Malcolm Arnold Third Symphony & Scottish Dances on Everest

I first came across Malcolm Arnold at grammar school. Mr Mclean, the music teacher, let us hear a recording of the fantastic ‘Tam O’Shanter’ Overture.  Shortly afterwards, I discovered the delicious English Danceson a Decca Eclipse LP, Festival of English Music Volume 1. Not many years later, I heard this version of the Scottish Dances played by the LPO with composer conducting. As a Scot myself, though long exiled ‘furth of the border,’ these dances have always been important to me. They may be pastiche: they might be patronising to Scotsmen, yet they are near perfect in their almost cinematographic picturing of the country and its people. It matches both the stereotypical image of the nation as well as something much more subtle and genuine. If pressed, I would say that that third dance, the ‘allegretto’ is one of the most flawless evocations of the misty Western isles written by anyone- of any nationality.  It moves me to tears, with remembrance of things and people past. Would that I could have seen these isles with Miss ***. It is lovely to have these Dances in my music collection once again.

Malcolm Arnold’s Third Symphony is not one that I have listened to very often. If pressed, I am a huge fan of the Fifth and of the First.  The 3^rd was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and was first performed at the Royal Festival Hall on 2 December 1957. John Pritchard conducted. This work has been defined as rather ‘gloomy’ with the slow movement being an elegiac ‘funeral march.’  There is a little light relief at the start of the final ‘allegro con brio’ however this is short lived.  I was most impressed by the first movement, which Paul Serotsky has suggested is in ‘Arnold’s new linear style’: it is a kind of twisted sonata form.  Yet, in spite of the fact that there appears to be no typically ‘memorable tune’ throughout the symphony there are many fingerprints of Malcolm Arnold as ‘film composer’ and writer of music that frustrated the cognoscenti if the fifties and sixties.  It has been a pleasure during this review to have listened to this Symphony after many years in abeyance.

Bearing in mind that CD is a recording was made some 56 years ago, there is nothing left to be desired. Arnold handles the orchestra with consummate skill as he negotiates the pages of this reflective symphonic score. The technical quality of the sound is beyond reproach. The liner notes by Paul Affelder, although somewhat gnomic, are of great interest and provide all the information that the listener requires to enjoy these two excellent works. The original artwork has been provided from the 1958 LP. The relatively short duration of the CD is more than compensated for by the ‘budget’ price.

There are currently some five accounts of Arnold’s Third Symphony in the catalogues including versions by Hickox, Penny and Handley. There are many recordings of the Scottish Dances in both orchestral and band arrangements. Without wishing to disparage any of these recordings, I can wholeheartedly recommend this present Everest re-release, in spite of it being more than half a century old.  I have listened to the Symphony twice as part of this review, and am coming to understand that it is one of the composer’s masterpieces, even if it is in some ways uncharacteristic of what we imagine his ‘style’ to be. I just love it. The Scottish Dances will always have a place in my heart –no matter the version - but these on this disc are perfect.

Track Listing:-

Four Scottish Dances, Op.59 (1957)

Symphony No.3, Op.63 (1957) 

London Philharmonic Orchestra/Malcolm Arnold

Rec. Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, November 1958

EVEREST SBDR 3021

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published. 

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Royal Festival Hall: Final Concert of the London Season of the Arts – 1951

This is a concert I would have loved to have attended. It was when the Festival of Britain ‘London Season of the Arts’ came to an end. The programme was devoted to music that was largely inspired by London.  Eric Blom (The Manchester Guardian, July 1 1951) wrote that this programme was ‘a pleasant sort of ‘Lion and Unicorn’ jumble with no recognisable plan, yet making a pattern and an impression’. The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir presented:-

Malcolm Arnold: Overture: The Smoke

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.104 in D major (London)

Edmund Rubbra: Festival ‘Te Deum’ 

Edward Elgar: Overture: Cockaigne

Gustav Holst: Prelude & Scherzo: Hammersmith

William Walton: ‘In Honour of the City of London’

Malcolm Arnold’s Overture: The Smoke opened the proceedings. This work had been written in 1948 as a Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra commission. The phrase ‘The Smoke’ was a slang term (used by sailors) for London for obvious reasons. The Times(July 2 1951) reviewer suggested that the work was ‘no more than a series of instrumental quips without the continuity of line or thematic development to make it either a musical picture of a great city or a coherent composition’. Arnold had introduced jazz into this episodic work (he was inspired by the music of Louis Armstrong and himself played the trumpet.)  In some ways it is a ‘jazz impressionistic’ piece and the fact that is not constructed on strict ‘sonata’ form is irrelevant. I accept that it is not amongst the best of Arnold overtures and I agree with Hugo Cole that the ‘big’ tune is not one of Arnold’s best. However, it is a work that deserves and occasional outing. For me it suggests the smoky dive bars and busy streets of Soho in the late nineteen-forties.

Edmund Rubbra’s Te Deum was commissioned for the opening of the Festival of Britain and was suitably reprised at it closure. This is a powerful work that is based on a straightforward tune ‘over which trumpets, voices and strings move in taught counterpoints which flowers exultantly, rather in the way that Holst builds up from a unison to a paean by direct canons, intimations and contrapuntal devices.’ (The Times, July 2 1951).  One reviewer felt that the Te Deum ‘was sung too cautiously to bring out its full exaltation, which fits it for great occasions’. It is a work that I have yet to hear: as far as I can tell it has not been released on CD.

Walton’s ‘In Honour of the City of London’ for choir and orchestra is a setting of William Dunbar’s great poem written towards the end of the 15^th century. The score has been criticised for being ‘too busy’ with ‘excessively complex…part writing’ and a general noisiness. However, this ‘splashy-ness’ and overblown rhetoric is surely part and parcel of any description of the diverse, frenetic city whether in Dunbar’s day or our own.  Further north (without the M25) we could regard it as a ‘reet good sing.’

Little need be said about Haydn’s Symphony No.104 in D major (London) which provided the ‘classical ballast’ to an otherwise contemporary programme. Elgar’s ‘Cockaigne’ Overture whilst hardly modern was, in 1951, only 50 years old – the same relationship (more or less) then as the Beatles first LP is to us today (2014). It is a perfect description of a largely imagined and idealised summer’s day in the first year of Edward VII’s reign.  

Holst’s Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo is one of those works that I consider ought to be played more often. I accept that is it written in the composer’s ‘aloof’ style, but the descriptive power of the work in describing the misty early morning on the riverside at Hammersmith Bridge, the ‘noonday’ bustle in Broadway, and the schoolgirls dancing at Brook Green school is masterly.

Due to Sir Adrian Boult’s indisposition the choral works were conducted by Frederic Jackson and the orchestral numbers by Edric Cundell. 

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