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Also Available: Lyrita - Celebrating Fifty Years Devoted To British Music - Set Two

In Set One strong choices are made time after time. Alwyn’s Magic Island is in fact Prospero’s island - from The Tempest. The English Dances beguile and enchant. They are drawn from an LP and then from an extended CD which found Lyrita orchestral recording standards at their utter peak. The Russian Scenes are well done although ultimately they are a collection of exotic postcards and dances. The Benjamin Overture is a playful piece in the manner of the lighter examples by Barber and Bax. It comes as no surprise to discover that it was used as the overture to Benjamin’s opera Prima Donna. Berkeley’s crisp Serenade for Strings is presumably authoritative with the composer at the helm. Bliss conducting a suite from his Adam Zero seems underwhelming as music and as a performance - Handley’s version is much better. The delightful Bridge Suite for Strings is lovingly done by Boult. Similarly sumptuous and achingly poignant is A Shropshire Lad. Finzi’s Eclogue, Howells’ Merry-Eye and Hadley’s One Morning in Spring speak for themselves. The Forgotten Rite by John Ireland is a subtle, poetic and completely convincing piece. It’s interesting that this first set has only one bleeding chunk from a larger piece and that is the second movement of Busch’s Cello Concerto. The Cello Concerto is a strong work and makes quite a discovery among the rich crop of new Lyritas in 2008. Although issued on CD in the early 1990s the Foulds Mantras - of which we here have the Mantra of Bliss - is amongst the most radical and impressive. Then again Foulds was an extraordinary composer whose significance is international. Light music is represented by shapely performances of Coates’ From Meadow to Mayfair, Gibbs’ Fancy Dress and the Coleridge Taylor Valse. Fredman’s reading of the famous Delius Walk is to be treasured. He would have made an estimable Song of the High Hills had the opportunity been offered. Lyrita are the only label to provide Holst’s tangy Japanese Suite and, audaciously enough, it’s here in this set. From the 19th century comes Sterndale Bennett’s Caprice and the remarkable Variations on a Hungarian Air by Hurlstone. Henry Wood’s orchestration of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was originally presented under a pseudonym, Paul Klenovsky. Oh how those Russian names legitimise British talent! Gipps’ Horn Concerto is played by the very talented David Pyatt. Would that Lyrita had also recorded her other concertos. Don’t forget her works for Clarinet (1940); Viola (Jane Grey Fantasy, 1940), Oboe (1941), Violin (1943), Piano (1948), Violin and Viola (1957) and Contra-Bassoon (Leviathan) and the five symphonies (1942, 1945, 1965, 1972, 1982). Names much associated with Cheltenham are represented by the Yorick overture, the Jabez and The Devil and the only recently vinyl-liberated Hoddinott Welsh Dances (Set 2).

- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International


Lyrita - Celebrating Fifty Years devoted to British Music - Set One

CD 1 [73:53]
William ALWYN Symphonic Prelude - The Magic Island - LPO/Alwyn [10:11]
Malcolm ARNOLD English Dances - Set 2 - LPO/Arnold [9:49]
Bach orch. Henry WOOD Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - LPO/Braithwaite [9:49]
Granville BANTOCK Russian Scenes - LPO/Wordsworth [14:13]
Arnold BAX Northern Ballad No.1 - LPO/Boult [10:09]
Arthur BENJAMIN Overture to an Italian Comedy - RPO/Fredman [6:17]
William Sterndale BENNETT Caprice in E - Malcolm Binns (piano) LPO/Braithwaite [13:17]

CD 2 [75:21]
Lennox BERKELEY Serenade for Strings - LPO/Berkeley [13:14]
Arthur BLISS Adam Zero - Suite - excerpt - LSO/Bliss [8:53]
Frank BRIDGE Suite for String Orchestra - LPO/Boult [20:50]
William BUSCH Cello Concerto (II) Raphael Wallfisch (cello) - RPO/Handley [6:51]
Geoffrey BUSH Overture - Yorick - NPO/Handley [8:30]
George BUTTERWORTH A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody - LPO/Boult [8:38]
Eric COATES From Meadow to Mayfair Suite (excerpt) - NPO/Boult [8:14]

CD 3 [74:28]
Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Valse de la Reine - LPO/Wordsworth [4:32]
Arnold COOKE Jabez and The Devil - Suite - LPO/Braithwaite [18:02]
Frederick DELIUS The Walk to the Paradise Garden - LPO/Fredman [10:53]
Gerald FINZI Eclogue Peter Katin (piano) - NPO/Handley [10:32]
John FOULDS Mantra of Bliss - LPO/Wordsworth [13:06]
Cecil Armstrong GIBBS Fancy Dress - Dance Suite - RPO/Joly [17:20]

CD 4 [67:58]
Ruth GIPPS Horn Concerto - David Pyatt (horn) LPO/Braithwaite [17:14]
Patrick HADLEY One Morning in Spring - LPO/Boult [3:56]
Alun HODDINOTT Welsh Dances Set 2 - NYOW/Davison [9:04]
Gustav HOLST Japanese Suite - LSO/Boult [11:01]
Herbert HOWELLS Merry-Eye - NPO/Boult [8:52]
William HURLSTONE Variations on a Hungarian Air - LPO/Braithwaite [10:36]
John IRELAND The Forgotten Rite - Prelude - LPO/Boult [7:05]

rec. 1966-2007. ADD/DDD
LYRITA SRCD.2337 [4 CDs: 73:53 + 75:21 + 74:28 + 67:58]

Birtwistle - softer-grained, relatively lyrical and the angular rigorous.

Now that Lyrita appear to have reissued the majority of their own archive, it’s gratifying to see that they are turning their attention to some old Decca/British Council releases from the 1960s and 1970s that would otherwise be languishing in the vaults. The Decca Headline series contained some classic performances of then avant-garde works by contemporary composers; it featured works by international figures such as Messiaen, Lutoslawski and Henze in addition to home-grown talent such as Birtwistle, Bedford and Musgrave. The present CD is a straight reissue of HEAD 7 and contains three key works by Birtwistle from the late 1960s/early 1970s. It offers a useful snapshot of the composer’s style as he moved from the harsh expressionism of his early works (typified by the opera Punch and Judy) to his increasing fascination with the Orpheus legend, itself reflected in a softer-grained, relatively lyrical approach. On this CD The Fields of Sorrow and Nenia represent, broadly speaking, the latter approach; Verses for Ensembles contains elements of the more angular, rigorous Birtwistle.

Jane Manning joins the London Sinfonietta and Chorus for The Fields of Sorrow; word setting is unconventional, being divided across the forces, often syllabically. The performers are also distributed across the sound-stage, creating together with the bell-like sonorities a ghostly, disembodied effect. This effectively reflects the mediaeval poem which Birtwistle sets, depicting the journey of two souls through a gloomy forest in Hades.

By contrast with Verses for Ensembles we have what marks perhaps a culmination of his early, expressionist years. Hieratic brass and woodwind writing, contrasted with ebullient percussion, throw us immediately into a very different sound-world. The work encapsulates many characteristics of Birtwistle’s "early" period; his use of verse and refrain forms as a structural device, his fascination with procession or ritual, and a deployment of contrasting instrumental resources as a way of articulating the structure for the listener. The instrumentation is set into sharp relief by the composer’s spatial distribution of his forces on stage. Thus two woodwind groups sit to the left and right of the stage, with brass and percussion towards the rear. Birtwistle also requires players to move physically to key positions on stage at significant moments in the piece. The sounds themselves contrast harsh, aggressive brass and woodwind writing with softer passages. Verses for Ensembles is by no means an easy work to assimilate, but as ever with Birtwistle the music repays repeated study. The performance, by the forces for which it was written, is everything we could wish for. Perhaps one or two extra tracking points on the CD might have helped those unfamiliar with the music to find their bearings more clearly.

The final work on the CD, Nenia – The Death of Orpheus, was composed the year after Verses. The title refers to a Roman funeral dirge and the goddess invoked; Orpheus and Euridice are the subjects of the ritual. Birtwistle now groups his instrumental forces according to timbres, rather than the contrasting sounds he created in Verses. The instrumental music is dominated by the sound of bass clarinets. The structure of the piece, the instrumental forces, and the vocal style Birtwistle requires of his soloist - Jane Manning again - are immensely fluid, and immensely challenging, but at all times dictated by the text. Once again the performances are astonishing in their virtuosity.

As the composer in his early years moved from one set of preoccupations to another, reflected by a development in his actual compositional style, it’s misleading to suppose that each compositional phase is entirely self-contained, without reference to what came before or after. Birtwistle himself felt that each of his pieces consisted of "layers" reflecting both previous interests and pointing the way forward to future developments. On first hearing the extreme dissonance of Verses for Ensembles may appear to contrast sharply with the softer-grained approach of The Fields of Sorrow; but the composer’s spatial distribution of his forces in both works provides a stylistic link. Nenia, as we have seen, contains the preoccupations with ritual that characterised many of his earlier works. What comes across very clearly - and here I echo a word Paul Conway uses in his excellent booklet notes - is the composer’s stylistic integrity right across his output.

-- Ewan McCormick, MusicWeb International

It was after hearing the premiere of Joubert’s First Symphony given by the Hull Philharmonic under Vilem Tausky in Hull City Hall on April 12, 1956 that Russian-born pianist Iso Elinson invited the composer to write him a Piano Concerto. Completed in the summer of 1958, the resulting score is dedicated to Elinson, who gave the first performance of the work with the Hallé Orchestra under George Weldon on January 11, 1959 in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. In keeping with Joubert’s instinctively symphonic approach to large-scale forms, the concerto is more of a sinfonia concertante than a bravura vehicle for pianistic display. The idea for a musico-dramatic work based on Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre originated in the early 1980s, when the composer took early retirement from the University of Birmingham. This was a labor of love which he embarked upon unprompted and without the security of a commission. Dedicated to the opera’s librettist Kenneth Birkin and his wife Inge, Symphony No.3 on themes from the opera “Jane Eyre”, Op.178 (2014-17), reworks the five orchestral interludes as five symphonic movements. Originally written for chamber orchestral forces, the material has been re-scored by the composer for a full symphony orchestra.

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Thea Musgrave writes of her work “Mary Queen of Scots”: Mary has been a fascinating subject to work with. It was interesting and challenging to find a path through all the well-known facts about her life, in order to be able to envision her with fresh eyes and gradually to shape my own portrait of her. My interest in her as a subject was first aroused by a basic idea of Amalia Elguera, (who had written the libretto for my previous opera The Voice of Ariadne) and on whose play Moray the opera is based. Here the emphasis lies, as the title implies, on Mary’s half brother James Stewart. I soon decided that in the opera, although the chief protagonist would be James, the central character must be Mary herself.” This recording is of a live performance on 2 April, 1978 in Norfolk, Virginia, at the gala performance for the Metropolitan Opera. Lyrita is proud to present this re-issue of Mary, Queen of Scots to coincide with Thea Musgrave’s 90th Birthday celebrations.

Includes work(s) for piano by John Ireland. Soloist: Eric Parkin.

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For this monumental four-disc release, Lyrita has chosen the most influential and best loved symphonies by British composers, taken from previous Lyrita recordings. The best English ensembles are all included on this release, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. All are conducted by the most respected interpreters of British music, such as Nicholas Braithwaite, Vernon Handley, Sir Adrian Boult, Myer Fredman, Sir Lennox Berkeley, and more. Over five hours of music is included in this box set. The booklet contains fascinating and detailed liner notes by Paul Conway which give a brief biography of each of these composers, as well as a detailed history of their featured work. This release is a must have for any aficionado of British symphonic music.

Alan was a complete musician - a composer, performer, teacher, and a person of extraordinary natural musicality. Small wonder then that he was viewed with profound respect by all those within the musical profession who were privileged to come into contact with him... As a pianist one was struck by his innate rhythmic verve, a facet which indeed radiated through all his compositions - but perhaps the quality above all else that will be remembered was that which can best be described as a mezzo voce bel canto, the realisation of a choice and refined ear, and the product of a deep thinker and inner tranquillity'. It is that satisfying synergy of elegant lyricism and rhythmic energy which distinguishes the keyboard works of pianist and composer Alan Richardson. (Paul Conway)

This two-disc set contains two of Michael Hurd’s chamber oepras, The Aspern Papers, and The Night of the Wedding. The Aspern Papers is based on the novella by Henry James, with libretto by the composer. The Night of the Wedding is a one act chamber opera based on Frank Witney’s Nuit de Noces. Some artists featured on this album include the Ulster Orchestra under the direction of George Vass, pianist Simon Lepper, conductor Ronald Corp, and many talented vocalists.

Includes work(s) by William Yeates Hurlstone.

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English composer Arnold Bax was born in the late nineteenth century but had his maturity and came to prominence in the first half of the twentieth. His was an affluent and literate London-based family and Bax was able to pursue a dazzling career undistracted by worldly necessities. He had no need to earn a living, teach, give concerts, court the great and good or chase commissions. In this sense he was like his ultimately more popular contemporary Vaughan Williams. No stranger to writing songs, chamber music and piano solos, Bax seemed most fluently at ease with the orchestra. The Second Symphony, written in London and Geneva, carries a dedication to Serge Koussevitsky who directed the premiere with his Boston Symphony Orchestra on 13 December 1929. Eugene Goossens gave the United Kingdom premiere on 30 May 1930. Bax who had not been able to travel to Boston, wrote: “I feel very grateful to Eugene for his brilliant performance … which lifted it at last for me into a purely abstract world. So for the moment I feel unduly tender towards its grim features.”

There is no finer work in the medium than William Mathias' Harp Concerto, a stunning combination of characterful melody and magical handling of texture. The finale in particular must be counted as one of the most successful concerto movements in the 20th-century literature for any instrument, and this performance featuring the work's dedicatee Osian Ellis is just about perfect in every way. Why this piece isn't a concert staple remains a mystery. The other two works in their individual ways are also very satisfying and well worth hearing, if perhaps not quite as remarkable as the Harp Concerto.

Gervase de Peyer gives a fearless account of the Clarinet Concerto, a piece that vacillates between mellow lyricism and strident outbursts. The thematic material here isn't quite as memorable (to me at least) as that in the Harp and Third Piano Concertos. This latter lives squarely in the school of Bartók and Prokofiev, with a "night music" central movement and a finale that sounds like an amalgam of Bartók's Second, Barber, and Ginastera, albeit with a Welsh musical accent. Peter Katin is the excellent soloist, David Atherton conducts splendidly, and the recording is of the very highest quality. Outstanding and essential for anyone who enjoys really good 20th-century concertos.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Iain Ellis Hamilton (1922-2000) dedicated his life to composition after being awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 1947. Three works are presented on this release, and are indicative of the wide variations in Hamilton’s catalogue. The Bermudas, Piano Concerto No. 1, and Cantos for horn, tuba, harp and orchestra are recorded on this album. The recordings on this album were taken in 1973, 1961, and 1965, respectively.

The welcome bouquet of this motley crew of premieres and encores from the Lyrita stable.

Pierson's discursive Macbeth tone poem has no specifically Scottish accent although there is the occasional bagpipe skirl. A memorable piece, it has lashings of bel canto and an overall idiom that relates it to Beethoven (symphonies 4 and 8), Ries and Weber. It is no surprise to read that Pierson spent much of his life in Germany. Like Holbrooke and d’Albert he even changed his name to make it more Teutonic. I'd like to hear more Pierson. In this era of recorded revivals there is surely no reason, apart from performing materials issues, why we should not also hear his Hamlet and the overtures As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet.

Handley's reading of the Alan Rawsthorne's Fantasy Overture: Cortèges shows a composer of broader and more varied palette than we might have presumed from the Symphonic Studies and Symphony No.1. This work is about processions of various sorts from grand and sombre to carnival cavalcades. While there are plenty of Rawsthorne hallmarks much of the music is surprisingly varied and delightful. There is also an element familiar from the macabre King Pest mood of Rawsthorne's friend Constant Lambert. In length it is closer to a tone poem than the typical concert overture. A bristlingly inventive score it holds a few surprises for people like me who think they know their Rawsthorne. The piece ends with a quiet tarantella impudence before the street revellers curl up to sleep.

David Morgan was a pupil of Alan Bush and Leighton Lucas at the RAM. He was accorded the honour of an LP from Lyrita coupling his Violin Concerto and the present piece in 1974. Lyrita must have plans for a different coupling for the Violin Concerto which was premiered in Prague in 1967. I see there is also an as yet unrecorded Sinfonia da Requiem which gives "a personal, not a political reaction to the events of August 1968". Its mood is seemingly reflected in the first movement of Contrasts. His Spring Carnival Overture (not on disc) is apparently akin to the music of the second movement. Contrasts is in two movements and is dedicated to the memory of Shostakovich. It's a work of subdued tones and intimations of darkness especially in the first movement. The subtle brilliance of this recording can be heard at tr. 3, 5.51 where the sustained resonance of a gong-stroke is grippingly put across - a delight. In the last movement wheeling and darting brilliance combines with a slightly Shostakovichian flavouring.

Chagrin was active in the worlds of concert music and film. His Helter Skelter overture bestrides the two being based on music he had written for the frothy 1949 film of the same name. Its not quite as pell-mell as you might expect from the title but the atmosphere is certainly as jaunty and uproarious as the cinema music of Auric. Peter Warlock's Serenade for Strings is given a rather pressed performance - more lilt and less impatience would have helped as it did when it was recorded for EMI Classics by Norman del Mar in the late 1960s. It is no surprise that it was written in 1922 for Delius's sixtieth birthday. While Braithwaite might well have miscalculated on the Warlock he is just confidently magnificent in Beckus the Dandipratt which needs and here gets flighted energy, a twist and a skirl as well as a rambunctious snarl and volatility. This is for me the best and most rewarding reading the overture has had even allowing for the composer's own and that of Vernon Handley. Every detail tells whether it is in Rowlandson-style street hurly-burly or Ealing era insouciance.

The notes are by the always thoughtful and invaluably reflective Paul Conway. More please.

The motley nature of this collection and the imperative to use recordings cut loose by other, usually composer-themed, collections does not stop this assemblage having its own very welcome bouquet.

Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

BAX Symphonies: No. 2; 1 No. 5 2 • Myer Fredman, cond; 1 Raymond Leppard, cond; 2 London PO • LYRITA 233 (78:28)


Lyrita’s versions of Bax’s First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Symphonies were, in my opinion, the most important recordings in their catalog, especially at the time of their release, because they introduced the remarkable output of a major symphonist to American listeners for the first time in modern sound. Three complete recorded cycles of Bax’s symphonies conducted by Vernon Handley and Bryden Thomson (Chandos) and David Lloyd-Jones (Naxos) have followed. This album containing the Second and Fifth Symphonies completes the CD release of Lyrita’s Bax Symphonies. The long wait has been worth it. First of all, the CD represents an incredible value, with two major symphonies adding up to nearly 80 minutes of music. In the Second Symphony, Bax calls for a huge orchestra including piano, organ, and a large but subtly applied percussion section. For the most part, aside from a few brief lyrical passages, the music sounds angry and threatening. The discrete and sparing use of the organ is dramatically effective. In the second movement, the organ pedal underlines the dark atmosphere before the luminous closing chords. At the climax of the third movement, Bax briefly unleashes the full power of the organ in a terrifying outburst that has to make you speculate as to what it means. The music then fades to a desolate conclusion marked niente (“nothing”).


The Fifth Symphony is dedicated to Sibelius. The opening theme is nearly a direct quote from the second movement of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony. Bax then essentially evolves the thematic material of the whole symphony out of that single motific kernel. In the second movement, he briefly hints at expanding the Sibelius fragment into a lush Baxian melody, but the mood is transient. The third movement is a brilliantly orchestrated set of variations that culminates in Bax’s only fortissimo epilogue dominated by massed brass playing the motto theme. So, the Fifth Symphony is dedicated to Sibelius, nearly quotes a theme by Sibelius, is perhaps influenced by Sibelius, but ultimately sounds like Bax and no one else.


Myer Fredman and Raymond Leppard match Vernon Handley in his fine Chandos set at every point in these performances, but this Lyrita release has no peer because of its sound. The Second and Fifth Symphonies were respectively recorded in 1970 and 1971 in Walthamstow Hall in London. The engineers (Kenneth Wilkinson and Stanley Goodall) provide a nearly perfect reproduction of Bax’s unique and highly personal sound world. Dynamic range is massive, but there is no harshness or sense of strain. Instrumental balances are outstanding and there is no artificial spotlighting of individual instruments. The overall texture is lean and muscular, but it is rich and seductively sweet when necessary, as at the end of the second movement of the Symphony No. 2. This recording is clearly Want List material, along with the incomparable Bax Sixth Symphony on Lyrita 296 ( Fanfare: 31:5).


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

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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

The London Philharmonic seemed to take Alwyn to its heart for these two eminently approachable symphonies in warm-hearted performances, recorded in crystalline detail yet with full-bodied sound.

The First Symphony was dedicated to Sir John Barbirolli and was composed in 1949. The first movement reveals a sure structural grasp (the music is always directional, always sure of where it is going); the second movement is a mercurial Scherzo revealing the LPO on magnificent, quixotic form. Accents are perfectly highlighted and there is a real sense of life coming from within. The Trio is an oasis away from the rhythmic verve of the Scherzo, making the rhythmic life the more effective when it bursts back upon the scene.

The hushed lyricism of the cello line towards the start of the Adagio ma con moto is a marvel here, phrasally tender and tonally lush. Surely this is the symphony’s peak, for it is here that Alwyn’s invention is at its most unforced. The finale, despite its ‘allegro jubilante’ marking, includes a fair few shadows that seem determined to rain on the music’s parade – things are not as clear-cut in Alwyn the symphonist as may be assumed from Alwyn the miniaturist.

The Fourth Symphony dates from a decade later. It begins in a gentle and undemanding fashion – the tonally-ambiguous melodic lines give the music a fluidity that is certainly most appealing. Climaxes are impressive (as in the First Symphony, there is no doubt as to the LPO’s dedication); the extended Scherzo (longer than the first movement, in fact) is marvellously sprightly. This gives way to the tranquillity of the finale, a tripartite Adagio-Allegro-Adagio structure, the final Adagio section of which contains the most moving music on the disc. Well worth exploring.

Booklet notes by the composer (for Symphony No. 1 only) are enlightening. Alwyn lists as his influences here as Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan as well as Schoenberg, Szymanowski and Scriabin (the latter in particular Prometheus and the Poem of Ecstasy). Actually for all its fluidity of invention, the music is not quite as exciting as that heady list might imply – but it is tremendously involving taken on its own terms. At its best it can seem an exhilarating and rewarding journey.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

In 1919 Stanford chose to compose a setting of the mass to commemorate the allied victory, hoping perhaps that the work might be attractive to choral societies. In terms of his music connected with the war, the Mass ‘Via Victrix 1914-1918’ Op. 173 would be his greatest and most substantial effort, and it would prove to be a canvas to equal similar large-scale choral tours de force such as his Requiem Op. 63 (1897), Te Deum Op. 66 (1898) and Stabat Mater Op. 96 (1907), all ambitiously conceived for chorus, four soloists, orchestra and organ. Bearing the adapted Latin dedication ( ‘Transiverunt per ignem et aqua et eduxisti in refrigerium’ [“(They) went through fire and water and thou has brought (them) into a wealthy place”?] taken from Psalm 66 verse 12 (from Tyndale’s translation), the work was dedicated to those who made the greatest sacrifice in defence of their country. The mass was therefore intended as a work of thanksgiving, of celebration for the final victory, but equally one which looked into the heart of the nation, to commiserate with those who grieved, to pray for those whose sense of loss was unconsolable, and to urge for a spirit of renewal in the face of the hardships and sorrows the nation had had to endure. In this sense Stanford’s work stood at the vanguard of other cathartic expressions of war grief such as John Foulds’ A World Requiem (1921), Delius’s Requiem (1914, but not performed until 1922) and Arthur Bliss’s Morning Heroes (1930). When news was made known of the unveiling of the Cenotaph and the interment of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey in October 1920, the Right Hon. Mr Justice Charles John Darling (1st Baron Darling) published a poem ‘At the Abbey Gate’ in The Times on 26 October (under the initials C.J.D.) as part of a larger article ‘To the Unknown Dead’ announcing the special nature of the ceremony on 11 November. Through a desire to commemorate this major national occasion, Stanford decided to set Darling’s poem as a march for chorus, solo baritone and orchestra. At the Abbey Gate Op. 177 was completed in November 1920 in the days following the great national ceremony.

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REVIEWS:

Rescued from obscurity nearly a century after its composition, Stanford’s large-scale post-war mass is definitely worth checking out. Impassioned performances here.

– BBC Music Magazine

Symphonically paced and nuanced in its construction, Stanford’s Mass receives an impressive reading from Adrian Partington, his four soloists, and the wonderful voices of the BBC National Chorus of Wales with BBC NOW. Thanks to the editorial work and tireless advocacy of Stanford scholar Jeremy Dibble, this CD again makes available an important British choral work that has lain largely forgotten for over a century.

– Choir & Organ