Comparative recordings
1. Overtures: including
Sussex, Beckus, Smoke, Fair Field LPO/composer,
Reference Recordings RRCD-48 (also quoted
as RR 48 CD). review
2. Orchestral Works: including overtures
Beckus, Anniversary, Peterloo,
Flourish BBC Concert O/Handley, Conifer
Classics 75605 51298 2
3. Orchestral Works: including Grand,
Grand Overture RPO/Handley, Conifer
Classics 75605 51240 2
4. Grand, Grand OvertureHoffnung (Morley
College) SO/composer, EMI Classics CMS7
63302 2 review
5. Peterloo Overture CBSO/composer,
EMI 7 63368 2
Just as I was about
to start on this review, I happened
to open an issue of BBC Music Magazine,
and before my very eyes swam a review
of this disc. "Is this an Omen?"
I wondered. No, it wasn’t. Instead it
was a source of disbelief. The reviewer
kicked off with, "Listening to
an hour and a quarter’s worth of overtures
by Malcolm Arnold turned out to be an
unexpectedly dispiriting experience."
I blinked. The words persisted.
Now, I’m not trying
to deny the fellow his right to find
the experience dispiriting. No, what
took me aback was that he seemed to
expect that he should be able
to swallow, in one gulp, ten
overtures by the same composer and not
get indigestion. Ancient wisdom is no
less wisdom for being ancient, and even
today "You can have too much of
a good thing", not to mention,
"If you’re full, then stop eating."
Come to think of it, aren’t overtures,
like bowls of soup, meant to be consumed
one to a sitting?
Diatribe over – down
to business. In the last couple of years
there have been two new biographies
of Arnold, a surfeit of literary riches
that is, sadly and still unaccountably,
nowhere near matched by a corresponding
surfeit of performances of his music
[see below for reviews].
Well, not quite true: although his more
substantial music remains unjustifiably
neglected, his "light" music,
including several of the items on this
CD, does see the light of day with something
approaching reasonable frequency. Alright,
so unwary folk get the false impression
that Arnold is a "light" composer,
but that’s another story.
Rumon Gamba is perhaps
the most outstanding of the new - but
hardly what you’d call "densely
populated" - generation
of Arnold advocates. Under his dynamic
baton the BBCPO performed all nine of
Arnold’s Symphonies to mark the composer’s
80th. birthday. In passing,
we might note ruefully that this salute
was given before small, invited audiences
at Studio Seven, Manchester, rather
than before the heaving masses at the
Proms. With the present CD, Gamba now
has to his credit three recordings of
Arnold, the others being Film
Music Vol. 2 and a 2-CD set
of Symphonies
7-9. This last effectively completed
the Chandos cycle, started under Hickox,
which had stalled after the Sixth
Symphony. It was a most welcome
issue, because we desperately needed
more views of these works.
Regardless of how I
feel about the details of his interpretations,
I have nothing but admiration for Gamba’s
mettle. He believes wholeheartedly in
the music, has his own bright ideas
about how it should go, and puts those
ideas into practice with infectious
energy. Sometimes, as we shall see below,
this evident enthusiasm leads him to
drive the music a bit too hard. In that,
as we are about to discover, he is in
good company!
My colleague John Quinn
(see his review)
highlighted the contrast in playing
times between Gamba and the composer.
I’ve expanded the table to include another
Arnold champion, the inestimable Vernon
Handley:
| |
ARNOLD |
GAMBA |
HANDLEY |
| Peterloo |
9’01 |
10’08 |
10’16 |
| The Smoke |
11’56 |
7’57 |
- |
| A Sussex Overture |
12’11 |
9’18 |
- |
| Beckus the Dandipratt |
10’45 |
7’57 |
7’48 |
| The Fair Field |
9’17 |
7’17 |
- |
| Flourish for Orchestra |
- |
3’25 |
3’21 |
| Anniversary Overture |
- |
4’19 |
3’54 |
| A Grand, Grand Overture |
7’50 |
7’59 |
7’16 |
| Tam o’Shanter |
- |
8’17 |
8’20 |
It seems that Arnold
himself is generally the odd one out,
and by a massive margin! However, two
of the Arnold timings defy that general
rule. That of the Grand, Grand Overture - and
where, I wonder, did it pick up that
"Festival" it sports
on the present issue? - is
from the recording of the first of the
celebrated and infamous Hoffnung concerts.
Then there’s his 1973 EMI recording
of Peterloo, which leaves both
Gamba and Handley stranded in their
starting-blocks!
The reason becomes
clear when you note that the others
were set down much later (Reference
Recordings, 1991). Age and circumstances
had sorely sapped Arnold’s physical
vitality, yet his grip on the music
remained absolutely sure, suggesting
something of a parallel with Klemperer.
These performances are certainly slow,
but never merely sluggish. Showing
remarkable internal consistency, he
unveils veins of powerful drama, and
works wonders with his orchestral colours.
Dracula, I’m sure, would have died
for Arnold’s baleful "brasso contrabasso"!
More than that of almost
any other composer you could mention,
Arnold’s orchestral music - written
by an orchestral player with orchestral
players very much in mind - actually
seems to militate against poor
performance. These "overtures"
are no exception: all of the tabulated
performances are excellent, and all
I can do is try to differentiate degrees
of excellence.
In spite of what I’ve
just said, A Grand, Grand (Festival)
Overture makes singularly great
interpretative demands on its performers.
It requires of them tremendous insight
if they are to realise the true profundity
of its emotional and philosophical import..
Neither is it without technical challenges.
During the work’s composition, Arnold
diligently researched the detailed intonational
capabilities of his chosen solo instruments,
carefully checking which makes and models
would best serve his precise purpose.
The entire effect will,
of course, be utterly ruined by sloppy
performance preparation. Bluntly, you
can’t just make do with any old instruments
because the score requires, specifically,
three Hoover Vacuum Cleaners in B
flat, and one Hoover Floor Polisher
in G. However, because they are
categorised as "percussion of indefinite
pitch", more or less any rifles
will do, so long as they shoot straight.
Handley, who is normally
a serious-minded and circumspect conductor,
has a bit of a rush of blood, choosing
a basic tempo that is far too fast.
Consequently, he garbles the all-important
opening gesture and leaves himself too
little headroom for the coda’s critical
accelerandi. Nevertheless, even at his
helter-skelter pace he miraculously
renders the tender counter-subject with
consummate grace, observing Arnold’s
subtle portamenti with gratifying elegance.
Also, he projects the solemn climaxes
with tremendous gravity, and coaxes
from his organist a depth of tone that
is truly awe-inspiring: if you’re an
organ buff, then this is the
version to have.
However, I harbour
serious misgivings about the solo contributions,
which are mushily articulated. In particular,
their significant final cadenza is indistinct:
I cannot unequivocally make out the
running down of each instrument as its
player is shot – in fact,
I was left wondering if the riflemen
had missed their targets. And, while
I’m at it, why is the firing squad,
which should be arrayed with military
precision, scattered all over the place,
at varying distances and in varying
acoustics? These, however, are small
points - this is still a fine
performance.
Gamba plays it much
more cagily. At a steadier tempo, his
opening flourish is note-perfect and
crystalline, his main allegro vivacious
but not hectic, giving space for the
subtle lines to blossom, and near-ideally
priming the race for the line. Curiously,
although very pleasing to the ear, relative
to Handley his treatment of the counter-subject
is a little matter-of-fact, with rather
prim and proper portamenti. Gamba’s
climaxes may lack the last ton or two
of sheer mass, but in the context of
the performance as a whole they still
have terrific impact.
Where Gamba really
comes up trumps is in having the finer
quartet of soloists, who articulate
their lines with exquisite sensitivity.
Nevertheless, like Handley’s instruments,
I had misgivings regarding intonation - I’m
not saying they weren’t "on"
their notes, merely that I couldn’t
make out what those notes actually were.
That final cadenza, though, is brought
off with great virtuosity: a properly
regimented and eagle-eyed firing-squad
pick off the soloists one by one, and
you can hear each one expiring with,
I must say, commendable dignity. Of
the recent recordings, Gamba’s takes
pride of place as the most sane and
balanced view of this modern masterpiece.
Now, if we could just persuade the BBC
to institute this work as a regular
item at the Proms, and each year hold
a national referendum on who we’d like
to have playing those solos. . .
By the way, does anybody
know how loud the solo instruments should
sound? On both Handley’s and Gamba’s
recordings, they sound much more forceful
than on Arnold’s world première.
At first I thought this was the result
of overdone "spot miking",
but then something in the tonal quality
led me to suspect that these might be
modern instruments. You don’t
need me to tell you that this is hardly
admissable in a work that demands, above
all, absolute adherence to the principles
of authentic performance practice.
Of the three conductors,
Handley brings Peterloo closest
to "Hollywood". Beautifully
as he plays the main tune, he tends
to distend it into something of a romantic
indulgence. In the work’s violent core
he gives the formidable percussion their
stereophonically spectacular heads,
finally expanding the tune into a peroration
fit to cap a major symphony. It is a
corker of a performance, but to some
extent it misses the point.. Whilst
still fairly expansive, Gamba is nearer
the mark. He plays the tune relatively
straight, and keeps those percussion
in perspective, allowing the rest of
the orchestra its proper chance to wax
vicious. However, he too tends to over-egg
the conclusive pudding.
The "point"
is most eloquently expressed by Arnold
himself, who keeps his simple hymn-tune,
which has a familiar relationship to
the famous "cliché"
from the Fifth Symphony, moving
along cantabile and, in the desolation
and lament following the massacre, reigns
supreme in spite of a significantly
inferior recording. That reviewer I
mentioned earlier thought that Gamba
depicted the massacre "without
much subtlety". This is true, but
it’s also true that Gamba has hit the
nail right on the head. Peterloo has
a lot in common with Palace Square,
which is to say that what’s being depicted
isn’t exactly long on subtlety. The
composer, candid to a fault, correspondingly
left all traces of subtlety out of his
"massacre" music.
The Smoke offers
a view of London very different from
the rosy view of Elgar’s Cockaigne.
In fact, because Gamba gets through
it in a mere two-thirds of the time
that Arnold took, here we have two
very different views of London. Gamba’s
is a tumultuous, vigorous, virile view,
not so much an afternoon’s stroll by
the Serpentine as a night of boisterous
sleaze-seeking in Soho. In his hands,
the weird central section seems to view
the materials through an alcoholic haze,
and the heaving conclusion is ablaze
with flashing neon lights.
Arnold’s picture is
far gloomier. At his much slower tempo,
he brings out much menace lurking behind
the garish façades, percussive
detonations shock and stun, and repeated
notes acquire a grimly obsessive overtone.
The central section becomes an interminable
nightmare, like sitting alone and isolated
in a dingy bed-sit, staring at a blank
wall that reflects dimly the flickering
lurid light from nearby neon-signs.
Arnold’s snare-drummer creates a spine-tingling,
ghostly sound, sounding as if he’s holding
the stick loosely and just letting the
tip fall onto the drum-skin.
There are such amazing disparities between
these two interpretations, yet they
both work, and work well – I
think because both views are inherent
in the score, put there by a man who
has experienced both sorts of feelings
at first hand.
The uproarious musical
misadventure of Tam o’Shanter
is relatively easy meat, largely because
both Handley and Gamba play it to the
hilt, leaving reviewers nothing but
crumbs on which to comment: for instance,
Handley more effectively draws out the
long violin crescendo early on, while
Gamba’s chase music is marginally the
more frenetic, and Handley’s recording
has marginally more depth, while Gamba’s
is slightly more immediate. Well, sod
that for a lark – these are
both superlative, gripping and thrilling
performances captured in cracking good
sound. I’d be over the moon with either.
In fact, that’s exactly what I am.
The swings and roundabouts
carry on in the Flourish for Orchestra,
which is not so much an overture as
either a short march or a long fanfare.
Courtesy of a sharper kick-off, by the
very minutest of margins Handley is
the more dynamic. In going for a rounder,
fuller sound throughout, with plump
timps and a huge tam-tam splash, Handley
seems to underline the festive origin
of the piece – obvious modal
inflections, in both the main subject
and the gorgeous melody of the counter-subject,
are clearly meant to echo the historical
occasion of the 500th. anniversary
celebrations of the granting of Bristol’s
Charter. Gamba, leaner and cleaner,
using much harder drumsticks to thrilling
effect, and finding a lot more light
and shade in the dynamics, gives us
a more concert-oriented performance.
Having said that, you might reasonably
expect the high trumpets of Gamba’s
BBC Philharmonic to be the more incisive,
but in fact it’s those of Handley’s
BBC Concert Orchestra that, like gleaming
silver swords, most effectively cleave
the texture.
In both The Fair
Field and Sussex overtures,
Gamba is bursting with dash and derring-do,
sparking showers of fun right, left
and centre, whilst by comparison Arnold
seems careful, cautious and clod-hopping.
The difference is so blatant that I
can’t avoid wondering if one of them
is being perverse. The question is,
which one? Slow as they are, Arnold’s
own readings do have distinct plus-points.
You can hear every note, every nuance,
and yet – almost paradoxically! - the
sound Arnold gets from his band is rich
and luscious, sound fit to satisfy the
basest lusts of the most inveterate
"choc-aholic" (for this reason
alone I wouldn’t want to be without
these recordings!). The problem is that,
in spite of some fabulous control of
pace within his chosen time-frame, those
motoric "development" sections
start to sound more morbid than they
perhaps should in the context – in
spite of the obvious connection between
the merry-go-round waltz of The Fair
Field and a similar, nightmarish
apparition in the finale of the Seventh
Symphony.
At the other extreme
of tempo, Gamba’s band sounds far brighter
and breezier, steering the motoric episodes
clear of the rut of morbidity. However,
this extreme speed also dilutes the
sound and blurs much of the detail of
Arnold’s masterly orchestration into
generalised brilliance, whilst those
tempo changes - like the start
of the quicker variation in The Fair
Field - tend to just pop
up out of the blue. At rock bottom,
I think that both Arnold and
Gamba are being a bit perverse! Somewhere
between the two there is surely a golden
mean.
Handley gives a spirited
account of the boisterous little Anniversary
Overture. Heard in isolation, this
would make anyone as happy as Larry,
but - in spite of his being
a bit quicker – Handley doesn’t
find quite the fizz that Gamba does.
In view of my previous comments, maybe
instead of "in spite of" I
should say "as a result of"!
For, by easing off his gas pedal, Gamba
here allows himself that precious bit
of elbow room in which to attend to
the tiddly details - like
the tinkling metallic percussion that
adds tingle to the fluid counter-subject.
Small adjustment, big return - this
is top-notch stuff.
And so, to Beckus.
In this of all his works, as near to
a personal trademark as you can get
without actually registering it, Arnold
really does drag his heels. I do so
wish I had one of those fancy digital
gubbinses that changes the speed, but
not the pitch, of a recording,. Then
I could shift Arnold’s recording up
a gear and obtain as near as dammit
to perfection on legs! Other than a
couple of slightly garbled woodwind
phrases - presumably taken
too slow for the players’ comfort - everything
about it bar that funereal tempo is
as near ideal as I’ve ever heard.
Yet, like Ruslan
and Ludmilla or The Flight
of the Bumble Bee, we should be
mindful that dear old Beckus
is not a racetrack for would-be record-breakers.
Beckus is not so much an "overture"
as a scherzo with malicious intent.
The cheeky child that Arnold encountered
on holiday in Cornwall (1943) may have
prompted the idea for the piece,
but otherwise it is entirely a musical
self-portrait. Being also his first
really important work, it is significant
that here, for the first time, he also
lifted the veil from over his troubled
mind. A fine balance must be struck
between the general run of genial high-jinks,
the less-than genial flashes of fury
and, around two-thirds of the way through,
that dismaying disintegration. This
three-way balance depends heavily on
getting the timing just right.
The opening flourish
drops a fairly strong hint. Listen to
Arnold’s recording, and you hear no
trace of jollity – right at
the very start the glowering gargoyles
are hacking at that veil. It is a fearsome
gesture, disgorging a lightweight but
glutinous texture from which the jolly
cornet, with the basses dragging like
mud on its shoes, at first struggles
to free itself. Both Handley and Gamba – and
any number of others – are
generally too fleet of foot. Sounds
that belong in the shade are bathed
in sunshine, geniality becomes brashness,
the edges of Arnold’s complicated main
theme are blurred, and enraged outbursts
are dragooned into becoming purveyors
of mere rowdiness. This last can be
a real pitfall, as those outbursts are - or
should be - dangerously threatening
disruptions. In other words, we lose
the deeply shocking edge off the violent
contrasts inherent in the music.
However, I did only
say "edge"! Although they
may be slightly wide of the "meaning"
mark, these are by no means poor performances.
The difference between Gamba and Handley
is similar to that in the Anniversary
Overture. Going at it full tilt,
Handley tends to blanket everything
with the same high-octane aggression.
On the other hand, Gamba’s investment
in a few extra, precious seconds does
pay dividends: his violence may not
be as highly charged, but his contrasting
of geniality and violence is more marked.
That gubbins I mentioned would again
have been useful - only this
time to slow Gamba and Handley down
a bit.
The Robert Kett
Overture, which here gets its première
recording, is one of the last pieces
that Arnold wrote (1990). In their recent
biography, Tony Meredith and Paul Harris
accurately describe this and the contemporaneous
A Manx Suite and Flourish
for Battle as "threadbare works,
damaging to his reputation". Yet,
in a way, once we become aware of the
circumstances in which these pieces
were written, nothing could be further
from the truth. For then, in hearing
them, there is a heart-rending poignancy
that has absolutely nothing to do with
the notes. Instead, we are moved to
tears by what we know to be a great
dynamo that has finally run out of steam,
a once immensely vibrant creative spirit
struggling to continue "doing what
came naturally" - when
in fact it is irretrievably burnt out.
And yet . . . and
yet – how can I put this? I know: there
are still quite a few tufts of decent
stuffing tucked inside that threadbare
upholstery! Granted, the structure seems,
and probably is rambling, even incoherent,
and the vacuous, tub-thumping conclusion
threatens to turn the work into a cheap
imitation of the Grand, Grand Overture.
However, the opening gesture is thoroughly
arresting in Arnold’s finest cinematographic
manner, the slender-sounding "fife-and-drum"
tune is subsequently amplified to uproarious
effect and, unless my memory plays me
false, we hear for the first (and only?)
time one of Arnold’s characteristic
"street whistle" glissandi
in the bass!
There is even something
for musicologists and psychologists
to ponder on. The romantic counter-subject
is a dead ringer for one of the two
sentimental subjects of the second movement
of the Fourth Symphony. Of course,
it’s tempting to dismiss this as merely
an "obvious" symptom of the
demise of Arnold’s fertile muse, but
I wouldn’t be so hasty. He had lost
his physical vitality and was still
struggling to recover from dreadful
trauma, but his mind remained, as it
does to this day, as sharp as a razor.
I would be very surprised if Arnold
hadn’t quoted himself, consciously or
otherwise, for some very good reason.
What’s more, in spite of everything
he does find a little bit of
something new to expand on the original
idea.
It seems to me that
Rumon Gamba does everything in his power
to fan the guttering flame back to life,
coaxing the BBCPO to play their socks
off. Yet, strange though it may seem
at first, at no point does he seem to
press the music forward beyond its "natural"
tempo. The opening gesture is broad
and laden with portent, the "fifing"
piccolo sounds as chirpy as you please,
at a tempo where the tuba stands a fighting
chance of emulating its far more agile
cousin, and the "Fourth Symphony"
theme is allowed to flow with modestly
seductive languor. The more boisterous
music is projected with luxuriant amplitude – the
trombone slides, by the way, are electrifying! - and
a seemingly boundless energy that will,
I am sure, bring a smile of satisfaction
to its composer. As they say, "for
a first attempt this ain’t at all bad"!
The one real disappointment
about this collection of "overtures" – a
couple of which aren’t really overtures
at all - is that it doesn’t
include the marvellous Commonwealth
Christmas Overture, with its hilariously
enchanting "Calypso" episode.
But, even if you took out the "non-overtures",
at around 18 minutes’ duration it still
couldn’t have been fitted onto the CD.
So, for the time being at least, we’ll
have to carry on making do with the
composer’s own (fortunately superb)
recording. Maybe, one fine day, Chandos
and Gamba will get around to it?
Throughout, and to
a "man", the BBC Philharmonic
play brilliantly under Gamba’s energetic
direction. As of right now, is there
any band more dedicated to the promotion
of Arnold’s music? "Commitment"
may be a word that is done to death
these days, but these folk simply ooze
it. They scarcely put a toe, never mind
a whole foot, wrong. The sounds that
they make, from solos and gossamer chamber-music
textures right up to the heftiest tutti,
are a constant source of immense pleasure
(provided you don’t "over-eat",
eh?). In this, they seem to be complemented
by the combination of the dry but clear
acoustic of Studio 7 and the characteristically
ambience-loaded recording of the Chandos
engineers: these sort of average out
to give what is a very nice overall
bloom.
Arnold fanatics and
completists will need no encouragement,
from me or anybody else. Otherwise I’d
say: if you happen to have only the
LPO/Arnold recording, then you really
do need to supplement it with either
Gamba or Handley. If you already have
Handley then, unless you’re desperate
for the non-duplicated items, you can
rest easy with what you have. Otherwise,
go get Gamba!
BOOK REVIEWS
The
Life and Music of Sir Malcolm Arnold:
The Brilliant and the Dark by Paul R.W.Jackson
Malcolm
Arnold - Rogue Genius: The Life
and Music of Britain’s most misunderstood
composer
Paul Serotsky
see also review
by John Quinn
*Kathy Jones (principal vacuum cleaner);
Helena Miles (sub principal vacuum cleaner);
Chris Hoyle (section vacuum cleaner); Fiona
Macintosh (principal floor polisher) 
