Matthew Owain Jones (b.1974) is a renowned violist, violinist and musical educator, as well as composer. He has also trained as an Alexander Technique and a Yoga teacher, with a strong emphasis on promoting wellbeing in musicians, prompted by his own career-threatening experience of RSI. As a performer, he has many significant viola recordings to his name, and is Head of Chamber Music and Professor of Viola at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His composing output has been relatively sparse, but includes a String Quartet and Wind Quintet, both of which have been recently recorded by the Danish chamber group, Ensemble MidtVest. The original version of the String Quartet No. 1 was compossed when Jones was just 19, and had four movements, but he later revised the work down to two movements, adding the title ‘Deletia’. In this recording, Jones himself takes the first violin part. The opening movement is wistful, full of expression, with a pastoral feel, and the lyrical, winding melodies sing out. The climax is more heartfelt, before a return to the quieter musical language for the quiet ending. The second movement has more of a bouncing, rhythmic pulse, although melodic lines dominate once again. As with the first movement, there is a build to a more passionate section, with a unison crying idea, and elements of minimalist repetition. Harmonics calms things down, and the conclusion is quiet and subdued. This is an attractive work, given a clear and warm performance here. The Wind Quintet is a more recent work, composed for the Ensemble MidtVest in 2016. Comprising single movement of nearly seventeen minutes, it has a confident, atmospheric feel, making good use of the different wind timbres. A distant horn call opens, before different instruments join, crossing each other with distinct entries. After the various lyrical lines have emerged, the clarinet heralds quicker movement, joined by the oboe, and perkier rhythms bubble along. There are many filmic passages here, including a lilting waltz-like andante section. Once again, the Ensemble MidtVest do Jones proud, with clear articulation and smooth, lyrical lines from all five instruments. The rest of the disc is given over to Jones’ arrangement of excerpts from Carl Nielsen’s (1865-1931) Aladdin, Op. 34. The complete score runs to some 80 minutes, composed for Adam Oehlenschläger’s 1805 five act play, and is scored for soloists, choir and orchestra. Nielsen also conducted performances of extracts, and a suite of seven parts was published in 1940. Here, Jones has arranged nine extracts, for string quartet plus wind quintet, and piano (with occasional additional tambourine and bells). Jones distils the atmosphere of Nielsen’s imaginative score well, with swirling energy in the dance movements, and deft articulation and effective use of col legno (the wood of bows hitting strings) and bouncy string spiccato to add texture, the addition of the piano also adding drive and weight. The precision of Ensemble MidtVest’s performance here brings vibrant life to this effective arrangement. A Beautiful Square in Isfahan is the most unusual and atmospheric of the excerpts here, with the eastern infused slow melody over a low drone against a hurdy-gurdy-like violin at cross rhythmic pulse, and weird horn and bassoon chords. Like a busy market square, there is lots going on, and Jones’ taut arrangement captures this well. The final Oriental Festival March is perhaps the most familiar music, with its lively and intense swagger. This is an interesting disc, contrasting Jones’ own engaging compositions with the lively Nielsen arrangements, all performed with energetic commitment by Ensemble MidtVest.
Clarinettist Emma Johnson was joined by friends for
a performance of Schubert’s wonderful
Octet in F major, D803 back in
October 2014 in Southampton, and a recording of that live performance has just
been released. Johnson is joined by the Carducci Quartet, Chris West (double bass), Philip
Gibbon (bassoon) and Michael Thompson (horn). The Octet is one of
Schubert’s most popular chamber works, and rightly so, with so much invention
and variety packed into its six movements.
It contains real joy and humour, such as in the variations of the fourth
movement and the boisterous finale. Yet
there are also some typically Schubertian sublime moments, particularly in the
slow second movement, with its beautiful opening clarinet tune, accompanied by
just the lower strings, until the first violin, and then later the bassoon
joins in with the tune. This is a highly
engaging performance, with delicacy and lightness of touch from all
players. The tempi are relaxed – a
little more pace in the scherzo third movement would have added more energy –
but not indulgent. There is deft
articulation throughout, particularly from the clarinet and bassoon in that
slow movement. Emma Johnson, joined by
Gibbon & Thompson rounds off the disc with a short Concert Trio for clarinet, bassoon and horn by Swedish contemporary
of Schubert, Bernhard Crusell
(1775-1838). This can hardly match
the Schubert, and feels a little bit of a let down following the Octet (it
might have been better placed as an appetiser on the disc), but it is an
enjoyable concert piece, and in its four short movements it gives each
instrument the opportunity to shine. There is some beautifully smooth playing
from Thompson on the horn here, and Gibbon tackles some complex accompanying
passages for the bassoon with ease. Overall, the clarinet takes centre stage
most of all – Crusell was an accomplished clarinettist after all. A true mark
of a live recording is that it makes you wish you’d been there, and Johnson and
her friends certainly achieve that here.
Various. 2016. Emma Johnson & Friends - Schubert Octet D803, Crucell Concert Trio. Emma Johnson, Michael Thompson, Philip Gibbon, The Carducci Quartet, Chris West. Compact Disc. Somm Céleste Series SOMMCD 0156.
It’s five years now since I
reviewed a disc of orchestral works by French composer Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937).
More recordings (though sadly few concert performances) of his works have
appeared since then, but it’s great to see the same forces from that last
recording – the BBC Philharmonic
conducted by Juanjo Mena, and
pianist Jean-Efllam Bavouzet –
reunited for more. Interestingly, the
disc is split into three sections in effect – first come two purely orchestral
works, then three works for piano and orchestra, and then the disc is topped
off with two solo piano works. The orchestral works which open are the latest
and weightest offerings. The three
movement Paysages franciscains, Op.43
is an atmostpheric and contemplative impression of a convent garden and the
plain of Assisi, with nature and peaceful evening moods abounding. The
emergence of a plainsong hymn from the mist in the final movement is
particularly striking. The second
orchestral work, Les Cathédrales, is
more sombre in mood, written in 1915 and evoking a French soldier in the
trenches contemplating the devastated landscape and the endless days and
endless mourning ahead of him. Whilst the work perhaps lacks overall direction,
the twisted fragments of the Marseillaise, the growing urgency and the poignant
quiet ending with tolling bell and bass drum are highly affecting. Mena and the
BBC Philharmonic are on particularly impressive form in these two works, with
precision and sensitive expression from all sections. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet takes great delight in
the Scherzo-Caprice, Op. 25 which
breaks the sombre mood with its opening flourish. Thicker, more expansive orchestral textures
take hold, but are interrupted by the swirling balletic waltz each time it
returns. The Poème symphonique, Op. 37
has definite influences of Franck, with its simple chordal piano chorale, and
the long drawn out melodic lines. A
final fanfare heralds the closing piano flourishes. The dramatic piano opening
of the Fantaisie-Ballet, Op. 6, for
which no known scenario exists, is contrasted by a quirky central section
introduced by the woodwind, and the dialogue between piano and orchestra is
more conversational here. The episodic nature of the music builds to a lively
finish, and a sudden emphatic conclusion.
These are enjoyable concert works, but without the hints of profundity
that the later orchestral works suggest. A delicately subtle Nocturne with touches of Fauré, and a
Lisztian tour de force Étude de concert
round of this enjoyable disc. Bavouzet is a great advocate for Pierné’s piano
music, but on this occasion it is the BBC Philharmonic and Mena who deserve the
greatest praise.
Pierné, G. 2015. Orchestral Works, Vol. 2. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, BBC Philharmonic, Juanjo Mena. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10871.
There’s not enough space
here to go into great detail about the Complete
Symphonies of Carl Nielsen
(1865-1931), again with the BBC Philharmonic, this time with Finnish conductor John Storgårds. Suffice to say, this is an impressive cycle,
showing Storgårds' command of all six symphonies, and once again demonstrating
that the BBC Philharmonic are on great form.
The BBC Philharmonic, along with the Hallé of course, were my first
exposure to the joys of orchestral music, growing up in Manchester, and in my
mind they are often the best of the BBC orchestral stable. Storgård’s tempi are steady on the whole, but
particularly effective in the third symphony, ‘Sinfonia expansiva’, and the defiant and most often performed
fourth, ‘The Inextinguishable’. Nielsen’s use of percussion as a threatening force,
here and also to devastating effect in the Symphony
No. 5, is visceral, and Storgårds encourages real aggression from the BBC
Phil percussion players. If you don’t know Nielsen’s symphonies, you should,
and this collection is the perfect place to start.
Nielsen, C. 2015. Complete Symphonies. BBC Philharmonic, John Storgårds. Compact Discs (3). Chandos CHAN 10859(3).
(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, April 2016)
