawning son. The Wizard flies into a fury promising to bring death and destruction on everyone. He departs. A troubadour and a wanderer have appeared and pay songful court to the Princess which she is having none of. When the Princess sees the Fool she falls in love with him and asks him to marry her. He answers with the word ‘No’ but the whole scenario leaves you wondering about their future. The Wizard returns with his horrors but after some stern and encouraging words from the Mother all the Wizard’s fell crew are burnt to a crisp.

A BBC studio recording, broadcast on 7 May 1967.

REVIEW:

The opening dances, the best music in the work, invariably overbalance things given they all appear at the start. Charles Groves directs, and his Holst studio recordings – The Hymn of Jesus, Short Festival Te Deum, Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda Group 2 and the Ode to Death – were always an index of his excellence in this repertoire, as indeed in all his recordings of British music. He finds the core of Holst’s rhythmic vivacity in the dances, those piquant cross-rhythms and jaunty use of his own instrument, the trombone, and he is just as good in the limpidity of the Spirits of the Water dance as he is in the vivid pounding, Planets-like, of the Dance of Fire, with its eventful touches of Spanishry and convulsive, well-balanced percussion.

The role of the Wizard is taken by the bass Richard Golding and you can imagine him in the The Dream of Gerontius though I see that he was active in opera and sang in a Scottish performance of George Lloyd’s John Socman and in a TV performance of Arthur Bliss’ Tobias and the Angel. Given the strange temperature of the opera, it comes as a surprise that Holst can turn in a seemingly straightforwardly fine scene – try track nine – where the words are well set and the choral role is sensible. There’s more than a whiff of G & S though in the subsequent passage, and when the Troubadour appears (John Mitchinson), Holst pokes fun at Verdian posturing allowing the Princess, the fine Margaret Neville, to pastiche the Troubadour’s own pastiche. In the twelfth track one finds another G & S chorus, Wagnerian vengeance and a stock peasant character. There’s a brief sonic cataclysm in the thirteenth track, trumpets and percussion to the fore, that shows that Holst couldn’t quite suppress his instincts for drama and in fact the orchestration throughout is always apt and colourful.

Contralto Pamela Bowden has a strong role as The Mother and all the characters, singing or speaking, acquit themselves well. In the service of what, precisely, I’m not quite sure. There are lots of operas that really aren’t operas so maybe if you think of The Perfect Fool as a pantomime-ballet-pastiche operetta rather as one thinks of Lord Berners’s The Triumph of Neptune as a ballet-pantomime-harlequinade, you won’t be far wrong and you won’t be disappointed. Full credit to Lyrita for this retrieval however, though you’ll notice a few deviations from the libretto in the actual performance. Talking of this, the notes are contained in one booklet, the libretto in another. The box artwork has been well selected. This work has never appeared in full on disc before and the archive sound quality is excellent.

– MusicWeb International

The music on this album dates from the composer’s later years, and are largely based on themes from his earlier successes. The inspiration for Holbrooke’s music was almost always literary; hence, the large number of symphonic poems and pieces with literary titles or subtitles in his work list. Almost all the 8 Nocturnes, Op. 121 employ material from some of Holbrooke’s most successful and popular earlier works. The music critic Ernest Newman, in an often quoted appreciation of the composer written in 1902, wrote that “…Holbrooke can do quite easily and unconsciously what [Richard] Strauss has only done half a dozen times in his career – he can write a big, heartfelt melody that searches us to the very bone…”, and these Nocturnes display Josef’s gift for lyricism. The two Fantasie-Sonatas, Opp. 124 & 128 respectively, are important and substantial works from Holbrooke’s later years. The first is closely based on the opening movement of the Dramatic Choral Symphony ‘Homage to E.A. Poe’, Op. 48 (1902-1907), but skilfully adapted for pianistic effectiveness. The second Fantasie-Sonata, ‘Destiny’, does not recycle earlier material: it is an entirely original composition of two movements. Based on the slow movement of the fine Horn Trio, Op. 28 (1902), Cambrian Ballade No. 4 Op. 104 Maentrog commences in the lilting character of a berceuse. A more animated central section leads to an ardent reprise of the opening theme and a coda like a sudden shower of rain. It is tempting to think that in this composition the composer looked back wistfully to a period when his creative fires burned brightly and his talents were recognized by the musical world. [Gareth Vaughan]

REVIEWS:

This is the disc to go to for Holbrooke’s later works and I do hope that Lyrita have taped him – or will tape him – in the earlier solo piano music. If you imagine that these piano pieces are merely skeletal abstractions, watered down versions of pieces like Queen Mab, Ulalume and other large-scale pieces on which they are based, I think you are in for a surprise. These are strong works in their own right and deserve a good hearing and in Callaghan’s expert performances that is precisely what they receive.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

The Fantasie-Sonata No 2 is an entirely original composition from 1938 which bears the rather vague subtitle Destiny. There are two movements: in the brief first panel a rather strident Maestoso chordal introduction yields to a glittering, arresting Allegro idea which never truly settles. This presages Holbrooke’s development of it in the longer second movement which matures from an alternatively assertive and tentative Maestoso con moto cell into an exhilirating Con brio section which provides Callaghan with an authentic opportunity for unbridled virtuosity. This is wonderful music; it’s telling that Gareth Vaughan likens it to Messiaen – the ripe and radiant colours and progressions which tumble atop one another confirm that this far from an idle comparison. I have to say I found this Fantasie-Sonata No 2 to be unexpectedly rewarding; it’s by far the most ‘contemporary’ work on the disc and its considerable merits are enhanced on repetition. Adrian Farmer’s engineering once again does Holbrooke (and Callaghan’s superb playing) full justice.

There is one other piece, the nostalgic Cambrian Ballade No 4, named Maentrog (after a tiny hamlet nestling in the Vale of Ffestinog). Holbrooke’s music here though is not overtly topographically inspired – it seems to be a re-working of material he first used in his Horn Trio of 1902. It seems poised and effortlessly crafted in this piano form. It completes what constitutes for me a most satisfying introduction to Holbrooke’s piano music. Admirers of Simon Callaghan and aficionados of off-the-beaten-track British piano repertoire need not hesitate.

–MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures … one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right.

Though the LP has long held pride of place on one's shelves how good it is to welcome the CD remastering of Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello Concerto coupled with John Denman’s lissom performance of the Clarinet Concerto. Back in the old days the Cello Concerto stood proudly alone, all forty-one minutes of it.

It was Yo-Yo Ma’s first recording and alerted many to the sheer bigness of Finzi’s inspiration, especially those for whom bigness in Finzi had been confined to the vocal and choral works. The power of the opening movement resides in the declamatory, decidedly non-vocalised orchestral writing and its relationship with the lingering songfulness of the cello; how the orchestra, initially cool, relents to join in the narrator-hero’s limpid beauty of utterance; how Orpheus tames the implacable beasts. And almost as surprising for those who had him pegged as a miniaturist, was the frenzy of the Brahms-leaning cadenza. But the heartbeat of the work is the rapt slow movement, one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right. The pastoral-pensive writing is beautifully conveyed here – I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it done better – and so too are the animating orchestral pizzicati and the verdant winds which join the cello in its journey. There’s a real narrative here, an encompassing one, faithfully and richly projected by soloist, orchestra and conductor alike. The finale is a drama of drumming pizzicati and wind solos coiling around the cello line like vines.

It’s precisely the vigorous vocality of the companion concerto that gives it such a sense of elation and verve. The clarinet’s mellifluous femininity immediately tames and quells the orchestra in much the same way that the Cello did in the later work. It’s a feature of both concertos that the solo line is vested with such power of oratory that it acts as an instrument of control. Note as well the propulsive, kinetic way that Denman and Handley manoeuvre to the end of the first movement. Apposite string weight is a feature of this performance as well and the delicate solo arabesques are met by the diaphanous orchestration. There have been a number of recommendable performances of this Concerto but in its swiftness and ease this performance still earns the highest accolades.

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures on SRCD239.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

This is drawn from two LPs issued in 1979 and 1983. All the Boult items are from SRCS 84 and the two Handley/Katin items from SRCS 92 where they were the flipside fillers for John Denman’s recording of the Clarinet Concerto. The Denman recording is due to be issued in March 2007 on Lyrita with the first ever recording of the Cello Concerto (Yo Yo Ma/RPO/Handley).

Boult is in his element – the Butterworth one, that is – in the Severn Rhapsody which was clearly written under thrall of George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad and Bridge’s Summer. Blue skies, birdsong, sunny fields, cool coppices and shaded brooks – all these breathe through the pages of this Finzi score. It remains a prentice work and although a gentle yet irresistible melancholy is there its identity is not yet strongly Finzian. That was to come … and soon. It is to be heard in the intense Nocturne which in its melodic contours - their rise and fall – is unmistakably Finzi. Years later there came the music for Love’s Labours Lost and rather than the full suite (which you can hear on Nimbus ) we have here the Three Soliloquies – peaceable children all and with a touch of the miniature Elgar about them. The Romance for strings inhabits the same world but with an even stronger and personal melodic horizon and smilingly coaxed along by Rodney Friend’s solo violin. Then comes the Prelude op.25, also for strings, which in its idyllic warmth always reminds me of Josef Suk’s Ripening. In The Fall of the Leaf we also detect another preoccupation – transience and the passing of time – a preoccupation explicitly reflected in Dies Natalis and Intimations of Immortality. The earnest sweetness of Introit for solo violin and small orchestra is touching, elegiac, fragile and plaintive – a most beautiful piece. Chandos and Tasmin Little let us hear the whole violin concerto from which this work was extracted. The flanking movements are little more than busy and are dramatically outclassed by this Introit middle movement. Eclogue in its first commercial recording has a repose equalled or exceeded in no other version. Handley and Peter Katin established the gold standard for a work that was carried the Finzi standard worldwide and propagated his musical orchards on an international stage. The Grand Fantasia and Toccata is a disconcerting diptych. Its first section opens with a momentary flourish for full orchestra which then drops away for a full six minutes while the piano explores a strongly Bachian fantasy before a majestic Purcellian re-entry enriched by grandly curvaceous themes. A Waltonian syncopation enters at 9:20 reminding us in its carefree abandon of similar writing in Intimations and recalling for me Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante. Indeed at 13:41 one can hear the rearing up of a true symphonic spirit also there in the first movement of the Cello Concerto. In his final years he intended a Symphony but it was not to be.

Lyrita’s orchestral Finzi shelves will be cleared in May 2007 when SRCD.237 appears: Let us Garlands bring; Two Milton Sonnets; Farewell to Arms; In terra Pax (Carol Case/Partridge/Manning/RPO/New Philharmonia/Handley). After that, perhaps some time in 2008, we can hope for several CDs of Finzi’s Hardy song cycles in which the pianist was Howard Ferguson, an influential Finzi champion and sympathetic editor and a composer in his own right. These were issued on LPs: SRCS 38 and 51. These versions compare extremely well with their much later Hyperion counterparts and preserve John Carol Case’s voice in better fettle than it was in his tremulously recorded Let Us Garlands Bring made in the early 1980s. The LPs were SRCS-38 Before and After Summer and Till Earth Outwears and on SRCS-51 A Young Man’s Exhortation and Earth and Air and Rain.

This is a most generously timed collection - essential Finzi in many respects. It allows the listener all the short classics but holds back from the bigger works. Among the shorter pieces all the major popular items are there: Eclogue, Introit, Romance and Prelude. Intriguingly the sense of a striving for major ambitious statements is also present. It can be sensed in the Grand Fantasia and Toccata not only in its final uproarious Waltonian vivacity but also in the Bachian gravitas of the Grand Fantasia. It can also be glimpsed in part-achieved major statements such as the chamber symphony The Bud, The Blossom and The Berry of which Prelude and The Fall of the Leaf as movements.

The readable and enriching notes are by the eminent Finzi authority and biographer Diana McVeagh. They are in English only as is true of all the Lyrita releases.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

This disc was the result of Lyrita receiving funding for the re-mastering and CD release of a large swathe of 20th century Welsh music from 1960s and 1970s LPs. As a result Mathias, Hoddinott and Grace Williams tapes first issued on vinyl were given a new lease of life. Three LPs culled from the archives of EMI and Decca form the source of this compilation. Penillion was originally coupled with Daniel Jones choral piece The Country Beyond the Stars and Hoddinott’s Welsh Dances both of which ended up on other Lyrita CDs. The Sea Sketches came from a Decca LP of Welsh music for string orchestra including Gareth Walters’ Divertimento and two works by William Mathias: Divertimento Op. 7; Prelude, Aria, and Finale Op. 25.

There’s no doubting that Grace Williams had a strikingly individual lyric talent and there are certain to be major discoveries yet to be made. Her Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes is delectable melodic rhapsody around various folk-tunes which are handled with complete professionalism being integrated seamlessly into a satisfying whole. Carillons for Oboe and Orchestra was written for the BBC who requested – and received – a light-weight entertaining work but not a trivial one. The mood is subtle and elusive and unmistakably her own – always slightly mysterious, even exotic as if drawing on Medieval air drawn from the warmer valleys and forests of Wales. If it occasionally and fleetingly sounds like Malcolm Arnold’s own gorgeous Oboe Concerto no harm is done. This is a work that deserves to be discovered by contestants in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. Penillion is soaked in the Welsh tradition of improvised vocal descants to the harper’s melody. It is recognisably by the same composer as Carillons and once again the music is lissom, serene and exotic. The Andante con tristezza is warm with melancholy – doused in just enough sentiment to tug at the heart but not so much as to become mawkish. It is almost Rózsa-like in its otherworldly beauty. The final Allegro agitato sounds vaguely Elizabethan and the tremendous power of the piece links with the dynamic punch of the Ballads for Orchestra on the companion Lyrita SRCD 327.

The solo trumpet plays a large and melismatically singing part in Penillion and of course is at the centre of things for the three movement Trumpet Concerto. Howard Snell who later founded his own orchestra gives a sensational performance and once again there are those skirls to be heard (Poco Lento) later to be recalled in Ballads. This is a less ingratiating work than the other pieces on this disc. All the works are succinct with many short movements and that’s also the case with the Sea Sketches for string orchestra – a challenge to use a body of strings to depict the seas. Her work with Britten (who, it seems, wanted her to be his assistant) is apparent in the gale-plied and ozone-rich High Wind movement. Sailing Song is warm and calm with the boat barely making gentle headway. This is followed by the thoughtful Channel Sirens – more a matter of chilly foghorns than seduction. Breakers is a gusty presto and things come to a close in the same warmth as Sailing Song for the tenderly music finale Calm Sea in Summer with its faintly Straussian redolence.

A second Lyrita CD encapsulates the tougher yet still entrancing world of Grace Williams with the scena Fairest of Stars, the Second Symphony and the sensational Ballads for Orchestra – a work which although more compact is as brilliant and moving as Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.

The helpful notes are by Malcolm Boyd.

Williams also enjoyed a Chandos LP in the early 1980s and this was also issued on CD but otherwise there has been little else. We await first recordings of the Sinfonia Concertante for piano and orchestra, the Violin Concerto and the First Symphony Owain Glendwyr as well as the Missa Cambrensis for soli, chorus and orchestra.

This is a beguiling recital and while it may not have the instant draw of the symphonic big guns in SRCD 327 it presents many captivating aspects of Grace Williams’ treasurable creative genius.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Rare treasure

Thirty-five years ago all I knew about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was that he wrote Hiawatha. My father told me he had heard it in Manchester during the nineteen thirties; in fact my grandfather may have been conducting it. I knew a few piano pieces and the ubiquitous Demande et Réponse from the Petite Suite de Concert. That was it. A few years later I was browsing some old music magazines and was amazed to read that Coleridge-Taylor had written a Symphony: I was convinced that I would never get the chance of hearing it. It was some time during the mid ’nineties that I was chatting to the manager of a well known provincial record shop. We were enthusing about rare English music: he rather confidentially told me that a recording - this one - had just been made of Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto. However he could not tell me when it was about to hit the streets …

I guess that I forgot all about it until one day I heard the ‘Andante semplice’ on Classic FM. This was from the Philippe Graffin version with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Unfortunately I had not heard the presenter’s introduction and had eight or nine minutes of guessing what the work was – but I was impressed. When announcer announced I was amazed that such a gorgeous piece had lain dormant for so long – and immediately went out and bought the CD (Avie AV0044 - see review)! Two subsequent recordings later I have not changed my view. In fact having heard all three versions of this Concerto I am convinced that this is an essential addition to the repertoire – both for the violin and for English Music.

To be fair there is no way that it can be compared to Elgar’s masterwork: and I do have to admit that I personally prefer the Somervell Concerto that is coupled on the Hyperion release (CDA67420- see review). However, Coleridge-Taylor’s Concerto is a work that is full of sunshine and light and colour: it is a descriptive work, not a confessional one. It must rate as one of the composer’s masterpieces.

The work is written in three contrasting, yet well balanced and consistent movements. The opening ‘allegro’ is a modified sonata form and commands our attention and our interest from the first bar to the last. Perhaps Dvorak and Mendelssohn are never too far away but Coleridge-Taylor has made this music his own. This is not a pastiche: it is an impressive exploration of the violinist’s technique and expression using a musical language that was appropriate to the period.

The slow movement is lovely – and although I loathe excerpting movements from symphonies and concertos I can see that this one will be heard ‘stand alone’ for some time to come. The programme notes point out that it is in the nature of a ‘love poem’ – which nods back to Hiawatha.

The last movement is perhaps the best – although I can hear some people saying that it is derivative. There is a good balance between the various episodes of the ‘rondo’ – including some wistful or reflective moments. However, the work concludes with an “impressive peroration [and] a triumphant conclusion.”

It would be wrong to regard the Legend and the Romance as makeweights – they are not. Both pieces are delightful miniatures that are definitely ‘children of their time’, but have a sufficient air of timelessness about them to make them worthy of the occasional airing in the concert hall and on CD.

The Romance shares the same melody as the posthumous Sonata for Violin and piano in D minor – and I imagine that musicologists will have their views on precedence – although the present work would appear to be a reworking of the Sonata which is likely to be a ‘student’ work.

Both the Romance and the Legend are easy on the mind and the ear and are well written and totally memorable.

I am delighted that Bredon Hill - a rhapsody for violin and orchestra has been given another outing on this CD: recently Dutton issued a fine performance of this work on CDLX 7174. I have written extensively about this work elsewhere on MusicWeb so I will make just a few comments here.

This is quite definitely - and deliberately - a ‘retro’ work – harking back to an earlier English Pastoral tradition exemplified by Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and George Butterworth’s Shropshire Lad Rhapsody. However, the reason why Julius Harrison chose to evoke a musical landscape from the past is complex. It had much to do with the wartime mood of nostalgia – seeking to preserve an icon of an England that probably never existed – except in the mind of poets, musicians and filmmakers – but was important to the concept of a country that was worth fighting for. It was widely broadcast to service people across the world with considerable success.

It is a work that demands our attention and certainly will appeal to all listeners who enjoy ‘landscape in music’. A beautiful meditation that explores considerable depths of feeling, it is introspective but at the same time inspiring. Bredon Hill must count as one of the finest musical portrayals of the English countryside. It is unbelievable that it remained unheard for so many years.

Perhaps the last word ought to go to Gordon Bottomley. Commenting on this piece, he wrote that “the dew was so fresh and undimmed by footsteps. Some of the harmonies came from further off than Bredon: perhaps there had been footsteps on them that did not show on the dew.”

It is a rare treasure and deserves due respect.

The question is begged as to what version of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto to buy. The short answer is that it depends! I feel that all three recordings are impressive and provide first class performances of this work. However I do have a sneaking preference for this present interpretation that is hard to put into words. Perhaps I feel that Lorraine McAslan manages to get to the core of the piece and to sympathise with the Edwardian musical language?

So deciding on the disc to buy devolves to other considerations. Firstly, couplings. The Avie disc has the Dvorak Concerto as its stable mate. The Hyperion introduces the listener to the fine Violin Concerto by Arthur Somervell. The present disc includes the two minor works (unheard by most listeners for nearly a century) by Coleridge-Taylor and what is probably Julius Harrison’s orchestral masterpiece. It is horses for courses – but my personal choice would be to own all three! However if I was pushed, well the Somervell is too important a work for me to ignore.

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Though made less than a decade before his last studio versions for EMI (regarded by many collectors as classics), these 1968 Elgar Symphony recordings for Lyrita reveal a younger and more energized Adrian Boult--especially so in Symphony No. 2, where the earlier recording's swagger and bite would be mellowed by a greater refinement and nuance (Boult's scrupulous attention to the subtle timbres of Elgar's orchestration at times make the music sound almost Debussyian).

Symphony No. 1 clearly was Boult's less favored of the two, and his EMI recording suffered from a degree of stiffness (especially compared to Barbirolli). But the Lyrita version has a raw, edgy quality--with swifter tempos and snappier rhythms--that's most welcome. The London Philharmonic sounds slightly less polished in 1968 than in 1976, but the playing is still excellent. Some collectors may find Lyrita's close and clear recorded sound preferable to EMI's plushy resonance (though the latter has greater dynamic range). As it stands, this Lyrita set, priced at 2-for-1, is an essential acquisition for Elgarians (and Boulters).

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com