Bowen Symphony no 2

 Day 90

Bowen Symphony no 2 op 31

BBC Philharmonic

Andrew Davis

York Bowen was one of those composers whose music you tended to find in piles of old music in dusty second hand shops. It seems to have been reasonably easy to get music printed in the pre-war period and so much of what was published has vanished into obscurity. York Bowen had undergone a signficant revival in the last 20 years and now there are recordings of much of his music and there is an active society dedicated to promoting his music. 

This symphony dates from 1909 - relatively early in his long composing career. At that time he was seen as one of the leading British composers - major figures performed his music and no less an authority than Saint Saëns commented that Bowen was the leading English composer of his day. But after the first war his star waned and his music fell out of the repertory. This symphony is a full blooded work which lasts about 45 minutes. The biggest influence on the music seems to be Tchaikovsky - indeed on a cold hearing you could easily imagine the work to be by a Russian composer. But perhaps the main issue with the work is its lack of stylistic coherence. Alongside the intense Russian music other parts of the symphony sound more like the sort of British light music which featured in Hyperion’s fabulous light music series. Nothing wrong with that of course - I love some of those pieces - but the contrast does jar. I get the sense that Bowen threw everything he could at the piece - the end in particular is rather overblown and Bowen seemed reluctant to actually reach the final chord!

So another interesting British symphony. Much to enjoy along the way but nothing here which suggests that Saint-Saëns’s view has been vindicated by 100 years of history.

McEwen Solway Symphony

 Day 89

McEwen Solway Symphony

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Alisdair Mitchell

This symphony has a place as a footnote in musical history because it was the first British symphony ever to be recorded. The exactly circumstances of what led to this are a little unclear as the various online sources about this contradict each other - there may have been a competition involved but given that the recording was made 10 years after the symphony was written the position might be a little more complicated.

McEwan (1868-1948) was a respected figure in musical education, being associated with the Royal Academy of Music both as a student and teacher - he ended up as principal of the college. Among his pupils was William Alwyn, whose symphony I wrote about yesterday.

I had never heard any of MeEwen’s music so had little idea what to expect. If anything I thought it might be a rather fey piece in a Mendelssohnian idiom with lots of Scottish folk tunes. But it was a much more robust piece that that, especially in the first movement, which is by some way the finest of the three. It had a symphonic drive and structure which was certainly well worth of respect. The material in the other two movements was always attractive, but I think that the composer didn’t quite know how to develop it and there was rather too much reliance on a few musical gestures.

The language is clearly late romantic and has its roots in Wagner and Liszt. There were a few moments in the middle movement where the texture suddenly opened up into a world which was almost Debussian but that was the exception. The orchestration was confident - I don’t know how much experience McEwan had had of hearing his own orchestral music actually being performed, but clearly he knew exactly what he was doing here. Some of the horn writing was spectacular and a few of the big horn moments in the third movement would not have been out of place in a John Williams film score!

So perhaps more than a curiosity - particularly the first movement - but not a forgotten masterpiece. But it does go so show just how much good symphonic music was being written in this country in the first half of the 20th century. There is so much more to discover.

Alwyn Symphony no 3

 Day 88

Alwyn Symphony no 3

I will have heard some of Alwyn’s film music before but as far as I know I have never heard any of his concert repertoire. He wrote five symphonies - this one was written in 1948 and given its premiere under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham.

I thought that it was a very impressive piece. It had a symphonic logic and a real sense of progression. Like many British works of the time the spirit of Sibelius permeates the work, particularly in the first movement, but there is a distinctly Russian sound world to the piece, particularly in the 2nd and 3rd movements. Indeed heard blind I would have guessed Shostakovich as the composer. It has his sense of yearning in the slow movement and his energy in the last movement - side drum and all.  But it is never pastiche: this is a composer sure of his own voice.  My own reservation was the very end. After a beautiful slow and quiet coda Alwyn then briefly brings back the material of the start of the movement in an abrupt conclusion. Personally I think it would have been better to have ended the piece quietly - the very end did seem to be tacked on. 

So another successful exploration of British symphonic repertory. Lots more to go at over the next few days.

Gipps Symphony no 2

 Day 87

Gipps Symphony no 2 op 30

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Rumon Gamba

My oboe playing friends speak highly of Ruth Gipps and her name crops up fairly frequently in record reviews and musical journalism these days so I thought it was time that I sampled some of her music, particularly as this fits in with my current theme of exploring British symphonies.

Gipps, who was a professional oboe player and a pianist of some repute. She wrote 5 symphonies - the second, which dates from 1945, is in a single movement. I enjoyed listening to it but I have to confess I didn’t find it very memorable. Indeed writing this up a few hours after hearing the work I confess that I struggled to remember anything much about the music. There were some lovely reflective movements in the slow section in the middle but other than that nothing has stuck.  Perhaps this was, unlike for most of the pieces in this project I didn’t have a score of the work, so perhaps my concentration in listening in the first place was not as strong as it has been with many of the other pieces I have listened to here.

I’ve no idea whether this was typical of Gipp’s output or not - certainly some commentators seem to suggest that it is her concertos that show the best of her work. I’ll try to hear the oboe or horn concertos before long to see if they give me a more balanced view of her music.

Rubbra Symphony no 7

 Day 86

Rubbra Symphony no 7 in c op 88

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Richard Hickox

I have a (extremely) tenuous connection with Rubbra in that my Ph.D supervisor John Tyrrell had Rubbra as his Ph.D supervisor. It is a bit like those early 20th century pianists who advertised themselves as pupils of pupils of Chopin! But whereas John was an inspirational teacher and mentor who spent endless amounts of time with me and taught me the importance of exacting standards he told me that Rubbra gave him very little help or support and that John was more or less left to fend for himself. But I suppose, considering that he ended up as an internationally renowned scholar, the experience didn't do him any harm.  

I have a vague memory of hearing a bit of one of Rubbra's choral works at university but otherwise his output is entirely unfamiliar to me so I had no real expectation of what sort of music this symphony would contain. I have to say that I found the symphony compelling - particularly the first movement. It was a serious piece of symphonic logic which was never flashy but which always commanded attention. The spirit of Sibelius certainly could be felt and at times there were flashes of Shostakovich-like intensity. The middle movement was attractive but never superficial, though I did think that perhaps it was a couple of minutes too long.  The finale was particularly interesting. A long passacaglia, very serious and weighty in tone with some really impressive climaxes - then a fugue. I knew that the movement was described as a Passacaglia and Fugue and every time I turned a page in the score I was waiting for the fugue to start, but for ages it didn't - indeed at one point I though that I must have made a mistake and that there wasn't a fugue at all. But eventually it did come: it did seem to me that the proportions were not quite right and that the Passacaglia was too long and overshadowed the fugue - which didn't really have the space to develop.

But that apart I thought that this was a very well constructed symphony showing a serious mind at work and with a real grasp of symphonic logic. There is plenty more Rubbra to go at and I will certainly explore some of the other symphonies. I must get over my slight prejudice against him which I must have absorbed from John.

Bax symphony no 3

 Day 85

Bax Symphony no 3

BBC Philharmonic

Vernon Handley

After a period of concentration on Russian and French Opera I thought that I would change direction and spend a bit of time on 20th century British symphonies. Once you get past the obvious names of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Walton my knowledge of this repertoire is very thin so this project is an obvious way to catch up with an area of music I ought to know better than I do.

My experience of Bax is limited to a few piano piece and Tintagel, which I have played a couple of times. I've said before in this project that the opening of that piece is wonderful but I don't think that the composer sustains that level of invention through the score.

I have to say that I didn't get much pleasure from this symphony. I couldn't really see what Bax was tying to achieve. The structure was quite odd - a long first movement which had a slow section in the middle, followed by a slow movement. Then a jaunty finale which ended with an epilogue which seemed to me (I didn't time it) almost as long as the rest of the movement.  Also I didn't get any sense of stylistic consistency. Quite different styles were interlinked without, to me at any rate, any overall sense of unity. And to have a single anvil stroke at the climax of the first movement just seemed bizarre.

There were some beautiful passages in the slow movement and epilogue, which did remind you that this was the composer of Tintagel, but to me there were not enough of them to justify the symphony as a whole. So a disappointment, and I won't be returning to Bax for a while, though no doubt there are treasures to be found elsewhere in the symphonies - he has a high reputation among at least some commentators

Mussorgsky Khovanshchina

 Day 84

Mussorgsky Khovanshchina

Soloists

Kirov Opera

Valery Gergiev

I conclude my exploration of The Five with the figure who is generally considered to be the greatest of the mighty handful - Mussorgsky. I suppose that like most people I first came across him via Night on a Bare Mountain, though as we have come to realise that version of that work that we usually here owes as much to Rimsky as it does to Mussorgsky. It is symptomatic of the fairly chaotic state in which the composer left his works.

This opera is typical. The piano score is more or less finished but the end is missing. Almost none of the music is orchestrated. So various hands have been involved in making performance versions, including (inevitably) Rimsky, Stravinsky, Ravel and Shostakovich. 

This recording uses the Shostakovich orchestration but I was following it with a full score of the Rimsky version so it was fascinating to see the different approaches of the two later composers. Rimsky made several cuts and was fairly free in the way in which he revised the vocal lines and in some cases the harmonies. Shostakovich sets the vocal score more or less exactly as Mussorgsky left it. Their orchestration choices are fascinating. I did notice in many places Shostakovich gave material to the strings that Rimsky gave to the woodwind, and vice versa.  I wonder whether that was a deliberate choice by the younger man to create a different sound world.  Only once or twice did I feel that Shostakovich moved from Mussorgsky’s sound world into his own - there was a side drum addition at one point which could have come out of any of the Shostakovich symphonies.

What wonderful music this is.  It has all of the characteristics of Russian opera that you would expect, big set pieces, marvellous choral writing, folk tune, religious processions and chanting and real melodic distinction. The story is impossibly complex and in reality it is best thought of as a series of tableau rather than a coherent narrative. And how impressive the bass singers were on this recording - those massive sonorous voices which can fill a vast space with ease are so characteristic of Russian opera - for all their other merits western bases simply cannot compete when it comes to this repertory.

And what of the ending?  Mussorgsky didn’t complete the opera but did suggest that an ancient folk melody might be used. Shostakovich writes a very impressive ending based on material heard early in the opera which brings the piece to an epic conclusion. I also listened to the Stravinsky ending. This is much more faithful to what Mussorgsky’s intentions seem to have been (though there is no certainty in the matter) - the main tune in the chorus just fades away to nothing. Both endings in the very different way are highly effective. This opera will always be a problem piece but there is some hugely impressive music here - the contrast with the rather neat and polite Cui from yesterday couldn’t be more stark.

Cui Suite no 3 - in Modo Populari

Day 83

Cui Suite no 3 in Modo Populari

Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra

Kenneth Schermerhorn

Following Borodin and Rimsky in the last couple of days I thought I would go onto another member of The Five. Of all the composers in that group Cui has the lowest profile and I am pretty sure that I have never heard a note of his music.  He was a fairly prolific composer as well as being a military engineer of some importance. Among his four operas is William Radcliff, one of the man faux Scottish operas that 19th century romantic composers were so drawn to.  I couldn’t find a recording of that and indeed not much of his output seems to have been recorded. 

This suite of 6 short movements is lightweight but charming. It is in a typically Russian folk song style and I don’t know whether any of the melodies are actually folk tune or not. Most of the movements are simple variations on the initial theme and the first theme comes back at the end of movement six. Nothing outstays its welcome but I sense that Cui didn’t really have much idea of what to do to develop his material.

It is perhaps unfair to judge a composer simply by  one short set of lightweight pieces but I get the sense that had he not been identified as a member of The Five he would have been completely forgotten as a composer. Indeed even in his lifetime he was more prominent as a critic. He had a notoriously sharp pen and manage to antagonise nearly all of the leading composers of his time. Indeed he lived until 1918 and by then was clearly a figure out of his time making vituperative attacks on the music of the day - one of his articles is entitled Concise Directions on How to Become a Modern Composer of Genius without Being a Musician.

I’ve set aside some time tomorrow to complete this survey of The Five with Mussorgsky - a far more important figure.

Borodin Symphony no 1

 Day 82

Borodin Symphony no 1 in e flat

Seattle Symphony Orchestra

Gerard Schwartz

It comes as something of a surprise to find how small Borodin’s output is. He suffered like other Russian composers of the time from a chronic inability to complete pieces - most notable Prince Igor, which needed the help of Rimsky and Glazunov to put into a shape ready for performances. I played the overture to the opera recently and was reminded that it was really a piece by Glazunov based on ideas by Borodin.

I’ve played the second symphony a couple of times but this was the first time I had heard the first symphony. It shares many of the same characteristics as its better known successor, most notably some real rhythmic surprises, particularly in the scherzo movement. The rhythmic displacement within the fast triple time really puts you off your sense of metre and must be a nightmare to play. A single wrong entry and the whole piece could easily fall apart.

I can see why this symphony is not as well known as number 2.While the melodic line is always attractive it lacks the real melodic charm of that work. It also has to be said that Borodin does overture the off-beat/syncopated repeated note accompanying figures which do start to get tiresome. At one point the horns have to play the same offbeat note in octaves at a fast tempo for several pages. That must be a real test of concentration. And the end is rather perfunctory, a surprise after a real build up. 

I think that nobody but a Russian could have written this music. There are traces of Schumann, particularly in the finale, and Weber is another influence but the personality of the score is entirely Russian. Considering that Borodin’s training was in Chemistry it is a remarkable achievement for a young and inexperienced composer. I do wonder what the original performers (the premier was conducted by Balakirev) must have made of those rhythmic twists and turns - surely they must have struggled. I doubt whether they would have ever played anything so rhythmically challenging.

Rimsky-Korsakov The Maid of Pskov

 Day 81

Rimsky-Korsakov The Maid of Pskov

Soloists

Kirov Choir and Orchestra

Valery Gergiev

In the west we have a very narrow view of Rimsky Korsakov as the composer of Scherazade and a couple of short orchestral showpieces. Not that there is anything wrong with liking Scherazade. it is a wonderful piece to listen to and indeed to play. But there is more to Rimsky that this one piece. In particular he was one of the key figures, perhaps the key figure, in the development of Russian opera. He was not the first to write a Russian opera of course, but he more than anybody built a repertory and created a tradition. One of  the important things about him is that he actually finished works. The whole history of Russian opera is full of works which were left in an incomplete, sometimes chaotic state, by their composers and required the work of others, of whom Rimsky was one,  to bring them to the stage.

Rimsky also has a very important place in musical history because he was Stravinsky’s teacher. Indeed only very recently the rather impressive in memoriam piece which Stravinsky wrote on the death of his teacher has been rediscovered. Stravinsky tried to downplay his Russian heritage but the more you listen to Rimsky the more you realise just how much they are part of the same tradition. I’ve mentioned before Taruskin’s book on Stravinsky’s Russian period. Not surprisingly Rimsky features prominently there.

I’ve gradually been getting to know the Rimsky operas and this one, his first, was new to me. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to continuing my voyage of discovery. Right from the very first chord of the overture you are aware of Rimsky’s absolute mastery of the orchestra, and indeed the orchestral interludes are a real feature of the score.  As you would expect from a Russian opera the chorus has a prominent role and Rimsky’s use of the chorus is always inventive -with the final few bars producing a quite dramatic and highly distinctive effect. The opera is broadly contemporary with Boris Godunov and shares many of the same musical and dramatic language. Indeed at one point the effect of the bells and alternating chord was very reminiscent of the coronation scene in that opera, although ultimately both derive from the dramatic music near the end of Act 4 of Les Huguenots. 

Perhaps Rimsky is not one of the greatest melodists. The memorable themes here are largely folk-music based rather than distinctive operatic melodies, but the recit and arioso passages are highly distinctive. The opera was turned into a star vehicle for Chaliapin under the tile Ivan the Terrible and you easily see why - the part of the tsar here is very much in the same vein as the title role in Boris.

So a really good encounter. The Russian operatic tradition is still so little known in the west and there is so much to explore. I’ll be including Glinka and Mussorgsky later in this project.

Ravel Piano Trio

 Day 80

Ravel Piano Trio

Amatis Piano Trio

I think that my first experience of Ravel was the String Quartet, which was a set work for A level - I head it even before I had encountered Bolero. Since then I have encountered most of the major works and played a few of them - being in the middle of the texture of a piece like La Valse is a treat and gives you a real insight into Ravel’s orchestral technique.

I’d not heard the Piano Trio before - I’d come across it in the literature, particularly the references to the cross rhythms in the scherzo movement. It is a lovely piece which from the very opening couldn’t be by anybody else. The writing for the three instruments is highly virtuosic but never showy and the balance between the strings and the piano is well judged - it is notable that quite often Ravel writes for the two strings in unison to counter balance the piano. Perhaps the last movement strains the medium up to and beyond its limit but that was the only time that I felt that. I can imagine that it is really fun to play but the rhythmic complexities must be formidable. 

There is more Ravel chamber music to explore - I look forward to it.

Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain

 Day 79

Falla Nights in the Garden of Spain

London Symphony Orchestra

Eduardo Mata

I don’t know much Falla. I’ve heard the most famous pieces - Ritual Fire Dance etc - but I don’t recall hearing this piece before. It is a concertante piece with a prominent piano part but not a full piano concerto.  It suffers from the same problem as I mentioned in my piece on Jäel’s cello concerto. It is not enough to sustain a full concerto slot and doesn’t give opportunities for a soloist to display virtuosity but at the same time it is not really just an orchestral piece with a piano taking a role of no more importance than any other instrument. So it would not sit easily in a conventional concert programme.

None of this of course has anything to do with the underlying merits of the music. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is full of characteristic Spanish rhythms with many suggestions of flamenco. The piano writing is virtuosic but never simply there simply for display. The quiet end is unexpected and again would not really work as the end of a concerto. But I’m glad I heard the piece.

 

Fanny Mendelssohn Piano trio in d minor

 Day 78

Fanny Mendelssohn Piano trio in d minor

London Bride Trio

As was the case with Clara Schumann (day 62) Fanny Mendelssohn was largely seen by history only through the lens of a man - in this case her brother, so this was an opportunity for me to hear some of her music for the first time. The piano trio is a late work (1846) , the year before her death and was not published until 1850. It has a slightly unusual structure with a short allegretto movement headed lied after the andante second movement and the finale.

Hearing it cold one could imagine that it was by somebody in the Schumann circle - it has all the characteristics of a well-trained Leipzig-school composer, with attractive melody and harmony which is chromatic in places but well within the bounds of orthodoxy. If that sounds like damning with faint praise then that an accurate reflection of my impression of the piece. Enjoyable to listen to but not particularly memorable - there must be dozens of pieces like this by composers who have largely faded from view. I did find that at times the composer seemed to want to take a more expansive view of the ensemble and break out of the confined of the piano trio. There was a lot of tremolando effects in the piano part which seemed to hint at orchestral sonorities and some sustained double-stopped chords in the strings which were rather underpowered, certainly in this performance.  

I don’t believe in special pleading just because this was by a woman composer - I am pleased to have heard it but I don’t imagine that I will listen to it against any time soon. As I say, a well crafted piece by a composer who clearly knew what she was doing, but no unjustly neglected masterpiece.

Tippett New Year

 Day 77

Tippett New Year

Soloists

BBC Singers

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Martyn Brabbins 

This was without doubt the most frustrating piece I have listened to so far in this project.

I've been a Tippett enthusiast since my school days. My first encounter was the second string quartet, which I was introduced to in an episode of Antony Hopkins wonderful series of radio talks talking about music. I got to know more of his music at university, including my first encounter with The Midsummer Marriage, which I think has possibly the most exciting opening scheme in all opera.  I saw The Ice Break at its initial run at the Royal Opera House and heard The Mask of Time at its Proms debut. I was lucky enough to get into the talk given by the composer before the concert and remember Tippett as a very engaging raconteur.  

It was an article of faith of most music students of my generation that over time Tippett and not Britten would be seen as the leading figure in British music of the second half of the twentieth century. That hasn't happened and I can't see that it will ever come to pass. Following Tippett's death there was a fairly rapid decline in performances of his music and although there has been something of a revival in recent years he has not become an internationally admired figure in the way that Britten has. Oliver Snoden in his excellent biography of Tippett has some very interesting observations about the relationship between the two men.

I suspect that his is partly to do with the unevenness of his output and his very disparate musical personality. One can I think divide his career up into four parts, which might semi-faciciously be labelled 

• lyrical
•  aggressive
• mad
• reflective

I was usually able to hear broadcasts of the first performances of Tippett's last works, where he had to som extent reverted to the lyrical and expressive style of his earlier works. I'm thinking here of The Rose Lake, the 5th string quartet and the triple concerto.

New Year, his fifth and final opera has the reputation of being a completely mad and out of control piece. After its first performances in the USA and UK it dropped out of the repertoire like a stone and only very recently has been revived, first in a performance in Birmingham and then with this recording, which has been released in the last few days.  It would be very difficult to describe exactly what happens during the piece - but given that it involves a flying saucer taking off and landing a few times and a computer programmer trying to decide on the name of a new operating system you can see that La Bohéme it isn't.

In the end thought it is the music that matters. Some of the music is absolutely superb, reminiscent of Tippett at his finest. This is particularly true of the choral sections which are hauntingly beautiful. Parts of the orchestra score are also highly inventive with rhythmic energy and dance like qualities one associates with The Midsummer Marriage. Tippett certainly had an ear for orchestral sonority.  But, oh dear, this is all mixed in with attempts to write in a rap/street style which is simply cringeworthy. Passages of profound beauty are interrupted by the most awful triviality. This might be intentional but it is just seems completely jarring to my ears.  And there are too many seemingly random percussion noise - it was a bad day for music when Tippett started to get interested in using massive percussion effects.

Then there are the words. Tippett always wrote his own libretti and the libretto for this one is just as bad as all of the others - if not worse. The attempt to use afro-american street language are embarrassing and generally speaking Tippett did not have a good ear for word setting - some of the way that words are set just seems inept.

What is one to make of all this? As I said there is music here of the highest quality which is amazing for a composer in his early 80s who was virtually blind and had to use an amanuensis. But some of the rest of music is I am sorry to say just awful and would surely jar even more on repetition. Britten's sound world was tightly controlled in the same way that he was emotionally controlled. Tippett's music is quite the opposite, just like the composer himself.  Ultimately it is that control which has led to Britten's unquestioned place in the British musical pantheon. But I hope that there will always be a place for Tippett. At its finest his music has a freshness and an energy which few composers can match.  

Jaëll Cello concerto

Day 76

Jaëll Cello concerto in f

Xavier Phillips

Brussels Philharmonic

Hervé Niquet 

This is another discovery from the Bru Zane catalogue. Marie Jaëll (1846-1925) had a significant influence as a piano teach and was the author of several widely-used pedagogical works. She was very well connected with the late 19th century musical world. She knew, for example, Liszt, Brahms and Franck and was a close acquaintance of Saint-Saëns, who dedicated his first piano concerto to her.

She returned the compliment by dedicating this cello concerto 1882 to Saint-Saëns. It is a lovely work. It is quite brief - not much over a quarter of an hour and full of elegance and grace. The cello is front of stage throughout - this is not one of those pieces which is a battle between soloist and orchestra and it emphasises the singing quality of the instrument, though there are some virtuoso passages, particularly in the 3rd movement, which is a lively tarantella like dance.  The only disappointment for me was the very end which was a little abruptly and inconsequential. 

That apart, however, this would be a piece which could grace any soloist's portfolio. I suspect, however, that concerto soloists (and audiences) want a more substantial piece for use in a concert and it would not really be economical to engage a soloist for such a short piece. At one time concerts used to feature shorter concertante pieces in the second half after the main concerto, but that doesn't seem to happen much these days. So lovely pieces such as the various Saint-Saëns one movement pieces for piano and orchestra, or, say, the similar pieces by Mendelssohn rarely get heard.

Gubaiduliana String quartet no 3

 Day 75

Gubaiduliana String quartet no 3

Quatuor Molinari

After yesterday’s encounter with a composer who died tragically young today’s musician lived to a ripe old age. Sofia Gubaidliana died this week aged 93. She was one of the leading composers of the post-Shostakovich era. She grew up in an atmosphere where any trace of the avant garde was officially prohibited - though she was able to obtain scores of many Western contemporary composers - and then lived though the thaw in musical ideas in post communist Russia,

I’d not heard any of her music before and wasn’t sure what to expect. I found this a fascinating score. It is principally an exercise in sonority. The first three quarters of the piece (it is in a single movement) explore various pizzicato techniques, including harmonics, pizzicato with the left had only, standard pizzicato and then Bartók  pizzicato where the string is bounced against the fingerboard. Much of the music relies on much-repeated ostinato figures where there is no rhythmic co-ordination between the parts. The texture here is reminiscent of the effects you find in Ligeti or early Penderecki.  Only towards the end do any arco techniques arrive. Here the music is more closely organised with recognisable melodic shapes and a sense of pulse. Indeed this music seemed quite backward looking in comparison with the much more modern sounds which preceded it. At times I was reminded of Berg or perhaps Bartók.

The one thing that  I find rather disconcerting was the fairly frequent use of single very loud notes to interrupt an otherwise very quiet texture. Sometime this works but it has to be said that at time the effect can be almost comic - I’m sure that that was not the intention. You get the same problem in Webern and I find it a real distraction. 

That apart this was certainly a good piece to listen to and I am glad that I discovered it - it was only a pity that it was the report of her death than prompted me to explore her musical world.

Arriaga Sring Quartet no 1

 Day 74

Arriaga String quartet no 1 in d minor

Aris Quartett

Arriaga was known as the Spanish Mozart. This is partly because he died young, partly because they shared the same birthday and two baptismal names but mainly because he was a child prodigy.

I'd know the name for a long time but as far as I know I had never heard any of his music. This, the first of three quartets, was written in 1822 when the composer was 16. I thought that it was a delightful work - full of charm, grace and elegance and beautifully written for the quartet. It inhabits the same musical world as Haydn and early Beethoven and either of those composers would I think have recognised the extraordinary maturity of the work of the teenage composer. Cherubini, who has had several mentions in this project, is supposed to have said of the composer after hearing his Stabat Mater 'amazing. you are music itself'.

The one thing that surprised me was the comparatively lack of Spanish touches in the music. My expectation, based on all I had read, was that the whole piece would be suffused in a Spanish atmosphere. There were certainly some touches of Spain here and there, but the music seems to me to be firmly in the Viennese tradition.  There are two other quartets, which I will definitely try to get to know, and also a symphony.   What might he have written had he lived even as long as Mozart, let alone Haydn. It is one of the great imponderables of early 19th century music.

D'Indy Istar

 Day 73

D'Indy Istar

Orchestra national de Lyon

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider

D’Indy crops up quite often in the musical literature, mainly because of his importance as a teacher. His pupils included Honneger, Milhaud and Roussel , to say nothing of Eric Satie and Cole Porter. He also is said to have been the prompter for the first performance of Carmen, though I don’t know how true that is. He was certainly at the first performance of the Ring at Bayreuth in 1876.

He had a long career and has a fairly extensive output. I vaguely remember hearing his symphony on a French mountain air years ago but other than that I don’t think that I have heard any of his music.  Istar is a tone poem from 1896 which recounts the legend of an Assyrian goddess who descends into the underworld to retrieve her dead lover, removing an item of clothing at each of the gates which she passed though until she was completely naked at the end. 

Structurally the piece is interesting in that takes the form of a theme and variations but the theme is only fully revealed toward the end of the piece in a rare example of an orchestral unison which goes on for several pages.  I enjoyed the work a lot. It is very varied in mood and is full of variety. Only occasionally does it become over-heated in the way that French music of this era, and particularly with these erotic overtones, often becomes. To me it is a much more inventive piece that the Dance of Seven Veils in Salome, which just seems tawdry.

One of the things that has struck me in this project so far is how all of the major French composers knew each other and how there is an almost continuous line of pupils in one generation becoming teacher in the next. I suppose it shows how much French music was centralised in Paris and the importance of the Paris Conservatoire. It is interesting that Boulez studied with Messiaen who studied with Dukas, who studied with Guiraud (the man who wrote the recitatives for Carmen), who studied with Halévy, who studied with Cherubini.  There are plenty of other lineages which could be drawn. I don’t think that this would be the case to anything like the same extent for German or Italian music, which was much less centralised. A wall chart of connections would be fascinating.  

Durey Epigrammes de Théocrite

 Day 72

Louis Durey Epigrammes de Théocrite

François le Roux

Graham Johnson

Durey is always the name that people struggle to remember when asked to name the members of Les Six. He drifted away from the rest of the group fairly early and ploughed a lonely furlough as a member of the communist party who wrote songs for workers choirs. Indeed one on-line biography of his is headed 'the man who set Mao to music!'.

This brief cycle of four songs dates from 1918, even before the group was labeled Les Six. I found them rather charming. They inhabit the same musical world as the early works of Poulenc though in fact they were written before Poulenc had written anything of significance (he was at least 10 years older than his younger colleague). Durey himself acknowledged that the key influence was Satie, and there is certainly some of that composer's simplicity and characteristic quirkiness in these piece.

Whether Durey would be remembered at all had it not been for the fleeting time when he was brought together almost accidentally to be part of Les Six is open to question. But I am glad to have heard at least some of his music. I can't find any recordings of his setting of Mao or Ho Chi Min, so I have no idea whether or not they have any musical merit. But there are plenty of other songs on this recital disc - part of the invaluable Hyperion song edition - and I will explore some of those later.

Stenhammar 4 Songs op 26

 Day 71

Stenhammar Four songs from Songs and Mood-pictures op 26

Vandaren

Det far eat skepp

Jungfru Blond och jungfru Brunett

En strand visa

Anne Sofie von Otter

Bengt Forsberg

There's been a of a Scandinavian theme in recent postings in this blog, including Berwald, Nielsen with Grieg and Sibelius a few weeks ago. So today I have songs from a recital disc of Swedish songs from von Otter and Forsberg.

Stenhammer was a name which I knew, mainly as a symphonist, but I can't recall ever hearing any of his music. These four songs on the recital come from a collection of 10 songs dating from 1906-1909. I didn't have any idea what to expect and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed these songs. They are quite contrasted in mood.  The first is a fairly simple lyrical piece , the second is a high speed fun-filled journey while the third and fourth are more serious in tone. The tonal language lies somewhere between Schumann and Wolf with the occasional hint of French lyricism.  Von Otter is in superb voice on this disc and the accompaniments are sensitive and , where necessary, forceful.

This was a real find: I'd had the CD on my shelves for years without listening to it. That's exactly what this project is all about. It is a pity that there are only these four songs from the set on the disc - there are recordings of the complete set and I am sure that before long I will seek those out. I am also intrigued to know what the symphonies are like. 

Cherubini Les Abencérages

 Day 70

Cherubini Les Abencérages

Soloists

Orfeo orchestra

Purcell choir

György Vashegyi

Cherubini had a couple of fairly tenuous holds in musical history. First of all is the fact that Beethoven when asked in 1817 who was the greatest living composer replied ‘Cherubini’. Second his opera Medea has a toe hold in the repertoire and record catalogues because it was one of Maria Callas’ signature roles. Indeed a brief extract was included in the recent Callas film Maria.  

She sang it in Italian in a corrupt edition with recitatives by Lachner which were written in German. A very different experience to the original opéra-comique Médée in French with spoken dialogue. I saw that French version with Rosalind Plowright in the title role at Buxton many years ago - it works very effectively on stage and packs a real dramatic punch.

My first experience of Cherubini was playing the overture to Anacreon at a youth orchestra course. It is a strong piece which if you heard it cold you would almost certainly say was by Beethoven - so one can perhaps see why Beethoven gave the answer to that question which he did. I also played in the orchestra for a performance of one of his masses, though I can’t recall which one.

Since then I have heard a few other of his operas but this was a new one for me - other than the overture which has received a number of recordings. It is one of his later operas (1813) and has only received very occasional revivals. Indeed no score (full or vocal) of the work in French has ever been published. 

I enjoyed making its acquaintance. It is a fascinating transitional work which has elements which look back to French classical opera and some which point forward to what would become French grand opera. It inhabits the same world as Spontini and Mehul and one can see how ultimately this led to Les Huguenots and Les Troyens. 

Perhaps it is the large ensembles -with choirs divided into several different groups - which are the stand out feature of the score. A reminder that Cherubini gradually transformed himself towards the end of his life into a choral composer. The arias are attractive - though some are rather on the long side - but I don’t think that Cherubini had an innate gift for melody.  Unlike Médée the opera is through composed and it must be said that Cherubini is not a master of the transition - like Spotini and Meyerbeer he tends to make fairly awkward links between sections - if he were a car driver he would be criticised for his clunky gear changes.

The theme of the opera is the rivalry between two Muslim groups in the Alhambra in Grenada. The hero leads the Muslim’s to victory against the Spanish but in doing so looses the Army’s banner - the punishment for which is death. In fact the banner was taken by a soldier from the rival faction. The hero is saved from death because the Spanish emissary turns up in disguise and fights a duel on his behalf. He wins and virtue triumphs in the end.

Much of the drama takes place off stage - Act one is largely celebrating the hero’s impeding wedding at after at least half an hour of this the call comes to fight the Spanish and everybody disappears off stage. The crucial duel in Act 3 is not particularly dramatic and goes on too long - very few composers have ever managed to get this sort of fight music right. Cherubini’s attempt is underwhelming and sounds a little like the parody of grand opera one finds in The Pirates of Penzance.

But some of the music is highly effective and indeed very moving in parts. Again it is the choral episodes which have the greatest impact, though the arias for the hero and heroine in Act 3 as they both - independently - reflect on the fate are very moving.

This could never be a repertory piece but it was very good to hear it, particularly in this good performance which again shows the massive contribution that the Bru Zane label has made to our understanding of French opera. There are many more treasures to discover. Hérold, Halévy, Lecocq and Offenbach among others are lined up for this project in the coming months.

Nielsen Maskarade

 Day 69

Nielsen Maskarade

Soloists

Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir

Ulf Schirmer

This was a major discovery

Over the years I have heard all of the Nielsen symphonies though I have never played any of them - a couple of time orchestras I have been involved with have programmed than and for some reason I have not be able to make the concert. I've played a couple of overtures (including the one to this opera) and the first movement of the Wind Quintet, but I can't say that, apart from the 5th symphony, I know any of his music that well.

This opera was a delight from beginning to end. It dates from 1906 and although it is part of the standard repertory in Denmark is hasn't really secured a place in the international repertory. It is a comic piece set, as you might imagine, agains the background of a masked ball. That gives lots of opportunities for disguises and mistaken identity and as you might imagine after lots of confusion it all ends happily ever after.

The opera is most reminded me of was Falstaff. Not that the music sounds remotely like Verdi but the whole approach is very similar. Fast moving action moving constantly between dialogue-like passages and more lyrical phrases, virtuoso orchestration with many touches of humour and pathos, complex ensemble. a sense of fun and huge energy. Compare for example the headlong ensemble at the end of Act One here with the ensemble at the end of Act I One Scene One of the Verdi.

As I said, it doesn't sound like Verdi. The sound world is more Germanic with a hint of Bohemia. There are strands of the Bartered Bride - particularly in the folk music - and Hansel and Gretel, but the closest point of reference is probably the Barber of Bagdhad, which I have already noted as being one of the finest of all comic operas. I'm happy to say that Maskarade will certainly be joining that list from now on.

I'm not sure that I would have identified the composer as Nielsen had I been listening to this blind. Perhaps some of the ways that he uses the horns and, especially , the bassoons might have give me a clue. There are also some of his harmonic fingerprints here and there. Perhaps if I re-listen to the symphonies I might find more points of similarity. But there is no doubt that this is an important work by a major composer and one I was delighted to discover. 

Rameau La Princess de Navarre

 Day 68

Rameau La Princesse de Navarre

Soloists

English Bach Festival Singers and Baroque Orchestra

Nicholas McGegan

Rameau has been perhaps the greatest musical revelation to me as my musical tastes have developed. We did of course cover him during the undergraduate course but I distinctly remember finding nothing at all in his music. More than that I found that on paper his music looked extremely fussy with all of those ornaments and also seemed very broken up with lots of small sections rather than either full arias with recitative or continuous musical flow. Indeed I remember that one of my lecturers telling me about how they had a little more money for the library than they thought - those were the days! and that were going to spend it on the complete Rameau edition - what a waste of money I thought (though perhaps mercifully I didn’t say it out loud). 

Like my rediscovery of Handel (day 25) it was an extract on a sampler CD which prompted me to explore Rameau. The piece was Entrée de Polymnie from Les Boréades. That opened my ears to a completely new sound world which I then started to explore, to the extent that I have regularly purchased every new Rameau opera that has appeared on CD. The range of this music is astonishing. Lively and rhythmic dance music, exciting orchestral evocations of nature, ravishingly beautiful choral music and moments of great solemnity and laugh out loud humour.  There really is everything in this music.  

The Aesthetic of these operas is so far removed from what we expect from opera nowadays that it is difficult to find the right approach to staging them. The dance music is the biggest problem. This is not like 19th century French Opera where there are whole ballet sections which can simply be cut if required. Here the dance is integrated into the musical fabric and it would be impossible - and of course given the quality of the dance music utterly mad - to remove it. The Castor and Pollux I saw a few years ago at ENO simply played the dance music without any dancing - I don’t think that worked.  Some of the more imaginative approaches on DVD find ways of making the works come alive.

I didn’t think that I was going to be able cover Rameau in this series as I thought that I had heard all of the operas which have been recorded. But this one was issued a long time ago and has been out of print for ages, but I did manage to track down a second hand copy.  It is not strictly an opera, more a series of interludes and entertainments incorporated into a very long play by Voltaire written for a royal engagement. It was very much a one-off piece and Rameau used some of the material again in other words.  There was lots to enjoy here - particularly the dance music - Rameau must rank with Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky as one of the great masters of ballet. And for a bassoon player like me Rameau’s use of the instrument is always highly inventive - I’d love to play one of these operas. I don’t suppose that I ever will, but I did have the pleasure a few years ago of conducting a short suite that I had put together of pieces from several of his operas, including - to go round full circle - the entree which started me off on my voyage of discovery 

Wagner American Centennial March

 Day 67

Wagner Centennial March

London Symphony Orchestra

Marek Janowski

In my younger days I was an ardent Wagnerian. While I was still at school I used to listen to the annual broadcast of the Ring cycle from Bayreuth on a little transistor radio and my party piece (not that I went to many parties....) was narrating the story of the Ring from beginning to end in excruciating detail. My tastes have changed completely since then and although I enjoyed the Opera North semi-staged Ring cycle when it came to Nottingham a few years ago I hard ever listen to Wagner now. Indeed my youthful self would be amazed if he came to look at my CD collection - lots of complete operas from the Baroque era and a good collection of French classical and romantic operas but not a single Wagner opera- indeed only a few bits and pieces on except records.

But this project is about music I have not heard before and I have heard all of the Wagner operas, even the obscure early ones. But there are few very minor freestanding orchestral works to go at and this march is one of them. It was written to celebrate the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence and was first performed in Philadelphia in1876. 

I didn't expect much from the piece, but it all honest it can only be described as awful. It spends an ordinate amount of time playing about with a 4 note motive and everytime you think it is going to reach a big tune it seems to wander off again. Indeed there is no big tune to think off at all. It is scored for a very large orchestra and probably sounded impressive in its way when being performed at a festival occasion but it is mere hack work and should only ever be performed to show that even great composers are capable of writing rubbish. Wagner himself said that the best thing about the overture was the $5,000 fee he received for writing it. That says it all.

Berwald Piano concerto

 Day 66

Berwald Piano concerto

Niklas Sivelöv

Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra

Okko Kamu

I first came across Berwald in the Penguin book about the symphony. Volume One covered the classical and romantic period and along with all of the name you would expect - Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn etc- was Berwald. Who was this man who I had never heard of who was deemed important enough to join such an august company? I think that I may have had one of his symphonies in my LP collection but I certainly got to know quite a lot of his music at University, not least because the opera group gave the British premiere of his opera The Queen of Golconda.  Later on I also had the pleasure of conducting the Sinfonie Singuliere which I consider to be a masterpiece, though I have to say that not everybody in the orchestra agreed with me on that!

I’d heard the violin concerto and the concert piece for bassoon, but the piano concerto was new to me. I though that it was delightful piece - very much in the Schumann/Mendelssohn tradition but with enough of Berwald’s trade marks - unexpected harmonic twists and melodies that don’t quite do in the direction you expect - to mark it out as a very much the composer’s own. The last movement in particular is charming. Nobody would ever call this a masterpiece - it is not on the same level as the symphonies - but it is hugely enjoyable and certain worth an occasional airing.

The piano plays throughout the piece with no rests even in what are obviously orchestral tutti passages. I seems, though I don’t know this for certain, that Berwald designed the piece so that the piano part could be played on its own without orchestral accompaniment - that is a very odd thing for a 19th century composer to do, though earlier composer certainly did think in this way. In this recording the piano part was discretely cut in the tutti passages. I’ll try to find out more about exactly what the composer intended. 

Tubin Symphony no 3

 Day 65

Tubin Symphony no 3 (Heroic)

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Kristjan Järvi

I knew Tubin by name and I was aware from reviews in Gramophone over the years that he was a highly admired symphonists, but as far as I am aware I have never heard a note of his music. So I had no real idea what to expect, particularly as I didn’t have access to a score.

I enjoyed this symphony a lot.  It is clearly a post-Sibelian work and I think that if you heard it without any foreknowledge you might think that it was by Walton with perhaps tinges of Vaughan Williams. Yet at other times it reminded me (particularly in the final movement) of some of the extrovert music of Respighi, such as the Pines of Rome. The middle movement was particularly attractive - a fast scherzo with a more contemplative and lyrical middle section. Perhaps the final movement is a little overblown at times but it certainly brought the piece to a satisfying conclusion. There are 10 Tubin symphonies plus another fragment, so there is plenty more to go at. I’d certainly enjoy exploring more of his music. 

There is a lovely anecdote on the Wikipedia page on Tubin , where it says that after his parents became aware of his musical interest they sold a cow in order to be able to buy a piano for him. I do hope that that is true.

Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber

 Day 64

Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber

Cleveland Orchestra

George Szell

Hindemith has a curious place in music history. If you read any music criticism from the inter-war years you will see that he is treated as an equal to Stravinsky and Schoenberg as the leading composer of the time. But over the years his reputation has gradually declined and now he occupies only a very minor position in the history of 20th century music.  I came across Hindemith at school attempting (not very successfully) the piano parts to accompany some of the instrumental sonatas that some of my friends were studying. I also got to know the Mathis der Maler symphony, which I quite fond of at the time though I don’t think I have heard it for many years.

I had heard about the Symphonic Metamorphoses (there is some dispute over the exact title of the piece) but I hadn’t heard them before, though the melody of the second movement seemed very familiar - perhaps I may have heard the original Weber. This is very much Hindemith in his more approachable neo-classical ‘abstract’ style - quite a remove from the expressionist works of the composer’s younger period. To be honest I found that much of this music was rather routine note-spinning. There is nothing of the character or piquancy of Stravinsky’s works of broadly the same period. Although it was originally conceived as a ballet that plan was abandoned and the piece became something of a showpiece for a virtuoso American orchestra. There’s something for every instrument in the score and it must be great fun to play but as a piece to listen to I found it less than compelling and even though I was following the score I did find my attention wandering at times.

There is plenty of other Hindemith to listen to and I will explore some of his extensive output sometime but for the moment there are other priorities.

Bruckner String quintet

 Day 63

Bruckner String quintet in F major

Raphael Quartet with Prunella Pacey

I discovered Bruckner when I was still at school. I remember having a recording of the 4th symphony and I certainly knew the scherzo from the 8th symphony. One of my great musical experiences was playing the 7th symphony.  The bassoon parts per se in the symphony are very unimportant - indeed for most of the time it would hardly make a difference if they were not there - but the experience of bring in the middle of that wonderful sound - particularly that incredibly satisfying C sharp major chord at the end of the long slow movement or the wonderful release of tension into the coda of the finale - will remain with me for a very long time.

Last year was the Bruckner centenary and I made a determined effort to hear all of the symphonies in all of the versions but I didn't get round to this quintet so it can form part of this project.  It is Bruckner's only mature chamber work and has a complex history. It took over a decade from the initial thoughts to its completion and was first performed without the finale - there are also two versions of the second movement.

It is unmistakably Brucknerian in style - you could never mistake it for anybody else. All of the characters of Bruckner's symphonic style are here but it is only on occasionally that you feel he was frustrated at only having 5 players to write for and wanted a full orchestral sound. The slow movement is, like so often in Bruckner, at the heart of the piece, and is a wonderful example of the composer's mature style and ability to pace a movement over a long arc. Perhaps only the finale disappointed. Some of it is very attractive but Bruckner the contrapuntalist got in the way in places and rather broke up the flow of the music. The very end did stretch the ensemble almost to breaking point and it must have been a real effort to sustain such energetic and loud music for such a long stretch.

Bruckner will always be an acquired taste and, looking back, I am surprised that my teenage self found so much in the music. But for me he is one of the supreme masters and the 7th and 8th symphonies should be on anybody's list of the greatest of all symphonies.

Schumann (Clara) Piano trio in g minor

 Day 62

Schumann (Clara) Piano trio in g minor op 17

Alos Trio

Clara Schumann was, during much of my musical education, seen only through the prism of others. Principally this was as a muse to Schumann and Brahms, with endless speculation about the depth of her romantic relationship with the latter. But also as a teacher, with a lot of research devoted to studying the interpretations of those of her pupils who made recordings in the early part of the 20th century in an attempt to discover the secret of how to play (Robert) Schumann’s music.  Clara as a composer was rather dismissed. Indeed I don’t recall hearing any of her music for many years and even now I’ve not heard much of it - a few songs and piano pieces.

This piano trio is a sizeable work in four movements. It has all the hallmarks of somebody who had received a thorough Leipzig training and was well versed in the mid romantic style of people like Mendelssohn and of course her husband. The first three movement were highly attractive with the scherzo, placed second, particularly delightful with the inventive use of the Scotch snap rhythm. But then something happened in the last movement. It was almost as if she thought to herself that she needed to express herself in a more expansive, dare one say ‘serious’ scale. The piano writing - which hitherto had been a model of balance with the strings - started to dominate and the material became less focused, with a fair amount of rather ordinary passage work. At one point a fugue started - this seemed forced and rather out of place, and after a few bars of rather desultory counterpoint it rather petered out.

Still three out of four movements is not bad and I was glad to have head the piece. I don’t think any special pleading is necessary here - this music stands on its own two feet and any composer would have been happy to have written it. There is certainly more to her than a figure in the shadows of great men. 

Byrd Mass in 5 parts

 Day 61

Byrd Mass in five parts

Oxford Camerata

Jeremy Summerly

I was prompted to listen to this after a recent visit to Lincoln Cathedral, where there is a plaque commemorating Byrd’s appointment as an organist. Byrd was certainly covered in music history at University and I suspect that I must have heard some of his music at that time but I don’t have any strong memories of any particularly pieces.

Byrd wrote three settings of the mass - in 3,4 and 5 parts respectively. They are late works, dating from the  1590s. There is something of air of mystery about them. They were written for a catholic family at a time when anti-catholic sentiment predominated in England and were published without any title page or dedication. It is thought that they were written for performance by a small group of singers in a private celebration of the Catholic Mass in a private house rather than a cathedral. Hearing them sung by a cathedral or college choir may give a quite different impression of how they originally would have sounded.

There is a timeless quality to this mass. Mostly it is serene and contemplative but there are passages of more impassioned music and the occasionally surprisingly dissonance. The music is more syllabic than I might have expected - there are no long melismatic phrases on a single word. There must have been a time when this sort of music seemed new but now it seems as if it must have existed forever, so thoroughly is our aural image of what church music should sound like associated with this sort of polyphonic style. So it is really odd to think that in fact there was, as I said above, something almost ‘under the counter’ about these masses - the last thing Byrd actually wanted to do was to advertise his catholic leanings in a Protestant cathedral.

Poulenc Figure Humaine

 Day 60

Poulenc Figure Humaine

Monteverdi Choir

John Elliot Gardiner

My earliest memories of Poulenc’s music was in a BBC documentary presented by John Amis, where I particularly remember the adagietto from Les Biches - still a favourite piece. I got to know several other Poulenc pieces but those were mainly in his lighter earlier style. I was aware that as he got older his musical language broadened to reflect his strong religious views but this was the first time I had heard any of his later, more serious choral music.

What a fabulous piece this is. It was written in wartime France and is a plea for liberty and freedom. It it scored for double choir of six parts each and there are frequent subdivisions within each voice line. The idiom is tonal but highly chromatic - it must be an absolute nightmare to sing and it is not performed very often - its first performance was by the BBC singers in 1945.  There is an intensity to this music which, even though I knew that the music would be in a very different style to the Poulenc that I know and love, still came as a surprise. I suspect that the effect in a live performance, especially as it moves to the final shout of Liberté,  complete with top E in the soprano line, must be overwhelming. There are some reminders of Poulenc’s lighter style, with some quite juicy 7th and 9th chords - if you heard the music cold you might possibly think it was by Britten but  this really has a character all of its own,

It is had to think now that at one time Honegger and Milhaud were regarded as the leading composers within Les Six. Time has now shown us that the real genius was Poulenc.