This exceptionally
colourful and entertaining disc represents
a celebration of Britten’s interest
in Indonesian gamelan music. It includes
two substantial items by the man who
first awakened that interest, Colin
McPhee, one of which is also of historical
significance (more on that later). The
main item is a large chunk of Britten’s
superbly scored, vibrantly exciting
music for his short-lived 1957 ballet
The Prince of the Pagodas. Though
Britten himself recorded a heavily cut
version of the ballet for Decca, I suspect
it became well known to general music
lovers through Oliver Knussen’s stunning
late-1990s complete account on Virgin.
I understand this has become tricky
to find, so we can welcome this 50-odd
minute selection, made with great skill
and understanding by Britten scholars
Donald Mitchell and Mervyn Cooke.
By all accounts it
was always Britten’s intention to try
and devise a concert suite to ‘save’
some of the music he had worked so hard
on, but this never materialised. Towards
the end of his life he did sanction
publication of the Prelude and Dances,
a sequence of extracts chosen by Norman
Del Mar in 1963. This is flawed, however,
as it contains nothing from the second
act, thus omitting the all-important
Pagodas music. So the Mitchell/Cooke
suite does fill a gap, allowing us to
experience some of the composer’s most
exotic music.
Even in this condensed
form, the continuity of the plot is
preserved, as is most of the best music.
The glorious opening two-trumpet fanfare,
so Brittenesque in its piquant dissonances,
punctuates the ballet and recurs at
important points, sometimes straight,
at others skilfully elaborated. The
instrumentation is virtuosic throughout,
whether it is the suitably Oriental-sounding
high muted horn solo and mistily tremolando
strings of the ‘King of the East’ variation
(track 9), or the gamelan-inspired accompaniment
to ‘Belle Rose in the Kingdom of the
Pagodas’ (track 14). I think we hear
more than a hint of Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring in the ‘King of the South’
music (track 11), where the polyrhythmic
tribal drumming (marked quick and heavy,
energetic) owes something of its forceful
effectiveness to the Rite’s ‘Danse
Sacrale’. But this is a passing resemblance,
for time and again one is reminded that
this is Britten through and through.
One hears shades of Grimes here
and there, even the Frank Bridge
Variations, but the whole is
filtered through a brilliantly fertile
imagination and shows a composer truly
inspired. It certainly made me want
to experience Knussen’s complete recording
again for the ‘missing’ music, but the
BBC Symphony plays well for Slatkin
(if not with quite the stunning virtuosity
of the London Sinfonietta) and if this
Chandos recording does nothing more
than keep memories of this score alive
(as well as gaining new converts) it
is worth having it.
The McPhee items are
important, as they show just where Britten
was coming from. The two-piano transcription
of the Balinese Ceremonial Music
is as important for the recording as
the music, with Britten and McPhee playing
with crisp and incisive brilliance.
The mono sound from 1941 is clear and
full, and the biting, Orientally flavoured
harmonies reminded me a little of Stravinsky’s
Les Noces. McPhee became quite
well known for his exuberant toccata
Tabuh-Tabuhan, and Britten himself
used some of the same instrumental combinations
in Pagodas. The driving rhythms
of the opening movement, suitably entitled
‘Ostinatos’, sound uncannily like early
minimalism, and the Canadian composer’s
links with the jazz and Latino music
of America surface in the finale. An
exhilarating and brilliantly scored
piece.
The Chandos sound does
full justice to the exoticism of the
music, with great clarity and spatial
depth. Excellent notes by Lloyd Moore
complete what is a very desirable issue.
Tony Haywood
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin 