On Record – Michael Collins, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Rumon Gamba – Arnold: Clarinet Concerto no.1, Philharmonic Concerto etc (Chandos)

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Arnold
Commonwealth Christmas Overture Op.64 (1957)
Clarinet Concerto no.1 Op.20 (1948)
Divertimento no.2 Op.24 / Op.75 (1950)
Larch Trees Op.3 (1943)
Philharmonic Concerto Op.120 (1976)
The Padstow Lifeboat Op.94a (arranged for orchestra by Philip Lane)

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Rumon Gamba

Chandos CHAN20152 [68’50″’]
Producers Brian Pidgeon and Mike George Engineers Stephen Rinker, Richard Hannaford and John Cole
Recorded 5 & 6 December 2019, 29 July at MediaCity UK, Salford

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This collection of six pieces from Sir Malcolm Arnold’s composing career stretches from one of his first published pieces, Larch Trees, to one of his last, the Philharmonic Concerto. Both were written for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, for whom he played trumpet from 1941 until 1948, and with whom he maintained a close association as a composer.

In between these pieces Chandos have chosen a satisfying mix of styles to reveal Arnold as a multi-faceted composer, not just the humourous one of which we hear most. That side of his writing is happily celebrated through The Padstow Lifeboat and the Divertimento no.2 for orchestra reveals the happiness he found through writing for children and young people, being young at heart himself.

The Commonwealth Christmas Overture finds Arnold in commission mode, called upon to write the music for Royal Prologue: Crown and Commonwealth, a programme narrated by Sir Laurence Oliver to preface the 25th Christmas speech by a ruling monarch. Completing the collection is the first of many concertos from Arnold’s pen, and the first of two for clarinet.

What’s the music like?

Chandos have already presented us with a good deal of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s music, and this is further enhanced by a programme giving us first recordings and revealing each side of the composer’s personality.

The Commonwealth Christmas Overture gets proceedings off to a suitably ceremonial start, with plenty of bluster and high jinks, all buoyed by colourful percussion. The influence of William Walton is immediately evident, for the main theme has more than a little in common with his own ceremonial march Crown Imperial, but Arnold goes on to develop it in his own inimitable way.

The Clarinet Concerto is a compact piece, deft and slightly bluesy in the outer movements but pausing for meaningful reflection in the Andante, the emotional centre of the work.

The Second Divertimento, long thought lost, is a fun piece where a lot happens in nine minutes! Using a traditional-sounding structure, Arnold has a lot of fun with the bracing Fanfare, atmospheric Nocturne and grand Chaconne, harnessing the power of the large orchestra.

The two pieces for the London Philharmonic are next, and are vividly contrasting pieces of work. Larch Trees is an evocative musical sketch, reminiscent of Moeran in the way it pans out over the rugged terrain of northern England, while also confiding intimately in its listeners through the woodwind. The Philharmonic Concerto is more obviously noisy and confrontational, this late work utilising the dissonance which will be noted by those familiar with Arnold’s later symphonies. This is not comfortable music but it is brilliantly written, challenging the orchestra to throw off their shackles. The probing violin lines of the Aria offer a chance for deeper reflection.

Finally The Padstow Lifeboat, one of Arnold’s brass band treasures, with its persistent ‘wrong note’ which warns all shipping. It makes for the ideal sign-off.

Does it all work?

Yes, and wonderfully so. Rumon Gamba has enjoyed a long and fruitful association with Arnold’s music and comes up trumps here, leading the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in some characterful and personal accounts. Arnold could hardly wish for better advocacy and understanding, the conductor charting his youthful prowess in Larch Trees, whose softer contours benefit from excellent recording by the Chandos engineers.

The Clarinet Concerto no.1 is brilliantly played by Michael Collins, negotiating the wide leaps of the solo part with aplomb, while responding with grace in the soulful slower sections. The strings of the BBC Philharmonic exploit the depths of the darker slow movement, its temperature appreciably colder by the end.

Is it recommended?

Enthusiastically. This is an anthology that will appeal to seasoned Arnold listeners, for its mix of the familiar and a curio or two, while it is also the ideal place for those new to the composer. If you are after some music to combat the onset of January, you have come to the right place!

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For more information and purchasing options on this release, visit the Chandos website

Switched On – Liela Moss: Internal Working Model (Bella Union)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Former Duke Spirit vocalist Liela Moss has big plans for her third solo album. Co-written with her partner Toby Butler, Internal Working Model sees her ‘imagining a tribe, navigating away from our very centralized culture, dismantling it and revising the way I think things work’.

Central to her principles are the idea of cooperation rather than competition, and the idea that we should be speaking out more against global manipulators, greed and corruption. To that end, her and Butler chose a more upfront, electronic sound than she has used previously, and also some notable guests – Gary Numan, The Savages’ Jehnny Beth and Dhani Harrison.

What’s the music like?

Sticking to its brief, Internal Working Model presents a bold musical language. Moss is a compelling vocalist, taking charge from the outset and making her points with poise and conviction.

Empathy Files is a very strong opener, both musically and lyrically, with a sinister undertone as the chorus notes, “We’ve got data for miles on you”. Another standout song is Vanishing Shadows, where Moss and Gary Numan have a compelling frisson between the voices, not to mention a standout chorus. Ache In The Middle presents stronger tones of regret (“I could have been so happy, there would have been peace”), while the preceding The Wall From The Floor also speaks with anguished tones. “I can’t tell the wall from the floor any more”, she sings.

The drums play a bit part on Internal Working Model, adding power to Come And Find Me and ballast to the final call to arms, Love As Hard As You Can. With guest Dhani Harrison, Moss signs off on a high, looking to the future with renewed optimism and a steely gaze.

Does it all work?

Largely. Moss has a powerful message to bring, and delivers it with wholly convincing vocals. The electro production has bags of attitude too. On occasion more distinctive melodies would be welcome in the songs, to match the fine production.

Is it recommended?

Yes. As a statement of intent, and a rousing call for the start of a new year, Internal Working Model is a resolute piece of work. Moss is a compelling singer, a voice pushing to be heard.

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Switched On – Moby: Ambient 23 (Always Centered At Night)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Moby is a man of many musical genres, but ambient music is the form that pulls him back most regularly; the style of music in which he feels most at home. His first Ambient release, titled as such, was in 1993 and made subtle waves with its undulating textures and slightly mournful soundscapes, presenting the vision of a man at home in a bedroom studio. As time has progressed so the ambient forms have become longer, culminating in the Long Ambients release of 2019, written to accompany yoga sessions, and a volume of improvised Live Ambients in 2020.

This release is made, in Moby’s words, ‘almost exclusively with weird old drum machines and old synths from my collection, inspired by my early ambient heroes’. By these he means Brian Eno, Martyn Ware, Jean-Michel Jarre and Will Sergeant.

Released for the new year, Moby also says Ambient 23 was written to ease anxiety, with the accompanying wish that ‘we all stop looking for validation from a culture we don’t respect’.

What’s the music like?

As soothing as you can imagine – and an ideal complement to the previous Long Ambients releases. The colours fashioned from the older equipment are a factor of this, and Moby finds a wide expanse of space by writing very slow moving melodic lines. The sounds will be familiar to long-time Moby listeners, with fuzzy textures from the surrounding white noise, elegant piano playing and broad string-based sounds.

The pieces have functional titles, but different characters. amb23-3 has a poised melody from an electronic cello equivalent. amb23-4 feels like a living and breathing organism, before ushering in a slowly dancing treble line amb23-6 has calming chords returning regularly like waves. amb23-9 is ideally weighted, alternating between two thick chords that are nicely weighted, but by contrast amb23-5 floats effortlessly, with ambient white noise in the background. The dappled piano figures of amb23-10 are softly affecting, amb23-11 is like a distant breath of wind, while the piano strokes of amb23-12 are like distant bells.

Does it all work?

It does, provided the listener’s expectations are for pure ambience and nothing more! That said, Moby knows how pace a longer musical structure, and each of these gets into a zen state very quickly.

Is it recommended?

It is – the ideal antidote to the January blues and any accompanying pressure. The serenity of Moby’s ambient music can get you through.

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For more listening and purchase options, head to Moby’s website

Switched On – Blanck Mass: The Rig (Original Series Soundtrack) (Invada)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is the first TV soundtrack by Benjamin Power, aka Blanck Mass – a surprising state of affairs, given Power’s prolific output as a composer. It would seem he has been biding his time, for as part of the duo Fuck Buttons he released three albums, as well as providing a good deal of music for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London 2012.

Since then he has turned to solo work as Blanck Mass, building a reputation for electronic music of unusual and uncompromising power, with a further five albums under his belt. The Rig is heading up Amazon Prime’s selection of January viewing, a six-part season with a stellar cast directed by Line of Duty stalwart John Strickland. In it, the crew of a North Sea oil rig encounter unseen forces that cut them off from the mainland, with far reaching consequences for their environment and the crew on board.

What’s the music like?

As with all the best soundtracks, Power’s response is one that vividly captures the environment. The weighty main theme is ideally pitched, punching through with concrete-heavy beats that capture the industry, the majestic yet brutal outlines of the right.

The early numbers draw the listener in, setting the scene as the main characters are revealed and established, and conveying the mysterious circumstances the crew find themselves in. Inevitably some of these sketches are short, and work best in the context of the full album, but the disorientation of both personnel and environment proves unnerving for the listener too.

At the same time the ongoing industrial processes are reflected in the clattering percussion (Flesh Meets Floor), the dripping pipes, the echoing chambers and the misty outlines of the vast structure. The unseen menace of the sea is there, too. Sometimes we fall back to companionship, often laced with uncertainty (Ghost), while key scenes such as Helideck build momentum. Power responds to the scenes in kind, moving between the claustrophobic corridors and dimly lit offices of the rig to the vast open reaches of the North Sea.

There are some striking moments. No Fore Without Flare captures the drama of that particular sequence, while We’ll Bring Him In is loaded with emotion. Charlie sends out wails of anguish, realised fully in the extended portrayal of The Wave. This is where the bottom drops out of the music, Power using subtle but striking pitch variations to maximise the discomfort. The story ends in relative comfort but the lasting dread remains.

Does it all work?

Yes. Inevitably there are descriptive elements to the score that are short and undeveloped, but when listened to as a whole the music for The Rig contains a great deal of substance. Power paints a vivid picture of the surroundings without ever resorting to cliché, and there are moments of keen emotion as the characters take over.

Is it recommended?

Wholeheartedly. His previous albums as Blanck Mass suggested Benjamin Power would take to the small screen like a duck to water – and The Rig is proof positive that he has.

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In concert – CBSO / Gergely Madaras: Mahler Symphony no.1

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Mahler Blumine (1884)
Larcher Symphony no.3 ‘A Line above the Sky’ (2018-19) [CBSO Centenary Commission: UK Premiere]
Mahler Symphony no.1 in D major (1887-88. rev. 1898)

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Gergely Madaras

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 12 January 2023

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures below (c) Hannah Fathers

Following on its customary Viennese New Year concert, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra continued 2023 with this coupling of Austrian symphonies – Mahler’s first such effort being juxtaposed with one of the most substantial among the orchestra’s Centenary Commissions.

Chamber and vocal pieces having established his name, Thomas Larcher has since tackled the symphonic genre with a vengeance – his Third Symphony, inspired by the ultimately tragic exploits of mountaineer Tom Ballard, considering notions of the elevated and sublime across two (more or less) continuous movements as articulated by an orchestra awash with untuned percussion plus an arresting ‘keyboard’ section of piano, celesta, cimbalom and accordion. The timbral and textural range was accordingly wide, though the tendency to veer between passages of amorphous pitch and those where an insipid modality too often failed to afford resolution or fulfilment – whether in those abrupt contrasts of the initial movement or more cumulative unfolding of its successor – meant the whole felt less than the sum of its parts.

Not in doubt was the excellence of the performance, the CBSO audibly attuned to the many expressive nuances of Larcher’s writing with Gergely Madaras (above) securing a traversal which endowed the piece with a logic and cohesion as might otherwise have been more apparent than real. Already performed in Brno, Bregenz, Amsterdam and Valladolid, this marks a further intriguing stage in its composer’s symphonic odyssey and certainly asks the right questions even if the answers seem, at least on a first hearing, to be less than convincing.

Much the same was doubtless levelled at Mahler’s ‘Symphonic Poem in Two Parts’ on its Budapest premiere in 1889 and while what had become his First Symphony almost a decade later does away with even a vestigial programme, it remains a difficult piece to make cohere. Madaras succeeded admirably for the most part – adroitly negotiating the first movement’s quirky unfolding from shimmering miasma, via folk-like geniality, to ecstatic arrival; then imbuing the scherzo with an appealing rusticity, though not even such subtle inflections of phrasing could make the trio sound less mundane than it is. As so often, the highlight was a ‘funeral march’ whose gaunt double-bass melody (eloquently rendered by Anthony Alcock) launched a movement whose intermingled irony and pathos was judiciously characterized.

Madaras duly had the measure of an infernal finale whose martial opening stage brought a visceral response from the CBSO (above), its strings heard to enticing effect in the languorous (but not too cloying) melody that follows. The central climax was finely prepared, and if more might have been made of that otherworldly passage where the main motifs are recalled as though through the ether, the approach to the peroration was vividly sustained – standing horns and trombones adding to the impact of the closing pages in their unabashed overkill.

It was astute programming to open with Blumine, salvaged by Mahler from earlier incidental music as second movement in early hearings of this symphony only to be excised thereafter. With trumpeter Jason Lewis heard to enticing effect, it here made for an atmospheric entrée.

You can read all about the 2022/23 season and book tickets at the CBSO website. Click on the artist names for more on conductor Gergely Madaras and composer Thomas Larcher