Any textbook on 19th
century British music will tell you
that Stanford’s "Revenge"
once enjoyed a phenomenal success and
was still going strong into the 1930s.
Even in the darkest hours before dawn,
the post-war years when no one had a
good word to say for Stanford, Percy
Young noted that "high schools
still sing his ‘Revenge’." Apparently
this was proof positive for Young that
Stanford was a lousy composer!
As so often, we have
a tale of two Stanfords. Jeremy Dibble,
in his booklet notes, tells us that
it "resulted from a commission
from the Leeds Festival", while
Paul Rodmell [Charles Villiers Stanford,
Ashgate 2002, p.119] dwells on the fact
that "unusually for this type of
secular cantata, the work was not written
to commission". It was, according
to Rodmell – who quotes a plausible
source – one of fourteen unsolicited
works sent to Leeds and the only one
accepted.
Sydney Grew [Our
Favourite Musicians from Stanford to
Holbrooke, Foulis 1922, p.30] tells
us that Tennyson himself suggested that
Stanford should set the poem. I have
not seen this specifically stated elsewhere
but Dibble relates that much of it was
written at Tennyson’s home in Farringford
in January 1886 so the poet certainly
knew about the setting and approved
of the idea. Later, while preparations
were being made for the Leeds performance,
Stanford wrote to Tennyson’s son Hallam:
"The chorus is magnificent,
also the band. You will never hear it
anywhere else so splendidly done. Do
try to come".
Here, too, we have
a tale of two Stanfords, for later on
he remembered it rather differently:
"The chorus trainer
at Leeds, James Broughton, who had brought
his singers to a high pitch of excellence,
had become an invalid and retired. His
successor was not built on the same
lines … After the first performance
of the ‘Revenge’, in which the chorus
fell once or twice slightly and were
not dead sure of their intonation, I
met James B. in the lobby, who said,
with tears in his eyes, ‘To think my
children should lose pitch like that!’
I comforted him as much as I could by
pointing out the passages in which they
excelled, and the difficulties of getting
four hundred singers to declaim a ballad
written in an unfamiliar style"
[Pages from an Unwritten Diary,
Edward Arnold 1914, p.252].
Even the critical reception
testified to the tale of two Stanfords
for, while the Musical Times praised
the work, declaring there was "a
bright tone of British manhood in the
music as well as in the words",
the Monthly Musical Record [11/1886]
complained that "the composer has
done his best to overscore the work,
and to make it as little like an English
composition as possible".
This latter reaction,
together with the choral problems, if
true – a necessary proviso since Stanford
had a somewhat creative memory and may
have been mixing two episodes – show
that the music was more modern in its
context than it might seem today. While
older practitioners such as Macfarren
were still producing cantatas in separate
movements in the manner of Handel, "The
Revenge" was through-composed in
a semi-Wagnerian fashion, with leitmotivs
for the principal characters and thematic
transformation in the style of Liszt
as the events evolved. In short, what
he had been doing on the smaller span
of church music for several years, Stanford
now applied to the larger canvas of
the cantata.
It may seem surprising,
given that this is one of the works
always mentioned when Stanford is discussed,
that a recording has not been made before
now. After all, many of the pieces our
great-grandparents loved – "The
Bohemian Girl", "Maritana",
"The Golden Legend", "Hiawatha"
– have been re-examined and the Stanford
discography is now reaching quite sizeable
proportions. As a matter of fact, Chandos
are advertising this as "the only
available recording", with the
implication that a previous one was
made, but to my 99%-certain knowledge,
none has been available for at least
40 years.
[Note: Consultation
of the BL Sound Archive catalogue shows
the existence of performances recorded
in 1938 (incomplete, cond. W.K. Stanton),
1948 (cond. Charles Groves) and 1988
(Broadheath/Tucker). I presume the first
two are broadcast performances, the
latter a privately-made tape].
The answer may lie
in a feeling that, just as Tennyson’s
poem is not one of the works for which
the 21st century honours
his name, so this aspect of Stanford
is not likely to be one which still
has a contemporary message for us today.
The Musical Times’s comment about "a
bright tone of British manhood"
sums up in a nutshell both what the
Victorians valued in it and what might
be less comfortable for us. It can be
said that the music matches the poem
perfectly; the themes are vivid and
memorable, the construction is clear-cut,
the orchestration full and colourful
without heaviness. If the poem had to
be set, this was the ideal way to do
it. And yet there is a risk that today’s
listener will hear it with an indulgent
smile, thinking "so this is what
are great-grandparents enjoyed",
while other works by Stanford may still
engage him emotionally. Of course, many
passages can be enjoyed as abstract
good music, ignoring the words, but
others are more obviously stopping and
starting to tell the story, so I don’t
think listening just as music will be
a fully satisfactory experience. Still,
this is a recording that had to be made
and anyone at all interested in British
music of this period will want to make
up his own mind.
The performance is
a good one, possibly a little laid-back.
Hickox simply sees that everything is
clearly presented and lets the music
speak for itself, which it is well able
to do. The 1886 Leeds Festival Chorus
had about four times the number of singers
and their tenors could perhaps have
charged Sir Richard Grenville’s defiant
lines with more heroism. There is no
great relish here of such splendid lines
as "these inquisition dogs and
the devildoms of Spain". The 21st
century has learnt that a choir of 100-plus
is at least four times too many for
Handel and Bach. It may yet have to
learn that it is about four times too
small for Parry and Stanford.
Just one tiny point
of interpretation emerges from Stanford’s
own writings:
"Without being
a musician, he [Tennyson] … was
a great judge of musical declamation.
As he expressed it himself, he disliked
music which went up when it ought
to go down, and went down when it
ought to go up. … The most vivid
instance I can recall was about
a line in the ‘Revenge’ –
‘Was he devil or man?
He was devil for aught they knew.’
When I played him
my setting, the word ‘devil’ was
set to a higher note in the question
than it was in the answer; and the
penultimate word ‘they’ was unaccented.
He at once corrected me, saying
that the second word ‘devil’ must
be higher and stronger than the
first, and the ‘they’ must be marked.
He was perfectly right, and I altered
it accordingly" [Studies
and Memories, Constable 1908,
p.93].
The accent which Stanford
duly inserted over "they"
is ignored here. Maybe if this extract
had been read to the choir at rehearsal
they would have known what they were
supposed to be doing and why. A minute
point but possibly symptomatic of an
unwillingness to penetrate the music
more than strictly necessary.
As so often, Stanford
quickly provided a sequel – "The
Battle of the Baltic", op.41 (1891).
Just as Campbell’s poem never caught
the public imagination in the same way
as Tennyson’s, Stanford’s cantata setting
of it did not achieve the popularity
of the earlier one. Not all critics
have judged it inferior, but that is
something that can be discussed if and
when a recording turns up. Stanford’s
nautical vein hit the jackpot again
in 1904 with "Songs of the Sea".
These Newbolt settings were not originally
planned as a cycle and two of the poems
were written specially. Plunket Greene,
Stanford’s friend, biographer and the
first interpreter of these songs, tells
the tale:
"They were
not all the children of one birth.
There were only two of them to start
with – ‘Devon, O Devon’ and ‘Outward
Bound’ – for solo voice and orchestra.
When he showed them to me I cried
out for more. We sat down and wrote
to Newbolt. The result was ‘The
Old Superb’. The moment Stanford
saw it he said it must have a male
chorus. I begged for still another
two and suggested ‘Drake’s Drum’
… We both felt it wanted one more
to be completed and the obvious
fifth was the brother of ‘Outward
Bound’. As usual, Newbolt produced
the right thing on the spot and
‘Homeward Bound’, one of the loveliest
sea-pictures ever painted, was the
result" [Harry Plunket Greene:
Charles Villiers Stanford,
Edward Arnold 1935, p.134].
Plunket Greene, like
Stanford, had a creative memory and
Jeremy Dibble has pointed out that the
dates in the score do not tally with
this account [Jeremy Dibble: Charles
Villiers Stanford, Man and Musician,
Oxford 2002, p.359], though he adds
that "it may be that the dates
pertain only to their orchestration".
"Songs of the
Sea" are no stranger to the gramophone.
Back in 1929 Newbolt’s daughter and
granddaughter played the poet a record
of "Drake’s Drum" and "The
Old Superb" and he wrote to his
wife: "Too loud, of course, and
the singer not a patch on Harry Greene;
but I was quite overcome with admiration
at old Charles Stanford’s genius … I
wrote that Old Superb all in one piece
and the next day he set it in one morning.
Could one enjoy life more gloriously?"
[quoted in Gerald Norris: Stanford,
the Cambridge Jubilee and Tchaikovsky,
David & Charles 1980, p.560].
Newbolt does not name
the singer but it was presumably Peter
Dawson, who recorded at least part of
the cycle in 1928, and again – certainly
complete this time – in 1933. Unfortunately
I have the Dawson recordings on a World
Record Club anthology issued in the
days when it was quite normal to release
historical material without dates, matrix
numbers or even details of the accompanying
orchestras and conductors. I presume
these are the 1933 recordings and I
understand that the original discs name
the Leeds Festival Chorus and Orchestra
while remaining silent about the conductor.
Since Stanford himself was the conductor
of the Leeds Festival at the time of
the songs’ first performance, the discs
may enshrine some memories of his own
interpretations but, in view of Newbolt’s
reservations, not too much should be
read into them. The idea of having "Ship
ahoy!" shouted rather than sung
in the last verse of "The Old Superb",
for example, is more likely to be an
aberration that crept in later than
an idea dating back to Stanford himself.
The post-Falklands
War years were a good time to revive
this sort of music and when EMI released
Benjamin Luxon’s coupling of "Songs
of the Sea" and "Songs of
the Fleet", with Norman Del Mar
conducting, there was a general feeling
that the music still came up remarkably
fresh. At about the same time Luxon
sang "Songs of the Sea" at
the Proms, with James Loughran, leading
to their reinstatement there on a fairly
regular basis. The recording by Sir
Thomas Allen, in fact, was part of a
CD (Decca, 1997) dedicated to "music
traditionally performed at ‘The Last
Night of the Proms’, conducted by Sir
Roger Norrington. Incidentally, Luxon
had made a previous recording, for Abbey,
with piano accompaniment but with chorus.
The songs were also included in one
of Stephen Varcoe’s Hyperion CDs of
Stanford songs, with piano accompaniment
and no chorus. I felt this to be a waste
of space that could have been given
over to more unrecorded songs. Of the
numerous incomplete versions, I would
mention John Shirley-Quirk’s wonderfully
fine performances of "Drake’s Drum"
and "The Old Superb" (with
piano and no chorus) on an old Saga
LP.
Here are the timings
of the complete versions with chorus
and orchestra:
| |
Dawson |
Luxon |
Allen |
Finley
|
|
Drake’s Drum
|
2:34 |
3:12 |
2:51 |
3:12 |
|
Outward Bound
|
2:27 |
3:07 |
3:24 |
3:14 |
|
Devon, O Devon
|
1:52 |
1:41 |
1:51 |
1:44 |
| Homeward Bound |
4:14 |
6:43 |
6:18 |
6:41 |
| The Old Superb |
3:13 |
3:05 |
3:20 |
3:08 |
The timings may be
a little approximate for Dawson and
Luxon since I am working from LPs. For
Allen and Finley I have given the timings
as they appear in my computer. In the
case of Allen the printed timings are
considerably different while in the
case of Finley they are identical except
for a difference of two seconds in "The
Old Superb". Maybe my computer
is wrong, but at least the relative
differences between the performances
should be right.
It is well enough known
that performances of slow movements
have become increasingly long-drawn
over the last century – see the obvious
case of the Adagietto of Mahler 5 which
has sometimes touched the exact double
of Mahler’s own timing. But it is also
known that performers were sometimes
obliged to speed up to fit the music
onto a 78 side. We shall never know
if Dawson and company would have liked
to take a little more time over "Homeward
Bound" but we have to note that
they were already at the outside limit
for a single side. "Outward Bound"
is equally swift and it crosses my mind
that perhaps it was squeezed onto a
side with "Devon, O Devon"
to issue the cycle on just two discs.
Even if this were so, however, the fact
remains that he was under no such constraint
with "Drake’s Drum" and still
took it pretty swiftly.
In the days when I
had only Dawson to listen to, these
fast readings of the two slow songs
seemed so insensitive they made me feel
quite cross. Coming back to them I find
"Outward Bound" the most seriously
compromised, with the singer often getting
ahead of the beat and the rests foreshortened.
Stanford’s marking
for "Drake’s Drum" – Tempo
di Marcia moderato – could embrace any
of the alternatives offered here. I
don’t find Dawson too brisk since he
finds joy and confidence in the thought
of the dead captain returning to "drum
them up the Channel as we drummed them
long ago". Shirley-Quirk was recognizably
in the same tradition at 2:39 – though
bear in mind that four bars are omitted
at the end when there is no chorus.
While a little more spacious, Allen
and Norrington give the piece a perky
strut and the conductor has the percussion
well to the fore.
Though Luxon and Finley
have identical timings the effect is
quite different. Basically, Luxon and
Del Mar present the usual interpretation,
but in slow motion. The result is sometimes
lugubrious. The music works when Drake
is "dreaming all the time of Plymouth
Hoe", but the "sailor lads
a-dancing heel an’ toe" don’t get
off the ground. Hickox, on the other
hand, shows that this passage can still
dance at a slower tempo.
Basically, Finley and
Hickox present a different view of the
music, with the dead captain evoked
more distantly and an element of mysticism
in the idea of his return. Hickox finds
a sombre colour in Stanford’s orchestration
which the others miss. Maybe the Norrington
view would be better in a Proms context
but I find Hickox equally valid. How
interesting that such an apparently
simple song can bear two very different
interpretations.
If we discount Dawson’s
"Outward Bound" entirely,
the timing differences between the others
don’t seem to translate to the actual
result. All three give warm, heartfelt
interpretations and I could be happy
with any of them.
Norrington’s conducting
of "Devon, O Devon" is surprisingly
laid-back and Allen is similarly relaxed.
Dawson finds a more manly vigour at
about the same tempo. Del Mar throws
caution to the winds with a sometimes
ragged but thrilling display of sea
foam. Hickox is thrilling in a completely
different way, giving the quavers in
the lower strings a Beethovenian tautness.
I have concentrated on the conductors
because they seem to account for the
differences here.
Though swift, and often
too loud, Dawson doesn’t actually sound
hurried in "Homeward Bound"
and he may have a point since Newbolt
tells us that "swiftly the great
ship glides" (my italics).
Plunket Greene remarked, too, that "the
battleship in ‘Homeward Bound’ moved
on as surely to Dover as the ‘Old Superb’
to Trinidad. Steam or sail, thirty knots
or five, they never stopped"
[ibid. p.204, the italics are his].
Del Mar, I fear, goes
to the opposite extreme, adopting a
Barbirolli-conducts-Elgar style with
a lot of point-making – at "the
enchanted haze", for example –
which sounds magical if you hear it
once, but risks getting becalmed entirely.
Norrington is just sufficiently faster
for us to feel the ship gliding imperceptibly
yet swiftly across a glassy sea. However,
Hickox, while slower, manages to keep
a feeling of motion. Norrington has
the orchestral details sharply etched
while Hickox creates a more impressionist
haze. All three modern singers are extremely
sensitive, so it is again the conductors
who make the differences.
When the Luxon record
came out, I tried to get my mother to
enthuse over "The Old Superb".
When I failed to do so I got out Peter
Dawson. "That’s singing!"
she said delightedly at the end. This
was the sort of thing where Dawson excelled.
Indeed, this sort of easy familiarity
with words that trip easily of the tongue
is something that has been largely lost.
In spite of an orchestra that follows
half a beat behind, the spirit of this
recording has proved hard to match.
Luxon seems to be making much more effort
to achieve far less. His aspirates in
phrases like "open’d wide and free"
– rendered as "ope-hen’d wi-hide
a-hand free" – are perhaps symptomatic
of a technique better suited to other
types of song. Del Mar is again a rough-and-tumble
partner while Norrington sets off at
another surprisingly staid pace. This
enables Allen to manage his words but
it isn’t very exciting. Plunket Greene
recalled that at the first performance
"… ‘The Old Superb’ taken at a
break-neck pace whirled the audience
off their feet" [ibid. p.134],
something that Allen and Norrington
would be unlikely to achieve. If there
is a modern performance that recaptures
the spirit of Dawson’s it is Finley’s.
The words roll easily off his tongue
in much the same way and at much the
same pace – Dawson and company make
a slight broadening for the last refrain
which accounts for the longer timing.
Hickox, too, keeps things light and
lively without getting out of hand.
Plunket Greene has
another interesting memory:
"I shall never
forget the enthusiasm of the chorus,
… nor the cheers when he [Stanford]
told them they could sing the F
and top B flat (not in the original
score) at the finish of ‘The Old
Superb’" [ibid., p.134].
This amendment never
did get into the printed score, but
chorus trainers with crack choirs might
bear in mind that Stanford sanctioned
these high notes. In the case of the
BBC National Chorus of Wales, whose
tenors make heavy weather of the high
Gs in "The Revenge" and who
do not attempt the (written) high A
in "Devon, O Devon", a long-held
B flat would probably not have been
a very good idea.
In conclusion, it can
be seen that, if I had to give my top
two performances for each song, Finley
would be there, ex-aequo, in every case,
so that makes the new version a clear
winner. Furthermore, taking the performances
as a whole, while it could be felt that
for Dawson this was basically light
music, Hickox, with his unusually sombre
"Drake’s Drum", has altered
the balance of the cycle towards its
more serious aspects. At this point
even the two bright and lively songs
take on a parenthetical air, with the
serious ones there to say "look
where this all ends!"
Perhaps this is not
surprising. I doubt if Stanford had
much importance for either Del Mar or
Norrington. One of Hickox’s very first
discs (1976) was an LP coupling on the
long-forgotten Prelude label of partsongs
by Parry and Stanford. The Richard Hickox
Singers of the day included Stephen
Varcoe and Paul Hillier among the basses
and Penelope Walmsley-Clark to sing
the solo in "The Blue Bird".
Earlier still, Hickox was organ scholar
at Cambridge for three years, so he
would know all the regular Stanford
church pieces from a tender age. More
recently, of course, he conducted the
Chandos recording of Stanford’s very
fine Stabat Mater. So Stanford is part
of his musical background.
If the sequel to "The
Revenge", "The Battle of the
Baltic", was largely judged a poor
second, "Songs of the Fleet"
did much better. It is true that "Drake’s
Drum" and "The Old Superb"
from the earlier cycle continued to
be the favourites with musical amateurs
around the country but many musicians,
including Vaughan Williams, felt that
"Songs of the Fleet" struck
a deeper note. This time the cycle finished
with a valedictory note rather than
a lively one and at its heart is that
extraordinary piece of tone-painting
"The Middle Watch". A mixed
chorus was used this time but a version
with male chorus was also issued and
Stanford’s use of a male quartet for
his own recording may indicate that
he preferred this. The two modern recordings
opt for a mixed chorus.
A certain amount of
mystery surrounds the Stanford recording
(once issued on a Pearl LP). The precise
date is not known, only that it was
made in late 1923, by which time Stanford’s
health had declined considerably and
he had actually retired from conducting.
The use of a quartet rather than a chorus
was presumably dictated by the primitive
recording conditions. Even as it is,
the orchestra all but disappears when
they enter. Another mystery is why Harry
Plunket Greene, the first interpreter
and Stanford’s friend of long standing,
was not chosen as the singer. He was
by then 58, it is true, but evidently
far from played out since Newbolt heard
him sing them in 1928 –
"like a noble
ghost from some earlier period.
… There was Charles Stanford’s ghost
too and his music made me weep –
the restrained wailing of ‘Farewell’
(writ so long before the War) and
the marvellous beat of ‘The Little
Admiral’, like 10,000 pulses in
one and a thunderstorm over it all,
and the sad courage of ‘Sailing
at Dawn’." [letter to his wife,
quoted in Norris, ibid. p.560].
Instead, Harold Williams
was chosen, and gave an excellent performance.
I have not been able
to ascertain whether Peter Dawson recorded
this cycle complete. The WRC compilation
containing "Songs of the Sea"
also has "The Little Admiral"
while a recording of "Fare Well"
certainly exists. A further version
was not set down until the Luxon/Del
Mar, nor has there been another until
now. The BL Sound Archive conserves
a RFH performance given by Frederick
Harvey and the LPO under Boult in 1955
"in the presence of Her Majesty
the Queen". This could be of some
interest.
Here are the timings
of the three versions:
| |
Williams/Stanford |
Luxon/Del Mar |
Finley/Hickox |
|
Sailing at Dawn
|
4:01 |
5:16 |
5:19 |
| The Song of the Sou’Wester |
3:14 |
2:52 |
3:12 |
| The Middle Watch |
6:52 |
6:32 |
7:42 |
|
The Little Admiral
|
3:37 |
3:16 |
3:41 |
|
Fare Well
|
3:44 (cut) |
6:13 |
6:17 |
Once again, the Williams
and the Luxon are approximate timings
since I am working from LP and the Finley
timings are those of my computer, which
differ from the printed timings in two
of the songs.
Discussion is likely
to centre around the tempi for the first
and last songs where Stanford – in spite
of a cut in "Fare Well" –
is considerably faster than the other
two. The suspicion that this was forced
on him becomes all the greater when
we note that in the three middle songs,
where space was not an issue – "The
Middle Watch" was spread over two
sides – he is consistently slower than
Del Mar and fractionally slower than
Hickox in one of them. Whereas Del Mar
and Hickox seem to agree in painting
a gentle, evanescent, dawn-grey tone
picture in the first song, Stanford’s
swinging march rhythm gives it another
character entirely. Would a composer
have accepted to change the character
of his work when an alternative would
have been to cut a verse and play the
rest at a proper tempo?
While metronome markings
are not provided for "Songs of
the Sea", they are given – presumably
by Stanford – for "Songs of the
Fleet". That for "Sailing
at Dawn is crotchet = 72. At the beginning
Stanford is absolutely spot on. By the
time the chorus enters he has settled
into 80 which he pretty well holds to
the end. Another time-saving device
might be his ignoring of the "poco
rit" at "infinitely desolate
the shoreless sea below". Elsewhere
he is fairly indulgent over such markings.
From 72 to 80 is not a great leap so
the conclusion would seem to be that
Stanford probably went a little faster
than he might have wished but not a
great deal, and presumably did not feel
he was actually distorting the nature
of the music.
But in all truth, Del
Mar and Hickox are no farther than Stanford
from the prescribed tempo – only in
the opposite direction. They both agree
on crotchet = 66. I get the idea that
both the swifter Stanford and the slightly
sluggish modern performances are emphasizing
one dimension of a piece that has two.
Yes, there is fear and sadness in the
music, but there is also the joy of
being at sea again and I don’t find
that in Del Mar and Hickox. It doesn’t
help that the two choirs make little
use of the opportunities given by the
words for tone-painting. "Splendour
of the past", sung with at least
five Ss, should rise up like the first
big salt-wave striking the bow of the
ship. They might as well be singing
about pretty flowers or even a "Kyrie
eleison". My feeling is that crotchet
= 72, as indicated, would capture the
duality of the music, the "sad
courage" of which Newbolt spoke.
Though agreed on tempo,
Del Mar and Hickox are actually rather
different. Del Mar allows Luxon a great
deal of leeway in the solo sections
– in fact, the metronome will tick to
his performance only in the choral sections.
Hickox is steadier, giving the music
the feeling of a flowing prelude and
perhaps retaining a little more of the
spirit of Stanford’s own performance.
Del Mar’s flexibility can be highly
effective in Elgar or Delius but I often
find with this imaginative conductor
that flexibility applied where it does
not belong quickly degenerates into
flabbiness.
In "The Song of
the Sou’Wester" Stanford is again
spot on his marking of 112 to the dotted
crotched. He is very precise over the
articulation of the opening motive,
digging into the three slurred notes
and separating distinctly the last two
quavers of the bar. By insisting on
this he obtains – however dimly it can
be heard in the recording and however
it may be compromised by the woolly
execution of the 1923 LSO – a suggestion
of menacing, elemental power that I
don’t find in the other two. Harold
Williams, like Peter Dawson, is a master
of letting the words trip off his tongue
at speed. An interpretative point to
be noted along the way is the slight
broadening to point up the "’Twas
in Trafalgar’s bay" quotation.
I wonder if the modern baritones even
know that this is an actual musical
phrase from Braham’s (this is not a
misprint for Brahms!) then-popular "Death
of Nelson".
Luxon, with a faster
tempo to contend with, again shows that
this sort of high speed delivery is
not his forte, adopting a barking manner
that occasionally loses pitch. Del Mar
cheerfully ignores both the metronome
mark – he takes it at 120 – and the
"non troppo" part of the "Allegro
non troppo ma con fuoco"
marking; in the choral sections he gets
faster still. Heedless of matters such
as articulation, the opening phrase
cannot be heard properly at all. It’s
all very exciting in a superficial sort
of way.
With Hickox everything
is clean and clear at exactly the marked
tempo and Finley proves also here to
have that ease with words characteristic
of an earlier generation. What is lacking
here is the "con fuoco". The
idea is exactly right and the performance
has to be preferred to Del Mar’s, but
I wish Hickox had fired his forces a
little more, as Stanford himself – insofar
as we can hear – seems to have done.
Plunket Greene raises
a strange point regarding "The
Middle Watch":
"The Fleet
Songs furnished us with a proof
that Jove can sometimes nod. Stanford
wrote ‘The Middle Watch’ in G, and
trying it through at the piano there
did not seem to be anything wrong
with it; but when it came to the
full rehearsal it was found to be
a tone too high. It is a slow sostenuto,
mostly soft throughout, and the
tessitura was just that much
too high, if the atmospheric ‘distance’
and the pitch were to be kept by
soloist and chorus alike. The band
parts had to be re-written in F
against time" [ibid. p.145].
This sounds a bit too
detailed to be wholly the product of
creative memory, but what happened to
the "band parts" in F, which
should logically have replaced those
in G in Stainer & Bell’s hire library?
All three recordings are in G, including
Stanford’s own, so "band parts"
in G are what the publishers have consistently
supplied over the years. Perhaps Plunket
Greene just meant it was too high for
his particular voice.
This time Stanford
is considerably below his metronome
mark of crotchet = 116, reducing it
to 100. On the second side, though,
he takes the solo verse somewhat faster,
almost at 116, then settles back when
the chorus enters. His male voice quartet
sings at an unremitting forte, but under
the acoustic conditions – just one horn
to sing into, of which the soloist would
have had the lion’s share – this was
probably unavoidable.
Del Mar is pretty well
spot on the metronome mark – though
maintaining his characteristic flexibility.
This is enough the change the character
of the piece since it now sounds 2-in-a-bar
rather than 6. This may be all to the
good, but his choir makes no attempt
to get below a mezzo piano and more
often sings mezzo forte, supporting
the idea that the tonality is actually
too high. There is a fair sea swell
and a certain passionate intensity to
this performance which is attractive
but, according to Stanford’s own example,
not really what he wanted at all. Hickox
is slowest of all – crotchet = 92. This
is further still from what Stanford
wrote but fairly close to what he actually
did. Hickox is a choral trainer of long
experience and he manages to coax a
piano if not a pianissimo from the choir.
For anything more ethereal than that,
I daresay the lower key is needed.
If we try to fathom
out Stanford’s intentions from the murk
of the ancient recording, it seems clear
that he wanted the pervasive triplet
movement to sound very clear and even,
almost inhumanly mechanical, like a
star-spangled sky. This is then the
unvarying backdrop to the choral and
solo parts. Unfortunately, these triplets
are scarcely audible once the quartet
enters and his intentions can be sensed
rather than heard. Very dimly, one gets
the idea that something quite momentous
is happening under his direction. The
steadiness and the spaciousness create
a sense of timelessness. Alas, it is
a mangled fresco whose real qualities
can be glimpsed only in rare moments.
Del Mar, we have seen,
presents a wholly different view and
can claim authority from the score for
his tempo if not his dynamics. Hickox
has a spaciousness and steadiness similar
to Stanford’s. But incredibly, the persistent
triplets are lost in the texture even
more than they are in the 1923 recording!
We get the immobility and the timelessness
but we lose the inexorable movement.
A near miss.
All three performances
of "The Little Admiral" are
as close to the marked minim = 96 as
makes no difference, so the range of
timings depend on what they do along
the way. Stanford the racy Irish raconteur
is well to the fore in his performance
which is fairly free and shows that
when he writes a rallentando or a meno
mosso he means it. There is also an
unmarked rallentando at "meet him
at the great Armada game" which
is so obviously effective that we should
perhaps suppose it to have been omitted
from the printed score by accident and
therefore should be done. It isn’t in
the other performances, of course. Altogether
this performance is an object lesson
in just how to interpret all the different
changes of tempo, a lesson which was
already being cheerfully ignored by
Peter Dawson ten years later.
Yet again we admire
Williams’s ease with the words and yet
again this is the problem with Luxon
who sometimes gives us another dose
of ill-tuned barking. Combined with
Del Mar’s tendency to hurry the tempo,
the performance of the line "Keel
to keel and gun to gun he’ll challenge
us" does no credit to anybody involved.
The unscripted top G at "a rubber
of the old Long Bowls" was not
a good idea. Superficially, the performance
is exciting.
Hickox keeps things
light, steady but dancing and Finley
is so much at ease with the words as
to sound positively relaxed. As with
"The Song of the Sou’Wester",
it is an excellent performance but I
wish Hickox had asked that little bit
more from everybody.
With "Fare Well"
we have another tempo problem. In spite
of a cut of 10 bars, Stanford is quite
dramatically faster than his modern
rivals. The perplexing thing is that
the 78 side would have accommodated
about another 20 seconds so he could
have relaxed a little bit. Is
it possible he really wanted it that
way?
As in "Sailing
at Dawn", the metronome is about
halfway between Stanford and the other
two. He marked it 60 to the crotchet,
he begins at 66 and is soon moving forward
at 72. At "To keep the house unharmed"
he has indicated "poco più
mosso" with a new marking of 72.
Having already reached 72 he presses
on to 80 and sometimes even more. He
drops back to his original tempo as
marked, but the real puzzle is at the
end – "For evermore their life
and thine are one". Here he has
requested "Molto adagio" with
a marking of 52. He actually speeds
up to 80 with a grandstand finish at
around 88.
Del Mar’s tempi are
characteristically flexible here – to
good effect in this context – but a
tempo around 50 to the crotchet seems
the norm. At "to keep the house
unharmed" he forges ahead considerably
at about 66, even verging on the written
72 at times. But this way the difference
is far greater than requested. He returns
to his original tempo, of course, and
the final section is pretty close to
the written 52. But Stanford wrote 52
on the assumption that the previous
tempo was faster while Del Mar’s
was slower. So he actually speeds
up. But then, so did Stanford, even
more.
Hickox also begins
around 50, holding it more steadily
– though not rigidly – than Del Mar.
At "To keep the house unharmed"
he makes only a small modification –
crotchet = 60. Proportionally, this
is about the increase Stanford asked
for. And at the end he does actually
manage to go slower still, as asked
– about 48.
Since the differences
are practically irreconcilable and alter
the character of the music entirely,
one is bound to ask if anything else
in the score can help us. Well yes,
there are the dynamics. At the beginning,
against the orchestra’s piano,
the choir sings its three "farewells"
triple piano. Then the solo voice
enters mezzo forte followed by
a swelling crescendo on the first long
note, accompanied by an orchestra marked
piano. The baritone is not asked
to modify his mezzo forte until
"themselves they could not save",
where he drops to piano. All
this time the choir is continuing to
interpolate its "farewells"
triple piano and the orchestra
continues piano. At "To
keep the house unharmed" the soloist
is asked to sing forte and the
choir, in their one interpolation in
this section, are allowed to enter piano
but are asked to make an immediate diminuendo.
When the original tempo returns the
choir continues with its triple piano
"farewells" but the soloist
is not asked to modify his forte
until after the choir’s swelling (from
pianissimo) on the word
"mother". Only then is he
asked to drop to piano. Then
the orchestra enter for the final denouement
and everybody rises to fortissimo.
But what do the three
performances actually do?
It is idle to expect
a triple piano from Stanford’s male
quartet though they do seem to be trying
to sing a little quieter than usual.
Williams’s dynamics are pretty much
as written – he opts for a strong delivery.
A triple piano seems
to be too much to ask of Del Mar’s Bournemouth
choir, too. They are somewhere between
piano and mezzo piano.
And so is Luxon when he enters! In
other words, the indicated difference
is ironed out. Throughout the first
section, Luxon offers a gentle, restrained
and elegiac delivery. He is stronger
at "To keep the house unharmed"
and it could be argued that here – only
here – this performance is the closest
of the three to what is written. He
returns to his elegiac tone at "Service
is sweet" and soloist and chorus
mingle at approximately the same dynamic
level. The pianissimo choral cry of
"mother" is mezzo forte or
more.
Hickox gets something
much closer to a real triple piano from
his Welsh choir. But Finley is also
much closer than Luxon to a triple piano
when he enters. So again, the marked
difference is ironed out. Finley continues
his gentle piano even at "To keep
the house unharmed" so the whole
piece is given a hushed, elegiac tone
until the triumphant end.
Are we any closer to
understanding what Stanford wanted?
I think the two modern
performances make the mistake of thinking
that soloist and choir should mingle
whereas they are at odds. In
the far distance – as off-stage sounding
as possible – the dead are repeating
their farewells. But the soloist is
not saying farewell with them,
he is not lamenting the dead,
he is exhorting the sea to hear
the dead and to greet them, "because
they died for thee". So only at
the end, when the soloist sees, as if
in a vision, that "For evermore
their life and thine are one",
do their differences become reconciled
and everybody rises to a fortissimo
together. Looked at this way, Stanford’s
own performance, if a shade hasty, does
not spiritually betray what he wanted.
Luxon/Del Mar and Finley/Hickox give
extremely beautiful performances after
their lights, but their lights are demonstrably
not Stanford’s.
Summing up, once again
Hickox has emphasized the serious nature
of the work as a whole by dwelling on
the slower pieces and giving the faster
ones a parenthetical quality. If I have
raised a few doubts, he certainly gives
the impression that he believes in Stanford,
and the music responds accordingly.
Del Mar came from a generation that
got the giggles whenever Parry-and-Stanford
were mentioned. He was probably somewhat
bemused at being asked to conduct the
music at all. I would like to think
he has favourably impressed by the slower
pieces but he seems to think he could
afford to be facetious over the faster
ones.
Even if Stanford’s
own recording were currently available,
you need to be a trained musician or
a very experienced listener to disentangle
from it what Stanford did, what he wanted,
what he got, and what we can actually
hear of it. While it was my only chance
of hearing the music at all, this recording
was a source of frustration more than
anything and I have finally come to
terms with it while preparing to write
this review.
When I saw the programme
of this disc I was a little concerned
that those who have the Luxon recordings
of the two song cycles may not wish
to duplicate them for "The Revenge".
However, I assure them that if they
do they will get performances that are
considerably different, and almost invariably
for the better. For newcomers, the Finley/Hickox
is a clear first choice whether you
want "The Revenge" or not.
Texts are provided and the notes are
in three languages. If I began by querying
a statement in Jeremy Dibble’s essay
I should add that for the rest he provides
a full and detailed introduction to
the music. I have heard the recording
as an ordinary CD and note that it has
to be played at a higher volume level
than usual but is otherwise excellent.
I hope people will buy this in sufficient
numbers to convince Chandos that it
would be a good thing to go on and produce
more.
In his own day Stanford
was valued for his choral music above
all. Since this is the most expensive
sort of repertoire to record, more attention
has been paid so far to his instrumental
music. Generally it has proved worthwhile.
If more choral works could be set down,
which are the ones to go for?
Of the non-religious
works, my first choices would be:
Elegiac Ode, op.21
(1884), a very impressive Whitman setting
and surely one of the first, at least
outside America.
Phaudrig Crohoore,
op.62 (1895), a charming, racy Irish
ballad
Last Post, op.75
(1900), a dignified and moving elegy
Merlin and the Gleam,
op.172 (1919), a late work, full
of poetry, but the full score was destroyed
when the Stainer & Bell warehouse
collapsed into the Wash. I have heard,
though, that Jeremy Dibble is re-orchestrating
it from the vocal score
and, just possibly,
The Voyage of Maeldune, op.34
(1889), a large and perhaps sprawling
work (it would fill a whole CD), but
containing some strikingly beautiful
passages.
Just a notch further
down but definitely worth doing, are:
Cavalier Songs,
op.17 (1880), a brief (three songs),
rousing cycle for baritone, male chorus
and orchestra which seems a blueprint
for Songs of the Sea.
The Battle of the
Baltic, op.41 (1891), the "sequel"
to The Revenge
Fairy Day, op.131
(1912), three charming idylls for soprano,
female chorus and small orchestra.
Of the religious works,
now that we have the Requiem and the
Stabat Mater, the most urgently needed
are perhaps the Te Deum, op.66
(1897) and the Mass in G, op.46
(1892). Two shorter works, the bright
and breezy O Praise the Lord of Heaven,
op.27 (1887) and the grandly impressive
Ave atque Vale, op.114 (1909)
are worth bearing in mind.
So buy this disc and
set things in motion!
Christopher Howell
BUY
NOW
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Gerald Finley (baritone)* 
