Tag Archives: Sir Charles Groves

On Record – BBC Welsh Chorus & Orchestra / Bryden Thomson & Sir Charles Groves – Daniel Jones: Symphonies 12 & 13 (Lyrita)

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Daniel Jones
Symphony no.12 (1985)a
Symphony no.13 ‘Symphony in memory of John Fussell (1992)b
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life (1987)c

Maldwyn Davies (tenor) (c), BBC Welsh Chorus (c, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra (a) and (c) / Bryden Thomson (a), Sir Charles Groves (c); BBC National Orchestra of Wales (b) / Tecwyn Evans (b)

Lyrita SRCD391 [65’35”] English text included
Dates: (a) – BBC studio recording 22 March 1990; (b) – BBC concert broadcast 23 January 2017; (c) – BBC broadcast from Swansea Festival, 10 October 1987

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Lyrita completes its coverage of symphonies by Daniel Jones (1912-1993) with this coupling of his final two such works, alongside the premiere performance of his last cantata, heard in readings by artists who identified closely with the composer’s music throughout their careers.

What’s the music like?

It was only midway through this cycle that Jones realized he could start a symphony on each note of the chromatic scale. The Twelfth Symphony thus completes this process – its overall structure being among the composer’s most concentrated. At barely six minutes, the opening movement seems relatively expansive with the tensile sonata-form of its Agitato bookended by affecting Tranquillo passages. There follows a rumbustious Giocoso the more potent for its brevity, a Serioso such as might almost be thought a ‘song without words’ with its lyrical understatement, then a Risoluto which extends just long enough to round off the whole work by effecting an oblique return to its initial bars. Four decades on from his first so-designated piece and Jones can be said to have brought his symphonic cycle decisively to its conclusion.

That, however, was by no means the end of the story: the death, in 1990, of Jones’s friend the organist and administrator John Fussell prompted a Thirteenth Symphony as proved to be his last completed work (an Eighth String Quartet being realized by Malcolm Binney and the late Giles Easterbrook). Relatively expansive next to those later such pieces, with some especially imaginative writing for percussion (allocated to no less than seven players), this unfolds from the restless and eventful Solenne – at almost 10 minutes a worthy ‘memorial’ in itself – via an animated and nonchalant Capriccioso then a Lento whose plangent woodwind writing makes it among his most searching slow movements, to a finale whose Agitato-Tranquillo trajectory is pursued twice as this intensifies inexorably towards an ending as powerful as it is eloquent.

Coming between the two symphonies, Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life is the last of Jones’s four cantatas and again has recourse to metaphysical poetry – in this instance George Herbert, the seven short movements being arranged as to chart the spiritual progress of the author (by extension, that of John Aeron-Thomas – founder-member of the Swansea Festival, for whom this is a memorial). Intersected with a fervent orchestral Fantasia, the six choruses traverse contrasted and even conflicted emotions before attaining an unforced affirmation at the close.

Does it all work?

It does. As has previously been noted in these reviews, Jones was not a composer who sought or attracted easy plaudits – opting for an idiom whose methodical evolution is consistent and absorbing. The performances reflect this thinking, Sir Charles Groves and Bryden Thomson both focussed on capturing the essence of works whose integrity is abetted by deftness and no little humour. Tecwyn Evans’s conducting suggests he, too, is primarily concerned with projecting the spirit of this music. Nor does Maldwyn Davies’s contribution leave anything to be desired.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The broadcasts have been expertly remastered (No. 13 understandably sounding the best), with Paul Conway contributing detailed and insightful annotations. Job done by Lyrita, which will now hopefully complete a similar intégrale of the symphonies by Alun Hoddinott.

For further information and purchasing options, visit the Lyrita website For more information on Daniel Jones, click here

On record: New Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir Charles Groves – Havergal Brian: In Memoriam & Gothic Symphony Part 1 (Heritage Records)

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New Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir Charles Groves

Brian
In Memoriam (1910)
Symphony no.1 in D minor, The Gothic (1919-27) – Part One

Heritage Records HTGCD172 [59’31”]
Producer Robert Simpson

Recorded 10 October 1976 in live performances at Royal Albert Hall, London, UK. Released by arrangement with BBC Studios, with funding from the Havergal Brian Society

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The Heritage label renews its archival coverage of Havergal Brian with this disc of works given at the last concert of those centenary events in 1976, including what is still the only professional account of Part One from the Gothic Symphony heard separately, as sanctioned by the composer.

What’s the music like?

Following three concerts at Alexandra Palace, this final one took place at the Royal Albert Hall. even if a planned performance of the Gothic had to be shelved through financial considerations, a second half featuring Berlioz’s arrangement of La Marseillaise and his Symphonie funèbre et triomphale was no easy option. At the helm was Charles Groves who, having recently given the Ninth Symphony at the Proms, proves a Brian interpreter of real perception. Such is evident in his account of the tone poem In Memoriam, among the best of its composer’s earlier works and unheard for almost 55 years. Whether prompted by thoughts as to the end of an era, or by more personal considerations (its initial title having been ‘Homage to an Artist’), the trajectory of its three continuous ‘scenes’ from impulsive vehemence, via searching contemplation, to sustained affirmation is a striking one made more so through the finesse of Brian’s tonal thinking and his resourceful scoring. These are qualities to the fore with Groves’s interpretation, as convincingly shaped as it is eloquently rendered, and most likely the finest that this work has so far received.

If the performance of Part One of the Gothic Symphony is not quite as good, it more than makes the case for this to be heard as an autonomous entity. Tempi are slightly more measured overall than those of Sir Adrian Boult (Testament) or Martyn Brabbins (Hyperion) in their live readings at the same venue, but this enables Groves to wrest unity from the three movements – not least by bringing those extremes of motion and mood of the Allegro into closest accord, while ensuring a cumulative momentum across the whole. The Lento has all the necessary ‘expressiveness and solemnity’, and at a speed flexible enough to contain its volatile progress towards a powerfully rhetorical climax then a lingering postlude. The Vivace more than fulfils its function as a finale: Groves is mindful to integrate the increasingly disjunct scherzo-and-trio episodes, then keeps a firm hold on its explosive central outburst and surreally imagined ‘night flight’, on the way to a peroration of a grandeur intensified by its tonal audacity and afforded pathos in its limpid coda. That the rather bemused applause has not been retained is maybe of no consequence in context.

Does it all work?

Yes, given Brian always did things his way so that his music often pivots between the visionary and the reckless, yet one where he is almost always justified. Certainly, Groves’s In Memoriam is preferable to the well-paced if technically limited account by Geoffrey Heald-Smith with the City of Hull Youth Symphony Orchestra (Cameo Classics), as also the capably played if most often stop-go approach of Adrian Leaper and the National Symphony of Ireland (Naxos). There is no other version of the Gothic’s Part One, in which Groves’s trenchant advocacy vindicates the decision.

Is it recommended?

Very much so. The (unnamed) remastering engineer has done an admirable job of enhancing the BBC sound, not least in minimizing the bronchial audience contribution on that autumn evening now almost 45 years ago, and John Pickard’s booklet notes are a model of reasoned enthusiasm.

For further information on this release, and to purchase, visit the Heritage Records website. Heritage also offer a recording of Brian’s first opera The Tigers here, and the first commercial recordings of the composer’s music here