Grime: Clarinet concerto

Day 334

Helen Grime: Clarinet concerto

Lyndsey Marsh

Hallé soloists

Jamie Phillips 

I was lucky enough to play Helen Grime’s Two Eardley Pictures a few years ago and was impressed by the sound world that she created. That was also my impression of this relatively brief clarinet concerto from 2009. The orchestra is only small but she uses it to achieve real clarity and some highly inventive textures. Indeed in many ways it the orchestra which draw the ear’s attention rather than the solo clarinet, which is occupied most of time in quite busy passage work which complements rather than dominates the texture. I imagine the effect is quite different in a live performance when you can see the soloist up front. So this another really good find.

This is the end of November and brings to an end this little group of works by female composers.Tomorrow is the start of the last month of this project and I will try as fill as many gaps as I can before the end of the year. There are still a few fairly important people who I have not round to yet.

Carwithen: Bishop Rock

Day 333

Doreen Carwithen: Bishop Rock

London Symphony Orchestra

Richard Hickox

Doreen Carwithen was reasonably well known as a film composer during her lifetime - she wrote the score for the official coronation of Elizabeth II, reportedly in only three days. She had made some headway as a composer of concert music but largely gave up her work in this field to look after her Husband William Alwyn. She did resume composition after his death. As in the case of so many female composers she rather faded away from view, though since her death there has been a revival of interest in her work.

This short piece dates from 1952 and is a musical portrait of the lighthouse and the surrounding area. It is very much in the spirit of Walton with a touch of Malcolm Arnold. I enjoyed it a lot - it would make a good bright and breezy first piece in a concert.

Sohy: Symphony in C sharp minor

Day 332

Charlotte Sohy: Symphony in C sharp minor The Great War

Orchestra National de France

DeborahWildman

This was another significant discovery from the Bru Zane box of music by French Women composers, Compostrices. Sohy (1887-1955) was a name unknown to me until I started to explore this set. She was Schola Cantorum trained and was well connected with the major figures in French music in the pre-first world war period. This symphony dates from 1914-17:  the subtitle ‘The Great War’ is though to be a reference to the composer ALbert Maynard (a close friend) and to her husband, who was killed in 1915.

Astonishing the piece was not performed until  2019. Nobody is quite sure why it was not performed in the composer’s lifetime - she was a respected figure and several of her other orchestral works were performance.  Whatever the reason this piece did not deserve to be ignored for over a hundred years. I though that is was a very impressive example of a symphony in the late-romantic idiom. Stylistically it is closer to Saint-Sâens than Debussy though it is not obviously the work of a French composer. Anybody anywhere writing in the early part of the 20th century would have been very pleased to have written such a strong work. I’ve commented before in this notes that the verdict of history is often right - this is a really good counter example!

Beamish: The Caledonian Road

Day 331

Sally Beamish: The Caledonian Road

Swedish Chamber Orchestra

Ola Rudner

Sally Beamish is of a later generation than the women composers I have been featuring in the last few days. Born in 1956 she  will have seen women composers move gradually into the mainstream. In her younger days women composers were still very much the exception but her younger female contemporaries would now I think feel fully integrated into musical life and accepted without question.

The Caledonian Road is a short piece (12 mins) inspired by thoughts of the road to Scotland. It uses material from the St Andrew’s music book - a collection of French cathedral music from the 13th century. It starts very simply with a solo oboe and then gradually builds to a full orchestral sound. The idiom is post-Britten with perhaps a hint of Birtwistle and Messiaen. The bell sounds are nicely judged. Altogether this was a nice piece which I enjoyed listening to even though it wasn’t one of those scores which really leapt of the page.

Lutyens: String trio

Day 330

Elizabeth Lutyens: String trio op 57

Endymion ensemble

Elizabeth Lutyens was one of the first English composer to embrace serialism - in fact she claimed that she had independently discovered serialism technique without any influence from the second Viennese school. She seems to have been a difficult individual to cope with and she was not popular within the English musical community - in return she was the person who christen the pastoral music of the English tradition’ the cowpat school’.

Webern is the obvious influence on this string trio from 1963 - indeed on the page the score looks almost exactly like a late Webern piece. In fact it is slightly more lyrical and less disjointed than Webern’s music. I found the first four movements quite attractive but the longer (comparatively - this is not a long piece) - last movement seemed much tougher and aggressive. 

Lutyens made a living from writing scores for horror films. I don’t think that I have seen of them - perhaps I will make a point of watching one of them next time it is film night.

Clarke: Viola Sonata

Day 329

Rebecca Clarke: Viola Sonata

Phillip Dukes

Sophia Rahman

This is a piece I knew by reputation but which I had never heard before. Rebecca Clarke was another of those British women composers who made a really positive start to their composing career but then rather faded into obscurity. But again, in recent years she has, like other women of her generation, been rediscovered - there is now a society devoted to her work.

This sonata is her major work. It is a full blooded piece on a large scale with virtuoso parts for both the viola and the piano. Like the Howell piece yesterday there are many French influences. Some of the 9th chords could well have come from a sonata by Debussy - in fact I don’t think that heard cold many people would recognise it as having been written by an English composer at all. There is a confidence about the writing which seems far removed from the reticence of some of the music of her English contemporaries. 

It is not an easy listen but well worth the effort. Another composer on the list to explore.

Howell: Lamia

Day 328

Dorothy Howell: Lamia

Kardia State Symphony Orchestra

Marius Stravinsky

This was an astonishing piece. Dorothy Howell was born in Birmingham in 1898 - I had never heard any of her music before but as I went to Birmingham today I thought that I should sample something of hers. Lamia was her breakthrough piece - being performed at the Proms under Sir Henry Wood in 1919 when the composer was only 21. It is work of great maturity and confidence. Based on a poem by Keats it uses the full resources of large orchestra to impressive effect. There are a few traces of the English pastoral school but much of the music sounds French - the textures in particular have a Debussian flavour. It is hard to imagine how a British composer of the time would have the broad familiarity with European music that this 20 year old obviously had.

The press coverage of the piece was very positive - one reviewer called her the English Richard Strauss - even though it now reads very patronisingly “girl composer’s success’. But her star soon faded - she was still a respected pianist and teacher but the promise of the English Strauss never materialised. She died in 1982, by which time she was almost completely forgotten.  There has been a revival of her music in recent years and I am certainly keen to hear more.

Price: Violin concerto no 2

Day 327

Florence Price: Violin concerto no 2

Randall Goosby

Philadelphia Orchestra

Yaniick Nézet-Séguin

I played in a performance of Price’s first symphony a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it a lot though I didn’t regarded it as the masterpiece that some commentators have suggested it is - a touch of special pleading there I think. Since then I have heard the other symphonies and the first violin concerto but this second concerto was new to me.

It is a fairly short piece in one movement. Stylistically it is rather all over the place. Some of the more lyrical music could easily have passed for minor Brahms but the more extrovert music was in places quite close to the bandstand!  I think that Price struggled to find a consistent voice - the same thing can be said of the symphonies.  Having said that the music itself was attractive and lyrical and there were some interesting orchestral effects - I didn’t have a score but what sounded like a prominent part for celesta at the beginning added a certain piquancy to the texture.  So well worth listening to but much as I admire Price’s personal narrative and the struggle she had for recognition this is not much more than a curiosity. 

Schnittke: Concerto for two pianos

Day 326

Schnittke: Concerto for two pianos

Victoria Postnikova

Irina Schnittke

State Symphony Orchestra

Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

I don’t think that I have heard any of Schnittke’s music so I started this with an open mind. I thought it was rather a good piece. It is extrovert in character and although written in a modernist style it is not too challenging. It is difficult to describe quite how the music fits into the 20th century musical world. Some of the rhetorical devices are not a million miles away from Prokofiev of Shostakovich, but the sound world at times reminded me of Ives. Yet elsewhere it could have been by Britten. It was quite ‘splashy’ in places and I am sure would make an effective piece in a concert. There is plenty more Schnittke to explore  - I am not really sure where to start.

Maconchy: Proud Thames

Day 325

Elizabeth Maconchy: Proud Thames

Elizabeth Maconchy was one of the second generation of British women composers. She was writing at a time when women were beginning to be accepted as composers in their own right, but still regarded as something of a special case. It is only in more recent years that women composers have taken their place as of right.

This short overture was written for a competition to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II - it was first performed at the Royal Festival Hall, in a concert which also included Kirsten Flagstad’s farewell performance. It is broadly a portrait of the river starting from the earliest small streams though to it is flowing into the sea. The little trumpet phrase at the beginning expands and devotes though the piece in an inventive and attractive manner  - I really enjoyed it. I suspect that it rather got overshadowed at the premiere by other items on the programme. How typical of Maconchy’s music this I do not know - her string quartets seem to be the most important part of her output and perhaps those are something to start exploring next.

Richard Rodney Bennett: Saxophone concerto

Day 324

Richard Rodney Bennett: Saxophone concerto

John Harle

Opus 20 String Ensemble

I have a vague memory of hearing some by Richard Rodney Bennett as a student but whatever it was hasn’t stuck in the memory. Other than that I think that the only music of his I will have heard will be some of his film scores - famously of course Murder on the Orient Express.

This saxophone concerto was written for John Harle, who plays it in this performance. I enjoyed it a lot. The saxophone is not an instrument I am naturally attracted to - to me the rather oily sound can be off putting, but here the composer has been very skilful in the way that he has written for the instrument so we get to hear a more attractive side of the instrument. The work is not too long - some composers seem to have no idea that they have outstayed their welcome - and the soloists is given plenty of chance to shine but virtuosity never gets in the may of the musical invention. There is plenty of rhythmic energy in the outer movements - the first especially, balanced by some attractive melodic material. All in all a good piece and one which probably exceeded my expectations - I don’t think that I would ever otherwise have listened to a saxophone concerto if it wasn’t for this project.

Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit

Day 323

Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit for String Quartet

Belcea Quartet

Although I knew the name I don’t think that I have heard anything by Dutilleux before. This piece is a work for string quartet dating from 1976/77. The title translates as thus the night. It is in  seven movement separated by four brief interludes. The whole work lasts no longer than 20 mins or so. Judging by the number of recording of the piece it had become a classic of the modern string quartet repertory. I didn’t have a score so couldn’t study the music in detail but on a purely aural basis it made quite an impression. The style is partly post-Webern but is less fragmented that much of the music of the 1970s. It would be wrong to call it lyrical but it certainly has a shape to it and the textures are constantly interesting without being aggressively extreme. All in all this was a good piece to have discovered and I will certainly put the composer down as somebody whose music I should get to know better.

Ireland: Piano concerto in E flat major

Day 322

John Ireland: Piano concerto in E flat major

Kathryn Stott

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis

John Ireland is another of those mid 20th century musicians whose name is familiar but whose music is unknown to me - I might have heard a film score of his at some time but nothing sticks in the memory.

This piano concerto was for a while an enormously popular piece and was a staple of Prom performances for many years - then it dropped out of fashion and is now only rarely performed. I can’t say that I was sorry that I had got so far in my musical life without hearing it. It seemed rather a routine piece with nothing particularly memorable either in melodic material or harmonic invention - there were, to be fair, a few moments of quite snappy rhythms which did break up some of the monotony, but otherwise I didn’t find much here to keep me interested. Partly is it that I am not a great fan of the concerto form - when I look back at this project it is surprising how few concerti I have listened to and even fewer than really made an impression. I’ve no idea whether this work is typical of Ireland’s work but I don’t feel inclined to spend much time finding out - there are plenty of other things to listen to first.

Čiurlionis: In the Forest

Day 321

Čiurlilonis: In the Forest (Miške)

Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra

Juozas Domarkas

Čiurlionis  (1875-1911) was an important figure in Lithuanian artistic life. He was a painter as well as a composer, indeed judging by the results of a google search he seems to have been better known in the former capacity. I had heard one of his tone poems - The Sea - before and rather enjoyed it, but that was the only piece of his that I had heard.

I thought when I heard the opening of this piece that it was going to be a winner. The quiet string chords and the gentle undulation painted a really evocative picture of the forest. Alas it was not to be, After this opening the music rather lost its way and became completely characterless. It was rhythmically very four-square and the melodic material seemed rather trivial. Although it is quite a short piece I quickly became bored with it.  The opening material returns at the end, but by that time it was too late - I had lost interest. So a frustrating piece. That opening showed a composer of real imagination but after that it was all downhill.

Finzi: Dies natalis

Day 320

Finzi: Dies Natalis op 8

Andrew Kennedy

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

James Judd

I am normally fairly immune to early 20th century English song. I find the harmonic style cloying and the whole effect often quite soggy - no doubt the problem is with me rather than the music.  So I didn’t anticipate much from this piece but I was very taken with it. It is a setting of words by the mystic/religious poet Thomas Traherne for solo tenor (though the first performance was by a soprano) and string orchestra. What stuck me most was the fluidity of the word setting. There is a freedom here which is unusual for the time (at least in England) with the use of a semi-parlando/recitative style which keeps propelling the music forward, even in the slowest passages. Perhaps the most distinctive song is the last. I’ve seen this described as a being like a chorale prelude, with a simple tune in the violas being supported by generally slower moving music in the rest of the strings. This is in the purest G major, with hardly any chromatic inflection at all. It reminded me of the end of the Vaughan Williams 5th symphony in its expressive simplicity. 

I think that I was roped in to play a piece of Finzi at very short notice (I think I might have even sight read it in the concert) but I can’t remember what it was and don’t have any other experience of his music. I must have heard a few of the songs over the years, I suppose, but nothing has stayed in the memory. But this piece certainly will.

Halévy: La Reine de Chypré

Day 319

Halévy: La Reine de Chypré

Soloists

Flemish Radio Choir

Chamber Orchestra of Paris

Hervé Niquet

Halévy is one of the giants of 19th century French Grand Opera. He is most notably for La Juive, which was performed by the University opera group the year before I went up to university so I missed the opportunity to take part, but this opera was his second great contribution to the repertory.

It has a curious place in the footnotes of musical history in that Wagner was commissioned early in his life to prepare the vocal score of the opera. I followed this performance using that vocal score and there were plenty of places where the recording offered a significantly different text. The background to the complex textual history of the score is well set out in the booklet accompanying this recording - another example of the very high production values of these CD sets from Bru Zane which have brought so many important French operas back to life.

There was some tremendous music in this opera - particularly, as one would expect, in the big set piece ensembles, which had tremendous energy and excitement. But there is plenty of quieter, more contemplative music as well, and overall the opera has a really good balance of material.

As ever with French operas of this period you have to take the rough with the smooth. Like Meyerbeer Halévy is no master of transition.  There are some very abrupt gear changes which really grate. There is also a fair amount of rum-ti-tum music of no particular interest. And the end is rather underwhelming. The death of the villain is over in a few bars and the final air by the soprano is rather trivial. Interestingly the notes to the CD remind us that often the key attraction of the final scene was a coup de théâtre , where the scenery and costumes for the finale were the main attraction and would often be met with loud applause covering the music.  But this weakness in finales is something which is characteristic of 19th century French opera - it is something I have commented on before in these note.

So not an out-and-out masterpiece then, but at its best this is an opera of very high quality and dramatic force. I can't imagine it ever being revived on stage other than as a curiosity - the whole ethos of French Grand Opera is so far removed from our current view of what is effective in the theatre. I can't help thinking that this is our loss.

Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast

Day 318

Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast

Anthony Rolfe Johnson

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Kenneth Alwyn

It is hard now to believe just how popular this piece one was. Between the wars Malcolm Sargent conducted regular performances - sometimes for days on end - at the Albert Hall with massed singers all dressed up in ‘red indian’ costumes. It was an standard work for amateur choral societies - my mum had a score in her small collection of music, though I don’t remember her performing it during the time that I went to her choral concerts.

Yet now it is almost forgotten and is a relic of a bygone era. I have to say that I thought it was a very disappointing peice. I can see why people liked singing it so much - there is a big role for the choir, the vocal parts are not that difficult and it makes a good noise when everybody is singing at the top of their voices. But musically it was very thin. The melodic material is unmemorable and Coleridge-Taylor’s harmonic palette is very limited. After a while I became heartily frustrated with the rather facile way that he moved up the keys in repetitive phrases in an attempt to build up the tension. He was a young man when he wrote this and probably had little by way of models to go on, but it seems impossible that this was once a highly regarded piece. The words don’t help. Longfellow’s use of made up Indian names now seems very uncomfortable and the continuous trocahic rhythm of the poetry see on gets on your nerves. It also seems to have inhibited any sense of rhythmic freedom in the music. It is all too foursquare.

There are two other Hiawatha pieces to go with this one - I am sure that i will be in no hurry to hear them. The past really is another country sometimes - it is just so hard to understand just what this piece had the position in British musical life for so long.

Adams: Harmonium

Day 317

John Adams: Harmonium

BBC National orchestra and chorus of Wales

Grant Llewellyn 

I’ve very little experience of Minimalist music. I’ve heard a few odd snippets here and there and did once play in a performance of the Philip Glass violin concerto but I’ve never been particularly interested in the whole minimalist ethos and haven’t really had any inclination to explore it. So I didn’t approach this large scale choral work by John Adams with any particularly enthusiasm.

Rather to my surprised I really enjoyed it. These is something quite hypnotic in the way that Adams uses repetitive figures to build up the texture and to create waves of sound. The choral writing is highly effective and builds up to some impressive climaxes. It must be very hard to sing this sort of music and to keep you place when bar after bar is exactly the same. Adams is very practical about this, indicating at several points where the conductor is required to give specific indications to the choir to ensure that they are all in the same place.

Orchestral this must be extremely tedious to play (I certainly found the constant repetition in the Glass concerto frustrating and that is quite restrained compared to this piece) and I don’t know how players retain their concentration. Perhaps it is all done through adrenaline and the sense of being part of those whole wound world.  I can imagine, however, that in the concert hall the waves of sound can be very exciting. 

The second of the three movement is much less exuberant than the outer movements though it is still based on reputation of small figures.  I found it really rather expressive and lyrical and it formed a good contrast with what came before and after it. 

I was at one time tempted to think that there was no real musical skill in minimalist music and that it almost wrote itself. This piece certainly was not like that. There was a real musical mind here at work with complete command of the material and a sense of how to shape long paragraphs of music. It still would not be my preferred choice of listening but I ended up with much more respect for Adams than I anticipated when I selected this for today’s listening.

Lyadov: Three tone poems

Day 316

Lyadov: Three tone poems

Baba Yaga

The Enchanted Lake

Kilamora

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Alexander Titov

Lyadov is best remembered as the composer whose inability to complete the score of The Firebird led the way to Stravinsky being commissioned in his place. There is a lovely anecdote that he turned up to Diaghilev three months after being commissioned saying “I’ve brought the manuscript paper….”. As Richard Taruskin explains in his superb book on Stravinsky (see day.  ) this is not actually true. Lyadov was agreed to write the music in the first place. He was certainly approached but never agreed to write a score. And the story about the manuscript paper is, unfortunately, almost certainly apocryphal.

It is certainly true that Lyadov was ultra self-critical and that his output wasn’t extensive. It seems that these three symphonic poems originally formed part of a plan for a massive opera but when Lyadov realised that he would never actually get round to completing he extracted these three short pieces.

You only have to hear a few notes to know that this is Russian music. Rimsky Korsakov is the obvious point of reference - ironically Lyadov was thrown out of Rimsky’s composition class because of a poor attendance record, though he was eventually let back in. The music is colourful and the orchestration shows all of the flair of a Rimsky pupil. Perhaps the most interesting of three pieces is the Enchanted Lake, which is a mood picture almost devoid of melody - the gentle undulations and constantly changing orchestral texture really do evoke a sense of the water ebbing and flowing. Here there were some traces of Debussy and elsewhere some hints that Stravinsky was also lurking in the wings.

So an enjoyable encounter with a composer whose music was completely unknown to me. Not one of the greats, but certainly well worth listening to.

Weir: A night at the Chinese opera

Day 315

Judith Weir: A night at the Chinese opera

Soloists

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Andrew Parrott

I’ve been lucky enough to play several pieces by Judith Weir over the last few years. I’ve enjoyed exploring her music from the inside. What strikes me most is the clarity of her orchestral writing - her ear for sonorities is quite superb.

This opera was in many ways Weir’s breakthrough piece. It has so many facets. There is real drama in the outer acts and real fun in the parody of a Chinese opera in the middle act. And Weir has a natural affinity with word setting (she wrote the libretto herself) and the dramatic pacing is beautifully judged. Any British opera composer is inevitably in the shadow of Benjamin Britten and clearly his influence clearly shines though the score. But in many ways the stronger resonances are Tippett and Birtwistle. 

But ultimately Weir has her own voice and this is a major achievement for a first opera by a composer in her early thirties. I look forward to getting to know more of her operas - there are several to go at.

Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto di Susanna

Day 314

Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto Di Susanna

Judith Howarth

Àngel Òdena

Oviedo Philharmonia

Friedrich Haider

I though that this was delightful

I knew the overture, along with a few other overtures and intermezzi by Wolf-Ferrai, but I had never heard any of the operas in full. This is a short opera (45 mins) for two singers (and a silent character) - a man and his wife. The plot is wafer thin. The husband comes home and smells cigarette smoke, assumes that his wife is having an affair and storms out. He comes back in surreptitiously to catch her with her lover and sees that she is smoking a cigarette. They make up and enjoy a final smoke together.

Wolf-Ferrari clearly had great fun writing this score. It dates from 1909 and the spirit of Verdi's Falstaff , which was only 15 or so years old at the time of writing, is clear to see. In fact this is almost certainly the most successful post Verdi comic opera , with perhaps the exception of Gianni Schicchi, which followed Wolf-Ferrari's score a decade of so late. I particularly enjoyed the very sensuous music - almost Straussian in its luxuriance - for the scene in which the heroine smokes her cigarette. There is surely a nod to Tristan und Isolde here.  The whole thing is fast paced and dramatic, thought there are moments of reflection and some very attractive melodies. It was a real find.

David: Le Désert

Day 313

Félicien David: Le Désert

Soloists

Choir of St Hedwig’s cathedral Berlin

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Guido Maria Guida

Félicien David is largely forgotten as a composer these days, though his name is familiar to collectors of old vocal recordings because a few extracts from his operas were regularly features in the catalogues. But he was an important figure in his time and Le Désert is a key piece. It is scored for male chorus, tenor soloist, orchestra and a narrator and is one of the first pieces of orientalism in 19th century French music. As such it was huguely influential throughout the rest of the century. 

The key musical influence is probably Gluck, although there are also some hints of Spontini and, to a lesser extent Auber. Berlioz also lurks in the background. He is known to be an admirer of David’s music and one can see how Berlioz took some of the David’s ideas further than the composer himself.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the score is the Muezzin’s call. This is highly evocative and foreshadows much that it is to come - I was particularly reminded of the similar passages in The Barber of Baghdad.   Indeed much of the whole late 19th century French interest in the exotic can be traced back to David’s score. It may not be the most inspired score but without it much of what followed could not have happened.

Charpentier: Te Deum

Day 312

Charpentier: Te Deum

Les musicians du Louvre

Marc Minkowski

I’m not sure that I have ever heard any Charpentier (Marc-Antoine) before, though I may have heard the midnight mass at some point). As a Rameau enthusiast it is perhaps surprising that I have not investigated any of Charpentier’s operas - perhaps that will come in another project.

The opening of the Te Deum is famous/notorious as the theme music for Eurovision - particularly the song contest. Though anybody hearing this performance would be surprised at the speed that Minkowski adopts.  I have to say, though, that the piece largely passed me by without making any sort of impression = it was very much a case of in one ear out of the other. That doesn’t mean that there was anything unpleasant about the piece. It just seemed rather to be a piece of baroque painting by numbers. Everything was in its place and was effective but it just failed to make any sort of impact. Perhaps that is a little unfair - I didn’t have a score and my attention did wander from time to time.  Gustav is the Charpentier for me!

Weil: The Seven Deadly Sins

 Day 311

Weil: The Seven Deadly Sins

Anne Sofie Von Otter

NDR Symphony Orchestra

John Elliot Gardiner

I’ve not much experience of Kurt Weil. I’ve never seen any of his pieces on the stage (though I do recall seeing the film of the Threepenny Opera at university) and I know only a handful of the popular songs. I’ don’t recall hearing any of his orchestral works, though I know that some people speak very highly of them.

I couldn’t quite get on the right wavelength for the Seven Deadly Sins. The music for the small group of male singers seems very weak and characterless. The protagonist Jenny (there are two Jennies - a singer and dancer) has more interesting music but I found the juxtaposition of styles difficult to reconcile. At times this was pure agit prop, at other times cabaret and then operatic. It didn’t hang together for me. I imagine that without the visual impact of seeing a dancer you only get half of the effect of the piece, so perhaps judging it on purely musical terms is unfair. But I didn’t feel much like exploring more Kurt Weil.

Mackenzie: La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Day 310

Mackenzie: La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Malta Philharmonic Orchestra

Michael Laus

Alexander Mackenzie was one of those figures who did much to improve musical standards in Victorian England and pave the way for Elgar and those who followed him. Ironically he outlived Elgar by a year, though by the time of his death he must have seemed a figure from a distant age.

The only piece of his I knew was his short Benedictus , which is a beautiful elegiac piece which deserves to be better known. La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a symphonic poem dating from 1883, based on the poem by Keats.

Initially I thought that this was going to be really impressive work. The slow introduction was striking in its melodic ideas and set a suitably sombre mood. There was some highly effective chromatic harmony and a real ear for orchestral sonorities. But after that the faster music which followed was something of a disappointment. It fell into that rather ‘olde England’ 6/8 style of country dance music. Nothing wrong with that as such but it did seems a bit out of place after than introduction. It was all just a bit too jolly. 

British composers of this generation were largely learning how to create an orchestral style. it would take another generation before they had the confidence and experience to write music that was the equal of anything being written anywhere in the world. But the pioneering work of people like Mackenzie was an important part of that process even though ultimately his voice was not strong enough to remain a permanent part of the repertory. 

Scriabin: Two piano sonatas

Day 309

Scriabin: Two piano sonatas

No 7 -  White Mass

No 9  - Black Mass

Vladimir Ashkenazy

I don’t know much Scriabin. I did play in the orchestra for the piano concerto when I was university and have played some of the simpler piano music. I recall hearing the second symphony years ago but I don’t think that I have heard anything else of his.

These two piano sonatas were chosen because of their titles - contrasting black and white mass, although only the ‘black’ title is Scriabin’s own.  This is not really my sort of music - I find virtuoso piano music with fists fulls of chords and lots of flourishes rather off putting and certainly the 7th sonata fell into that category for me . I couldn’t see any shape or logic in - it did sound as if a gifted pianist simply sat down and started to hammer the keyboard and show off as much as possible.

The 9th sonata was rather different. It was restrained for much of the time and had a much clearer shape. You could see and hear the way that the material developed and there was real character in the music. But even given this I don’t think that I will spend much more time with Scriabin.

Hummel: Two Piano trios

Day 308

Hummel: Two Piano trios

Trio in E flat op 12

Trio in E flat op 96

Beaux Art Trio

Hummel was at the centre of musical life in Vienna in the transition from the classical to romantic eras. He seems to have know every important composer of his time and his music, particularly the works for piano (solo and orchestra) had an influence on the next generation of pianist composers such as Chopin and Schumann,

The only piece of his that I have played orchestral is the trumpet concerto, though I have attempted a few of his easier piano pieces. But he is not a composer whose music I know well.  He wrote seven piano trios and selected two of them at random. These are very much transitional works. For much of the time the cello takes a subsidiary part, as it does in the piano trios of Haydn, doubling the bass line of the piano and adding harmonic fill. But there are also some passages where the cello is given an independent voice with equal status to the violin. Both trios are extremely well crafted and show why Hummel was much admired in his day. Interestingly the earlier trio (op 12) seems a much more mature work that the later op 96, but as far as I can tell the opus numbers are chronological. Certainly the first movement of op 12 looks forward to Schumann - the main melodic material was reminiscent of the latter composer’s Piano Quintet. Buy contrast the final movement of op 96 - a spirited rondo - seemed a very close relation to Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca. So some highly civilised music here which shows the piano trio format at its most elegant and refined.

Villa-Lobos: Choros no 6

Day 307

Villa-Lobos: Choros no 6

Orquestra Filharmónica de Gran Carania

Adrian Leaper

I have only heard a few pieces of Villa-Lobos. I know a couple of the Bachianas Brasileiras and did play one of them many years ago. But he is not a composer whose works I know well. 

There are 14 pieces in the Choros series (some and unfinished and others lost). In their various ways they are all attempts to evoke the spirit of  Brazilian street music.  They are not a cycle as such: they are scored for various groupings from a solo instrument though to a full orchestra. No 6, which dates from 1926, is for full orchestra. 

I have to say that I found it a big disappointment. I was expecting something lively with lots of South-American rhythms, percussion and extrovert energy. But it was all rather insipid. None of the melodies really imprinted themselves on the memory and it never really took fire. It just seemed like a succession of short pieces very loosely joined together. All in all it had very little impact.

Gounod: Biondina

Day 306

Gounod: Biondina

Anthony Rolfe Johnson

Graham Johnson

In the splendid Hyperion song edition the Gounod edition is divided into two sections - France and England. Biondina  is in the ‘England’ section, which seems odd for a song cycle in Italian written by a French composer.  The explanation is that this work was written during a long stay by the composer in England.

This is Gounod’s only song cycle. It tells a typical romantic story of a young man falling in love, marrying and then mourning the death of his loved one. The style is rather simpler than many contemporary French art songs - indeed has many similarities with late Victorian ballads. It is quite possible to imagine this being performed in a domestic setting with good amateur musicians. But the music is more sophisticated than the typical ballad with some piquant harmonic touches particular as the piece progresses and the mood darkens. 

Gounod’s reputation has not fallen as far as Meyerbeer’s but Faust is no longer at the centre of the repertoire. I don’t know a huge amount of his music but I do enjoy what I have heard. The only piece of Gounod I recall playing is the petite Symphonie for wind instruments which is an absolute delight. I do want to get to know more of his operas - there are plenty to go at.  

Meyerbeer: Struensee - incidental music

Day 305

Meyerbeer: Incidental music to Struensee

NDR Radio Orchestra and Choir

Michail Jurowski

I’ve now reached the first of November and am very pleased not to have missed a day in this project. So for this month I intend to fill more of the gaps in coverage of important composers. I’ve already included more than 300 figures but there are still some notable absentees. Then in December I can do a final wrap up and perhaps chose some more obscure, even quirky figures to bring the project to an end.

I’ve always enjoyed the music of Meyerbeer. It is difficult to appreciate now just how dominant a figure Meyerbeer was throughout the 19th century. I have a poster in my apartment for the 905th performance of Les Huguenots at the Paris opera. This was given in June 1897 - that was only 60 years after the first performance so it gives an idea of how popular the work was - those sorts of statistics could be repeated across all of the major opera houses.

Meyerbeer’s dominant place in the repertory disappears almost overnight after the First World War and never really recovered although there are still occasional performances. At university we put on Robert le Diable. In truth the musical and dramatic demands of the piece were way beyond us but the opera still made a positive impression. I don’t think that anybody has ever bettered Meyerbeer’s mastery of creating lavish spectacle and thrilling musical tableaux.  That’s not to say that he belong at the highest table of operatic composers. The music is uneven, there is a lot of routine ‘painting by numbers’ and he was never good at transition - there are too many really clunky gear changes. Sometimes the melodic invention is weak. But despite all of this his operas are greater than the sum of their parts and are worthy of repeated listening.

This is not an opera but incidental music to a play by the composer’s younger brother. It is scored for full orchestra and male chorus - a reminder that in the 19th century large theatres could call on significant musical resources. It has a long overture - quite serious in tone which might to the blind ear have been thought to be by Schumann and then a series of miscellaneous short movement. These are more varied in tone and some of them are reminiscent of the lighter moments in Meyerbeer such as the dance scenes. 

It is not a masterpiece but neither it is negligible. There is some attractive music here which is well worth listening to. How effective it would be in the theatre is an unknown quantity. The chances of anybody reviving the play with full orchestra and choral forces seems remote. But Meyerbeer was a man of the theatre so I would hazard a guess that it is all worked well in context.