Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was born in Dublin, but was one of the founding professors of
the Royal College of Music in London at the age of 29. However, his music has perhaps always been
overshadowed by the success of his pupils, such as Holst and Vaughan
Williams. He left us with a considerable
body of music, including seven symphonies, but it is perhaps for his choral
music that he is best known. Even within
this repertoire, however, his sacred music is more well known than his many
secular partsongs. The Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul Spicer, have released a disc of 25
of these part songs, and they demonstrate the great variety, and command of his
choral writing, as well as his ability to use harmony and choral textures to
illuminate a text. On the disc, they
have broken up the songs from their sets, which is a good idea, as the variety
comes from the different texts and changes in Stanford’s style over the twenty
years these songs span. His settings of
Mary Coleridge are the most interesting and successful, but he also set texts
by Tennyson, May Byron and anonymous Elizabethan texts. The most well-known of the partsongs, The Blue Bird, receives an accomplished
performance here, with a crystal clear solo from Natalie Hyde. The
Swallow (lightly reflective) and The
Haven (dark and atmospheric), two more Coleridge settings, are sensitively
performed here. A few of the songs feel
very dated and time-bound now, not least the sycophantic hymn to Queen
Victoria, Out in the Windy West. However, Stanford also shows how far the
format can be stretched, with ambitious double choir textures in On Time, similar in some ways to his
well-known double-choir Magnificat. The
voices here are strong, full of energy and precision, and incredibly
well-drilled. Occasionally, the higher
voices sound a little strident, and I miss the mellower tones that more mature
voices would bring. But these are highly
accomplished performances, making this a great collection of Stanford’s
partsongs, many not previously available on CD.
The Hickox Legacy
series continues, with a rerelease includind three works by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) - his Cantata misericordium, and two shorter
works, Deus in adjutorium meum, and
a Chorale after an Old French Carol. These are sandwiched between the Requiem da camera by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) and Two Psalms by Gustav Holst (1987-1934).
The great champion of English music, the late Richard Hickox, conducted the City of London Sinfonia, and The Britten
Singers in these recordings from 1991.
Finzi's Requiem da camera,
dedicated to his teacher who was killed in action in 1918, is as much of a
protest against the pointless of war as Britten's later War Requiem, and deserves to be performed more. Britten's Cantata misericordium came hot on the heels of his War Requiem, the
success of which explains why this later work hasn’t achieved the same
status. Yet it follows the War Requiem
remarkably well, being composed for a ceremony to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the Red Cross. It
receives a solid performance here, with John Mark Ainsley (tenor) and Stephen Varcoe (baritone) as soloists. The
two Holst Psalms which complete the disc, although well performed, seem
slightly out of place in the company of Finzi & Britten's weightier, solemn
works.
Finally,
a disc of piano transcriptions of orchestral works by Frederick Delius (1862-1934).
Delius was born in Bradford, the son of German parents, but lived the
latter part of his life in France, after a spell in the USA. As such, his music shows the influence of
both African-American and more significantly, French music, and later embraced
a much more individual and chromatic style.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the
transcription of orchestral works for piano solo or duet had become very
popular. In the days before mass
availability of recordings, this was often the only way people could ‘hear’ the
works at home that they had perhaps heard performed in the concert hall, and
domestic piano playing was a significant form of home entertainment. In this second volume of transcriptions for
two pianos, pianists Simon Callaghan and
Hiroaki Takenouchi perform five
works, all in transcriptions made by friends and fellow composers of
Delius. Paris – The Song of a Great City has a great feel of the cafés,
dance halls and night clubs of Paris, jazz harmonies and rhythms mixed with
lyrical, atmospheric nocturnal scene painting.
Summer Night on the River is
the second of Two pieces for Small Orchestra, the first being the well-known On
hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring.
Delius’ amenuensis, Eric Fenby said of this piece: ‘One can almost see the gnats and dragonflies darting over the
waterlilies, and the faint white mist hovering over willow-tressed banks and
overhanging trees’. The arrangement
by Philip Heseltine (otherwise known
as the composer Peter Warlock) captures this idyllic scene perfectly. The Song
of the High Hills, for wordless chorus and large orchestra is a wonderful
work, and Percy Grainger’s
transcription inevitably cannot capture the magic of the incredibly quiet entry
by the choir 10 minutes in, but nevertheless, it does manage to communicate the
sense of joy and wonder in nature.
Overall, these are fascinating takes on the orchestral works, and the
range of colours and textures achieved by the two pianists here in these
delightful performances is highly impressive.
