Havergal Brian.

[Dundonnell]

My goodness

I just googled Rutte, who, as you know, is unmarried. You wouldn't credit....well you probably would.....the sort of "speculation" all over the net Have people nothing BETTER to do with their time

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Well, I know Mark Rutte is married to power. The speculation can stop. 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

My first thoughts about the Dutton CD...


I think the man (or woman?) responsible for putting it together, should receive an award, the four pieces work together tremendously well. The Tinker's Wedding and English Suite No. 4, which show Brian in a lighter vein, flank the far weightier Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 13. The two latter works may be very different, written as they are in different periods of Brian's career, but because you listen to them consecutively, one thing strikes you very strongly about the symphony - that it's so full of solos. Symphony No. 13 is a strange beast, as Malcolm MacDonald also notices in his excellent liner notes. It is a work full of stops and starts. It is riven in two, with a second half partly recovering from that 'catastrophe', and then gathering new strength, building to a triumphant conclusion.


I think Brabbins understands Brian's style almost completely by now. My slight reservation ('almost') has to do with the fact that he can be too brisk. It's perfectly fine for The Tinker's Wedding, which gets its best performance so far. In retrospect Mackerras is far too ponderous. The piece needs ebullience and speed, and we get those with Brabbins. But in Symphony No. 13 there are moments where I think the tempo is a bit rushed. Still - a very idiomatic performance, in great sound. On to the The Violin Concerto - this gets a wonderful performance, and - slower than both the Holmes and the Bisengaliev! I think Lorraine McAslan put the brakes on Brabbins. Her approach is very lyrical. I don't think Brian ever sounded so mellifluous and sweet. Perhaps the tempo of the final movement is a tad too deliberate, but that's just nit-picking. As for English Suite No. 4 - after having been used to the Heriot Orchestra, this almost came as a shock. It's a really fun and inventive piece. It makes for a raucous conclusion to one of the best CDs to appear during this Second Wave of the Brian Renaissance.


I intend to listen to the VC with a score, just to see whether the slower tempo is 'correct'...

[John Whitmore]

My first thoughts about the Dutton CD...


I think the man (or woman?) responsible for putting it together, should receive an award, the four pieces work together tremendously well. The Tinker's Wedding and English Suite No. 4, which show Brian in a lighter vein, flank the far weightier Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 13. The two latter works may be very different, written as they are in different periods of Brian's career, but because you listen to them consecutively, one thing strikes you very strongly about the symphony - that it's so full of solos. Symphony No. 13 is a strange beast, as Malcolm MacDonald also notices in his excellent liner notes. It is a work full of stops and starts. It is riven in two, with a second half partly recovering from that 'catastrophe', and then gathering new strength, building to a triumphant conclusion.


I think Brabbins understands Brian's style almost completely by now. My slight reservation ('almost') has to do with the fact that he can be too brisk. It's perfectly fine for The Tinker's Wedding, which gets its best performance so far. In retrospect Mackerras is far too ponderous. The piece needs ebullience and speed, and we get those with Brabbins. But in Symphony No. 13 there are moments where I think the tempo is a bit rushed. Still - a very idiomatic performance, in great sound. On to the The Violin Concerto - this gets a wonderful performance, and - slower than both the Holmes and the Bisengaliev! I think Lorraine McAslan put the brakes on Brabbins. Her approach is very lyrical. I don't think Brian ever sounded so mellifluous and sweet. Perhaps the tempo of the final movement is a tad too deliberate, but that's just nit-picking. As for English Suite No. 4 - after having been used to the Heriot Orchestra, this almost came as a shock. It's a really fun and inventive piece. It makes for a raucous conclusion to one of the best CDs to appear during this Second Wave of the Brian Renaissance.


I intend to listen to the VC with a score, just to see whether the slower tempo is 'correct'...

Beware. The score is just the starting point. Not sure what you mean by correct. That's probably why you've put punctuation marks around the word. If everyone stuck to the exact tempi in the score (they aren't always marked anyway) there would only be one way of doing things and it would be pretty dull out there. Paray and Klemperer, for example, are from different planets in Beethoven 6 but both sound interesting. Klemperer didn't have a set tempo. His chosen tempo depended on the orchestra and the acoustic and how he felt on the day. That was crucial to his art. He was really only interested in clarity of articulation. A busy score such as Walton's Partita wouldn't work in, say, the Festival Hall or the Musikverein with the same tempi. You need to listen and adjust. Shostakovitch was legendary for not putting accurate metronome markings in his symphonies. When challenged as to which were the correct tempi when listening to recordings that were nowhere near each other he said something along the lines of "I like both". Great comment. The issue is - does the chosen tempo work, not whether or not it's in the score. You mention the soloist putting the brakes on. That's exactly how it should be. She's the soloist and it's her interpretation. Nigel Kennedy's Elgar is (in my opinion) still the best around - he pulls it all over the place but my goodness it works because he's committed and the music still has structure and beauty. In his two recordings both Handley and Rattle follow him superbly. I'm sure Brabbins does exactly that in this new recording of the Brian. l await the CD with interest. It cost me an outrageous 6 quid so it better be good. The other recordings I have in my collection by her are top quality. I hope you receive the parcel I sent you pdq.

[John Whitmore]

Can I go off topic for a minute? The new Berlioz Fantastic Symphony on Naxos (Slatkin/Lyon) is magnificent. The level of orchestral polish is staggering and Tim Handley's engineering is as natural and detailed as anyone could wish. Unless you have issues with tubular bells being used in the last movement (I couldn't care less) this is recording that goes straight in very close to the top of the list. It also includes the only version of The Corsaire I've ever heard that stays together in the opening bars ( a rare miscalculation by the composer?). Jaw dropping stuff.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Yes, I put quotation marks around 'correct' for exactly that reason. The slower tempo works for the Violin Concerto. It's in Brian's very full, 'early mature' style, with a mass of detail, which is now brought out very clearly. In this respect, I really hope Brabbins is allowed to do Nos. 2 and 3 one day... Other symphonies he should do are 14 and 28. But let's enjoy the CD on offer here and now!

[John Whitmore]

Yes, I put quotation marks around 'correct' for exactly that reason. The slower tempo works for the Violin Concerto. It's in very full, 'early mature' style, with a mass of detail, which is now brought out very clearly. In this respect, I really hope Brabbins is allowed to do Nos. 2 and 3 one day... Other symphonies he should do are 14 and 28. But let's enjoy the CD on offer here and now!

Is the violin  in the right proportion or recessed as was being suggested? The sample I heard sounded very good.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I think balance is excellent. No complaints from my quarter

[John Whitmore]

I think balance is excellent. No complaints from my quarter

And the other three quarters?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Just found the remaining three - they appear to be in agreement... ;-)

[Dundonnell]

Regarding tempi......may I remind you of the most extraordinary comparison I know-Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No.7.

Now Arnold's 7th is an angry, grim, despairing work, written during a dreadful period in his life. The first recording on disc on Confer by the RPO under Vernon Handley clocks in at 37.43 minutes. Rumon Gamba with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos speeds the work up to 31.52 minutes. I am not sure how long Andrew Penney for Naxos takes for the work but his recording of Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 combined take 63.55 minutes.

When Arnold himself conducted the work in concert in its first broadcast performance (which I taped), the works lasts a full 50 minutes because Arnold slows the middle movement so much. For a symphony in one performance to take almost 20 minutes longer than in another seems extraordinary to me. Did the composer know what he was doing? Did he really want it like that? Did he rethink the work? Or are these perfectly legitimate ways of looking at the same piece? I don't know. Can both work? That will depend on a listener's perspective.

We can consider the score to be the ultimate arbiter which must determine the speed to be taken-if, as John says, the composer has provided explicit instructions, which is not always the case. Or we can offer a different way of looking at the music.

[Dundonnell]

I should add though, that having waited a full week for the Dutton disc to reach Johan in Delft, it is splendid to hear that he is so impressed by the disc and that he concurs with my initial assessment that Brabbins is now totally "inside" the Brian idiom.

I am also interested to read his response to the English Suite No.4. From being a work which was very much a "side-note" to one's appreciation of Brian this piece now seems to me a "little masterpiece" which grows and grows on me to the point where I find it perfectly fascinating.
Of course it is "easier" to listen to and assimilate than the thicker textures of the symphonies but that does allow the scoring to be more easily appreciated and how beautifully orchestrated it actually is.

The 13th Symphony has never sounded better and "The Tinker's Wedding" (which Mackerras probably threw in without giving it as much attention as the symphonies he was recording) is clearly given the reading it really requires.

A all-round triumph in my opinion and one which, if there is any justice, Dutton will now follow up by asking Brabbins to record the 14th, 19th and one, at least, of the later symphonies. (I fear that Nos. 2 and 3 might be a bit ambitious for Dutton.)

[John Whitmore]

I should add though, that having waited a full week for the Dutton disc to reach Johan in Delft, it is splendid to hear that he is so impressed by the disc and that he concurs with my initial assessment that Brabbins is now totally "inside" the Brian idiom.

I am also interested to read his response to the English Suite No.4. From being a work which was very much a "side-note" to one's appreciation of Brian this piece now seems to me a "little masterpiece" which grows and grows on me to the point where I find it perfectly fascinating.
Of course it is "easier" to listen to and assimilate than the thicker textures of the symphonies but that does allow the scoring to be more easily appreciated and how beautifully orchestrated it actually is.

The 13th Symphony has never sounded better and "The Tinker's Wedding" (which Mackerras probably through in without giving it as much attention as the symphonies he was recording) is clearly given the reading it really requires.

A all-round triumph in my opinion and one which, if there is any justice, Dutton will now follow up by asking Brabbins to record the 14th, 19th and one, at least, of the later symphonies. (I fear that Nos. 2 and 3 might be a bit ambitious for Dutton.)

Well that's the nail hit very firmly on the head. It's the thick texture of his symphonies that show his weakness, time and time again. He's a composer who manages to sound thick and undernourished at the same time, especially in the strings. In comparison, scores such as Don Quixote are teeming with ideas and counterpoint, the pages are packed with notes and yet everything comes through. I really do wish that Brian had been more savvy in the art of how to write for an orchestra. Maybe it's that he rarely had the chance to hear what his stuff sounded like. A few sessions with Strauss and Ben Britten wouldn't have gone amiss.

[calyptorhynchus]

Well that's the nail hit very firmly on the head. It's the thick texture of his symphonies that show his weakness, time and time again.... A few sessions with Strauss and Ben Britten wouldn't have gone amiss.

And yet I never listen to Strauss, a composer whose compositions seem like the height of musical vulgarity to me, and rarely to Britten, who seems emotionally anorexic/frigid.

Ain't personal taste a funny thing.

[Dundonnell]

Indeed....musical taste is a "funny thing"

.....but, I feel compelled to add that there is no way on this planet that I could accept the description of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs as being at "the height of musical vulgarity"(however one might describe any other of Strauss's compositions). The work moves me emotionally as few other works have ever done. And, although Benjamin Britten is far from my favourite composer and many of his works do leave me relatively cold, the outpouring of emotion in the Sinfonia da Requiem, written both in response to the death of his parents and to the outbreak of the Second World War, cannot, surely, be described as "emotionally frigid"; the work boils over with anguish, despair and anger.

However...these are personal responses. Others, no doubt, will see things differently.

[John Whitmore]

And yet I never listen to Strauss, a composer whose compositions seem like the height of musical vulgarity to me, and rarely to Britten, who seems emotionally anorexic/frigid.

Ain't personal taste a funny thing.

I don't care much for Britten and don't admire everything by Strauss BUT as masters of the orchestra they were on a different planet to our mate HB. That's the point I was trying to make. Strauss Horn Concertos vulgar? Don't think so.

[calyptorhynchus]

I don't care much for Britten and don't admire everything by Strauss BUT as masters of the orchestra they were on a different planet to our mate HB. That's the point I was trying to make. Strauss Horn Concertos vulgar? Don't think so.

My point was I'm not going to listen music simply because it's well-orchestrated. It has to be good music too. If it's both, all well and good, if not well-orchestrated, it's still better than bad music well-orchestrated.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Britten and Strauss are excellent composers (and experts of the orchestra), and I do like several works by both of them (Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem, the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, Young Apollo; Strauss: Salome, Elektra, Frau ohne Schatten, Ariadne auf Naxos, many of the symphonic poems, Vier letzte Lieder, Metamorphosen). Still, I return to Brian more often. Britten can be too frugal and Strauss too voluptuous and sweet. Brian is powerful, mercurial, dramatic and I love the sound of his orchestra, warts and all.

[Mirror Image]

Regarding tempi......may I remind you of the most extraordinary comparison I know-Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No.7.

Now Arnold's 7th is an angry, grim, despairing work, written during a dreadful period in his life. The first recording on disc on Confer by the RPO under Vernon Handley clocks in at 37.43 minutes. Rumon Gamba with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos speeds the work up to 31.52 minutes. I am not sure how long Andrew Penney for Naxos takes for the work but his recording of Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 combined take 63.55 minutes.

When Arnold himself conducted the work in concert in its first broadcast performance (which I taped), the works lasts a full 50 minutes because Arnold slows the middle movement so much. For a symphony in one performance to take almost 20 minutes longer than in another seems extraordinary to me. Did the composer know what he was doing? Did he really want it like that? Did he rethink the work? Or are these perfectly legitimate ways of looking at the same piece? I don't know. Can both work? That will depend on a listener's perspective.

We can consider the score to be the ultimate arbiter which must determine the speed to be taken-if, as John says, the composer has provided explicit instructions, which is not always the case. Or we can offer a different way of looking at the music.

Sounds like I need to revisit Arnold's 7th! My kind of work! Colin, you always inspire me to listen to works I haven't heard in so long. I think I'll listen to the Handley performance. I have two to choose from: Handley and Penny.

[Dundonnell]

Britten and Strauss are excellent composers (and experts of the orchestra), and I do like several works by both of them (Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem, the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, Young Apollo; Strauss: Salome, Elektra, Frau ohne Schatten, Ariadne auf Naxos, many of the symphonic poems, Vier letzte Lieder, Metamorphosen). Still, I return to Brian more often. Britten can be too frugal and Strauss too voluptuous and sweet. Brian is powerful, mercurial, dramatic and I love the sound of his orchestra, warts and all.

Interesting

Britten can be too "frugal" Would you care to elaborate As I said above, Britten is far from my favourite composer(I spent my teenage years defending Walton against Britten's domination of British musical taste ) but I would say that in the Sinfonia da Requiem, the closing pages in particular of the Violin Concerto and in the superbly scored Sea Interludes from "Peter Grimes" (all written when he was still a very young man) he touches real greatness and that the passion which emanates from all three of these works is neither "frigid" nor "frugal".

I also note that you do instance the Four Last Songs amongst your favourite Strauss compositions. There are two pieces of music which invariably- and I say this without shame or embarrassment move me to tears: the Four Last Songs and the last movement of Mahler's 2nd (and remember I am not a Mahlerian, infinitely preferring Bruckner....sorry, John).

I am not going to defend my emotional reaction to or enormous esteem for these two works but I do not believe I need to. No counter-argument that anyone could put forward would sway a personal response which, ultimately, comes from the soul.