Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

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]

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.

Classical Music

This exuberant piece begins with a lively, dancing section, driven by various rhythmic motifs, anchored by a vivid, repeated melodic pattern. An insistent triplet fanfare figure dominates the central section, before the opening gambolling material returns, with even more feverish energy. After a sonorous climax, the music gently ascends the heights before the vigorous final flourish. At several moments and especially at the music's climactic sequence, it feels as though Lloyd is demanding richer, more extensive sonorities than a single performer can produce. So it is not surprising that in 1995 he arranged the piece for two pianos. He remarked pithily, 'I think it sounds better with two pianos' and the greater depth of sound afforded by two instruments and the additional interplay between the two performers enhances the material. On the other hand, the element of striving and struggle present in the version for solo piano better complements the idealism and aspirations of the protagonists in the music's scenario.

Lullaby (Intercom Baby) was originally written for violin and piano in the mid-1970s, but Lloyd arranged it for solo piano in 1987 for the present recording. The composer wrote of the work, 'It is really a lullaby, but the mother does not rock the cradle, she is in another room at the end of an intercom listening for her baby; what she hears is not always as peaceful as it should be'. This gentle berceuse has a lilting warmth, with delightfully puckish central excursions. There is an old-world charm to the piece that belies it's modish title.

The Aggressive Fishes (1972) was inspired by Karl Lorenz's account of experiments with tropical fishes. According to the composer, 'They are wonderfully beautiful creatures, but very vicious and aggressive, so I tried to describe the languor and the laziness and the sudden bursts of violence'. Lloyd creates an aptly fluid, aqueous soundscape, which returns in the closing stages of the piece. In the main, central section, he takes the listener on a colourful journey, full of unexpected flights of fancy, in one of his most impressionistic pieces.

Lloyd's first solo piano piece, An African Shrine (1966), was written for the great British pianist, John Ogdon, who premiered it on 30 August 1969 for a BBC Radio 3 broadcast and recorded it a year later for EMI. The material teems with invention of the highest quality, yet the composer keeps a tight rein on his ideas. Weighty, dramatic sequences are counterpoised convincingly with gentler, lyrical episodes inside an expansive, sweeping canvas that honours the depth and seriousness of the music's underlying theme. Above all, the music is unequivocally, and compellingly, pianistic and could not have been written for any other medium.

In 1972, Lloyd wrote the first draft of The Transformation of that Naked Ape. He had been reading Desmond Morris's book, The Naked Ape (1967) and the idea for a solo piano piece came to him. In his own words, 'I had always refused to accept the notion that we humans are just superior animals so this book decided me to stand up and be counted amongst those who believe another dimension must be added to explain our natures'. In 1987, the composer revised the work for the present recording. There are six movements in the piece, entitled 'Her Hair', 'Her Tongue', 'Her Eyes', 'Her Brain', 'her Mind' and 'Her Soul'. If this sequence suggests a progression from the physical to the spiritual, such a development is also apparent in the music. Hence the helter-skelter scherzo-like frivolity of 'Her Hair' and the florid introspection of 'Her Tongue' give way gradually to the tender lyricism of 'Her Mind' and the brio and joyfulness of the closing movement, 'Her Soul'.