Berkeley: Symphony no 3

Day 146

Lennox Berkeley: Symphony no 3

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Lennox Berkeley

The only music by Lennox Berkeley that I have performed was accompanying a singer at university in one of his song cycles - I don’t think that I have played any of his orchestral music and I don’t recall listening to any of his compositions either.

I was expecting that this one movement symphony would be elegant and stylish in a way befitting a pupil of Nadia Boulanger, but in fact this was, at least at the start, rather tougher and more sinewy that I had expected. I must confess however that I didn’t find it easy to engage with the piece. It was not unpleasant but there seemed to be nothing distinctive about the music and now, a few hours later, I can’t recall much about it, other than some of the percussion writing seemed rather overdone!  So nothing here to suggest that Berkeley should be a composer to explore further - although of course like everything else in this blog I can only record immediate reactions. Further listening might produce a very different perspective.