Havergal Brian.

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

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J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Apollon on March 31, 2011, 04:47:01 AMYou guys! (Aye, Scarps, too.)  As my final music purchase for a month, I went and pulled the trigger on this two-fer.

A sensible investment, old bean.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Lethevich

It's kind of ridiculous how that EMI twofer seems to have gone out of print - it's the best and cheapest intro to the composer's music - even better than the Lyrita disc.

Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on March 30, 2011, 09:44:12 PM
Here, btw, is a review (from 1978) of the Groves recording of symphonies 8 and 9, by David Rudkin. It is by no means uncritical of Havergal Brian, but fair. (I found it on that great resource, JStor, which I can access through the Royal Library in The Hague.)


http://www.mediafire.com/file/fkxd7k2xkrjscnw/David%20Rudkin%20-%20Review%20of%20Brian%27s%208th%20and%209th%20%281978%29.pdf


And here a review by Christopher Norris from 1975, of the Lyrita recording of Symphonies 6 & 16 and the CBS recording with Symphony No. 22, Psalm 23 and the English Suite No. 5 (with the LSSO):


http://www.mediafire.com/file/ttk8pf7h2qcq5y5/Review%20by%20Christopher%20Norris%20of%20the%20Lyrita%20and%20CBS%20Brian%20LPs.pdf

That site's inaccessability, and yet ability to produce Google hits, has given me so many opportunities to rage over the past few years :) Thanks for sharing!
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

karlhenning

Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on March 31, 2011, 06:13:57 AM
A sensible investment, old bean.

I share your sense of the 17th and 32nd being less strong than the Gothic (and yet, perfectly likeable on their own merits). I am confident that there is musical good to be had from this new 'shot in the dark' : )

Luke

You won't regret it. As Sara says, the best single purchase one can make, Brian-wise. As I've repeated ad nauseum, I think the 8th is a simply phenomenal piece, my favourite Brian symphony, and its two bookends, 7 and 9, both also to be found on this set, are similarly wonderful. 7 is a big work, 8 and 9 more concise.

vandermolen

Quote from: cilgwyn on March 29, 2011, 02:12:55 PM
No.thank you for the offer,but I think I'll resist for the time being. I think you need it more than me. Anyway,I have the cd-r's & to be honest I have just spent a bit of a packet on some historical recordings. Some very strange people actually prefer listening to a couple of blokes playing into a horn or a 1920's microphone rather than something in state of the art digital sound. (I've got Dan Godfrey's 1920's recordings of VW's 'London Symphony' on at the moment.) But not all the time I hasten to add!
Brian's 'Gothic' could have been recorded in 1928!

NB: Dan Godfrey strikes me as a much better conductor than the jobber he's made out to be by some,judging by these recordings. Very impassioned playing & the swish of the shellac only adds to the evocative atmosphere.
Symposium have done a good job. Recommended!!!

OT - pity that Godfrey's performance is so chopped about and does not include that wonderful section in the epilogue which VW later excised (a mistake I think as this is for me the high point of the London Symphony) and which can still be heard in recordings by Goosens and Hickox.

Back on topic - I agree that Brian's Symphony No 8 is the best of all.
"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).

John Whitmore

Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on March 30, 2011, 09:44:12 PM
Sorry for having guarded Brian's music jealously for so long, brother Scarpia...


Here, btw, is a review (from 1978) of the Groves recording of symphonies 8 and 9, by David Rudkin. It is by no means uncritical of Havergal Brian, but fair. (I found it on that great resource, JStor, which I can access through the Royal Library in The Hague.)


http://www.mediafire.com/file/fkxd7k2xkrjscnw/David%20Rudkin%20-%20Review%20of%20Brian%27s%208th%20and%209th%20%281978%29.pdf


And here a review by Christopher Norris from 1975, of the Lyrita recording of Symphonies 6 & 16 and the CBS recording with Symphony No. 22, Psalm 23 and the English Suite No. 5 (with the LSSO):


http://www.mediafire.com/file/ttk8pf7h2qcq5y5/Review%20by%20Christopher%20Norris%20of%20the%20Lyrita%20and%20CBS%20Brian%20LPs.pdf

Johan, thanks for sending me the JStor review of the Pye Tippett/LSSO 1968 LP. This always popped up on Google but I couldn't access JStor which was infuriating. I've also read the HB JStor reviews. Very interesting reading. Is there anything from 1972 with regard to the Unicorn 10/21?

J.Z. Herrenberg

#886
Quote from: Johnwh51 on March 31, 2011, 09:40:41 AM
Johan, thanks for sending me the JStor review of the Pye Tippett/LSSO 1968 LP. This always popped up on Google but I couldn't access JStor which was infuriating. I've also read the HB JStor reviews. Very interesting reading. Is there anything from 1972 with regard to the Unicorn 10/21?


I think I saw something on my latest trawl. I'll look into it later tonight.


Later: I found this short review of the CBS record by Robert Anderson, from The Musical Times:


http://www.mediafire.com/file/29ddl1hdhd2kdko/Robert%20Anderson%20-%20review%20%281975%29%20LSSO%20Brian%20%28CBS%29.pdf


There are many obituaries after Brian's death, and I think some of them will contain references to the LSSO performances. All in good time...


Still later: No. Didn't find a thing. But this early analysis by Deryck Cooke of The Gothic, ahead of the Boult performance in 1966, is interesting:


http://www.mediafire.com/file/fqf2pz4oos7wfhr/Deryck%20Cooke%20on%20The%20Gothic%20in%201966.pdf
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Luke

Thanks for those! That article by Cooke is great - he describes the music well, precisely, succinctly, picks up on all the most salient points, and with a huge amount of understanding and sympathy. Lovely to read.

Klaatu

Yes J Z - thanks indeed for those Mediafire links. I was especially gobsmacked by David Ruskin's summing-up of Brian's oeuvre:

(Brian's music)....embodies a man's insistence on the unique significance of his own life's inner journey, in a political environment increasingly hostile to the inner life.

Those final words could hardly be more apt today, and perhaps this is which HB's work holds such a fascination for so many of us on this Forum.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Klaatu on March 31, 2011, 11:28:14 PM
Yes J Z - thanks indeed for those Mediafire links. I was especially gobsmacked by David Ruskin's summing-up of Brian's oeuvre:

(Brian's music)....embodies a man's insistence on the unique significance of his own life's inner journey, in a political environment increasingly hostile to the inner life.

Those final words could hardly be more apt today, and perhaps this is which HB's work holds such a fascination for so many of us on this Forum.


As I read Rudkin's article some time ago, I had forgotten that quote. But yes - that's it, absolutely. Brian stayed doggedly true to his own inner vision and realised it against all odds. Every great artist does, of course. But the majority of them get recognised to make the journey less hazardous. That Brian outfaced all neglect is, to me, a continued inspiration. Apart from writing some of the richest and most powerful music I know.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

J.Z. Herrenberg

Deryck Cooke also wrote the programme to go with the Gothic performance in 1966. For the sake of completeness, I have also uploaded a scan of that (courtesy of a fellow GMG member) . Cooke characterises the climax of the Vivace very aptly...


http://www.mediafire.com/file/fc8cd3pv222z46h/HB_Gothic_programme_1966.zip
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Lethevich

Danke for that, I like to read every scrap I can find about composers I have an interest in.

One day some enlightened individual will torrent every Musical Times article from JSTOR :P Heck it might be me if I ever encounter a library PC (that actually has access to it ) with a working USB port and no firewall preventing scripts. Okay that doesn't sound very likely :'(
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Shostakovich on April 01, 2011, 11:48:56 AM
Danke for that, I like to read every scrap I can find about composers I have an interest in.

One day some enlightened individual will torrent every Musical Times article from JSTOR :P Heck it might be me if I ever encounter a library PC (that actually has access to it ) with a working USB port and no firewall preventing scripts. Okay that doesn't sound very likely :'(


If you ever get an infuriating Google hit for JStor, contact me... I also have access to Project Muse and other resources.


I also saw some early articles by Robert Simpson about Brian, but they don't add anything to what we already know. Though they are of historic interest, of course.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Leo K.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Shostakovich on April 01, 2011, 11:48:56 AM
Danke for that, I like to read every scrap I can find about composers I have an interest in.

One day some enlightened individual will torrent every Musical Times article from JSTOR :P Heck it might be me if I ever encounter a library PC (that actually has access to it ) with a working USB port and no firewall preventing scripts. Okay that doesn't sound very likely :'(

I have access to JSTOR on my work PC. I'm always printing out good music articles... 8)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Leo K on April 01, 2011, 04:24:07 PM
I have access to JSTOR on my work PC. I'm always printing out good music articles... 8)


Work PC? Printing things out?! I have access at home, 24/7.  :P
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Scarpia

Listened to Brians symphony No 8 properly, twice through.  Certainly there is a lot to be impressed with, beautifully wrought, cathartic sonorities, some really fine writing for brass.  However there is a certain kaleidescope quality, nothing seems to establish itself definitively before the proceedings break off and something else starts to develop.  I find myself wondering what the point of it all is.  Is it expressionistic, is it mystical, is it purely intellectual?  I find myself somewhat puzzled as to where this symphony is going.
 

J.Z. Herrenberg

I think you 'got' the symphony, Scarpia. There are no winners in this work, there is no outcome. The work ends in the same darkness it started with. Two principles are at war - a militaristic, a lyrical one. Brian lets them 'battle it out', but neither is victorious. In the next symphony there is a triumph, but it doesn't seem really earned. Only in the Tenth you get a sense that Brian reaches a higher perspective - at the end of that work, there is a mystery, too. But not a dark one, like in the Eighth. More a sort of stoic acceptance of everything life can throw at you.


Your impression of a kaleidoscope is right, too. There are a lot of gear changes in Brian. One thing starts, stops, another thing begins. But all through that fragmentation a form is taking shape, in a very unconventional way. It can take some getting used to... When you listen to the Seventh, you'll encounter a more traditional structure, but still filled with unexpected twists and turns.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Leo K.

Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on April 02, 2011, 12:35:25 AM

Work PC? Printing things out?! I have access at home, 24/7.  :P

Lucky!  8)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Leo K on April 03, 2011, 10:50:43 AM
Lucky!  8)


Paid for, through my membership of the Royal Library...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Luke

Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on April 03, 2011, 10:24:55 AM
Listened to Brians symphony No 8 properly, twice through.  Certainly there is a lot to be impressed with, beautifully wrought, cathartic sonorities, some really fine writing for brass.  However there is a certain kaleidescope quality, nothing seems to establish itself definitively before the proceedings break off and something else starts to develop.  I find myself wondering what the point of it all is.  Is it expressionistic, is it mystical, is it purely intellectual?  I find myself somewhat puzzled as to where this symphony is going.


As Johan said, that's basically it - the kaleidoscopic thing is very Brian! And Johan's analysis of the piece is also how I hear it - the military and the lyrical impulses playing off each other, forcing each other to new extremes, heights and depths. In the end, though, the symphony finds another way forwards, the switching to and fro is put aside and the music focuses on those two passacaglie. When I was talking about the way in which I hear this symphony putting aside symphonic convention and yet remaining true (truer than most, too) to what the idea of what 'symphony' really means, I was in part talking about the way Brian treats the idea of dichotomy in this piece.


Re the discontinuities - they are very much a part of Brian's style, something that he put there very deliberately and which can easily prove a stumbling block. Malcolm Macdonald points out that there are quite a few instances  when it seems as if the discontinuities have been imposed from outside, as it were - just gaps in the music, or changes of orchestration, and that if the gaps are closed up and the orchestral changes effaced by playing the whole thing on a piano, the music is often (certainly not always) revealed to have been a continuous polyphonic web. This is a strange compositional procedure - to create something continuous, and then to hide that continuity - and maybe tells us something about the way Brian composed, how he thought, what he valued in his music. But it also offers the listener a way in, too - try to hear the continuities even at the abrupt changes, and things may start to 'sound' differently.