Havergal Brian.

Started by Harry, June 09, 2007, 04:36:53 AM

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J.Z. Herrenberg

#560
Quote from: vandermolen on December 29, 2010, 03:01:06 PM
I have this CD - haven't played it for years but am doing so tonight. I agree with Jezetha that the performances mmay be a bit rough-and-ready, but there is a convicion about the playing which is disarming. highlights for me are 'In Memoriam' and the 'English Suite No 1'.  Decades ago I had a fine old CBS LP featuring a youth orchestra (Leicestershire?) playing one of HB's English Suites (possibly No 2) and the excellent 'Sinfonia Brevis' (No 22) - which is a big omission from the current CD catalogue.
It's the Fifth English Suite, Jeffrey. I have mp3s of these, and of the Symphonia Brevis. If you're interested...
Edit: yes, the LSSO. It also featured Psalm 23.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

vandermolen

Quote from: Jezetha on December 29, 2010, 03:05:11 PM
It's the Fifth English Suite, Jeffrey. I have mp3s of these, and of the Symphonia Brevis. If you're interested...

Hi Johan - I just amended my previous post, having read a famous contribution to the Wikipedia article on HB!

I don't have an mp3 player ( do you need one to play back?) - certainly I'd love to hear Symphony 22 and the English Suite No 5 again.
Jeffrey
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

J.Z. Herrenberg

#562
Quote from: vandermolen on December 29, 2010, 03:07:57 PM
Hi Johan - I just amended my previous post, having read a famous contribution to the Wikipedia article on HB!

I don't have an mp3 player ( do you need one to play back?) - certainly I'd love to hear Symphony 22 and the English Suite No 5 again.
Jeffrey


You can play the music on your computer. Do you have boxes? Or a headset? [O, that must be me?!]
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

vandermolen

Quote from: Jezetha on December 29, 2010, 03:09:12 PM

You can play the music on your computer. Do you have boxes? Or a headset? [O, that must be me?!]

'boxes'? Not sure what this means Johan.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: vandermolen on December 29, 2010, 03:51:38 PM
'boxes'? Not sure what this means Johan.

I meant speakers, connected to your computer! (we say 'speakerboxen' or just 'boxen' in Dutch, sorry... !)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

MDL

I've got the Gothic which I really like. My other half bought me this (amongst other things of course) for Christmas:



But I've been away or in work and haven't had a chance to play it yet. Has anybody heard this CD and got any thoughts?

J.Z. Herrenberg

#566
'Any thoughts?' Yes!

I suggest you listen in order of (relative) difficulty - Festal Dance, In Memoriam, Symphony No. 32, Symphony No. 17. Festal Dance and In Memoriam are both early works. The first is very rhythmic and joyous, and not very profound. The second is grand and rather Elgarian, a spacious funeral march (with an allusion to 'God Save the King', as it was then (the early 1910s)). Symphony No. 32 was Brian's final symphony, written when he was 92 (1968). It is a spare, lean work in the contrapuntal style of his late years and shows real vigour. No. 17 (1961) is the last symphony in the postwar 'series' starting with No. 6 - colourful, quick, mercurial and very oblique. I love it.

The performances are good, and so is the sound.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Albion

Quote from: MDL on December 30, 2010, 05:47:49 AM
I've got the Gothic which I really like. My other half bought me this (amongst other things of course) for Christmas:



But I've been away or in work and haven't had a chance to play it yet. Has anybody heard this CD and got any thoughts?

To be honest, both of the 'Irish' Marco Polo/ Naxos discs are excellent - great programming and super performances under Tony Rowe and Adrian Leaper. The other disc is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Symphonies-Nos-11-Concert-Overture/dp/B003NA7G9M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1293725252&sr=8-3


As with the disc pictured above, this will also give you two early works by Brian (For Valour and Dr Merryheart) along with absorbing accounts of the 11th and the 15th. What a great pity that more Brian recordings did not come from the RTE stable!
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

MDL

Thanks for the quick comeback, guys. I'm looking forward to wrapping my ears around this CD. Actually, I must give the Gothic another whirl soon.

Klaatu

Quote from: MDL on December 30, 2010, 05:47:49 AM
I've got the Gothic which I really like. My other half bought me this (amongst other things of course) for Christmas:



But I've been away or in work and haven't had a chance to play it yet. Has anybody heard this CD and got any thoughts?

I love the Elgarian-ness of two of the works here: In Memoriam, whose Elgarisms have already been mentioned, but also the slow movement of Brian's 32nd (and final) symphony. I find this incredibly affecting, because the "stately sorrow" of its climax seems to me the very last gasp of the Elgarian Age - the last use of Elgar's musical language by a composer who was contemporary with (and knew personally ) E.E. himself.

karlhenning

Quote from: MDL on December 30, 2010, 05:47:49 AM
I've got the Gothic which I really like. My other half bought me this (amongst other things of course) for Christmas:



But I've been away or in work and haven't had a chance to play it yet. Has anybody heard this CD and got any thoughts?

Thank you all (I think) for the discussion . . . my copy of the Gothic has not yet landed, but I've already now pulled the trigger on this other Brian disc.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 30, 2010, 08:32:58 AM
Thank you all (I think) for the discussion . . . my copy of the Gothic has not yet landed, but I've already now pulled the trigger on this other Brian disc.

Then you'll have the alpha and omega of Brian's symphonic output. Not a bad way to begin a Brian journey.

Sage
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Albion

Here is a link to the 1974 performance of Das Siegeslied (Symphony No.4):

http://www.mediafire.com/?v25xjnjawmn

13 October 1974  [first public performance] / 25 June 1975 (BBC Radio 3 broadcast) . Alexandra Palace, London
Felicity Palmer (sop), BBC Singers, BBC Choral Society, Goldsmith's Choral Union, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor John Poole
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

J.Z. Herrenberg

#573
Quote from: Albion on December 31, 2010, 03:21:50 AM
Here is a link to the 1974 performance of Das Siegeslied (Symphony No.4):

http://www.mediafire.com/?v25xjnjawmn

13 October 1974  [first public performance] / 25 June 1975 (BBC Radio 3 broadcast) . Alexandra Palace, London
Felicity Palmer (sop), BBC Singers, BBC Choral Society, Goldsmith's Choral Union, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor John Poole
I have that as an mp3, digitised from an LP (it's in my 'emporium', too). Got it from an American fan. What's the origin of your file? (which I'm going to download, of course!)


Edit: I think it's the same!... Just dl'ed: yes.
+
Just checked the files in my 'emporium': it's the Leaper (Naxos), not the 1974 recording...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Albion

It also comes from the LP - a net-trawl of Havergal Brian and Aries brought it to the surface!

As a performance I think it holds up very well indeed.

A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Albion on December 31, 2010, 03:36:13 AM
As a performance I think it holds up very well indeed.
I agree. And it's good to have two performances, though neither performance leaves me quite as 'gutted' as Malcolm MacDonald's description in volume 1 of his Brian study should lead you to expect. The work needs a performance of enormous intensity to do it full justice. For instance - that orchestral passage in the middle movement, depicting the chariot of God, isn't as awe-inspiring as I would have wanted. You can tell the music is good, though.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Albion

Quote from: Jezetha on December 31, 2010, 03:47:09 AM
I agree. And it's good to have two performances, though neither performance leaves me quite as 'gutted' as Malcolm MacDonald's description in volume 1 of his Brian study should lead you to expect. The work needs a performance of enormous intensity to do it full justice. For instance - that orchestral passage in the middle movement, depicting the chariot of God, isn't as awe-inspiring as I would have wanted. You can tell the music is good, though.
I prefer this 1974 performance (despite it's limited sonics) to the Leaper recording - everything hangs together more convincingly and I think that the high quality of the music comes across much more clearly. From what I had read about the Poole performance I was expecting (at the least) some choral mishaps and uncertain orchestral playing - in fact, the achievement of the forces involved is quite breathtaking.
A piece is worth your attention, and is itself for you praiseworthy, if it makes you feel you have not wasted your time over it. (SG, 1922)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Albion on December 31, 2010, 04:00:05 AM
I prefer this 1974 performance (despite it's limited sonics) to the Leaper recording - everything hangs together more convincingly and I think that the high quality of the music comes across much more clearly. From what I had read about the Poole performance I was expecting (at the least) some choral mishaps and uncertain orchestral playing - in fact, the achievement of the forces involved is quite breathtaking.
Agreed, again. A friend of mine bought the Aries recording in London a long time ago (24 years), so that was the performance which introduced me to the work. I think it's better than the Leaper, too.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

J.Z. Herrenberg

Because it is so good and atmospheric, I'll give you Karim Elmahmoudi's impression (on Facebook) of the Brisbane Gothic in full. Let it be the last thing to appear on this thread before 2010 ends. 2011 should be another great year for Havergal Brian...

"I recently returned from Brisbane, Australia, where I heard a live performance of Havergal Brian's "Gothic Symphony". This work is the largest symphonic composition - officially recognized by the Guinness Book of Records (1974) as the largest, longest and most technically difficult symphony ever composed, it is widely regarded as the Mount Everest of classical music. The music required about 500-600 performers of great technical and musical skills.

Some quick statistics: It requires 8 fanfare trumpets, 10 percussionists, organ, 4 choirs plus an additional children's choir, 4 extra brass bands, 11 clarinets, 6 timpanists (an orchestra of 180). I auditioned to play one of the trombone parts. Though I wasn't selected, I was invited to attend the rehearsals which I gladly did since this is a work I have been greatly moved by since I first encountered it in its 1989 premiere recording. Plus it was great to make many new friends from Australia and elsewhere around the world.

This was the first time in 30 years since the piece was last performed and only the fifth time in history since its composition in the 1920's. This had to have ranked up in the top two or three live concert events I've ever experienced. The musicianship of the combined orchestras was exceptional and the impact of the performance was a truly shattering experience.

Knowing this work very well, I was concerned if a live performance would be able to capture it given its extreme technical challenges (for example, there are some moments where the choirs are broken down into 32 separate polyphonic parts), but I was thrilled at hearing the tremendous sound of the full collected forces in action! I'm certain this must have registered on the Richter scale somewhere as an earthquake. Along with some delicate moments, the music features some of the most intensely primal moments I have ever heard!

The collage of colors and sounds are so unique – there is a xylophone cadenza in the third movement against unison tubas that was executed extremely well by the performers. The momentum builds and builds with orchestral growls intensifying until the tension is unshakeable and then we hear unison trombone pedal tones blasting a hole in the opposite end of the concert hall.

During the performance, I really enjoyed sitting next to a kind audience member and her young daughter – neither of whom had ever heard of the Gothic Symphony but decided to attend out of curiosity. During the concert they were fully engaged and tremendously enjoyed the whole event and even some of the moments of musical barbarism. It was one of the quietest audiences because they were all so engaged and moved by the performance. Not a peep from anyone even considering this 115 minute work had no intermission. The concert quickly sold out so they opened up the dress rehearsal and that also filled up. The audience was very excited and gave a 10 minute standing ovation. Really, there is nothing I've encountered that is quite like this behemoth of a work."
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

J.Z. Herrenberg

Perhaps a funny place to do so, but I want to say I'll be off the radar temporarily. My novel demands my undivided attention if I want to get the first big part published later this year. Of course, Brian's music will accompany my labours...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato