After last month’s
NMC resurrection of ex-Unicorn tapes
of Simpson 3 (Horenstein) and Clarinet
Quintet [review]
comes this richly contrasted revival
of vintage analogue tapes made by Decca/Argo
in the mid-1970s. Each work in its own
way proclaims a treaty between dissonance
and lyricism.
Maw treads a completely
resolved path in his Life Studies
between Bergian reserve and
Tippett-like buoyant ecstasy; Study
VII is an example. The studies are
for a crack ensemble of fifteen solo
strings. Occasionally larded with hoarsely
violent Bartókian outbursts as
in Study III and Penderecki-style
slalom, the composer seems intent on
exploring every virtuosic facet of the
string orchestra’s palette. Study
V resounds to the swung jazzy pizzicato
of Raymund Koster’s double-bass. Study
VI sidles up to the listener; it
is one of the most oblique pieces -
seemingly stepping outwards from the
stillness of the storm-centre in Britten’s
Grimes - Passacaglia. Speaking
of Britten, Study VIII doffs
its cap to Britten’s Serenade.
This is sheerly brilliant writing and
the Academy trounces the challenge;
no wonder as the line-up includes Iona
Brown, Malcolm Latchem, Colin Sauer,
Stephen Shingles and Dennis Vigay. The
players’ strengths are complemented
by James Mallinson’s recording work;
the Decca team at its most virile and
forthright. I have not heard the competition
(Nimbus NI5471 ESO/William Boughton)
but this NMC version is vividly well-strung
and intense.
Bennett’s Spells
was commissioned by the RPO
with funds from the Gulbenkian Foundation.
It is dedicated to Jane Manning, an
artist at the forefront of the UK’s
avant-garde. She was the soloist at
the premiere in Worcester Cathedral
on 28 August 1975. She is in splendid
voice - try the Spell of Safekeeping
- where she is at her wonderful
best - which is captured before the
depredations of exotic modernistic demands
injected a sometimes ruinous vibrato.
There is a particularly tormented Love
Spell (tr. 13) and a Spell to
bring lost creatures home that looks
back to Britten’s Our Hunting Fathers.
Overall this is a tougher work than
the Maw benefiting greatly from the
transparent acoustic of Walthamstow
Town Hall. I don’t doubt that producer
Chris Hazell also had something to do
with it. I recall the original broadcast
where the cathedral ambience lent the
work an unfocused generality which did
it no favours at all. The idea of a
work based on spells is an inspired
choice one related perhaps to Bliss’s
A Knot of Riddles. Such a shame
that the words of the spells are not
reproduced in the booklet.
Two brilliant retrievals
from the fearsome mid-1970s. Oddly enough
each - but especially the Maw - begins
to show signs of a return to lyricism
and a subtle renunciation of Boulez
and Darmstadt.
Rob Barnett
Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner
(Maw) 
