Havergal Brian.

[Lethevich]

Please feel free to begin a thread on Mathias - I strongly admire his first two symphonies and would love to see some more discussion on him (I try to recommend the Nimbus disc every now and again, but no takers - surprising, as the style seems bang on what some users of the forum enjoy).

[cilgwyn]

I liked them,personally,but some critics used to grumble about them!  But what do they know. I recently bought the Bryden Thomson of Bax's Second Symphony, (I have had the box set for years). According some critics it's horribly reverberant. I bunged it on. Right from the opening,it sounds so exciting,so spectacular. What's their problem?
  Incidentally,in the circumstances,stating that 'I'm no engineer' has got to be a gross understatement.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I liked them,personally,but some critics used to grumble about them!  But what do they know. I recently bought the Bryden Thomson of Bax's Second Symphony, (I have had the box set for years). According some critics it's horribly reverberant. I bunged it on. Right from the opening,it sounds so exciting,so spectacular. What's their problem?
  Incidentally,in the circumstances,stating that 'I'm no engineer' has got to be a gross understatement.

I love that, too! Wonderful. Give me symphonies 1, 2 and 3 with Thomson any day.

[cilgwyn]

Thomson's the best!!!!

[cilgwyn]

I'm suprised a Mathias thread had few visitors. He often got it in the neck for being a little too populistic!

[cilgwyn]

Sincere apologies for posting three in a row,but on the topic of sound engineering,I'm afraid I can't resist this one. I have been playing some early orchestral recordings. I just compared Tchaikovsky's 3rd symphony conducted by Albert Coates in 1932 (Biddulph) & the Naxos recording of the same work. I could swear that the 1926 recording is clearer,sharper and more detailed!!!!

[cilgwyn]

Apologies,I meant 1932.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I don't mind your hwyl, cilgwyn... 


I am savouring early Brian at the moment. The man was an original from the start, with a feel for orchestral sonority that is uniquely his own, as is his sense of structure. All he needed was a further maturing, but everything was there ab ovo.


P.S. You can use the Modify button to edit, cilgwyn...

[cilgwyn]

Thanks. It looks like I might be using that allot!
I note the 'pianist' in 'Festal Dance'. Now that I definately missed in the Naxos. It doesn't sound zany enough without it, Although,it may have been optional?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

A piano in 'Festal Dance'?! I had forgotten that. The organ in the 'Fantastic Variations' is optional, too, but I wouldn't want to miss it for the world!

By the way - I noticed a premonition of 'Festal Dance' in the final mvmt of the 1st English Suite...

[vandermolen]

Ok,just back from 'hyperlink boot camp'!
Regarding Mathias. I like his music. Also the way allot of his music reflects his love of jazz. Definately underrated,although not an original like HB,to whom this thread is indeed dedicated. I didn't know he had any association of any kind with the LSSO,so it's rather funny I brought his name up. And talkng about funny,but not funny ha! ha! Funnily enough,I got hold of another Welshman,Daniel Jones's Symphony No 2. While copying it to a cd-r I found to my dismay that Grace Williams First Symphony was too long to fit,so I added Hoddinott's Seventh for organ & orchestra. Not a composer I usually warm too,but this,to use a decidely unintellectual term,is a bit of a cracker! And a little on the 'Gothicky' side,itself.
   Back to the subject of this thread! I have been enjoying the Hull Youth in their new cd incarnation & I think they sound even better than they did before. Although,at the same time.one part of me keeps thinking that this is the sort of cd reissue that confirms Lp enthusiasts feelings that good old vinyl sounds more lifelike.  I'm still a happy bunny though!

OT
Coincidentally listened to Mathias Symphony No 1 last night (on a fine Lyrita CD with Joubert's equally good Symphony No 1). The Mathias has a great tune at the end - which I find very inspiriting.

[John Whitmore]

More English stuff to consider. Although Tippett is my own favourite of the late 20th Century Brits I'm also a Bliss fan and was fortunate enough to have played under him with the LSSO. A true gentleman. Here's a link to the LSSO playing the brilliant Introduction and Allegro conducted by Sir Arthur. Scrappy in places and a horrid Decca recording (Studo 3 West Hampstead) but very uplifting music. I've also added on YouTube, in 5 parts, a documentary about the 1975 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production of Lady of Shallot from 1975 which includes a short section of Sir Arthur playing the piano in his London home. By the way, I took the HB Unknown Warrior documentary off my old YouTube channel but then reinstated it on a channel called john1951w. The cyberpolice tracked me down but hopefully they will now leave me in peace and let good old Havergal alone. I've updated the HB Wiki site to reflect this change and also added links to the 1998 Symphony 10 rehearsals. Scroll to the bottom. Terrible audio quality from 1998 but my camcorder was just about to die. I also mention Johan in the article. The 1st trumpet in 1998 is James (Jimmy) Watson. A really good friend who was principal trumpet with the RPO/Covent Garden/London Sinfonietta/Phil Jone BE. Prof Watson, head of brass at the Royal Academy, died suddenly last month aged 59. A true world star. I now cherish these fleeting moments of his playing and - as usual - larking about!! A great player but an entertaining funny bloke. Sitting next to him is Richard ("Bex") Bissill, 1st horn of the LPO. Here are the Bliss links:

http://www.mediafire.com/?kgiumma4lwm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2-UQK_ZqZ0

[cilgwyn]

I have all the Mathias Nimbus & Lyrita cds. I like all or at least most of his music. I think his concerto's & some of his choral music are of more than local (Welsh) interest. Daniel Jones is more thorny & perhaps less consistent,but he really does deserve & need a re-assessment. A complete cycle of his symphonies is long overdue.
  Regarding early Brian. I love that thrilling way he brings in that organ too! Listening to all those Hull Youth SO recordings, (incidentally,thank you to that dodgy seller!) really does bring home,at least for me,what's wrong with those professional Naxos performances. For example,Dr Merryheart,which usually eludes me,is an ear tickling bon bon of Beechamesque endearment in this performance. Yes,the strings are a bit scrapy & slightly off key,but the whole concoction just glitters. Which makes you wonder just what Beecham & the RPO could have done with it if they had been able to record it. As to 'In Memoriam'. Sorry Naxos,no competition! This youthful rendition is the real deal.The Naxos performance sounds flat by comparison. Where's the feeling,the passion? Playing Elgar's own recording of his First symphony earlier today only seemed to confirm my feelings about this.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Nice post, cilgwyn! Yes, give me passion and enthusiasm and a few off strings don't matter that much. You get carried along. I, too, am much more positive about the HYO than I was 25 years ago.

[cilgwyn]

Incidentally is it only a coincidence that Brian &  Holbrooke composed variations on a 'three blind mice' theme around the same period?
Also,whatever happened to Tippett? You barely seem to even hear his name these days. Is Tippett a neglected composer now?!

[cilgwyn]

They're like 'The Two Ronnies'. They seem better now than they did then.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

'The Two Ronnies' - haha! 'It's good night from me, Havergal'...

[Luke]

Also,whatever happened to Tippett? You barely seem to even hear his name these days. Is Tippett a neglected composer now?!

Not in my house he isn't, don't worry!

[karlhenning]

I hardly feel that I've been neglecting him of late, myself . . . .

[not edward]

This is resurrecting a comment from a couple of pages back, because every time I tried to do this post the browser crashed or I got distracted by work or something.

It's a piece which doesn't pay lip service to symphonic form but which really understands what lies at the roots of that form and is thus able to reinvent it in a completely successful, compelling way.

I think this is a perfect description of the success of the 8th. (It also would be a good description of some other eccentric yet symphonic works--Tippett's 4th, I'd say, or Langgaard's 4th and 6th.)

a piece which rewrites what a symphony can be from the inside, an explosive confrontation between two musical types which grows ever more extreme until it bursts into the extraordinary final passacaglie: the sonata principle reimagined with complete conviction and purpose, expressed using material of a really high quality, not a note too many, every nuance memorable.

Again, a perfect description, and this one I think could maybe be generalized somewhat: a rather fertile area in the 'post-sonata-form' aesthetic seems to me to be where a dialectical process fails, or isn't given time to reach synthesis, and some kind of new material undercuts it and provides a fitting conclusion. I'm thinking here, for example, of Schnittke (tonal/atonal mediated by some kind of musical found object, for example B-A-C-H in Quasi una sonata); Tippett (I'm thinking of the 3rd symphony and the way that the first three movements present a fast/slow dichotomy which can't be resolved because of the harmonic stasis latent in both types of material, but where a second dialectical process pitting the Schrekenfanfare against Tippett's 'blues' breaks this stasis); Ligeti (clocks and clouds resolved by a new type of material in the 2nd quartet or by the machinery going wrong in parts of the Chamber Concerto), not to mention the chorale with trumpet in Honegger's 2nd and the arrival of Es ist genug in the Berg violin concerto--of course Mahler's the unseen presence here and in Schnittke.