Two important concertante works from an underrated composer

Edmund Rubbra: Sinfonia Concertante, Violin Concerto

The latest Lyrita disc in their Itter Broadcast Collection pairs two sadly under-played masterpieces by Edmund Rubbra: his 1936 (revised 1943) Sinfonia Concertante, op. 38 for piano and orchstra, and the Violin Concerto, op. 103, written in 1959. There's more discourse than display, as Joseph Kerman would say, in the Sinfonia Concertante, though Rubbra writes a mighty interesting if not flashy piano part (he was himself the soloist in the premiere in 1943). This performance, which like all Itter Broadcast Collection recordings was recorded to tape from a BBC broadcast, is from 1967, again with Rubbra at the piano, and Hugo Rignold conducting the CBSO. The very fine Violin Concerto is a recording of the second performance, only three days after the premiere in February 1960. Endré Wolf is the soloist, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Schwarz. Once again I am incredibly impressed by the musical and technical standards that allow recordings of this calibre to live so vividly after being plucked from the ether. As to the composer, Rubbra's standing in my eyes is higher after having lived with this music for a couple of weeks. Two solo piano encores are substantial, reflecting well on Rubbra as both pianist and composer, one a tribute to his teacher Cyril Scott, and the second a work by Scott himself, Consolation (1918).

This disc will be released on August 4, 2017

An important British symphonist

There's a sad but instructive Wikipedia article entitled "Wiping" which talks about the regrettable practice, once common in the broadcasting industry in the 50s and 60s, of taping over audio and video content, resulting in permanent loss. This was unfortunately widespread in the BBC, and many important classical music broadcasts have been lost. However, thanks to the efforts of one man we can now hear many important BBC broadcasts from that period.

Humphrey Searle is one of the most important of 20th century British symphonists. His Second Symphony was included in the recent Lyrita British Symphonies set. All five symphonies were recorded in the mid-90s in a really excellent two-disc set from CPO, with Alun Francis conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony.

This new disc (out October 14, 2016) can't compare with that set in terms of sound, though the mono sound is surprisingly good considering the source: it's full and lively. The Third Symphony is put across by the BBC SO under John Pritchard with the requisite forcefulness and tension. This is the typical Searle style, an uncompromising serial work with no lack of expressive range. As to its "Venetian" title, I think the programme of the symphony runs out of steam before it adds any value to the listening experience. I prefer, as so often, to listen to music like this as if there were no programme.

The Fifth Symphony, written in 1964, is amazing. I find it, of all the music on the disc, the most interesting, and the one that most rewards re-listening. A large-scale tribute to Anton Webern, the work is a kind of palimpsest, with Webern's characteristically spare musical textures expanded and elaborated upon. There is deep sadness here, but also plenty of wit and whimsey. This is the broadcast premiere of the work, from 1966, and it's performed by the same forces who premiered the work in Manchester in 1964, the Hallé Orchestra under Lawrence Leonard (who I remember as the Edmonton Symphony's conductor in the late 1960s and early 70s.)

The final two orchestral works are perhaps both more clever than profound. In the Zodiac Variations of 1970 Searle takes advantage of musical puns in bringing the 12 astrological signs to 12-tone music. 1971's Labyrinth for orchestra similarly constructs a kind of musical maze. This is fun to listen to, though again I didn't take the trouble to follow any mythological programme other than the very basic maze construction.

Earnest, and sometimes original, symphonic music from Britain

This four-disc set from Lyrita, due to be released on September 9, 2016, is a useful compilation of British symphonic music that matches the format of two previous collections: British Piano Concertos and British String Concertos, both of which received excellent reviews. The Lyrita catalogue is so strong in this repertoire that this re-packaging of a mixture of outstanding works and lesser-known gems is more than likely to be a success.

Not all of the works included here are out-and-out masterpieces. As God is my witness, the first thing I thought of when I was listening to William Stearndale Bennett's Symphony in G minor and saw it had been completed in 1867, was the Reform Act of that year. It's a solid, even stolid, symphony on the Mendelssohn model, which is a bit off considering Felix had been dead for 20 years. Like the Reform Act, which doubled suffrage from a million property-owning men but had no immediate effect on the politics of the day, Bennett's music tinkered around the edges of the established, in this case German, model, and British music had to wait until Elgar's First Symphony in 1908 to begin to make its own noise in the world. There's nothing wrong with this music, certainly, and I don't begrudge the 23 minutes of my life I spent listening to it. Sure, I could have squeezed an episode of BoJack Horseman in that time, but I'm trying to ration my BJ bingeing. Great show.

One work that definitely is a masterpiece is Edmund Rubbra's 4th Symphony, written during the 2nd World War. It's clear from the amazing mysterious and momentous opening that this is a serious and important work, and Rubbra fulfills all of our expectations by the end of the symphony. It's on the same level, I believe, as Elgar and the best of Vaughan Williams.  This version is played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar, and was recorded in 1990. It's a toss-up between this and the Chandos recording with Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, which is my personal favourite by a whisker only.  I should pause at this point and acknowledge the superb work done by Michael Herman at Music-Web International in his discography of British and Commonwealth Symphonies from the 19th Century to the Present. It helped my research for this review immensely.



Another major work on the album is Alan Rawsthorne's Symphonic Studies, in which the young composer confronts the daunting challenge of Elgar's Enigma Variations, 30 years later. It begins with this impressive theme:



This is the best available version of this music, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Pritchard.

Dipping into this collection at random to try to get a feel for it, I'm afraid I sometimes found things more the same than I would have hoped. Not every voice here is completely original, though of course that's not the only thing one looks for in symphonic music. Certainly there's some very earnest music, and perhaps not enough wit or grace. Lennox Berkeley's 3rd Symphony, in a single movement, is a welcome exception:


Grace Williams' Symphony no. 2 is quite a pugnacious work, often martial in nature. As was the case in other works here, it was oddly reassuring to sometimes hear the familiar strains of the honourable English light music tradition which I've come to appreciate more lately. I'm planning on exploring more of this Welsh composer's music, from the discouragingly small amount that's made it on to disc.

What else? I think I'll leave these MP3s up in my iTunes and re-listen to some of the others over the next few weeks, and report back here. This is a lot of unfamiliar music to get into all at once. And BoJack beckons!

A major masterpiece from an important composer

Rebecca Clarke isn't quite a household name, but her 1919 Sonata for Viola and Piano has certainly hit a chord with the record-buying public, not to mention violists and their accompanists. A few months ago I counted 18 CDs featuring this fine work, and now we have another, with this new performance of the composer's own version for cello and piano. This vital, robust work is certainly worth the attention it gets, and it sounds great in this different guise. Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and pianist John York provide a fresh and lively take on the music, and through a close partnership and re-balancing of component parts, they've proven the viability of the music for these forces.

But this isn't the most important work on this new CD from Lyrita. Rather, it's the Rhapsody for cello and piano which Clarke wrote in 1923. This is as assured a work as the Viola Sonata, but in a more modernist style; York in this fine liner notes mentions Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin. I'm not really sure what to make of Clarke's choice of title, since this four-movement piece in sonata form isn't especially free in form or over-extravagant in style. It's only somewhat a Rhapsody in the English country-side folklore sense. The composer works more in that genre in some of the shorter pieces on this disc, especially the piece based on the Scottish song I'll bid my heart be still, though even there one hears as much Paris as the Highlands. Whatever it's called, though, the Rhapsody rises above even the Viola Sonata, and deserves much more attention than it's been able to get without a proper published score. Hopefully the upcoming performing edition by John York, with the support of the Rebecca Clarke Foundation, will bring the Rhapsody to more concerts, discs and streaming services in the future.

I love the idea of including newly composed pieces to a musical program of works by dead composers, especially if there's an interaction between the two. John York's Dialogue with Rebecca Clarke, originally written in 2007 for viola and piano, is an exploration of favourite themes and characteristic stylistic devices of Clarke, matched with York's own responses from a post-Clarke perspective. This is a sincere and musically interesting tribute which, like the especially committed playing of Wallfisch and York, must surely win Rebecca Clarke new admirers.

Two fine English Cello Concertos

I've sometimes wondered why the 1986 Chandos recording of the Bax Cello Concerto with Raphael Wallfisch was the only one available on disc, and why indeed it took more than 50 years for a recording to appear (it wasn't released until 1995). There's finally another recording, a new Lyrita disc, licensed from Dutton, for whom it was recorded in August 2014.  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the former disc, from Chandos, which features a vital performance from the soloist and expert support from LPO under Bryden Thomson. Lest you wonder about the work itself, there's nothing at all wrong with it either. It doesn't quite fit the Elgar mold, being more energetic and less elegaic, but there's lots there for a cellist to get his teeth into, and its thematic material is strong, though more rhapsodic than symphonic to be sure. And cellist Lionel Handy, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and their conductor Martin Yates prove to be as effective advocates for the work as the London musicians. The new performance for the most part moves briskly ahead while the Chandos disc tends to slow just down a touch to show off the most beautiful bits. I like both recordings equally, and like the music more now that I've heard two facets exposed so beautifully.

It's a cliché to quote Jesus's words from Mark 6:4 when artists find success abroad but not so much at home. It's part of a very specific and slightly odd exchange which in the New International Version reads like this: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home." That's a very personal betrayal, and it's no wonder when foreign triumphs are tempered by the memories of hurtful memories from home. Villa-Lobos is one example of a composer who always felt he was appreciated more properly in France and in America than in Brazil. In the sad case of the English composer Stanley Bate his greatest successes were also in America, and once he returned home to England the lack of attention given his music may have contributed to his death (possibly a suicide) in 1959. Bate died, incidentally only a month before Villa-Lobos, though he was much younger. The two had met during Bate's first trip to Brazil, in 1945. Bate's Cello Concerto was first performed in Rochester, NY, in 1954.

From the evidence of this work, the only music by Bate that I've heard, the obscurity into which he's fallen is completely unjustified (something which actually doesn't happen all that often, in my opinion, though record companies will have you believe it's common enough). This is music of some charm but even more character. It's a worthy companion to the Bax on this splendid disc.

Postscript: It is definitely a good disc, and fairly well filled, running just under an hour. I guess there wasn't room on the disc for a premiere recording of Bax's Variations for Orchestra which were recorded for Dutton, according to this notice from the Sir Arnold Bax Website, at the same time as these two concertos. Or perhaps there will be another disc with the Variations and some further music by Bax (or Bate!) from another session.