Arnold: Symphony no 4

Day 145

Arnold: Symphony no 4

London Symphony Orchestra

Richard Hickox

After a series of piano variations I am resuming my exploration of British symphonies.

I've played several pieces of Malcolm Arnold over the years. I did the second symphony in youth orchestra and I've done most of the dances.  I recently played the wind octet version of his three sea shanties - that certainly keeps you on your toes. I also played year ago the marvellous Grand Grand Festival Overture that he wrote for the Hoffnung concerts. Certainly that is the only time I have shared the stage with a trio of vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher!

Some musicians are very patronising about Arnold. Indeed I remember a professor at University telling us that Henri Pousseur was going to visit and stressing that he was a serious figure worth getting to know - not like Malcolm Arnold! - that struck me as very arrogant at the time and the feeling hasn't gone away - who was Pousseur anyway!

I chose this symphony at random out of the nine. It had all of the hallmarks of Arnold's style - fingerprints or clichés according to how you look at these things - include catchy tunes, ostinato rhythms with plenty of syncopation, virtuoso orchestration, little 'smears' within melodic phrases and plenty of percussion. Indeed I read afterward that the use of bongos and other percussion effects was a deliberate reaction to the Notting Hill riots, with Arnold wanting to show the universality of music.  Not knowing this I did think that some of the percussion effects were overdone!

This is quite a long piece (40mins) and it seemed to me to fall off somewhat toward the end. The first couple of movements were really attractive - Arnold had a melodic gift which was matched by few of his contemporaries. I thought that the third movement was rather overlong and I did think that the last movement was rather over the top and, dare I say, tasteless. There is nothing wrong with popular elements in symphonic music - where would Haydn and Mahler be without it - but perhaps here Arnold rather lost any element of self control. And I did wonder whether the allusions to the fugue in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - were intentional parody or not. 

So an enjoyable experience - not a great symphony in my view but one which certainly brought pleasure - I suspect that it is great fun to play.