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On Record – George Lloyd: The Works for Brass (Lyrita)

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George Lloyd
Royal Parks (1982/4)
Diversions on a Bass Theme (1986)
Evening Song (1989. arr. 1991)
H.M.S. Trinidad (1941, arr. 1991)
English Heritage (1987)
A Miniature Triptych (1981)

John Foster Black Dyke Mills Band / David King; Equale Brass [John Wallace and John Miller (trumpets), Michael Thompson (horn), Peter Bassano (trombone), John Jenkins (tuba) (A Miniature Triptych)]

Lyrita SRCD.425 [75’52”]
Producers Paul Hindmarsh with George Lloyd, Engineer Harold Barnes

Recorded 5 & 6 July 1991 at Town Hall, Dewsbury at Wyastone Leys, June 1987 at Monmouth (A Miniature Triptych)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Lyrita continues its ‘Signature Edition’ devoted to the music of – while mostly conducted by –George Lloyd with this collection of almost all his output for brass instruments and a further reminder that, however belated his commitment to a specific medium, it was then in earnest.

What’s the music like?

Despite (or perhaps because of) his experience as bandsman in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, Lloyd turned to this medium relatively late on and then obliquely via the brass quintet. Written for members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, A Miniature Triptych has a depth hinted at by the movement-titles – the plangency of its preludial Lost followed by the more emotionally varied Searching, then the mounting resolve of Found sees this sequence to a decisive but not wholly affirmative close. An intriguing addition to an appealing medium.

The brass band was at the forefront of Lloyd’s thinking over the next decade, starting with the suite Royal Parks composed for the European Brass Band Championships. Here the airborne evocation of Dawn Flight, and the genial animation of Holidays, frame an In Memoriam written for orchestra two years earlier to commemorate the bandsman murdered in a bombing at Regent’s Park by the Provisional IRA – making it one of the composer’s most personal and affecting statements. English Heritage was written for the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission and later used as test-piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain – its technical virtuosity matched by formal dexterity, with the spontaneity of Fanfare allayed by the repose of Largo and Finale combining these motifs into a rousing peroration.

Composed just before the latter work, Diversions on a Bass Theme ranks among Lloyd’s most ingenious pieces in any medium – the range of ideas emerging in its earlier stages functioning as variations in search of a theme as duly emerges with not a little laconic humour toward the close. The remaining items are both arrangements – Evening Song being that of the two-piano work Eventide two years earlier, its luminous elaboration of a carol composed by the ten-year -old Lloyd sounding arguably even more idiomatic and atmospheric when rendered by brass. By contrast, the march HMS Trinidad was arranged half-a-century after being composed for orchestra – and it is a measure of Lloyd’s prowess that he throws the ‘march and trio’ format off-kilter by juxtaposing their varied reappearances to such unexpected and appealing effect.

Does it all work?

It does. As Paul Conway surmises in his informative notes, any reticence on Lloyd’s part in writing for brass band likely derives from his wartime traumas – which does not make those works he eventually wrote any less idiomatic or distinctive. Not least as David King gets so laudable a response from the then John Foster Black Dyke Mills Band; also, Equale Brass in a recording seemingly left ‘in the can’ the past four decades. As with composers such as John McCabe, Edward Gregson or John Pickard, one overlooks Lloyd’s band music at one’s peril.

Is it recommended?

It is. Note that the original release predates Lloyd’s last such work – 1993’s King’s Messenger given by Eikanger-Bjorsvik Musikklag on Doyen (DOYCD047), with 1987’s Forest of Arden for wind band recorded by City of London Wind Ensemble on LDR Records (LDRCD1001).

Listen & Buy

For further information visit the dedicated page for the George Lloyd Signature Series. For more on the composer himself, head to the George Lloyd website

Published post no.2,246 – Sunday 21 July 2024

On Record – George Lloyd: Concertos (Lyrita)

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George Lloyd
Piano Concerto no.1 ‘Scapegoat’ (1962-3)
Piano Concerto no.2 (1963-4, orch. 1968)
Piano Concerto no.3 (1967-8)
Martin Roscoe (piano), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / George Lloyd
Piano Concerto no.4 (1970, orch. 1983)
Kathryn Stott (piano), London Symphony Orchestra / George Lloyd

Lyrita SRCD.2421 [two discs, 73’49” and 70’17”]
Producers Ben Turner (1&2), Chris Webster (3), Howard Devon (4)
Engineers Harold Barnes (1&2), Tony Faulkner

Recorded 9 & 10 February 1984 at Henry Wood Hall, London (Piano Concerto no.4), 25 & 26 September 1988 (Piano Concerto no.3) and 20 & 21 October 1990 at Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester (Piano Concertos 1 & 2)

George Lloyd
Violin Concertos no.1 (1970)
Violin Concerto no.2 (1977)
Cristina Anghelescu (violin), Philharmonia Orchestra / David Parry
Cello Concerto (1997)
Anthony Ross (cello), Albany Symphony Orchestra / David Alan Miller

Lyrita SRCD.2422 [two discs, 64’37” and 29’40”]
Producers Ben Turner (Violin Concertos), Gregory Squires (Cello Concerto)
Engineers Phil Hobbs (Violin Concertos), Gregory Squires (Cello Concerto)
29 June to 3 July 1998 at Henry Wood Hall, London (Violin Concertos), 22 April 2001 at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, NY (Cello Concerto)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Lyrita continues its ‘Signature Edition’ of George Lloyd recordings (originally for the Albany label) with two volumes respectively devoted to his concertos for piano and string instruments – all of them being played by soloists either conducted by or who worked with this composer.

What’s the music like?

His previous output having been dominated by the genres of opera, or symphony, Lloyd came belatedly to the concerto. An able violinist in his youth (and taught for several years by Albert Sammons), he had resisted his wife’s predilection for the piano until the early 1960s when he wrote four such works in barely eight years, followed at lengthier intervals by two for violin then one for cello. No less characteristic of their composer, these constitute a significant part of his development from a time when his music was still largely unknown to the wider public.

Hearing the young John Ogdon galvanized Lloyd into writing for the piano, with Scapegoat his striking first attempt at a concerto and his most performed work since before the Second World War – its 1964 premiere in Liverpool, Charles Groves conducting, soon followed with hearings in Bournemouth, Glasgow, Berlin then a BBC broadcast in 1969. A pity that Ogdon never recorded a piece ideally suited to his temperament – its single movement duly taking in elements of the soulful and sardonic in a close-knit structure with Lloyd’s motivic thinking at its most resourceful. Ominous, aggressive, ultimately fatalistic, this is one of the composer’s most cohesive works and urgently warrants revival. Lloyd had enough ideas for its successor but, for reasons unstated, Ogdon never played the Second Piano Concerto that went unheard until 1984. Its single movement yields a distinct progression from trenchant ‘first movement’ via lively ‘scherzo’ then, after an elaborate cadenza, threnodic ‘slow movement’ and resolute ‘finale’ as brings the whole structure into focus while not precluding a tangible equivocation.

Not to be deterred, Lloyd pressed on with his Third Piano Concerto. Brahmsian in scale, its three movements eschew both symphonic density and virtuosic flamboyance – whether in an opening Furioso whose relative brevity belies its wealth of incident, a Lento which sustains its expansive length through imaginative interplay between soloist and orchestra and with a keen sense of atmosphere, then final Vivace that pointedly fights shy of any grand peroration as it heads to a decisive if hardly affirmative close. The piece remained unheard until 1988, whereas the Fourth Piano Concerto had made it to the Royal Festival Hall four years earlier as part of the artistically lauded while commercially disastrous Great British Music Festival. The three movements find Lloyd attempting to banish painful memories in favour of a more relaxed but still restive discourse – hence the poignancy behind the geniality of the opening Allegro, suffused pathos of a central Larghetto that is its undoubted highlight, then animated final Vivace whose spirited ending is offset by the soulful Lento interlude which precedes it.

Hardly had Lloyd finished this last of his piano concertos when he wrote the first of his violin concertos. As the booklet note suggests, its scoring for woodwind and brass has the urbanity of a divertimento or serenade – which holds good for the sanguine opening movement and its plaintive successor, whose cor anglais melody is one of Lloyd’s most potent ideas, but less so for a rather prolix eliding of scherzo and finale. More convincing overall is the Second Violin Concerto, its resonant scoring for strings and obliquely spiritual programme demonstrably to the fore in the initial Lento with its plangent chorale. After an impulsive scherzo and eloquent slow movement, the final Vivace reaches a close whose joyfulness is never contrived. A fine piece, but the Cello Concerto is one of Lloyd’s finest. His penultimate work feels valedictory in tone, its seven continuous sections outlining a four-movement sequence whose clarity of expression is abetted by its scoring for modest forces, and whose subtle range of mood makes the final evanescence more affecting. A professional performance in the UK is well overdue.

Does it all work?

Pretty much. Those aspects of the piano concertos which do not quite succeed are due more to recordings which, scrupulously prepared and lucidly rendered, lack a degree of intensity in their execution. That 1969 broadcast of Scapegoat confirms what is lacking here, but Martin Roscoe is never less than attentive in the first three concertos and Kathryn Stott brings a deft touch to the fourth. Cristina Anghelescu plays with dexterity and no mean insight in the violin concertos, while Anthony Ross is fully attuned to the fatalistic restraint of the Cello Concerto.

Is it recommended?

Yes, but listeners unfamiliar with Lloyd’s symphonies and choral works should hear these in the first instance. Lyrita’s presentation, with objectively enthusiastic notes by Paul Conway, is up to its customary standards and those who are acquiring this series should be well satisfied.

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For further information visit the dedicated George Lloyd page at the Nimbus website

Published post no.2,222 – Thursday 27 June 2024

On Record – George Lloyd: A Litany & A Symphonic Mass (Lyrita)

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George Lloyd
A Symphonic Mass (1990-92)
Brighton Festival Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra / George Lloyd
A Litany (1994-5)
Janice Watson (soprano), Jeremy White (baritone), Guildford Choral Society, Philharmonia Orchestra / George Lloyd

Lyrita SRCD.2419 [two discs, 60’44” and 49’30”] Latin and English texts included

Producers Ben Turner (A Symphonic Mass), Christopher James (A Litany)
Engineers Harold Barnes, Alan Mosely (A Symphonic Mass), Tony Faulkner (A Litany)

Recorded 19 & 20 June 1993 at Guildhall, Southampton (A Symphonic Mass), 24 & 25 March 1996 at Town Hall, Watford

George Lloyd
Requiem (1997-8)
Psalm 130 (1995)

Stephen Wallace (countertenor), Jeffrey Makinson (organ), Exon Singers / Matthew Owens

Lyrita SRCD.420 [63’22”] Latin and English texts included

Producer Ben Turner Engineer Harold Barnes

Recorded 31 August – 2 September 2000 at Church of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Lyrita continues its reissue schedule of George Lloyd-related recordings for the Albany label – the ‘Signature Edition’ – with those three late choral works which, between them, constitute a worthy culmination to a composing career with few parallels in the annals of British music.

What’s the music like?

While three operas and twelve symphonies are the backbone of Lloyd’s output, choral music came to the fore during his final decade. Few would have demurred had the composer called A Symphonic Mass his ‘Thirteenth Symphony’, given its formal cohesion and harnessing of its liturgical text to a structure in which thematic consistency and cumulative momentum are uppermost. Hence the opposing conflict and consolation in the Kyrie anticipates a struggle reflected, in the Gloria, by the music’s juxtaposing of fervent outbursts with a luminous and otherworldly calm. The Credo becomes an extended development of motifs and expression, informed by an acute relating of textual imagery to musical content – its strenuousness offset by a brief if potent orchestral interlude that is the Offertorium. The piece climaxes with the Sanctus and Benedictus, its rapt intensity heightened by the blazing affirmation at Osanna; after which, the Agnus Dei passes through doubt and apprehension before achieving a new-found though hard-won serenity at Dona nobis pacem. Certainly, a Mass of its time and ours.

Three years on, and A Litany is less inclusive but equally involving – even with Lloyd’s aim of composing a ‘repertoire’ piece likely undermined by the size of its orchestral forces or the demands of its vocal writing. Its words are the first 12 (out of 28) verses from John Donne’s eponymous poem, as set by Lloyd from a spiritual yet non-specifically religious standpoint. Despite being in four movements, this is not an overtly symphonic conception – though the formal follow-through is nothing if not cohesive in its relating of music to text. The opening Allegro Dramatico pursues its respectively passionate then sombre traversal of the first two verses, the ensuing Allegro being akin to an extended intermezzo in its setting the third and fourth verses with a deft yet often oblique eloquence. The brief Adagio focusses on the fifth verse in an intimate acapella setting, then the final Vivace sets the sixth to twelfth verses as   a cumulative sequence in which passing anxiety is gradually overcome; the music accruing the energy needed to hit the ground running for what becomes a decidedly affirmative close.

Written in the months before his death, with a dedication to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Requiem is an understated if characteristic swansong with, at almost 55 minutes, a scale comparable to those earlier works. This follows the expected liturgical text with just a few pointed modifications (no Libera me at the end), its 16 designated sections falling into three main parts. Requiem and Kyrie sets the reflective if by no means unvaried tone of the whole and highlights the role of the countertenor – occupying the lower end of its compass so that it becomes the subdued complement to choral writing notable for its textural clarity and inwardness. The Dies irae sequence (itself in two halves) has a notably perky Tuba mirum and songful Rex tremendae, while the Lacrimosa seems consoling rather than elegiac. The third part takes in a whimsical Hostias, brief but vibrant Sanctus, elegant and supplicatory Agnus Dei, then a Lux aeterna as sees the whole work through to its close with the voices gradually receding in gently undulating chords for what is a serene yet poignant valediction.

Three years earlier, Lloyd had composed two pieces for unaccompanied choir – of which his setting of Psalm 130 (Out of the depths) is notable for its often circumspect while never aloof manner, the emergence of a soprano in the later stages pointing up its mood of tentative hope.

Does it all work?

Yes, and not least owing to the persuasiveness of recordings made soon after their respective premieres. Lloyd secures a dedicated response in the Mass from the Brighton Festival Chorus (under the redoubtable László Heltay) and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra while, in the Litany, the Guildford Choral Society (for whom it was written) and Philharmonia Orchestra are no less committed. In the latter piece Janice Watson gives a thrilling contribution, but Jeremy White is not wholly at ease for all his warm nobility. As for the Requiem, the Exon Singers sound tonally assured and Stephen Wallace copes ably with his distinctively conceived role, while Jeffrey Makinson applies a light touch to organ writing as evinces a continuo-like dexterity, though it might yet be worth transcribing this part for woodwind and brass so as to open-out its expressive ambit.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, not least as these reissues come with full texts and detailed notes from Paul Conway. Inherently unoriginal while unequivocally sincere, Lloyd’s late choral works are far removed from the facile disingenuity of much current choral music and are the more appealing for this.

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For further information visit the dedicated George Lloyd page at the Nimbus website

Published post no.2,164 – Tuesday 30 April 2024

On Record: Nathan Williamson – Malcolm Lipkin: Piano Music (Lyrita)

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Malcolm Lipkin
Nocturne no.1 (1987, rev. 2000)
Nocturne no.2 (1995)
Nocturne no.3 (1999)
Sonata no.5 (1986)
Nocturne no. 4 ‘…heard in the stillness…’ (2000)
Nocturne no.5 ‘…interrupted melody…’ (2001)
Sonata no.6 ‘Fantasy Sonata’ (2002)
Nocturne no.6 ‘…glint and shadow…’ (2002)
Nocturne no.7 ‘…dancing figures…’ (2004)
Nocturne no. 8 ‘…recollections…’ (2006)

Nathan Williamson (piano)

Lyrita SRCD.414 [68’55’’]
Producer/Engineer Adrian Farmer
Recorded 13-15 October 2021 at Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth

written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Following on from his three symphonies (SRCD.349), Lyrita here continues its coverage of Malcolm Lipkin (1932-2017) with this release featuring piano music from his later years – a cohesive body of work such as benefits from the insightful playing of Nathan Williamson.

What’s the music like?

While not lacking performances from the early 1950s onward, Lipkin remained a peripheral figure on the UK music scene until the premiere of his 1977 chamber work Clifford’s Tower (Divine Art DDA25202) – its powerfully humanist response to racial atrocity typifying the music from his maturity. The pieces on this new release appear dissimilar given their overt abstraction, but even a cursory hearing reveals many subtleties of expression arising directly out of the musical content which come increasingly into focus with each successive listen.

It was with his Third Sonata that Lipkin first came to attention, but there was a 32-year gap between its successor and the Fifth Sonata. Its two movements contrast with each other in every respect: the first, marked ‘Extremely slow’, starts then ends with a rapt inwardness that makes its ferocious central eruption more unnerving; the second, marked ‘Quite fast’, emerges as a toccata whose jazzy syncopation and technical virtuosity are carried forward to a decisive close. If the ‘Fantasy’ of the Sixth Sonata seems anti-climactic by comparison, its integrating of the nominal four movements (the ‘scherzo’ placed third) as a continuous discourse is brought off with absolute assurance. There is also a growing sense the outcome of its intriguing 15 minutes is unlikely to be that anticipated, which indeed proves the case.

It was none the less with his series of Nocturnes, composed over virtually two decades, that Lipkin made his defining contribution to piano literature. These take their cue from Chopin and Fauré, while adding a vein of ambiguity which is unique to this composer. Not least the First Nocturne with its distanced opening, hazy yet lucid evolution and ethereal close. The Second and Third pieces are respectively wistful and elegiac, then the remaining five each has a descriptive subtitle. Hence the Fourth Nocturne in its juxtaposing of the otherworldly and ominous, the Fifth with its winsome elegance, and the Sixth in its intuitive interplay of expressive types. The Seventh Nocturne has a more capricious demeanour, then the Eighth ends the series with its veiled allusiveness: ‘recollections’ in the fullest yet obliquest sense.

Does it all work?

Absolutely. Right from his first acknowledged pieces, Lipkin evinced craftsmanship of the highest order but it took time and experience to channel this into a wholly personal idiom. Such is everywhere evident in the piano music heard here, which also calls on pianism of the highest order. This it receives from Nathan Williamson (himself a composer of note), who has clearly devoted much time to evolving an all-round interpretive stance. With the Nocturnes in particular, it would hard to imagine more authoritative or sensitive readings.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The spacious though focussed sound is up to Wyastone studio’s customary standard, and there are typically comprehensive annotations from Paul Conway. It is to be hoped that Lyrita will continue its Lipkin exploration with more of the chamber and orchestral output.

Listen

Buy

You can explore purchase options for this album at the Wyastone website. For more information, click on the links for performer Nathan Williamson and composer Malcolm Lipkin

Published post no.1,983 – Thursday 19 October 2023