Howard Ferguson & Edward Elgar

I was browsing in a second-hand bookshop ‘somewhere in England’ last night when I came across a little gem. Now, I think I have Sir Edward Elgar’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in my collection of miniature scores. However, imagine my delight to find a copy that had been given to Howard Ferguson by a Dutch friend in 1933. It even has the composer's 'stamp' on the front cover.

The price of this little gem was a mere £3.50 having been reduced from £7! Apart from a little foxing on the cover it is a good clean editon.

So, to celebrate my ‘find’, I listened to the Concerto when I got home – in the early Nigel Kennedy version with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley.

Just in case anyone has forgotten how good this version is, I can do no better than quite Edward Greenfield writing in The Gramophone in 1984, “As it is, no Elgarian should miss [this] performance which... has amazed me with its command. It is always exciting when a young artist fulfils on record the promise of his early career. For Kennedy this record presents a landmark, plainly establishing ... how naturally and richly his expressiveness blossoms under the taxing conditions of the studio.” The Gramophone December 1984

Listen to this great performance on EMI: it can be downloaded as an MP3

Read More

William Alwyn: Fanfare for a Joyful Occasion

I have always enjoyed the Fanfare for a Joyful Occasion since first hearing it on the Chandos release back in 1993 with Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra. The work was dedicated to the well-respected percussion player Jimmy Blades. Mary Alwyn has written that her husband often consulted Blades ‘on the complexity of writing for these instruments in the modern symphony orchestra.’

It is hardly surprising that the Fanfare employs a battery of percussion including the marimba, the vibraphone and the glockenspiel. The work has been described as ‘flashy’; I hope not in a derogatory sense. This is extrovert music that is extremely rhythmic. The liner-notes omit to point out that this piece also requires four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and a tuba as well as three percussion players.

It opens with a brilliant ‘fanfare section’ that may recall Walton and his ‘royal’ marches – be they for Henry, Richard, George or Elizabeth. However the mood soon dies downs and soft sounds from the ‘tuned’ percussion become almost ‘Arnold-esque’ in mood. The music develops through a long crescendo with the brass and percussion combining to produce a loud and perhaps deafening conclusion. Whether this is a great work or not is up to the listener to decide: it is certainly impressive, noisy and interesting.

Listen to William Alwyn's Fanfare for a Joyful Occasion on NAXOS 8.570705

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review first appeared.

Read More

Montague Phillips: Phantasy for Violin & Orchestra

Montague Phillips' Phantasy for Violin & Orchestra was written in 1912. In some ways it is quite hard to imagine that this work was actually played at a Promenade Concert – not because of the quality of the music, which is superb – but simply because of our association of this composer with ‘light music.’ However this work is no lightweight or trivial piece.

Sometime in 1906 William Walter Cobbett announced his first Chamber Music Prize in the Musical Times. This called for relatively short pieces of music that reflected the string writing and form of the ‘fantasies’ of Jacobean and Elizabethan music. Of course we know that over the years this competition produced a large number of works by famous and not so famous composers. It is easy to think of fine examples by the Five B’s – Bax, Bowen, Bridge, Britten and Bush for starters.

I think that the programme notes are slightly disingenuous in its description of the Phantasy. Lewis Foreman states that this music reflects a pre-war innocence- which it most certainly does – but he further notes that it lacks ‘any reflection of the angst and crisis of the times.’ In those strange years before the Great War society seemed to be oblivious to the coming conflagration. It was as if people were deliberately ignoring the terror that was about to be unleashed. But in another sense there was an ‘end of term’ feel about the times. The old order was about to crash down and people were perhaps subliminally aware of this. It was the innocence that stopped them going mad. However note that the innocence of Montague Phillips’s Phantasy is always balanced by a feeling of impending change – nostalgia for an era that was passing.

The piece opens rather darkly – in fact it is quite unlike most of the composer’s output. Suddenly the solo violin arrives with a heart-easing cadenza – quite a contrast to the first few bars. The orchestra asserts itself before giving way to another short cadenza. This leads to a slow romantic theme that is certainly the heart of the work. Without doubt there is a definite nod in the direction of Elgar. Yet through this intensity there are moments of repose and even a few bars of relaxation. The composer gives the soloist some stunningly beautiful figurations to play whilst the orchestra concentrates on the main event.

The music changes pace and becomes a little faster although the romantic theme keeps trying to reassert itself. Soon there is an intense fast section that hits a big climax complete with timpani and full brass chorus. Out of this comes a lovely song for the violinist. It has to be said that the instrumental writing is impressive and reveals an understanding of the violin and its capabilities. It is certainly not an easy solo part.

Soon there are some unusual modulations- at least for Montague Phillips - as the soloist muses on past themes. The tension eases off and the gorgeous scalar figurations mentioned above make their final appearance. Soon we are into the last reflections. The violin reprises the romantic theme – this time as a ‘high’ melody. One last outburst from the orchestra leads to lovely harmonies supporting the soloist’s last thoughts on the heart-easing tune. The work closes with due peace and repose.

This Phantasy gives us a major insight into the serious side of the composer. It lets us see what may have been the direction of his career if he had concentrated on concert music and had rejected the path of songs for the salon.

Montague Phillips' Phantasy for Violin & Orchestra can be heard on Dutton Epoch CDLX 7158

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this note first appeared.

Read More

Gustav Holst: Festival at Cheltenham 1927

I came across this article whilst browsing in the 1927 Musical Times. It is worth presenting here as a good account of the Holst Festival in Cheltenham in March 1927.

It was a happy thought on the part of Cheltenham music-lovers to arrange a festival performance of the works of its distinguished son, Gustav Holst. Two concerts (with the same programme) were given in Cheltenham Town Hall by the City of Birmingham Orchestra on March 22, and they are entitled to the epithet 'festival,' in that they had received, one cannot say adequate rehearsal, but far more preparation than is usually possible for a single programme in this country.

Mr. Holst, in a short speech during the graceful ceremony which occupied the interval of the afternoon concert, expressed his gratification at this extra rehearsal, and said that what he most appreciated in the honour which his native town was paying him was the blow it dealt at the prevalent fallacies that music was a foreign language and that all composers were dead. A memento of the occasion was presented to him by the Mayor of Cheltenham in the shape of a picture by a local artist, Mr. Harold Cox, of the Cotswold sky showing the planets that were visible on the night when The Planets was first performed. By special dispensation from the Astronomer Royal they were nearly all there together!

Holst's orchestral work divides itself into two quite definite kinds of music which are distinguished by the sources of their inspiration. More than most composers he has gone consciously to other music for a starting-point for his own. Folk-song and Bach are the texts on which he writes his own musical commentary-the early Somerset Rhapsody, the two Songs without Words, and the Fugal Concerto were the examples given of this very personal side of his genius. Of the other class, music that is original in its conception and owes its origin to a wider experience of life than mere music, the ballet music from The Perfect Fool and that great work The Planets were representative. The Oriental influences that may be discovered in his vocal music found no illustrations in this purely orchestral programme.

One-composer concerts are sometimes a weariness. This Holst event was not, and it revealed in a single afternoon more light on the nature of Mr. Holst's musical personality than scores of isolated performances. One aspect has already been noted: Mr. Holst is certainly a composer who throws more light on the baffling problems of inspiration than almost any other. But beside this we could observe his delight in the contrast between a bare unaccompanied tune and a vast web of contrapuntal sound, mark his judgment in the employment of purposeful reiteration and a blunt full stop when enough has been said, and admire his infallible handling now of the simplest essentials, now of the richest detail.

Mr. Holst conducted most of the programme himself, leaving to Dr. Adrian Boult the Ballet Music and the two little Songs without Words. This was perhaps a matter for slight regret, in spite of its obvious appropriateness; for Mr. Holst, though an inspiring choral conductor, rarely sets an orchestra on fire, and at the afternoon concert the performance lacked that touch of electricity which is needed by Holst, perhaps even more than by most composers, to convert brilliant orchestration and peculiar turns of thought and phrase from a comfortable glow into a blazing incandescence of splendour. The evening concert, however, went with greater élan, and showed even more triumphantly the poetry of the smaller works, the greatness of The Planets, and the humanity of them all. F. S. H.

From the 1 May 1927 edition of The Musical Times, with minor edits.

Read More

John Blackwood McEwen: String Quartet No.7 'Threnody'

The Quartet for Strings No.7 in Eb was written in 1916. Obviously this was in the middle of the First World War. It is hardly surprising that this work was subtitled 'Threnody'. This is a song of lamentation.

This quartet is written in four movements -three of them being slow. The work opens with a very dark and lugubrious Lento. However there are some moments of warmth in this movement. With increasing complexity it builds up to a climax which resolves it self into a restatement of the opening theme. This is a very satisfying opening movement, shewing the composer's genius to the full.

The short second movement is full of string effects. The programme notes describe them as "late Elgarian arpeggios and motoric figures." All to soon we are in the Allegro Moto. There is no doubt that this is the heart of the work. Here we have a stunning display of string writing. Tunes seem to be passed too and fro across this movement. Suddenly a gorgeous phrase is taken up, used and then seemingly cast aside. There is no doubt that this is a masterpiece of string writing. Not until Britten and Tippet do we reach such an understanding of how a string quartet works.

The last movement is a meditation the old Scottish Lament - Flowers of the Forest. This song was composed to remember the fallen at the battle of Flodden in 1513, and is a highly appropriate choice for a work written during the 'War to End all Wars.' Somehow McEwen manages to avoid any sense of the parochial or of pathos or sheer sentimentality. It is a beautiful and perfect ending to a splendid composition.

John Blackwood McEwen: String Quartet No.7 can be heard on Chandos CHAN9926

Read More

Robert Farnon: Manhattan Playboy

Whenever I hear Robert Farnon’s Manhattan Playboy, I tend to think of Bertie Wooster and his ‘American’ adventures -as played by Hugh Laurie and admirably supported by Stephen Fry as Jeeves. Certainly the character depicted is not a bad person or a roué. More likely a man about town who has a little more money and free-time than sense!

The timescale would appear to be the ‘thirties’ in spite of the piece having been composed in 1948, although I guess that a ‘playboy’ would not be inhibited by a few years one way or the other. Certainly I feel an ‘art deco’ mood in these bars that suggests drinks at the Rainbow Room (now closed) with its stunning views over towards the Empire State Building, Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty. Out if interest it used to be possible to see Central Park from the gent’s toilets there! And then again the ‘playboy’ would always make use of the latest Chevrolet or Chrysler or possibly taxi. He would never use the EL (Elevated Railway). Whatever mode of transport he used, he would always be dashing from one assignation to another, no doubt by way of a bar or club.

The musical portrait opens with an upward sweep from the strings. It is a work that is predicated around syncopation without ever becoming ‘jazz’ or ‘ragtime.’ The principal melody is a gorgeous confection for strings that dominates the entire piece. The progress of the music is has many comments from woodwind, xylophone and brass. The entire piece is characterised by a rhythmic subtlety that is a feature of so much of Robert Farnon’s music.

Manhattan Playboy was the third of Three Impressions for orchestra –the other two being High Street and In a Calm. However the Manahattan Playboy was considered to be a companion piece to his ubiquitous A Portrait of a Flirt, which also dated from 1947. I consider that this latte piece portrays a lady from the British side of the pond. The Playboy walks down Fifth Avenue: the Flirt is at home in Mayfair.

Manhattan Playboy can be heard on Marco Polo 8.223401.

Read More

William Walton: Two Early Songs

The earliest work that has been recorded in the Walton canon is the beautiful Litany for four-part choir dating from December 1915 when the composer was only 14 years old. There is virtually nothing else in the CD catalogues until the underrated, but highly charged and deliciously romantic Piano Quartet composed in 1921 and duly revised some 50 years later.

Whilst Walton was at Oxford he wrote a considerable number of songs, motets and vocal works. Many of these were subsequently discarded. These include the part-song ‘Tell me where is fancy bred’, the early Swinburne setting of ‘Love laid his sleepless head’ and a cantata based on Matthew Arnold’s The Forsaken Merman.
However, I recently discovered two early songs on the Chandos label. To be fair, they have been available since 1994, and they have been in my collection since then: but somehow I have never got round to listening to them. Both are youthful works and have little in them that suggests Walton's later development as an enfant terrible or an establishment composer who was a de facto Master of the Kings Musick!
The first song, dating from 1918, is a setting of Algernon Swinburne's (1837–1909) poem 'The Winds'. This was the first work that William Walton had published. Certainly it is a romantic, almost overblown song that progress with great gusto with a good musical impression of the breeze in the accompaniment. However the strange conclusion of this work with the sudden break in the piano part has been deemed to let this song down.

The second song, 'Tritons' was composed in 1920 and takes a text by the Scottish poet William Drummond (1585–1649)

This is a really impressive song that, as the Chandos liner notes suggest, has ‘vestiges’ of modernism about it. Certainly it has been criticised by Kenneth Avery for having an ambiguous key structure and a monotonous three note phrase dominating the accompaniment. Yet there is something attractive and satisfying about it that makes it a valued addition to William Walton’s early works. Both songs are available on Chandos 9292.

Read More