There is a tragic symmetry
in juxtaposing music by these two British
composers. Each was killed in wartime:
Butterworth in the First World War and
Leigh in the Second. Butterworth died,
the victim of a sniper's bullet on the
Somme. Leigh was killed by enemy fire
near Tobruk.
Butterworth provides
the familiar tracks. The First Idyll
in this version has an intimate feeling
and a satisfyingly 'tiredness' to the
trudging opening theme. Coming as a
surprise the harmoniemusik feeling
of the wind playing in this case registers
strongly. These works together with
the lilting Banks of Green Willow
can loosely be bracketed with Finzi's
Severn Rhapsody and Bridge's
Summer. It is interesting but
ultimately futile to wonder whether
Butterworth's music would have metamorphosed
toward dissonance as Bridge's did post-1918.
Leigh is much less
known than Butterworth although we have
just seen Lyrita's reissue of their
Leigh anthology [review].
The Lyrita duplicates Leigh's Harpsichord
Concerto and Jolly Roger overture.
The unique Leigh tracks offered here
by the Kent Sinfonia are the film music
from Squadron 992 and The
Fairy of the Phone - the latter
recalling another telephone promotional
piece on the superb Britten film music
collection from NMC.
The Squadron 992
music is episodic with its slightly
zany Prokofiev-like wit and very English
high spirits occasionally melding into
epic-heroic. Those high high-spirits
are also evident in the little Jolly
Roger overture complete with its
impudent quote from Rule Britannia.
Speaking of Jolly Roger, in Malcolm
Riley’s hands it is very much the West
End overture a little like Le Cabaret
by John Foulds and even more so
Dunhill’s Tantivy Towers. It’s
all ever so slightly commercial – and
no harm done there! The Harpsichord
Concertino was recorded in the age of
the 78 but in the very early 1970s it
returned from virtual oblivion on one
of Neville Dilkes’ English Sinfonia
English music collections (EMI). Dilkes
also introduced the Butterworth Idylls
on the same pair of LPs. The Harpsichord
Concertino
has a romantic euphoric effect which
runs contrary to expectations from this
instrument. It's certainly not purely
neo-classical and has more lyrical zest
than the Martinů and de Falla works
of this era. It has about it a plangency
in its central movement and is
business-like fugal in the finale. There
it has a real punch-to-the-chest sound.
This is concise yet generous-hearted
writing; a populist harpsichord concerto!
In The Fairy of
the Phone the woodwind communion
is schmoozy and up-close. The mix of
wind ensemble, piano (played by Malcolm
Riley) and female chorus here
sounds lightly commercial. When the
chorus get going they sound like refugees
from The Ovaltinies or a Busby Berkeley
chorus-line. Some of the music smacks
of Martinů with a dash of orientalism
at 9:34 and at other times like Kurt
Weill without the acid. Sophie
Mansell sings the Fairy Supervisor with
operatic aplomb. For authenticity the
chorus of ‘faeries’ sing home sung in
typically Home Counties 1930s BBC accents.
The rather twee-innocent words are not
printed.
The original film promoting
use of the phone had telephonists with
plug-and-wire switchboards and other
period paraphernalia. V.C. Clinton Baddeley,
with whom Leigh collaborated on various
music-theatre pieces, appeared in the
film surrounded by nubile retainers.
The notes are by Malcolm
Riley who also conducts and has edited
and reshaped the film music. I hope
that there will be more Leigh from this
source. An all-Leigh disc would probably
be even more warmly welcomed in many
quarters.
Everything is warmly
recorded and very close-up with that
open air Mozartian cassation feeling.
The sound-picture has a strong emphasis
on the woodwind presumably because the
string complement is smaller in proportion.
Rob Barnett
Kent Sinfonia/Malcolm Riley 
