BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Kenneth Woods
Christopher Gunning
Symphony no.8 (2015)
Symphony no.9 (2016)
Signum Classics SIGCD949 [67’33”]
Producer Phil Rowlands Engineer Mike Hatch
Recorded 11-13 March 2024, Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Signum Classics continues its coverage of the late Christopher Gunning with this coupling of two symphonies, a genre that dominated the composer’s thinking in later years, and which get the advocacy they deserve from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with Kenneth Woods.
What’s the music like?
Although he studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama with early ambitions as a symphonist, Gunning’s subsequent career was centred on scores for film and television with successful excursions into popular music. Not until 2001, when he was nearing 58, did he complete his First Symphony that was followed by a further 12 over the next two decades, along with several concertos and other orchestral pieces, in what is among the more notable instances of a composer moving between very different disciplines with comparable success.
Written for modest and what might be called ‘late-Classical’ forces, both symphonies are as integrated formally as they are resourceful motivically while, in both instances, movements are merely numbered rather than designated by tempo or expression. The Eighth Symphony consists of three movements unfolding from a sonata design of deft formal proportions with a slower introduction, via a slow movement whose ruminative cast is enhanced by plaintive contributions from flute and cor anglais, to a finale whose scherzo inclinations afford it an impetus and lightness maintained through to the decisive close. An earlier era of American symphonism (ostensibly that of Walter Piston or Randall Thompson) can be detected in its harmonic colouring and melodic contours, but Gunning’s personality is audible throughout.
Scored for slightly larger forces and with four movements, the Ninth Symphony feels no less focussed formally while admitting a wider range of or, at least, of more ambivalent emotions. Thus the opening movement again adheres to sonata design, with a more discursive (though never rhapsodic) take on its primary ideas. This is followed by a speculative or even fugitive scherzo, then a slow movement whose sustained eloquence arguably makes for the highlight of either symphony. It only remains for the finale, its progress as purposeful as it is eventful, to afford a conclusiveness that feels not at all premeditated, let alone predictable. If, in both these works, there is a tangible inner drama which is being played out, Gunning is first and foremost a symphonist for whom abstract concerns override any more subjective tendencies.
Does it all work?
It does indeed – thanks, above all, to Gunning’s unstinting focus on what symphonic form is and can be. Those familiar with any of his other symphonies will know that there is nothing anecdotal or half-baked about his handling of the genre, which emerges as the self-sufficient concept it ideally should be. It helps, of course, that Woods renders both these works with the insight expected from a conductor whose 21st Century Symphony Project has been crucial in rehabilitating the symphony in the UK, and who secures committed playing from BBCNOW.
Is it recommended?
Very much so. Recorded with all the necessary definition, and informatively annotated, this is well worth acquiring by those who are not yet acquainted with Gunning’s symphonic odyssey. Only recordings of the 11th, 13th and the revised First remain to complete an important cycle.
Listen / Buy
You can hear excerpts from the album and explore purchase options at the Signum Classics website, or you can listen to the symphonies on Tidal. Click on the names to read more about composer Christopher Gunning, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Kenneth Woods
Published post no.2,782 – Thursday 29 January 2026
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