Havergal Brian.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

It's just a matter of time. I think the goal will be reached eventually.

[Maestro267]

Ordered two more Brian discs today. Symphonies 10 & 30, Concerto for Orchestra and English Suite No. 3 (RSNO/Brabbins), and Symphonies Nos. 6, 28, 29 & 31 (Russian State SO/Walker). It's mainly a case of plugging in small gaps now. Nos. 6 & 10 are the only ones missing of the first 12 in my collection.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Then you're in for a treat - 6 and 10 are among the best.


P.S. Those discs you ordered are excellent!

[Maestro267]

Then you're in for a treat - 6 and 10 are among the best.


P.S. Those discs you ordered are excellent!

I've heard both before, No. 6 in the Radio 3 performance last year, and parts of No. 10 in the Unknown Warrior documentary on Youtube.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Please report back when you have listened to the two discs!

[Mirror Image]

I've heard both before, No. 6 in the Radio 3 performance last year, and parts of No. 10 in the Unknown Warrior documentary on Youtube.

Unknown Warrior documentary? Link?

[Christo]

Unknown Warrior documentary? Link?

Great to see the grand old man himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f7_wiFeDIU

[Mirror Image]

Great to see the grand old man himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f7_wiFeDIU

Cool. Thanks, Johan.

[Maestro267]

Ordered two more Brian discs today. Symphonies 10 & 30, Concerto for Orchestra and English Suite No. 3 (RSNO/Brabbins), and Symphonies Nos. 6, 28, 29 & 31 (Russian State SO/Walker). It's mainly a case of plugging in small gaps now. Nos. 6 & 10 are the only ones missing of the first 12 in my collection.

Both these discs have now arrived. Currently listening to No. 10 as I write. The "calm before the storm" section (c. 4-5 mins in) sent shivers down my spine in only the way that the pre-storm moments in Strauss' Alpensinfonie have done before. I also didn't expect the offstage trumpet. That's a nice touch.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I happen to have listened to no. 10, too, again after a long time. And yes, that utterly still passage remains very striking, and very poetic.

[vandermolen]

No 10 is one of the greatest - after much turbulence it arrives at 'a sense of hard-won yet lasting triumph' as I think Harold Truscott (also an interesting composer) wrote in that fine old Penguin Guide to the Symphony Vol. 2.

[springrite]

No 10 is one of the greatest - after much turbulence it arrives at 'a sense of hard-won yet lasting triumph' as I think Harold Truscott (also an interesting composer) wrote in that fine old Penguin Guide to the Symphony Vol. 2.

It remain my favourite, as many of you recall that it was the work that connected to my experience working to help air crash victims and families. It has special meaning to me.

[Maestro267]

Another little element to Havergal Brian's music I enjoy is his tendency to let cymbal crashes ring out at the end of movements, even after the other instruments stop playing. This is most notable in the 7th Symphony, where each movement ends with a resonating cymbal, bell or tam-tam strike. The Symphony No. 30 ends with this effect too, with the cymbals and tam-tam left sounding after the bare-fifth B flat chord ends.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Well-listened. The 7th is indeed remarkable in that respect, with every movement ending that way. The 8th and 12th also end with a gong-stroke, soft in the former, loud in the latter.

[Maestro267]

The key in which the Seventh ends was also quite unexpected on first listen, from this listener's point of view. Brian's a fantastic, colourful writer for percussion.

And while I'm here, this week's purchases takes my Brian symphony total up to 24/32. I just need Nos. 13, 16, 18, 21-24 and 26 to complete the set now.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The key in which the Seventh ends was also quite unexpected on first listen, from this listener's point of view. Brian's a fantastic, colourful writer for percussion.

Yes, that final chord is magical. Brian is endlessly inventive. It remains a mystery he still hasn't really broken through, hearing his music live is such an invigorating experience. In 1987 I was in Liverpool, at the Philharmonic Hall, to hear the Seventh 'in the flesh'. I can still remember it.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

And while I'm here, this week's purchases takes my Brian symphony total up to 24/32. I just need Nos. 13, 16, 18, 21-24 and 26 to complete the set now.

Very good!

[relm1]

Sorry if I'm late to the party but did Faust ever get fully funded?

[springrite]

Sorry if I'm late to the party but did Faust ever get fully funded?

The funding got to a rousing start but has stalled just a few pennies short. (Well, a bit more than a few pennies, I guess)

[calyptorhynchus]

I have been over in the Darius Milhaud thread enthusing about my latest find *. However that thread has convinced itself that DM is an over-prolific composer of low interest and low inspiration and so it isn't worth posting anything else there.

However I did want to make an observation about DM and Brian. These two are composers who are not, at first acquaintance, very similar. DM is much more neo-classical than Brian, and his harmonic language tends to bi- or poly-tonality or 'non-triadic diatonic' (ie using the notes of a major or minor scale with few chromaticisms but without privileging the common chords); in fact he specifically eschews chromaticism (in his autobiography he states that he is writing music that is in the mode of 'Mediterranean lyricism' (he was from Provence), and opposes this to Wagner and Germanic chromaticism generally).

One similarity is that both composers are cunning as to form, with both Brian and DM you get passages that sound like recapitulation when the material quite different, or the form is truncated to arrive at abrupt but satisfying endings. And with both the music is an endlessly varied stream of inspired contrapuntal utterance.

Listening to a few of DM's later works I feel a quite a similarity with Brian in mood too. In the 1960s, after DM had finished his official count of symphonies (12) he wrote a few more works that are symphonic in the 'Music for' series (if he was invited to conduct at a festival he would write a work for that place), especially 'Music for Indiana' and 'Music for New Orleans'**. This latter work particularly sounds very Brianesque to me, with the finale a dogged journey through music chaos and quite astonishing contrapuntal heterophony to end in sombre exhilaration.

Well worth a listen. Naturally the 'Music for' works are mainly not recorded, but several of these works are available on the third page of the French music downloads at the Art Music Forum.


*Trust me to light on another composer who is shamefully underrecorded, or rather, his most famous works are recorded multiple times, but other of his works (ones that I think are more valuable) are not recorded, or not available.
** When I saw the title I thought 'Music for New Orleans' was going to be full-on jazz, as DM was very taken with jazz on a trip to the US in 1920 and introduced it to France on his return. But for some reason it isn't.