When
Vaughan Williams remarked that Howells was perhaps the reincarnation
of one of the great British Tudor composers, Howells felt that
his old friend was probably not too far off the mark. The Tudor
period had had a huge influence on Howells - he suffered remarkable
musical 'recognitions' and senses of belonging when he encountered
Tudor music and certainly felt a tremendous affinity with the
sounds. However, as a composer with a very personal and characteristic
voice, he naturally - rather than merely produce pastiche -
incorporated Tudor sounds into his works by blending them with
more contemporary voices, making them an integral part of his
own.
Lambert's
Clavichord and the
ensuing Howells' Clavichord were inspired by Tudor keyboard
dance music (such as the Fitzwilliam Virginal book).
Like Elgar's Enigma Variations of the end of the previous
century, the pieces served to commemorate certain friends. In
Howells' Clavichord, Howells occasionally takes a leaf
out of Elgar's book by referring to certain musical characteristics
of a few of the friends he represents - in Finzi's Rest,
an emotional tribute to Howells's friend, composed the day after
Finzi died, one can hear echoes of Finzi as the work evokes
the haunting beauty, nostalgia and poignancy of Finzi's
writing.
Walton's Toye, similarly, holds subtle hints of Walton's
imperial march music, and I find suggestions of strummed guitar
chords in Julian's Dream, written for the guitar player
Julian Bream.
Lambert's
Clavichord was composed
in 1927 and was named after not the composer, but Lambert the
harpsichord and clavichord maker and photographer, celebrated
for his evocative photographic portraits of famous musicians
of the day. Lambert lent Howells a clavichord and Howells thanked
him by writing the first piece of Lambert's Clavichord
- Lambert's Fireside, written indeed by Lambert's hearth
in Bath. On Lambert's
death, Howells tried to persuade a number of other composers
who had been photographed by Lambert to pay tribute to him through
a series of pieces. Although all the composers he approached
agreed, none actually got around to doing so, and Howells consequently
did the whole lot himself. He commemorated a wide range of friends
in the work, ranging from poets such as Walter de la Mare (de
la Mare' Pavane) and the Earl of Sandwich (My Lord Sandwich's
Dreame), musicians (conductors Malcolm Sargent with his
Fantastic Sprite and Sir Richard Terry - who had moved
Howells with his performances of Tudor church music in Westminster
Cathedral - with Sir Richard's Toye), musicologists (Dr
Fellowes, the madrigal expert in Fellowes's Delight and
Sir Hugh Allen, professor of music at Oxford' (Sir Hugh's
Galliard), publishers (Foss' Dump for Hubert Foss
of the Oxford Press) and composers - (Hughes's Ballet
for the Irish composer and critic). The blend of Tudor and twentieth-century
English sound is seamless, occasionally resulting in a Warlockian
air not worlds apart from the latter's Capriol suite
(De la Mare's Pavane and Sir Hugh's Galliard,
for example), while others appear purely, unmistakably, and
delightfully, Howells (Fellowes's Delight and H H
His Fancy).
Despite
the dangers of writing for an outdated instrument, the work
was well received by all and much appreciated by those pictured
within. Howells' Clavichord falls into two parts, separate
by twenty years, with part I composed in 1941 and part II in
1961. This work concentrates on musicians only - both performers
and composers, although it commences with a tribute to the keyboard
maker Thomas Goff, who had taken over Lambert's work on his
death, and, just as with Lambert's, Goff's Fireside had
been written at his fireside in Chelsea. Howells' Clavichord
is a little less restrained than Lambert's (Howells himself
said 'I have dared to (as it were) raise my voice and kick my
heels'). Hence we have a great range of pieces from the beautifully
simple (and quintessentially Howells-ian) Goff's Fireside
to more complex dances, such as Boult's Brangill (for
Sir Adrian Boult); from the emotional (Finzi's Rest and
Ralph's Pavane and more lively Galliard - both
for Vaughan Williams, who was reportedly overwhelmed by them)
and the dreamy, mysterious yet stirring - Malcolm's Vision
(for George Malcolm, keyboard player and one of Terry's successors
at Westminster Cathedral and Rubbra's Soliloquy) to the
high spirited and light-hearted (the appropriately named Jacob's
Brawl (after the composer Gordon Jacob), Berkeley's Hunt
(Lennox Berkeley), Bliss' Ballet (Sir Arthur Bliss),
Jacques Mask (Reginald Jacques was the founder of the
Jacques Orchestra) and Walton's Toye).
This
is the first complete recording of Lambert's and Howells'
Clavichord on the piano, with John McCabe, a well-known
pianist, composer and champion of British music giving an expressive
and sensitive performance. A medium-sized grand piano has been
used, and pedalling kept to a minimum to ensure a recording
that is not too resonant and thus closer to the spirit of the
sound Howells intended. I was extremely impressed at how well
it actually worked on the piano. It is, as one would expect
from McCabe, beautifully played, and he captures the nuances
of each piece brilliantly' - listen to, for example, the intensity
of Rubbra's Soliloquy or Ralph's Pavane, the beautiful
serenity of Wortham's Ground and the atmospheric wistfulness
of H H His Fancy.
The
nearest recorded version to a clavichord that I can find is
John Paul's version on the lautenwerck (a gut-stringed 'lute-harpsichord').
This gives a totally different sound and very different feel
to the whole piece - closer to the clavichord, yet still not
quite there. (One wonders why bother to record on an instrument
similar to a clavichord yet not on an actual clavichord?) The
sound is 'twangier', coarser and brasher, as on a clavichord,
and this works brilliantly well for the dances and the more
folk-y works (Sargent's Fantastic Sprite, for example,
where the lautenwerck is able to show off its versatility).
The lautenwerck is extremely atmospheric in My Lord Sandwich's
Dreame, yet the piano is even more romantic and dreamy still.
Sir Richard's Toye, Jacob's Brawl, and Berkeley's
Hunt are incredibly brash on the lautenwerck - percussive
and shockingly, almost unpleasantly, dissonant, whereas the
same notes on the piano sound more natural and acceptable. Yet
this dissonant and startling sound must be what Howells intended
- thus the piano is distorting it into something far less hard
on the ear. Although most of the works come across as more elegant,
gentle, rarefied and refined on piano, the piano's larger range
of colours means that the jazzier bits, as in Boult's Brangill,
and the Warlockian chords as in Patrick's Siciliano come
across fantastically.
So,
the piano has a nicer sound and more colour overall, but is
perhaps too far from what Howells intended? Unusually, this
time I am not coming down on the side of the purists. I do feel
these works should be performed on a clavichord, and that the
more complex piano is not quite right. Yet at the same time,
whilst losing the traditional guitar-y 'twang' of clavichord,
we gain, on the other hand, - an arguably more beautiful sound,
that is capable of bringing out the lyrical intensity of some
the pieces in a way in which the clavichord cannot. Both, I
think, have their place - and whilst a clavichord would be academically
preferable, this highly commendable version from McCabe on the
piano is one that I value highly.
Em Marshall
see also Review
by Rob Barnett
John McCabe (piano)
