Once available separately as:-
CD1 ABC CLASSICS 462 014-2 Symphony 1
etc review
CD2 ABC CLASSICS 442 364-2 Symphony 2
etc. review
CD3 ABC CLASSICS 462 766-2 Divertissement
etc review
If you’re looking for
a cornerstone collection of the orchestral
music of Eugene Goossens this is quite
obviously the set you’ve been waiting
for. With the exception of the two Phantasy
Concertos it collates pretty much everything
you will ever want from him symphonically
and orchestrally. It does so in performances
of such assurance and perception that
it will be a good long while before
their integrity will be breached, if
ever. They have that Lyrita stamp of
authority about them. Handley maximises
that near greatness of the stronger
works and manages, Boult-like, to perform
noble architectural surgery to the few
that are less than inspired.
Disc One starts with
the big First Symphony, a splendidly
conceived work. It has plenty of tense
moments but they’re stealthily infiltrated
by romantic reverie itself interrupted,
but never overcome, by some incisive
martial tread. The second movement picks
up the adept wind writing of the first
- he had a perfect grounding in writing
for the winds, given his brothers’ mastery.
It spins a sensitive string line – he
had after all been a first class violinist
and a member of the Philharmonic Quartet,
one of Britain’s finest around the First
War - (he recorded single quartet movements
with them for HMV). But what impresses
most here is the colour. The glockenspiel
adds a certain filmic gloss and the
avian flute writing lends an Impressionist
air; conflicting influences maybe but
I think successfully resolved and modulated.
Baleful brass appear in the scherzo
accompanied by something of the heavy
élan of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
What a superbly verdant tune he spins
over the "railway" percussion
– shades of his contemporary Darius
Milhaud churning out train rhythm movements
during trans-American railway journeys.
The finale returns us to dynamism and
contrast, bellicosity alternating with
more withdrawn and sullen gestures,
a fugato and a flaring brass-crowned
ending.
The Oboe Concerto
is one of his better-known works, a
compact twelve-minute study written
for León, whose recording of
it remains famous to this day. Fanfare
and pastoral, seamless lyricism and
intelligently sectional, Goossens spins
a burnished string cantilever as good
as most of his English contemporaries.
Vaguely Delian though it can sound and
laced with a stronger, very English
pastoral and march patina, I’ve always
found this rather a violinistic work.
Tam O’Shanter is
a fizzy three-minute number but the
Concert Piece is a bolder and
bigger affair, though sporting a determinedly
nondescript nomenclature. Goossens seems
vaguely to flirt with the tone row here,
and it adds to a palpable sense of unease
and intoning disquiet; an impression
reinforced by a "knocking on the
door motif" heard early on. This
tension is dispelled by the middle movement,
which is by contrast a warm reverie,
innocent and full of rippling harp arpeggios.
The finale presents a series of nostalgic
reflections – waltz themes and a retreat
from the combative opening into something
almost Tarkovskyian; a sustained reverie
of intimacy and private communing.
The second disc replicates
the symmetry of the first by giving
us the Second Symphony. Again
in four movements this is a more withdrawn
and less highly coloured work than the
earlier symphony. There is a sense of
inward melancholy that, despite some
warm string melody, can’t ever be quite
effaced. He spins the folk melody The
Turtle Dove in the second movement
but there are plenty of fraught moments
along the way as well, a feeling reinforced
by the third movement’s thickly textured
and ominous insistence. He reprises
themes in the finale and adds some powerful
brass-led marches to end a work that
is complex and strong-limbed, assertive
and yet sometimes gnomically opaque.
Like its companion it’s a wartime symphony
but written at the end of the war and
it’s not unreasonable to view it in
that light.
The Concertino
is a sinewy neo-classical excursion
but one chock-full of character – and
offers roles for solo strings. It’s
a springy work, approachable and delightful.
It’s surely not beyond programmers’
wits to open a concert with it and at
thirteen minutes it surely wouldn’t
tax listeners’ attention spans. The
second disc ends with the Fantasy
for Winds with its very Russian-sounding
sonorities, peppy and lugubrious in
turn and laced with some perky and delicious
dialogues between instruments; ten minutes
of invention and imagination.
The final disc is a
valuable survey of some other important
Goossens works. The Divertissement
is a roistering affair with off-beat
percussion crashes and some increasingly
malevolent pressing lower brass to keep
easy expectation at bay. The delightfully
harmonised folk-tune in the second movement,
on the clarinet, has just enough tartness
to keep it quivering and never sinks
into easy farmland. The finale is plucky,
full of rhythmic verve and packs quite
a punch. Never underestimate Goossens’
talent for frolicsome dance and drama.
The Variations on a Chinese Theme
was his Op.1 and Dvořák stalks
it followed in succession by Brahms
and Rachmaninov, a deal of ballet and
a puckish Viennese waltz.
The Eternal Rhythm
followed soon after and was premiered
in 1920. This is an altogether bigger
work, though it’s shorter in terms of
timing, and shows a far more energised
and more up-to-date cosmopolitan outlook,
drawing on the then in-vogue Scriabin
as one of his primary influences - though
as ever with Goossens, his Belgian inheritance
tended to the Franco-Belgian in terms
of musical influence. It serves notice
of the powerful colourist and orchestrator
to come and is a key work in his output.
The final work is Kaleidoscope, which
also exists in a version for solo piano.
It glitters in whichever version, from
Bright Young Thing sparkle or the faux
funereal, from Liadov’s Music Box
to the jaunty insouciance of a man about
town.
The majority of these
are studio recordings though the Second
Symphony for example was recorded at
a concert – where the audience remained
commendably quiet. The works are parcelled
out to three orchestras, all of which
perform with galvanic zest and corporate
imagination. The notes are full and
informative, the recorded sound fine
and the set as a whole is a splendid
example of imaginative loyalty to a
single composer corpus. If you have
ever gleaned the idea that Goossens
is inclined to grey modernism or to
windy rhetoric, try this three-disc
set and prepare to have your preconceptions
well and truly shattered.
Jonathan Woolf
see also reviews by
John
Phillips and Rob
Barnett
Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Vernon Handley. 
