Thanks; here goes nothing!
This week I've been diving into the back-catalogue of Lyrita Records, more or less alphabetically.
First up: an exploration of Lennox Berkeley, a composer I'd previously known only from a couple small chamber pieces and an excellent orchestration of Poulenc's Flute Sonata. That Poulenc arrangement might still be my favorite Berkeley - but the Serenade for String Orchestra gives it a run for its money. The Serenade is a short piece, only about 13 minutes, and a totally winning one. There's a whole great English tradition of this kind of easygoing but deeper-than-expected string music, and Berkeley's contribution is one of the best I've heard so far. If it was coupled on a disc with Vaughan William's Tallis Fantasia and the Elgar string stuff, it would not suffer too much in the comparison.
"Mont Juic" is a suite of Catalan folk dances jotted down and orchestrated with considerable panache (in fact, maybe a bit too much panache) by a young Berkeley and his equally youthful friend, Benjamin Britten. Britten wrote the last two, Berkeley the first two. There's not a clear difference between their contributions, aside from Britten drawing the lucky straw and writing up the slow, sad, more-interesting third dance. This is a fun piece. The all-Berkeley Divertimento did not really stick in my memory.
I listened to the piano concerto on Monday, as a big fan of pianist David Wilde, but already can't remember anything about it except that the slow movement was fairly pretty and well-scored. So far I've only listened to Symphony No. 1, not 2 or 3, but No. 1 is the sort of basically-conservative yet slightly-gnarly-so-as-to-prove-its-unwimpiness music that a lot of British composers turned out in the 1930s-50s. Dave Hurwitz compares it to Roussel but that makes no sense to me - it lacks the joie de vivre and memorable tunes. The same goes for the First Symphony by...
...Arnold Cooke, but he can be forgiven that, because he was a student of Hindemith's. I really liked Cooke's admirably concise Third Symphony, and will maybe write about it later. The Suite to Jabez and the Devil, while maybe not quite as colorful as it sounds, is nevertheless plenty extroverted and entertaining, and if you're hoping the devil will pull out a country fiddle and play a tune, you're in luck.
My favorite discovery of the week so far, by far, is Frank Bridge's Dance Rhapsody, a truly exuberant piece from early in his career (1908) which is all masquerades, fizzing glasses of Veuve, and big bubbly tunes. Its episodes are fairly clearly delineated, too, so you always have a handle on the piece's structure. Dance Poem takes more of a sour turn - the last section is actually marked "Disillusion" - but if you want a cynical take on a Viennese waltz, there's only one standard-setter and that's by Maurice Ravel. Dance Rhapsody is the keeper, a ton of well-made fun.
Overall, though, the composer who's most promising as a potential new personal favorite is John Ireland. Simply put, I liked everything here. The piano concerto may not be the most promising example of its kind, but the Legend, which has a piano soloist playing a fairly minor supporting role, is much more atmospheric and intriguing, with a beginning that bodes well for the disc. The Satyricon overture's a lot of fun, and the Symphonic Studies are decent enough filler (orchestrated by Geoffrey Bush). Boult and the LPO are mighty fine throughout. In fact, all these composers are quite lucky to have attracted Lyrita's support, since the label seems to have invariably hired good-to-great conductors and top-notch London orchestras. Plus very well-engineered for their times.
My explorations will no doubt continue. For now, taking a break to try some things discussed on previous pages of this thread. The Bax string quartets are indeed very enjoyable.
