Sterndale Bennett: Symphony in G minor

Day 151 

Sterndale Bennett: Symphony in G minor

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Nicholas Braithwaite

Sterndale Bennett retains a toe hold in musical history as the dedicatee of Schumann's Symphonic Studies, but his own works have all but vanished from the repertory. I do remember trying to play through some of his piano music at university but I don't think that I have ever heard any of his orchestral music before.

This symphony, from 1864, is his only mature work in this form (there are some early symphonies written when he was a student). Perhaps not surprisingly Schumann is the main influence - indeed if you heard this blind you would almost certainly identify it as an unknown work of his. There is are Mendelssohn-lie touches and the trombone writing in the first movement is very reminiscent of that in Schubert 9, which was beginning to become part of the repertory in the 1860s after years of being almost unknown. Oddly the trombones disappear after the introduction to the last movement even thought  the music seems very suitable for their use - - it is almost as if he had forgotten that they were available.

The score is rather uneven. The opening movement is undoubtedly the best of the four and the finale is almost at the same level. The slow movement, heavily featuring the violas, is a bit thick and glutinous at times while the third movement is very odd. It is a menuetto - quite old fashioned for 1864 with a trio just for brass instruments which seems completely out of place with the rest of the piece. As an experiment it was interesting but to me it didn't come off.

There are a number of concert overtures by Sterndale Bennett - I did look at one once when looking to put together interesting repertoire for a concert - perhaps it is time to have another look.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony no 8

 Day 150

Vaughan Williams: Symphony no 8

Bernard Haitink

London Symphony Orchestra

I have mixed views about Vaughan Williams.  There are some wonderful moment, such as the opening of the Sea Symphony and the end of the 5th Symphony and the whole of the Tallis Fantasia, but I don't find that much to enjoy in some of his other pieces. I've played symphonies no 1, 2, 5 and 7 and a few other smaller pieces.  I'm tempted to think that all VW sounds the same! Not true of course but one does find the same characteristics again and again. Now in Haydn or Stravinsky , for example, I see that as a positive -the composer marking his fingerprints over music which seems on the surface to be very different, but with VW it sometime seems like resorting to clichés.  Perhaps it is just a reflection of my own musical sympathies.

I think that 8th was the only VW symphony I had not heard before. It is a late work (1956) when the composer was in his 80s. It is also the shortest of his 9 symphonies.  I had very mixed reactions. The slow movement was for me the highlight - it is scored for strings only and has echoes of the Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending.  By contrast I couldn't make much sense of the second movement, which is scored for wind instruments only.  Its rather 'rum-ti-tum' style seems completely out of place here. 

The last movement uses tuned gongs - inspired by the composer hearing a performance of Turandot. I was interested to see how he used then - I have to say I was rather underwhelmed. When you think what Britten was doing with tuned percussion in The Prince of the Pagodas, written at more or less exactly the same time, VW use does seem rather old-fashioned and unadventurous. But perhaps it is just that he is just not a composer whose wavelength I can quite get onto.  I'm sure that the loss is mine.

Rawsthorne: Symphonic studies

 Day 149

Alan Rawsthorne: Symphonic Studies

London Philharmonic Orchestra 

John Pritchard

Alan Rawsthorne was considered to be an important figure in post-war British music, but his star has faded and he is now very much on the periphery of musical life. I don’t think that I had heard any of his music before.  These Symphonic Studies - a mixture between a symphony and a concerto for orchestra - are generally considered to be one of his finest achievements - they certainly put him on the musical map when they were performed at an international festival in Warsaw just before the Second World War.

I have to say that I didn’t find much here to grab my attention. The music seemed to me to be lacking in character and at times it felt rather like mere note spinning. It was quite brittle at times and there melodic material wasn’t memorable. The big tune in the last movement didn’t really come off.  So a disappointment - I couldn’t see why this piece has the reputation that it seems to have. There is a lot of positive comment about the work  on line, so perhaps it is just me, but I can’t see myself exploring more Rawsthorne any time soon.

Wordsworth: Symphony no 3

Day 148

William Wordsworth: Symphony no 3 in C op 48

Nicholas Braithwaite

London Philharmonic Orchestra

I’ve had the score of this symphony on my shelves for years - I got it at a surplus library book sale - but I have never heard it, or any of the composer’s other music before. William Wordsworth was a descendant of the poet’s brother. He lived from 1908 to 1988 and although he did have some success in his early career he was an almost forgotten figure at the time of his death.

I had expected that this symphony might be like watered-down Vaughan Williams in the ‘English Cowpat’ style but it was rather different - in my book a good thing. Though clearly tonal in idiom it had more of a bite to it - the predominant influences seemed to be Hindemith and Sibelius though there was more than a touch of Shostakovich about it - particularly in the long passage in the middle movement with a solo celesta part. The music is tight and lean and predominantly contrapuntal. I really enjoyed the first two movements. The third was not quite at the same level. It took a long time to get going and the main tune was not quite distinctive enough to support the final peroration. But overall this was clearly the work of a composer who knew exactly what he was doing and I  would be intrigued to find out more about his work - there are 8 symphonies in total and they have now all been recorded.

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.

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.

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.