Classical Music

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

Lyrita is back, thank God, courtesy of Nimbus, and this now-legendary recording of Malcolm Arnold conducting his own delightful English, Scottish, Irish, and Cornish Dances (plus the Sarabande and Polka from the ballet Solitaire) never has been surpassed. True, the playing isn't quite perfect. There are a couple of brass flubs here and there, but you have to strain to hear them and probably won't notice. More to the point, the sheer gusto of the interpretations (witness English Dance No. 4) and the impact of the superb engineering remain in a class of their own. Colorful, tuneful, and a delight from first note to last, this disc is a treasure whose appeal hasn't dimmed a bit since the day it was released. No self-respecting collector of English music can afford to be without it. [9/19/2006]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Another splendid trawl through the treasurable Lyrita back-catalogue. Here's an uncommonly wide-ranging and generous selection of Holstian delights, encompassing music as stylistically diverse as the folk-song bumptiousness of the early Two songs without words (a VW dedication from 1906) to the ''tender austerity'' (to use the composer's own phrase) of the Lyric Movement for viola and chamber orchestra—a most haunting creation from his penultimate year. Elsewhere, we are offered such rarities as the colourful Golden Goose ballet music and Capriccio (both expertly reworked by Holst's daughter, Imogen), the gritty Double Concerto of 1929, as well as the composer's own string orchestra transcription of the tender ''Nocturne'' from A Moorside Suite—a marvellous work, scored originally for brass band (I do wish Decca would restore their superb Grimethorpe Colliery Band version to currency). The enchanting Brook Green Suite is here, too, but the outstanding account of the popular St Paul's Suite which came with it on that 1967 LP anthology will have to wait a little longer for its silver-disc debut.

Performances throughout possess unfailing insight, and the present remasterings are superb. An essential companion disc to Lyrita's classic Holst/Boult compilation from last year (7/92).

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [4/1993]

As is to be expected of a Lyrita-sourced disc this is a programme of considerable musical interest and artistic merit. One small curio, it seems to have been created under the auspices of Dutton and the master-tape subsequently licensed to Lyrita. Quite why Dutton should choose not to release this disc under their own banner given that it fits their house style I do not know - the important fact is that we are able to hear it whatever the label.

Coupling Arnold Bax with Stanley Bate is an interesting and unique concept. Here we have two essentially lyrical/romantic concertos that explore the darker more troubled aspect of the cello's character. I have to admit to being an unrepentant admirer of Bax's music but the opportunities to hear his larger-scale music on disc and in the concert hall are limited. The fact that there are three complete cycles of the symphonies plus the five recorded for Lyrita (1/7; 2/5; 6) remains something of a miracle. The concerted works have fared less well and the cello concerto least of all. Commercially there is only the version on Chandos from Raphael Wallfisch accompanied by Bryden Thomson and the LPO to compete with this new disc. Prior to receiving this new disc I had not listened to the Thomson/Wallfisch for some time. The soloist on the new disc is Lionel Handy accompanied by Martin Yates and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Yates orchestrated the early Bax Symphony in F and the RSNO were the first orchestra to record a complete Bax cycle for Naxos. Add to that the fact that Handy performed the concerto as part of the Bax centenary celebrations thirty years ago and you will see that this is a performance that benefits from performers well versed in the Baxian sound-world. Michael Ponder acted as both producer and engineer and he creates a warm and detailed soundscape in Glasgow's Henry Wood Hall. Perhaps Handy has been placed a fraction further forward in the picture than I would ideally prefer but he plays with absolute security and conviction and his technique can bear such close inspection.

In the liner Paul Conway draws attention to the detail of Bax's scoring and it is here in particular that this new performance scores over the older Chandos disc which is now - rather terrifyingly - some 27 years old. It dates from the time Chandos used All Saints Tooting as their recording venue of choice and for all the 'glamour' of the sound there is a rather glassy resonance that obscures the subtler details of the score. I have not heard the 2003 re-mastering to know how much of that has been tamed - certainly on the original disc it remains an issue but before dismissing the earlier performance, coming to it after the Handy/Yates I find Wallfisch/Thomson to be much more compelling story-tellers. Bax is always accused of rambling and becoming discursive; the new disc tends to reinforce that perception. In every movement this new performance is substantially longer than the earlier one. By movement (Wallfisch first): 14:16/16:25 - 9:29/11:36 - 8:46/10:03. The first movement in particular 'feels' long with Handy. That said, I like very much his muscular almost gruff approach. This does suit the craggy drama of the work but Wallfisch finds a lot more light and shade, his is a more febrile, edgy interpretation and one that benefits from Thomson nudging the music forward. In his cycle of the symphonies Thomson was sometimes criticised for the reverse - allowing energy to leak out of the scores. But in his time he was famed as an especially fine accompanist in concertos so perhaps he took his cue from Wallfisch. In his extraordinarily thorough book "A Catalogue of the works of Sir Arnold Bax" Graham Parlett quotes the composer writing to cellist Beatrice Harrison; "Be careful not to let the beginning hang about rhapsodically. It must go along with urge and fire. Cassado [the dedicatee and first performer] made this mistake at first, but the other day ... was just right". Elsewhere Bax wrote regarding Harrison - the work's main champion - "... she must be kept in order about rubatos ..." Both quotes tell me that momentum and impulse are important in this work.

That being said the way the Handy relaxes into the lyrical second theme [track 1 4:50] benefits the music - here Wallfisch feels restless - but he is better and picking the momentum back up where Handy continues his rather steady way.

The central movement is quite beautiful - unusually for Bax it is titled Nocturne and according to Harriet Cohen was written to quote Bax again; "to recall you to your naughty boy ..." Cohen had accompanied Cassado on a recital tour and pestered him to commission the work - he is the 'naughty boy' but this is rather chaste and lyrical music rather than the smouldering eroticism the title and quote might imply. Bax expert Lewis Foreman hears an oblique tribute to Strauss' Don Quixote in the duetting cello and solo viola in this movement and goes on to suggest that Moeran quarried some of the instrumental effects in the second and third movements for his own G minor Symphony which was being written at this time.

The poise and reflection of this slow movement suits Handy's style well and again the detailed new recording does allow the sophisticated detail of Bax's scoring to register. Again, valid though this approach is I find Wallfisch's greater fantasy ultimately more rewarding - he has the full measure of the range of Bax's pensive twilight. This movement is very fine indeed and probably contains the finest music on the whole disc. Early critical opinion was that the finale was something of a throw-away after the drama and atmosphere of the previous two movements. It certainly feels lighter in spirit and content but is effectively played by both cellists.

If it were for the Bax alone I would not hesitate in saying that collectors already possessing the earlier recording either in its original guise coupled with some orchestral works or the later re-mastering with the Violin Concerto and Morning Song need not buy this new disc. However, even for Bax admirers such as myself the curiosity-tweaking interest of this release is the presence of Stanley Bate's Cello Concerto in its premiere recording. Dutton have rather promoted Bate's work which makes it all the more surprising that they chose to pass on this release. As with the Bax, this is a work in the traditional three movement fast-slow-fast format. Again, as with the Bax, the scoring is relatively restrained although the Bate is slightly unusual in having reduced wind; two each of flutes, oboes and bassoons but only a single clarinet offset against a full brass complement. Until a revival in his music through the medium of CD he was truly a forgotten composer and one imagines a sense of being forgotten in his own time and writing music not of that time contributed to his suicide at the age of 47 in 1959.

Certainly this is instantly attractive and skilfully written music. Paul Conway in his liner rightly points out that Bate writes themes that are easily distinguishable and his sense of form is clear and well defined. This is unashamedly Romantic music which exploits the singing quality of the instrument. I see from the liner that Handy was responsible for creating both the score and a set of performing parts for the work - a very major undertaking even before learning a note of the solo part. Committed advocate though he is of the Bax concerto I cannot help wondering whether the Bate was the real impetus for the making of this disc. Clearly, there is not another recording available to compare or contrast with but I have a sense that Handy is even more engaged with the Bate than the Bax. My response is perhaps a little more lukewarm. Bate's orchestration here and in the other works I have heard I find thoroughly competent and effective but rarely inspired or imaginative. Likewise his harmonic palette; it is good and tasteful but with few of those sideslips and surprises that Bax produces by the bar - too often his detractors might say with some good cause. Martin Yates has been on the podium of nearly all the Bate recordings for Dutton so he can claim to be the most experienced conductor of his work today. As with the Bax, Yates and the RSNO prove sympathetic accompanists. Again, as with the Bax, the central movement - here an Andante - contains the best and most memorable music in the work. It starts with a chord that sounds as if it could have been lifted from Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia and then moves on to a passionate extended arioso that brings out the considerable best in Handy. The Bate concerto predates Walton's essay in the form by some three years but they share the same sense of pained lyricism. This central movement contains the brief cadenza before an interesting passage where the woodwind carry the melodic content with the soloist accompanying with fluttering trills. Another similarity with the Bax is that the finale feels like the weakest music in the work - trying slightly too hard to be upbeat and with an even more abrupt conclusion than the Bax. Conway hears a melodic similarity to the song "Let's face the music and dance" which is passing at best - not too much "trouble ahead" for the plagiarism lawyers, I feel. My concern is that it feels rather more worked out than the spontaneous flow of melody the central movement contained. That being said it is a concerto I am very glad to have heard and certainly will be a piece admirers of the composer and those interested in British string concertos will want to hear.

As with all Lyrita discs this is immaculately presented; excellent concise - English-only - liner-notes and biographies, beautifully engineered - whatever the source and an attractive cover portrait of Bax. Interestingly this same painting - by Vera Bax - differently cropped is also used on Handy's disc of Bax's works for cello and piano. The only minor blot on the Lyrita presentation is that they state 'recording location and date' but give no date. Running at just over the hour mark perhaps it would have been nice to be offered another short (concertante?) work by either composer. Highly enjoyable music even if neither work represents the composer at his absolute finest.

- Nick Barnard, Musicweb International

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]

The word ‘feroce’ appears in the directive for the first movement of Bax’s First Symphony. Myer Fredman does not disappoint – there is something of a ‘dare’ about the horns’ fate-like gesture at the opening of the work, a defiance that runs through this movement. Fredman secures impassioned playing from the LPO and paces the movement supremely well, so that the second subject, when it comes (three minutes in), acts as aural balm in its tender, lyrical, almost sotto voce demeanour. Rhythms, so important, nay vital, here, take on towards the end almost the significance they do in Holst’s ‘Mars’. And look out for moments of real magic, too (the flutes at 10’37ff). The second movement (‘Lento solenne’) is a dark and powerful elegy, hardly a place of retreat from the boundless energies of the surrounding movements (there are only three in total). The London Philharmonic’s concentration seems total. The finale boasts a big-boned introduction (Allegro maestoso) before the doors are opened on some glittering Baxian frolics.

Anguished harmonies seem more prevalent in Symphony No. 7, although some glittering moments bring contrast. The longer paragraphs carry with them a certain grandeur that is most affecting, a certain quiet nobility that inspires some sort of awe. The Lento (with a Piu mosso section marked, ‘In Legendary Mood’) is rather beautiful, although perhaps it is a trifle over-long (it begins to sprawl rather here). The ending is touchingly tender, though.

The finale begins with a nod to Britten in its open-air exuberance, and later features some brass writing that would not have disgraced Walton’s Crown Imperial. The close is certainly grand (although do I detect a hint of bombast?), and the noble, long-breathed string melodies are here even more effective because of Lyrita’s superb, warm recording. Of course we are in competition with Chandos’s Bryden Thomson and Vernon Handley, two conductors whose qualifications in this repertoire are fully acknowledged, not to mention David Lloyd Jones’s Bax recordings for Naxos. Yet Leppard’s instincts are accurate and always convincing.

This is a valuable disc, not least because it puts two substantive works by Bax side-by-side. Both performances do the scores justice and the recording is, as usual from this source, exemplary.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

JONES Symphonies: No. 4, “In memory of Dylan Thomas” ; No. 7; No. 8 1 • Charles Groves, cond; Bryden Thomson, cond; 1 Royal PO; BBC Welsh SO 1 • LYRITA 329 (78:05)


Welsh composer Daniel Jones (1912–1993) was born in Pembroke and raised in Swansea, where he forged a friendship with the poet Dylan Thomas. After study in Swansea, Jones moved to London’s Royal Academy of Music. His output included concertos for violin, oboe, and cello; choral music, including the Oratorio, St. Peter ; an opera, The Knife ; chamber music; and 13 symphonies. Jones’s musical language is essentially tonal. He originated a rhythmic method for heightened expression—a device that he called “complex meters” involving maintaining and often juxtaposing, complex and often-irregular time signatures over a long timespan. Musically, Jones was influenced by Purcell, Haydn, and Janá?ek, but his language is personal. His symphonies can be broadly divided into three groups: Symphonies Nos. 1–5 (1944–58), conceived within the late-Romantic symphonic tradition and scored for large forces; Symphonies Nos. 6–9 (1964–72) moving towards greater structural experimentation, unusual combinations of instruments, and shorter lengths; and Symphonies Nos. 10–13 (1976–92) concerned with concision and paring down germ ideas to the barest essentials.


Daniel Jones’s Fourth Symphony, considered to be one of the composer’s finest achievements, was composed in memory of the poet Dylan Thomas, who had died, tragically young, in New York on November 17, 1953. Their relationship had been close; they had shared a zest for life. It was Jones who had written the folk-like music for Under Milk Wood. The Symphony is, understandably, elegiac; the opening Maestoso movement speaks bleakly of tragedy and loss, with a sometimes funeral-march tread, but also of defiance. The central Allegro capriccioso scampers along; it is light-hearted and capricious. Its playfulness might suggest the larger-than-life characters from Under Milk Wood , and perhaps the real-life antics of composer and poet, while its slower, sadder, middle section is more reflective, sometimes darkly so; it has a vulnerability, a sadness—and regret? The final Adagio-moderato-adagio is turbulent and disturbing; the music’s violence seemingly released reluctantly in a brief coda that highlights a solo violin with pizzicato cellos and basses.


The Seventh Symphony is cast in five movements, although the fourth and fifth share the same track. Completed in 1972 and dedicated to Sir Charles Groves, it was written as a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The work has an unsettling ambiguity, the music often lurking in dark corners and having many abrupt contradictions. The most immediately appealing material is in the quicksilver Scherzando that employs a xylophone to heighten its puckish, tipsy fun, but even here tragedy stalks. The Eighth Symphony has five movements too. The music is enigmatic and ferocious, lyrical and searching, and not without a sardonic wit. Its extraordinary, arresting opening chords are sounded on marimba. Imaginative orchestrations abound: the often-spectral third movement has some amazing interchanges between piano and vibraphone; the elegiac fourth movement includes harmonic passages for kettledrums under heartfelt music for strings, muted trumpets, and softly played trombones; and the high-spirited finale sounds triumphant trumpets and tubular bells.


Strong performances of some quite original music. A rewarding disc for the adventurous.


FANFARE: Ian Lace

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

Adrian Boult brought tremendous authority to any recording he made of 20th century British works, having known the composers and often having conducted the premiere performances. These recordings, made in the early 1970s, demonstrate that age took not a bit of his musical command or energy on the podium. Boult was particularly associated with Gustav Holst (he conducted the public premiere of The Planets). Since this compilation presents some of the crown jewels of Lyrita's history, anyone with any interest in British music of the first third of the 20th century should consider this CD a mandatory acquisition. Beni-Mora is unusually picturesque and passionate; the Fugal Overture's wit and lyricism belies the impression of stodginess its title suggests; and the virtually unknown Japanese Suite charms and invigorates. The 30-year-old sound is still better--cleaner, clearer, and more natural--than most of the stuff major labels are putting out in standard CD sound today.

--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

I still remember how exciting it was to discover these marvelous tone poems: the mysterious darkness of November Woods, the watery depths of The Garden of Fand, and of course the magnificent vistas revealed in Tintagel. This last was the most familiar, from a classic Barbirolli recording for EMI of English overtures and symphonic poems, but I suspect that this was the next Bax disc that most collectors added to their libraries, assuming they could find it. The performances remain all that one could want: atmospheric, very well played, and beautifully engineered. We've come a long way in our knowledge of this fine composer since the days when Lyrita alone carried the torch for Bax, but these recordings wear their years very lightly and still offer as much listening pleasure as when they were new. For a single-disc collection of the major tone poems, you can't do better than this. [1/10/2007]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is Lyrita’s second CD of Grace Williams reissues. My review of the first (6/95) revealed that I had forgotten that the Second Symphony had been recorded back in 1979. Now it is reissued here, an absorbing work whose mix of styles and models serves as a reminder that pluralism in music is not just a phenomenon of the years since 1980. The symphony begins by evoking Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams but, by the finale, it is a late-romanticism recalling both Wagner and Mahler that provides the source for Williams’s most powerful utterances, before the final ‘return to earth’ – and to echoes of Vaughan Williams.

Something of the symphony’s stylistic blend, with its inherent and persistent tensions, can also be heard in Ballads. This is music with a strong narrative drive, full of incident and sturdily constructed, but Ballads and the symphony are quite heavily scored, and these performances, though excellent in many ways, now sound rather congested. A wider sonic canvas is needed, to let more light and air into the textures.

These orchestral compositions reveal a distinctive personality, but Williams is still more impressive in the neo-Straussian opulence of Fairest of Stars, a setting of Milton whose vocal line seems to reflect the wonder and ecstasy of Ariadne auf Naxos. At the same time, the composer’s familiarity with Britten’s music is also recalled in certain turns of phrase. Fairest of Stars has a symphonic expansiveness, yet the rich instrumental commentary never impedes the vocal part, here projected with admirable sensitivity by Janet Price.

Arnold Whittall, Gramophone [12/1996]

These works by composer Wilfred Josephs are available here for the first time on CD on this 2-disc set. The pieces included on this recording are Symphony No. 5 "Pastoral", Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, and Requiem, Op. 39. Regarded as one of the composer’s most influential works, Requiem, Op. 39 was composed in memory of the Jews who died during the Holocaust. It won the first International Composition Competition of La Scala and the City of Milan. This recording was made in the presence of the composer.

Sonically this was not one of Lyrita's best productions, with slightly dull piano sound and dense orchestral textures in works that are already quite thickly scored. The performances, though, are excellent. The single-piano version of Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto on the whole is preferable to the two-piano alternative on account of its less-heavy keyboard sonority. Howard Shelley's performance is only surpassed by: Howard Shelley, with Bryden Thomson on Chandos, basically on account of the superior sonics. There was no competition in the Foulds, a marvelous piece by a fascinating minor master, until Warner very recently released a fine new version with Peter Donohue and the CBSO under Sakari Oramo. That disc may be well-nigh impossible to find and doubtless won't last long in the catalog, while the Chandos version of the RVW comes only in tandem with more Vaughan Williams (the Ninth Symphony). So if you're looking for this repertoire and a very satisfying coupling of two rare but extremely worthy works, this disc is easily recommendable, very minor reservations aside.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Here is the ideal introduction to the music of Edmund Rubbra. The Third and Fourth symphonies (fine works, both) sandwich two shorter, but still impressive, orchestral works.

Robert Layton provides a sterling example of a programme note. As he quite rightly says, ‘Edmund Rubbra belongs to the same generation of English composers as William Walton and Michael Tippett … but has never enjoyed the same measure of exposure’. Perhaps bringing these Lyrita discs once more to the public’s attention will do something to rectify the situation.

The Third Symphony is quite a lean work in terms of orchestration. It also breathes a dignity that is most compelling. It is fairly unremittingly serious in both demeanour and in intensely controlled thematic workings. The intensity reaches its height in the ‘Molto adagio ma liberamente’ slow movement, a statement of real depth, and one that inspires Del Mar and his orchestra to great things. If the title of the finale sounds forbidding – ‘Tema con 7 variazioni e una Fuga’ – it is not all so (there is even a passage that trips along nicely until interrupted by darker shades). The closing pages are marked by a rugged determination. Of course, 1939 was the year that marked the beginning of the Second World War, and it is not difficult to read echoes of these events into the more intense passages of this symphony..

The Fourth Symphony opens with a feeling of peace (now, of course, quite removed from external events – it was written in 1942). The work is in three movements, although the extended Introduzione to the last movement is banded separately by Lyrita because of its length (4’50). Robert Layton talks of ‘serenity, a remarkable stillness and an inner repose’ and this just about sums it up. The music of the first movement seems to pulsate welcomingly. The Intermezzo second movement is pure delight (its marking is ‘Allegretto grazioso sempre delicato’), especially when played with as much affection as on this Lyrita recording. The clouds of the ‘Introduzione’ to the final movement are magnificently evocative here (the well-balanced recording helps, preserving the depth of the shadowy strings), while the movement proper (‘Allegro maestoso’) has a noble dignity (it is more immediately identifiable as ‘English’ than some music by this composer). It does, however, carry the inimitable stamp of Rubbra’s compelling harmonic language.

The Overture, Resurgam, was inspired by the bombing of Plymouth in March 1941. The Overture was written in 1975 on a commission from the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra to commemorate its centenary. The title comes from a word (Resurgam) inscribed on the tower of the church of St Andrew (the only part left standing after the bombing). Resurgam begins very quietly and delicately. Although only eight minutes long, it is very serious in its intense scoring and in its density of ideas (Rubbra also uses a more acidic language than in the Third Symphony, heard first on the disc). Finally, A Tribute, Op. 56 (originally entitled ‘Introduzione e danza alla fuga’) begins in the most tender of fashions. Del Mar’s balancing of orchestra textures is revelatory in the introduction, while the ‘danza alla fuga’ is fascinating. It begins rather stealthily, but never releases its dance origins. The tribute is actually to Ralph Vaughan Williams (in honour of that composer’s seventieth birthday), although there appears to be no direct musical allusion.

A fascinating disc, then. Rubbra’s music reveals more and more on repeated hearings – facile is the one thing it is not.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

Probably no other country turned out such a bountiful crop of minor masters as England in the first decades of the 20th century. E.J. Moeran was one of the best: his work is finely crafted, melodically appealing, colorful, and effectively structured, and this is the disc to own if you only have room in your collection for one sample of his output. The Symphony in G minor in particular stands with the finest works of the period. Yes, the music is derivative: of Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, and even Tchaikovsky (the start of the first movement's development section), but that doesn't matter. It's a terrific listen, and on balance Boult's is the finest performance of the work.

It has in abundance the qualities for which this conductor was rightly acclaimed: an effortless feeling of movement, ideal clarity of texture, firm rhythms, and all of this with none of the ensemble sloppiness that sometimes intruded on his interpretations. The performance also features Lyrita sonics that remain a touchstone to this day in terms of naturalness and impact. With by no means negligible couplings consisting of equally successful versions of the Sinfonietta (a substantial piece with a particularly imaginative central variation movement) and the Overture for a Masque, this disc is a classic any way you look at it.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This two disc set is a BBC recording that was broadcast on February 2, 1964 of Phyllis Tate’s The Lodger, an opera in two acts. The work was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music. It was first performed there in 1960. This recording was the opera’s first broadcast. The work features Anthony Jacobs as the narrator, as well as the BBC Northern Singers and BBC Northern Orchestra.

Classical Music

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

Lyrita was founded in 1958 by Richard Itter, and is one of those record labels without which our appreciation of British music would be much the poorer. This release however takes us beyond the label’s own recordings, bringing examples of broadcast performances preserved by Itter on the professional recording equipment he had at his home in Burnham. With excellent BBC reception he made huge numbers or recordings of live performances which would otherwise have been lost into the ether. All of these recordings are from his tapes, while the Walton Cello Concerto was transferred to an acetate disc.

These are mono recordings, but the combination of the BBC’s high broadcast standard and Richard Itter’s superb tape recorder, the sound is remarkably good. You can find Arthur Benjamin’s Violin Concerto in modern sound on the Dutton Epoch label (see review), but Derek Collier’s 1961 recording is superbly shaped and much of the orchestral detail comes through. This is a work which was famously admired by Constant Lambert as “a brilliantly executed work”, and the same can be said of this performance. I remember Derek Collier as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music when I was a student there in the 1980s and having this recording with him clearly at his best is a very fine tribute.

Lyrita’s own 1979 debut commercial recording of the E.J. Moeran very Irish Violin Concerto is inevitably more refined sonically (see review), but even with a little tape hiss and a few extraneous noises this is a very moving performance. Renowned soloist Alfredo Campoli is heard on top form in this recording and is worth the asking price for this set alone. One has the feeling the BBC Symphony Orchestra are also raising their game to meet the heartfelt expressiveness of Campoli’s solo, and the warmth of the accompaniment is present without a doubt, even if the recording is a little on the crisp side. The playful central movement is full of verve and energy, and the final Lento puts the seal on this work as a masterpiece which deserves far wider recognition.

Arnold Bax’s Violin Concerto has appeared in a modern recording from Chandos, as well as Dutton’s historic 1944 version from the BBC with soloist Eda Kersey conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Made shortly after its première in 1943 and not long before Kersey’s tragic early death, this is a precious recording, but the present performance with Belgian violinist André Gertler is certainly worth having. Gertler was a champion of the music of his time, and this is a colourful and commited performance, the solo violin not quite as closely recorded as with some of the other works in this collection but certainly audible in most essential respects. The heart of the work, the central Adagio is beautifully played and Sir Malcolm Sargent proves a sensitive accompanist, though the consumptive audience is hard to ignore at times.

William Walton’s Cello Concerto is the best known work here by some way, and easily obtainable in numerous more or less recent recordings. Gregor Piatigorsky’s early recordings include one from 1957 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra which you can find on Pristine Audio. This stereo studio recording is an altogether cleaner affair, but as the booklet notes for this Lyrita release argue, this “European premiere … is more rhapsodic and instinctive …” It is indeed the difference between a carefully prepared studio recording and the more edgy excitement of live performance; fans of this work will want to have both. One of the differences is that Piatigorsky’s cello is made to sound rather fluffy and delicious in the Boston recording, and while his instrument is further away and sounding a tad boxy on the Royal Festival Hall stage, you can hear the raw impact of Walton’s energetic central Allegro appassionato and the lyrical expressiveness in the Lento opening of the final movement in different and equally valid perspectives.

We have to be grateful to Richard Itter for his enthusiastic taping of these and many other broadcasts, and I’m sure there is much more to be discovered from this source. Lyrita’s release of this collection of concertos is very valuable indeed, and with informative booklet notes by Paul Conway it is of more than just historical interest. These fine performances and recordings are a snapshot of the BBC’s programming in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and part of the foundation of its hard-earned reputation. Now, let’s see what’s on tonight.

– Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Arnold Bax. Ensembles: New Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductors: Norman Del Mar, Vernon Handley.