Tag Archives: Havergal Brian

On Record – Havergal Brian: Symphonies nos. 29 – 32 (Heritage Records)

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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

On Record – Helen Field, David Wilson-Johnson, soloists, Millennium Sinfonia / James Kelleher: Havergal Brian: The Cenci (Toccata Classics)

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Brian
The Cenci (1951-2)

Helen Field (soprano) Beatrice Cenci
David Wilson-Johnson (baritone) Count Cenci
Ingveldur Ýr Jónsdóttir (contralto) Lucretia
Stuart Kale (tenor) Cardinal Camillo/An Officer
Justin Lavender (tenor) Orsino/Bernardo
Jeffrey Carl (baritone) Giacomo/Savella/First Judge/Second Judge
Nicholas Buxton (tenor) Marzio/Third Guest/A Cardinal
Devon Harrison (bass) Olimpio/Colonna/Third Guest
Serena Kay (soprano) First Guest/Second Guest
The Millennium Sinfonia / James Kelleher

Toccata Classics TOCC0094 [two discs, 101’32’’]
Producer & Engineer Geoff Miles Remastering Adeq Khan
Live performance, 12 December 1997 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics fills a major gap in the Havergal Brian discography with this release of his opera The Cenci, given its first hearing 27 years ago by a notable roster of soloists with The Millennium Sinfonia conducted by James Kelleher, and accorded finely refurbished sound.

What’s the music like?

The third among the five operas which Brian completed, The Cenci emerged as the second of its composer’s seminal works inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). While his ‘lyric drama’ on the first two books of Prometheus Unbound (1937-44) had set its text almost word for word, Brian was ruthless in adapting his ‘tragedy in five acts’ – the outcome being a rapid traversal of a drama whose themes of incest and parricide made it publicly unstageable in the UK until 1922, some 103 years after publication in Livorno where it had partly been written.

Two further operatic treatments emerged either side of that by Brian. Berthold Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci (1949-50) won first prize in the Festival of Britain opera competition in 1951 but itself went unheard 1988 (ironically enough, in a concert performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall), and Alberto Ginastera’s Beatrix Cenci (1970-71) went unstaged in his native Argentina until as recently as 2015. Whereas both these operas centres on the heroine of Shelley’s play, Brian’s focusses more on its ensemble as to content with the emphasis shifting from father to daughter as it unfolds. Compared to the poised yet rather self-conscious lyricism favoured by Goldschmidt or the full-on expressionism of Ginastera, moreover, its often circumspect and sometimes oblique emotional demeanour renders Shelley’s drama from an intriguing remove.

Not its least fascination is the Preludio Tragico that, at 14 minutes, is less an overture than an overview of what ensues – akin to Beethoven’s Leonora No. 2 in its motivic intricacy and expressive substance – which would most likely warrant a balletic or cinematic treatment in the context of a staging. Perfectly feasible as a standalone item, this received its first hearing in 1976 and was recorded by Toccata Classics in 2009 (TOCC0113). Ably negotiated by his players, Kelleher’s lithely impulsive account accordingly sets the scene in unequivocal terms.

What follows are eight scenes which encapsulate this drama to compelling if at times reckless effect. The initial three scenes correspond to Shelley’s first act and culminate with the gauntly resplendent Banquet Scene, but Brian’s fourth scene goes straight to the play’s fourth act with the despairing exchanges of Beatrice and Lucrecia. The fifth scene finds daughter and mother in a plot to murder Count Cenci that soon unravels, then the last three scenes take in Shelley’s fifth act as fate intervenes with Beatrice, Lucretia and stepbrother Giacomo facing execution. Save for a crucial passage where the Papal Legate arrives to arrest Cenci, omission of which jarringly undermines continuity in the fifth scene, Brian’s handling of dramatic pacing leaves little to be desired – the one proviso being the excessive rapidity with which certain passages, notably several of Cenci’s, need to be sung that would have benefitted from a slight easing of tempo. Musically, this is typical of mature Brian in its quixotic interplay of moods within that context of fatalism mingled with defiance as few other composers have conveyed so tangibly.

Does it all work?

Very largely, owing to as fine a cast as could have been assembled. Helen Field is unfailingly eloquent and empathetic as Beatrice, with such as her remonstrations at the close of the fifth scene and spoken acceptance at that of the eighth among the highpoints of mid-20th century opera. David Wilson-Johnson brings the requisite cruelty but also a sadistic humour to Count Cenci, and Ingveldur Ýr Jónsdóttir is movingly uncomprehending as Lucretia. The secondary roles are expertly allotted, notably Justin Lavender’s scheming Orsino and stricken Bernardo. The Millennium Sinfonia responds to Brian’s powerful if often abrasive writing with alacrity under the assured guidance of James Kelleher, and if the sound does not make full use of the QEH’s ambience, its clarity and immediacy tease unexpected nuance from the orchestration.

This set comes with two booklets. One features the libretto devised by Brian, duly annotated to indicate omissions or amendments (yet a number of anomalies in this performance remain unaccounted for). The other features Shelley’s own preface to the first edition, with articles by Brian afficionados including John Pickard’s informative overview of the music and Kelleher’s thoughts on its performance. Charles Nicholl’s speculations as to the ‘real’ Beatrice Cenci are more suited to activities on a culture cruise than to Brian’s opera but are entertaining even so.

Is it recommended?

It is indeed. The Cenci is unlikely to receive further performances (let alone staging) any time soon, so this reading gives a persuasive account of its manifest strengths and relative failings. Kelleher is ‘‘formulating plans to return to conducting’’ and ought to be encouraged to do so.

Listen & Buy

You can listen to samples and explore purchase options on the Toccata Classics website Click on the names for more on conductor James Kelleher and to read more about the opera at the Havergal Brian Society website

Published post no.2,298 – Wednesday 11 September 2024

On Record – Roderick Williams, Rupert Marshall-Luck, BBC Concert Orchestra / John Andrews – La Belle Dame (EM Records)

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Roderick Williams (baritone) (Holst, O’Neil, Quilter & Scott), Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin, Brian), BBC Concert Orchestra / John Andrews

Brian orch. Marshall-Luck Legend B144 (c1919)
Delius Petite Suite d’Orchestre no.1 RTVI/6 (1889-90)
Holst Ornulf’s Drapa H34 (1898, rev. 1900)
Mackenzie Colomba Op.28 – Prelude (1883)
O’Neill La Belle Dame sans Merci Op.31 (1908)
Quilter orch. anonymous The Faithless Shepherdess Op.12/4 (1908)
Scott The Ballad of Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Op.8 (1900)

EM Records EMRCD085 [61’21’’] English texts included
Producer Neil Varley Engineers Andrew Rushton, Robbie Hayward
Recorded 5-7 January 2023 at Battersea Arts Centre, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

EM Records continues its enterprising schedule with this collection of mainly vocal settings from the early twentieth century – heard alongside early orchestral pieces by Mackenzie and Delius, plus a recent orchestration of what is Havergal Brian’s only surviving chamber work.

What’s the music like?

This album’s title is also that of the 1819 poem by John Keats, its tale of ecstasy recollected in despair tangibly conveyed by Norman O’Neill in a setting which surely ranks among his finest concert works before music for theatre productions became his focus. Only marginally less compelling, Cyril Scott’s take on a typically over-elaborate ballad by Walter Scott has a keen sense of atmosphere – not least as rendered by Roderick Williams with an appropriate Lowland burr. Less involving emotionally, Holst’s setting of verse from an early Ibsen play is rather forced in its rhetoric – though the passages of emotional impulsiveness, allied to an acute feeling for orchestral textures, does presage those masterpieces of his maturity. Roger Quilter’s setting of a favourite Elizabethan lyric launches the collection with brusque charm.

Of the orchestral pieces, Delius’s early Première Petite Suite is here heard in full for the first time. Influences are easy to discern – Bizet in its whimsical Marche, Grieg in its winsome Berceuse, Massenet in its vivacious Scherzo then Fauré in its plaintive Duo – but never to the detriment of this music’s appeal, while the final variations on a sternly unison theme with ecclesiastical overtones will keep even seasoned Delians guessing as to its provenance. The likelihood of Alexander Mackenzie’s lyrical drama Colomba being revived is slim, but the Prelude to its first act has an evocative ardency which concludes this album in fine style.

John Andrews has the measure of these contrasting idioms and gets committed playing from the BBC Concert Orchestra. Roderick Williams is on fine form, as is Rupert Marshall-Luck in the Legend by Havergal Brian he himself has orchestrated. Ranging widely in expressive profile, while building considerable fervour during its relatively brief span prior to a calmly eloquent close, it is a stylish adaptation of the violin-and-piano original which has enjoyed increasing exposure this past decade. Marshall-Luck speculates whether Brian intended his own orchestral realization yet, given the composer had evidently written an orchestral piece with this title around 1915, it seems not impossible that the duo version is itself a reduction.

Does it all work?

Yes, in that the whole proves greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, the works by Scott and O’Neill find these contemporaneous while otherwise very different figures at something near their best, while the Delius makes for an attractive sequence which deserves more than occasional revival. As, too, does the Brian given that comparable shorter concertante pieces by figures such as Saint-Saëns are being taken up by a younger generation of violinists. The spacious sound and extensive annotations are both up to EMR’s customary high standards.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Hearing the Holst prompts the thought that, with the 150th and 90th anniversaries of his respective birth and death falling this year, now would be the ideal time for revival of his orchestral suite Phantastes – which has seemingly remained unheard since its 1912 premiere.

Listen & Buy

La Belle Dame is due for release on 19 April, but you can hear excerpts and look at purchase options on the EM Records website. For more information on the artists click on the names of conductor John Andrews, baritone Roderick Williams, violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck and the BBC Concert Orchestra

Published post no.2,126 – Saturday 23 March 2024

On Record: RPO, LPO / Myer Fredman – Havergal Brian: Symphonies nos. 8,9,22 & 24 (Heritage)

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Brian
Symphonies – no.8 in B flat minor (1949); no.9 in A minor (1951); no.22 in F minor, ‘Sinfonia Brevis’ (1964-5); no. 24 in D major (1965)

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (nos.8,9 & 22), London Philharmonic Orchestra (no.24) / Myer Fredman

Heritage HTGCD146 [77’46’’]

Broadcast performances from St John’s, Smith Square, London on 28 March 1971 (nos. 9 & 22) Maida Vale Studios, London on 27 June 1971 (no.8) and 1 April 1973 (no.24)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Heritage continues its releases of pioneering symphonic broadcasts by Havergal Brian with this issue of performances from the 1970s conducted by Myer Fredman, two of these being world premieres in what was a productive decade for furthering the music of this composer.

Born in Plymouth and later resident in Australia, Fredman (below) (1932-2014) set down Bax’s first two symphonies, together with Brian’s Sixth and Sixteenth Symphonies (Lyrita) that remain among the finest such recordings. He also made studio broadcasts of the present symphonies which, as John Pickard indicates in his detailed booklet notes, are among the most revealing of Brian performances from the period either side of the composer’s death – making them a natural inclusion for a series such as that now undertaken by the enterprising Heritage label.

What’s the music like?

This was the fourth hearing of the Eighth Symphony, coming after two live broadcasts with Adrian Boult in 1954 and one by Rudolf Schwarz in 1958. In many ways a template for what came after, its single span elides sonata-form and multi-movement design with a cohesion the greater for its overt unpredictability. The initial rhythmic figure (one of Brian’s most striking such openings) is not quite together, but thereafter Fredman exerts firm while never inflexible control over the interplay of martial dynamism and contemplative stasis, building its central climax superbly if losing momentum into the contrasted passacaglias – the second of which brings only a fugitive calm in its wake. Commercially recorded by Charles Groves in 1977 (EMI/Warner) and Alexander Walker (Naxos) in 2016, this work awaits public performance.

Preceded by live broadcasts with Norman del Mar in 1958 and ’59 (the latter now on Dutton), the Ninth Symphony features three continuous movements that outline a Classical framework. Fredman launches the initial Allegro with due impetus and charts a secure course through its quixotic changes of mood – the hushed transition into the reprise especially striking. He is no less focussed in a central Adagio whose musing reverie is constantly undercut by militaristic aggression, a reminder Vaughan Williams’s Sixth had appeared three years before, while the final Allegro tempers its festive cheer with a plaintive interlude which even the jubilant coda only just outfaces. Surprising that since Groves’ public performances in Liverpool and at the Proms in 1976, then his commercial recording a year later, this work has remained unheard.

The remaining performances are both world premieres of works which form outer parts of a symphonic triptych. Lastly barely 10 minutes, the Twenty-Second is (as its subtitle implies) the shortest of Brian’s cycle if hardly the least eventful. More impulsive than Lázsló Heltay with his 1974 recording (CBS/Heritage), let alone Groves in his spacious 1983 performance, Fredman teases out the eloquence of the initial Maestoso through to its fervent culmination, then brings a deft nonchalance to the ensuing Tempo di marcia such as makes contrast with its baleful climax the more telling. Brooding and fatalistic, the coda ranks among the finest passages in post-war symphonic literature and Fredman captures its essence. Walker comes close with his 2012 recording (Naxos), but this account effortlessly transcends its 52 years.

A pity Fredman never tackled No. 23, who three Illinois hearings by Bernard Goodman in October 1973 make it only the Brian symphony premiered outside the UK, but he did give the Twenty-Fourth. After its intense then impetuous predecessors, this one-movement piece feels more expansive for all its methodical ingenuity. The martial opening section is adroitly handled so its breezy extroversion reveals unexpected inwardness towards its centre then at its close; a whimsical and lightly scored interlude making way for the (relatively) extended adagio which, in its searching if often equivocal repose, brings both this work and those two before it to an affirmative end. Walker’s 2012 account (Naxos) enables all three symphonies to be heard in consecutive order, but the insights of this first performance remain undimmed.

Does it all work?

Almost always. Fredman has an audible grasp of Brian’s often elusive thinking, so that these performances unfold with a formal inevitability and expressive focus often lacking elsewhere. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra betrays passing uncertainty with Brian’s more idiosyncratic touches, whereas the London Philharmonic Orchestra copes ably with what is among his most approachable later symphonies. Heritage has done its customary fine job opening out the sound, and anyone who knows these performances through the pirated Aries LPs will be delighted at the improvement.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Those familiar with these symphonies from the studio recordings will find Fredman’s interpretations an essential supplement. Hopefully this series will continue apace, ideally with John Poole’s 1974 performance of the Fourth or Harry Newstone’s 1966 take on the Seventh.

For purchase information on this album, and to hear sound clips, visit the Heritage website. For more on the composer, visit the Havergal Brian Society – and for more on Myer Fredman, visit a dedicated page on the Naxos website

On record – Havergal Brian: Symphonies 3 & 17 (New Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Stanley Pope) (Heritage)

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brian-heritage

Brian
Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor (1931-2)
Symphony No. 17 (1960-61)

Ronald Stevenson, David Wilde (pianos, Symphony no.3); New Philharmonia Orchestra (Symphony no.3), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Symphony no.17) / Stanley Pope

Heritage Records HTGCD153 [67’26”]

Recorded 12 January 1974 and 23 June 1976 at BBC Maida Vale Studios, London

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Heritage has followed its release of Charles Groves’s centenary accounts of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony (Part One) and In Memoriam with this first official issue of the composer’s Third and Seventeenth Symphonies, as given in their first performances under Stanley Pope.

What’s the music like?

Although he left few commercial recordings, the London-born and Geneva-based conductor Pope (1916-95) was highly regarded in music from the 19th and 20th centuries. These studio performances are among the best premieres that Brian received, not least the Third Symphony which at almost 55 minutes is his lengthiest after the Gothic. Little is known about its genesis, but the 20-minute opening movement has a complexity and emotional breadth that suggest a suitably high-flown inspiration. Two pianos mark off crucial junctures in its formal trajectory, besides enriching the texture vis a concertante underpinning such as surges forth in the stark chordal cadenza prior to the coda. Had Brian stopped there, this would still have been among his most ambitious symphonies, and the three remaining movements afford intrigues aplenty.

The slow movement continues in similar fashion in its combining of textural audacity with a melodic immediacy (notably for flute and violin) as makes this an ideal entry-point for those new to Brian, and though its expressive ambience is by no means easy to define, a feeling of heroic fatalism comes to the fore during the climactic stages and in a coda of moving pathos. By contrast the scherzo is as direct in its appeal as anything that Brian wrote, not least a trio whose ingratiating charm provides suitable contrast with the boisterous music on either side. With its slow overall tempo, the finale builds in sonorous paragraphs – to whose Brucknerian grandeur Pope is especially attentive – toward a stormy culmination and heightened recall of earlier ideas; thence into an epilogue whose unequivocal finality is rare in Brian’s maturity.

Nearly three decades later, the Seventeenth Symphony offers a very different perspective on Brian’s creative outlook. Last in a series of five single movement such pieces, it is markedly elliptical as to formal unfolding and expressive follow-through – yet, even more than with its masterly predecessor, a continuous and metamorphic ingenuity is perceivable right from the pensive introduction then throughout the three- (or even four-) in-one sequence that follows. Confident and yet ruthless in its triumphalism, the coda is decidedly music for its ‘present’.

Does it all work?

Almost. The Third is the most inclusive of Brian’s orchestral symphonies in its intricacy of texture and (ambivalent) range of expression. Drawing four such diverse movements into a cohesive whole is no easy task, but Pope succeeds more completely than does Lionel Friend (Hyperion) and probes more fully than Adrian Leaper (Naxos) the disquieting obliquities of the Seventeenth. The playing of the New Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras is testament to the skill of British players in tackling such complex music on limited rehearsal.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Heritage has done a fine job in opening-up the 1970s sound (the BBC’s notoriously dry Maida Vale studio) and John Pickard contributes his usual insightful notes. The 1974 account of Brian’s choral Fourth Symphony would be an ideal next candidate for such rehabilitation.

Listen

Buy

You can discover more about this release at the Heritage website, and you can read more about Havergal Brian here