by Ben Hogwood Photo by By Carl Van Vechten – Library of Congress
On this day in 1932, the first performance of Gershwin’s Cuban Overture took place in New York’s Lewisohn Stadium. Originally titled Rumba, its premiere with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Albert Coates was a success – and the work was renamed soon after. You can hear it below in a performance from the Orchestre national de France, conducted by Dalia Stasevska:
Published post no.2,628 – Saturday 16 August 2025
Havergal Brian
Symphony no.29 in E flat major (1967)
Symphony no.30 in B flat minor (1967)
Symphony no.31 (1968)
Symphony no.32 in A flat major (1968)
Philharmonia Orchestra / Myer Fredman (nos.29 & 32), Sir Charles Mackerras (no.31), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Lionel Friend (no.30)
Heritage HTGCD130 73’20”
Recorded 12 March 1979 (nos.29 & 32) and 16 March 1989 at Maida Vale Studio One, London (no.30), 9 January 1979 at Henry Wood Hall, London (no.31)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The enterprising Heritage label continues its coverage of Havergal Brian with this volume featuring the last four of his 32 symphonies, three of them in pioneering studio broadcasts that were organized by Robert Simpson during his last years as music producer at the BBC.
What’s the music like?
The 29th Symphony is the culmination of a classicizing tendency Brian pursued throughout the 1960s, falling into four continuous if clearly demarcated sections whose formal poise is matched by their lucidity of expression. Thus, a ruminative Lento then genial Allegretto are balanced by the rumbustious though not unduly truculent Allegros either side but it is those framing Adagio sections, launching the piece before bringing it full circle in a mood of rapt contemplation, which leave the deepest impression and so set the seal on an eloquent work.
Barely four months later, the 30th Symphony inhabits a wholly different and fractious world. Likely drawing on material for an abandoned opera on Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus, its two continuous parts unfold from a restive, increasingly ominous Lento into the most disjunctive of Brian’s numerous Passacaglia movements; its inherent logic countered at every stage with a visceral and even assaultive impetus prior to the suitably implacable apotheosis. Definitely a work for all times, and among a select handful of orchestral masterpieces from this period.
Five months later and the 31st Symphony emerges as among its composer’s most enigmatic statements, abetted by its single movement being the most seamless of Brian’s symphonies and the one whose key-centre is most difficult to discern. Evolving almost intuitively from casual gestures, it builds with unsparing focus towards a climax whose dynamism is thrown into relief by the inevitability of those final bars. Easy to underestimate in context, it might be considered a rule-book for Brian’s late maturity did it not break those rules at every turn.
Completed six months later, the 32nd Symphony is the longest work here – pursuing a sustained evolution across its four movements divided into two parts. Its thoughtful while not untroubled Allegretto is followed by an Adagio of keen inner strength, its seriousness of purpose subtly offset by a leisurely, often capricious scherzo then finale whose contrapuntal ingenuity underpins the determined onward course to a coda defiant in its resignation. Brian was to finish no further works, so leaving this symphony to stand as an inimitable testament.
Does it all work?
Yes, once the essence, recalcitrant but never intractable, of Brian’s symphonism in this final creative decade is grasped. It helps when performances of the 29th and 32nd were entrusted to Myer Fredman, his appreciation of Brian’s music evident elsewhere in this Heritage series, and the 31st to Sir Charles Mackerras who made a fine studio recording eight years on. The 30th is heard in a reading by Lionel Friend far more assured than its premiere by Harry Newstone, but it was not until Martyn Brabbins’s 2010 studio account that this work came into its own.
Is it recommended?
It is. The sound of the older performances has been cleaned up and opened out, much to their advantage, and that of the 30th offsets the dryness of the Maida Vale acoustic. John Pickard’s insightful booklet notes are further incentive to acquiring this welcome and necessary release.
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Published post no.2,627 – Friday 15 August 2025
The Parlour (1960-61)
Comic Opera in One Act (two scenes)
Libretto and music by Grace Williams, after En Famille by Guy de Maupassant
Grandmama – Edith Coates (contralto)
Papa – Edward Byles (tenor)
Mama – Noreen Berry (mezzo-soprano)
Louisa – Anne Pashley (soprano)
Augusta – Janet Hughes (soprano)
Aunt Genevieve – Jean Allister (mezzo-soprano)
Uncle Steve – David Lennox (tenor)
Doctor Charlton – John Gibbs (baritone)
Rosalie – Marian Evans (soprano)
Welsh National Opera Company, Welsh National Opera Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Bryan Balkwill
Lyrita REAM.1147 [79’32”, Mono/ADD] Producer John Moody
Broadcast performance from Odeon Theatre, Llandudno on 18 August 1966
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Lyrita continues its coverage of Grace Williams with this first commercial release of her only opera, taken from its first run by Welsh National Opera and so adding another major work to the discography of one who, almost half a century after her death, is finally receiving her due.
What’s the music like?
Although she was, by her own admission, brought up in a ‘singing tradition’ and experienced opera from an early age, it was only in 1959 that Williams was approached with a commission for one. Written to her own libretto, after the short story by Guy de Maupassant, The Parlour was completed two years later but not premiered until May 1966 – a subsequent performance being broadcast and heard here. There have since been semi-professional stagings in London (1974) and Cardiff (1993), but no further production from one of the main British companies.
Relocating this story away from Paris to an unspecified Victorian seaside town, Williams was mindful to maintain the petit-bourgeois conservatism and mendacity from that original setting. As a narrative it makes for pretty dispiriting reading, but the liveliness and wit of her libretto is rarely less than engaging, while her music hardly falters in bringing out the essence of the situation at hand. Eight out of nine singing roles get a turn in the spotlight, and though their profiles might not be sharply drawn, the interplay of characters as of voice-types is astutely managed. Orchestrally the score may lack the intensity of Williams’ other large-scale works, but its dextrousness and intricacy seem ideally suited to a domestic drama; with that pathos which frequently surfaces in her music being no less evident during the opera’s final stages.
Vocally there are strong contributions by Edith Coates as the implacable grandmother, from Edward Byles as her always put-upon son and from Noreen Berry as her perennially hapless (and luckless!) daughter-in-law. Anne Pashley and Janet Hughes become one as her witless grand-daughters, with Jean Allister and David Lennox ideally cast as her favoured daughter and her wheedling son-in-law. John Gibbs makes the most of her doctor in all his contrived bluffness or feigned disinterest, and Marian Evans chips in as the dim-witted family servant. The Welsh National Opera Company and Chorus betray occasional tentativeness, but swift-moving passages for the neighbours lack little of focus or discipline – from a time when this organization was in the process of making its transition from amateur to professional status.
Does it all work?
It does, not least owing to the excellence of this performance. WNO did not then have its own orchestra, but the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is more than equal to the task of projecting Williams’s eventful score with the necessary clarity and verve, while it responds with alacrity to the direction of the company’s then music director Bryan Balkwill. The mono broadcast has come up more than adequately in its remastering, and this set comes with the full libretto and insightful annotations from Paul Conway in what is a typically excellent Lyrita presentation.
Is it recommended?
It is. The Parlour is unlikely to have a professional staging any time soon, making this release of more than archival interest. Could Lyrita acquire the 1963 broadcast of Daniel Jones’s The Knife, intended to be staged with the Williams in what would have been a weighty double-bill.
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Published post no.2,626 – Thursday 14 August 2025
from the press release, edited by Ben Hogwood
Currently readying a new album for release next year, and ahead of his October tour, Beverly Glenn-Copeland today shares highly emotive and deeply moving cover versions of two Marvin Gaye classics, What’s Going On and Save The Children, via Transgressive Records. Marvin Gaye’s landmark album What’s Going On delivered a profound message of unity and social awareness. Released in 1971, the album confronted pressing issues such as war, racism, and police brutality, all while urging us to care more deeply for one another and the world we share. All these themes can be connected to the events of today and have moved Glenn deeply: Gaza, the attacks on Trans rights and the Black Lives Matter movement. These new recordings are Glenn’s personal response to our current times and articulate the mission behind all of his music: to bring communities together, build collective resilience and speak truth to power.
Commenting on the two cover versions Glenn says: “Marvin Gaye was my teacher. Though I didn’t get the chance to meet him in this life, his untimely death broke my heart. I still listen and learn from his wisdom. Marvin’s music is prophetic and his message of unity through love still rings true today. I’m honoured to be covering these two deeply meaningful songs that captured the zeitgeist of a nation at a pivotal time in our shared history. Listen to his introspective lyrics. Dance to his soulful grooves. Get yourself alive in the hands of a master and heed his call.”
Glenn will soon be returning to these shores for a highly-anticipated October UK tour. These are his first UK shows since 2019 and the extraordinary career renaissance triggered by the rediscovery of his classic Keyboard Fantasies album. The tour will see Glenn-Copeland perform tracks from his acclaimed 2023 album The Ones Ahead as well as fan favourites from across his storied career, accompanied by creative partner and musical producer Elizabeth Copeland.
Published post no.2,625 – Wednesday 13 August 2025
by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
State Change is a suite of ‘seven electro-acoustic tone poems’, from a deeply personal source. When aged seven, Molly Joyce was involved in a car accident that resulted in a permanent injury to her left hand, which was nearly amputated. A great deal of surgery was carried out to restore the hand to something approaching working order, though even now it is still impaired.
State Change is a musical representation of the medical procedures and records behind the slow route to recovery. Joyce was keen, however, for the album not to be a ‘pity party’, but to turn her experience into music.
What’s the music like?
Direct and unflinching, the album unfolds with seven tracks whose titles reflect key dates in the injury and recovery process. August 6, 1999 – the day of the accident – opens with a single, unblinking sine wave, that proves a little uncomfortable in the wrong environment, but opens out to be quite a sonorous drone accompaniment to a melody of long phrases, its roots in chant. The words are matter of fact but describe the situation with unflinching accuracy – ‘Skin is…minimal…flap is…needed.
August 9 1999 is painful, recovery far from the mind as Joyce deploys her ‘chest voice’, shrouded in distortion. The next week, just after a solar eclipse, August 13 + 16 1999 are more fragile but also submissive, the procedure of back to back surgeries showing the shoots of recovery. Distortion and drones are the constant accompaniment, at times intensely threatening – the surgery especially – and culminating in a scream generated by experimental artist Fire-Toolz.
At other times the drones provide comfort, especially when surgery is done. November 24, 1999 moves slowly, Joyce’s vocal an out of body experience, before April 19, 2000 and October 26, 2001 find calmer waters, the latter a release through the removal of pins from her hand. July 27, 2007 is made with the left hand itself using a music glove, and produces music of rare tenderness and vulnerability, the scar size reduced.
Does it all work?
This is vividly descriptive music, and its intensity certainly won’t suit all occasions. Yet State Change is fiercely personal, and has at its core a lasting resolve that makes a strong impact on the listener.
Is it recommended?
It is. A deeply courageous album, a story of overcoming adversity. State Change may be slow moving and is occasionally painful to take in, but it is ultimately a life-affirming album, a release from captivity.
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Published post no.2,624 – Tuesday 12 August 2025
Arcana.fm 