Rabaud: La Procession Nocturne

Day 158

Henri Rabaud: La Procession Nocturne

Orchestra National de Lyon

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider

Henri Rabaud (1873-1949) is one of those splendidly moustached figures that one comes across in French  operatic history. The name has not quite completely faded away - largely because some early 20th century singers recorded arias from his one big hit Mârouf and those are still listened to by students of historical singing. But he is very much a minor figure.

This is an early tone poem (1899) which was the first of his works to gain wide attention. It is in several fairly slow sections, each of which is quite distinctive. It does sound like the work of a French composer, but again you can hear by the end of the century just how much Warner’s music had worked its way into the French musical idiom.  Indeed when one considers what Richard Strauss was achieving with tone poems a decade earlier (Don Juan dates from 1889) the music does seem a little stiff and old fashioned.

So my curiosity as to what Rabaud’s music might be like has been satisfied for now. I suspect that there is more to him that this and I might try to find time to listen to Mârouf at some point, but for now I will leave him here and go on tomorrow to another little known late 19th century French composer. I’ve not quite chosen which one yet - there are plenty to go at.

Guiraud: Ouverture d’Arteveld

Day 157

Ernest Guiraud: Overture d’Arteveld

Orchestra National de Lyon

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider

Thousands - probably millions - of people will have heard music by Guiraud even though they were almost certainly unaware of it. That is because of Carmen. The opera was originally performed at the Opéra Comique and therefore included spoken dialogue. Spoken dialogue was banned at the Paris Opéra so when, after Bizet’s death the Opéra wanted to perform Carmen Guiruad, who had been a close friend of the composer, was engaged to turn the dialogue into orchestrally accompanied recitatives.  It was in this form that Carmen was almost always performed up to the 1960s and 1970s when the original version with dialogue started to be revived. Nowadays it is very rare for the recitative version to be used. Guiraud was also responsible for sorting out the chaotic state in which Offenbach left The Tales of Hofmann at his death and again Guiraud’s edition was widely used until more recent scholarship has started to disentangle Offenbach’s true intentions.

So he was an important figure in French opera but not for his own music. I’ve never heard any of his own compositions but this short freestanding overture, on a compilation of Symphonic Poems on the invaluable  Bru Zane label, was today’s choice.  It starts very dramatically with a slow and menacing introduction, probably the best music in the piece. The main section is more vigorous and contains some attractive music but was perhaps less distinctive and which occasionally descended into cliche. The music is obviously French but there were some distinctly Schumann-like touches and the spirit of early Wagner lurked in the background. 

I doubt that there will be many other opportunists to hear more music by Guiraud so I am glad to have encountered this overture. But I am sure that he will continued to be remembered only by his association with Bizet and Carmen.

Berlioz: Chant des chemins de fer

Day 156

Berlioz: Chant des chemins de fer

Rollando Villazón

Orchestra nationale du capitol de Toulouse

Michael Plasson

I’ve been an Berlioz enthusiast for as long as I can remember. I’ve conducted/played a number of the orchestral works and have listened to virtually everything that he wrote. But this oddity had eluded me until now. I decided to start this brief exploration little known French music with this piece, not least because it was written to commemorate the opening of the railway between Lille and Paris and today I was travelling on that very line to start a short break in the Normandy area.

I’d know that Berlioz had written a piece with this title but didn’t know anything about it. I was expecting something fairly brief and loud without much subtlety but in fact there is quite a lot to this music. It had a generally brisk main theme - led by a solo tenor - which recurs several times, but there are also some slower sections including an impressive hymn-like passage. The music is full of Berliozian fingerprints and is unmistakably his. Although it was written in a hurry (3-4 days) and for much needed money it does in my view stand comparison with the composer’s more well-known music. Indeed had parts of it been incorporated into the Damnation of Faust I don’ think that anybody would have be any the wiser.

I am pretty sure that there is nothing else of Berlioz remaining for me to discover - I even know his toccata for Harmonium - the only piece of purely abstract music he ever wrote.

Holbrooke: symphony no 3

Day 155

Joseph Holbrooke: Symphony no 3 Ships

Deutsche Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Howard Griffiths 

Holbrooke is one of those figures who crop up in the sidelines of histories of music as an eccentric character. He features in an anecdote in Beecham’s autobiography and there is a lovely story that the conductor Dan Godfrey once had to put in a last minute amendment to a concert programme which read (according to Wikipedia) Mr Dan Godfrey begs to announce that Mr Joseph Holbrooke declines to play today, at this concert, because his name is not announced on the bills in large enough type, consequently the programme will be changed. Yet he had, at least in his younger days, a considerable reputation and his music was conducted by such major figures as Richter and Nikisch. He lived through to 1958 - he must have seen like a figure from a forgotten age.

This third symphony (1925) has three movements: warships, hospital ships, merchant ships. It is a fairly substantial work lasting over half an hour for a large orchestra include euphonium and saxophone. I found it an infuriating work. There was undoubtedly a powerful musical imagination at work here and there were were some very attractive movement. But the whole thing was a mess. No sense of style or continuity and it lurched from quite serious music in moment of excruciatingly bad taste. At times I thought that the first movement sounds like Richard Strauss takes a trip to the seaside! There are hints of Delius and, especially, Grainger in the use of folk song in the last movement but Grainger had much more control over his material than Holbrooke shows here. 

Holbrooke was by all accounts one of the most self centred of all composers - and that is saying a lot. He seems to have regarded the whole of the musical establishment as being in conspiracy against him. Perhaps had he had a greater self-awareness he might have developed his obvious musical talents in a more disciplined way and produced a body of work which would still have a place somewhere in the corner of the repertory. But as it is I can’t imagine that his work is going to be taken up by the modern equivalents of Richter and Nikisch.

That’s the last in this current round of British symphonies. There will be at least one more round to come. But I am off to France for a few days and will not have much time for listening so the next posts will look as some shorter orchestral peices by some minor French composers who have faded from view but whose names do crop up in the history books.

Fricker: Symphony no 3

Day 154

Peter Racine Fricker: Symphony no 3

BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra

Edward Downes

There was a time in the late 1950s early 1960s when Peter Racine Fricker was regarded as one of the leading figures in English Music (he merits a mention in Kingsley Amis’ novel Lucky Jim) yet he has virtually disappeared from view - the fact that he moved to the USA no doubt had something to do with it, but it does seem that he was a victim of changing fashions and that his music was simultaneously regarded as too modern and not modern enough.  I think that I head a string quartet of his years ago but I have no conscious memory of any of his music.

I chose one of his five symphonies at random - this 3rd symphony dates from 1960. It is quite a concentrated work in a traditional 4 movement layout. I enjoyed it a lot. The music is not distinctively British in any way - it seems to belong squarely into the post war non-serial European tradition - again one can hear echos of Hindemith and Stravinsky. But the composer’s voice is distinctive enough to carry off the piece with confidence. It didn’t outstay its welcome and shows how effective concise musical ideas well crafted can be. The slow movement was particularly impressive but all four movements had much to commend them. And, unlike some of the British symphonies I have listened to recently, the ending was effective - a gradual release of tension and fade away to nothing.

It is hard to imagine that Racine Fricker (which is how is is often referred to even though Racine is a middle name acknowledging his descent from the French writer) will ever regain his place as one of the leading British composers of the second half of the 20th century, but based on this piece he certainly does not deserve to slip away into oblivion.

Maxwell Davies: Symphony no 3

Day 153

Peter Maxwell Davie: Symphony no 3

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies was a hugely important figure in British musical life in the 1970s and 1980s when I was starting to develop my musical horizons. Pieces like the Songs for a Mad King and the opera Taverner  placed him firmly at the centre of contemporary music. But as he got older his reputation as an enfant terrible began to fade as he moved a little closer to the main stream. His various lighthearted pieces such as Orkney Wedding with Sunrise, several of which I have played, have shown a different side of his character and his Farewell to Stromness - which of course I listened to when I was on a ferry out of the harbour there a few years ago - has achieved widespread popularity.

I remember the surprise when in the mid 1970s he wrote his first symphony - it seems a backward looking gesture by a contemporary composer but it marked a sustain engagement with traditional forms, such as the symphony (there are 10 altogether), the concerto and the string quartet.

I hadn’t heard any of the symphonies before and I chose this one at random. It is a substantial piece of- nearly 50 mins long - and was by no means an easy listen. But I got a lot out of it. It feels symphonic in form with a sense of logic. Indeed more than once I was reminded of Sibelius. The music itself sounds nothing like Sibelius of course but the way that Maxwell Davies builds up the tension through long phrases and ostinato figures is certainly reminiscent of Sibelius’ approach to symphonic writing.  The orchestral writing is highly complex and demands virtuoso players - the writing for the horns trumpets and oboes in particularly is often in the highest register for bars on end. To be honest I found some of that material to be quite painful to listen to - but away from those moments the composer’s ear for interesting sonorities was absolutely clear.

I can’t imagine that a difficult and long work like this will be performed very often but I am glad that I heard it. It will be interesting to speculate how Maxwell Davies is regarded by generations to come. Will he be seen as part of the long tradition of English symphonic music or will people only remember his early, more shocking, work?  He is such an important figure that it is hard to imagine that he will disappear from view completely.

Williams: Symphony no 2

Day 152

Grace Williams: Symphony no 2

Vernon Handley

Grace Williams is generally reckoned to be Wales’ first professional female composer - she was also the first British woman to write a score for a full length feature film. She has always retained a small foothold in British musical history for those reasons and she now has established a small but important place for herself in the repertoire,

There is nothing notably Welsh, or indeed feminine, in this Symphony from 1956 - it is a good example of mainstream symphonic style from the immediate postwar years. At times I was reminded of Shostakovich but there are also moments which could be by Hindemith. Incidentally it is surprisingly how often Hindemith has been mentioned in this project - a sign of just how important a composer he was in the 1950s before his star rather faded.

Music of the music was spiky and rhythmic with dry rather than luxuriant textures. But the slow movement, the highlight of the work for me, was beautifully lyrical without ever being sentimental or becoming over-luscious. Perhaps the very end didn’t quite come off - it is again worth noting how many times I have said this about British symphonies in this project - but overall I thought that this was a fine work and it made me keen to discover more of her music - which is after all the whole point of the exploration that the project is all about.