Searle Symphony no 2

 Day 147

Humphrey Searle Symphony no 2

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Josef Krips

Humphrey Searle is a name which crops up a lot in histories of post-war British music because he was one of the first British composers to experiment with serial technique. He was a Webern pupil - but also studied with John Ireland - I suspect that it is a unique combination.  I knew of his expertise as a Liszt scholar and also as a contribution to the Hoffnung concerts - a serialist with a sense of humour seems almost a contradiction in terms.  But I don’t think that I have consciously listened to any of his music.

I enjoyed this symphony.  It is more ‘mainstream’ than I was expecting. It does use serial technique but not in any obvious way and it has a real sense of symphonic style, with drive, energy and crucially a sense of pulse so that there is always forward momentum. It is not enervating as some of Schoenberg or even Stravinsky’s late music can sometimes be.  You tell tell that Searle grew up in the tradition of Vaughan Williams and Walton. His music doesn’t sound much like either of them but the sense of progression and shape clearly owes something to those more conservative composers.  Overall I found this a really interesting experience and , as I say, quite different to what I was expecting. I don’t know how typical it is of his music, but I would be very happy to explore the rest of his symphonic output.