In his informative
and entertaining notes to this fine
release marking John Joubert’s eightieth
birthday, the composer comments, apropos
of the Emily Brontë songs. He mentions
his endeavours to follow the example
of Schubert in allowing "the poetic
imagery to inform the piano part with
illustrative thematic material which
can translate into a musically equivalent
symbolic language" and to avoid
"the danger of monotony implicit
in the purely strophic setting of metrical
verse". This observation could
equally apply to all four cycles on
this disc. These are the very characteristics
which distinguish his writing for the
voice with long drawn naturally flowing
vocal lines – frequently turning with
a touch of Berliozian alchemy in a direction
the listener does not expect yet leaving
you convinced that it is nonetheless
the right direction. This is supported
by accompaniments which recall Britten’s
instinctive knack of reflecting the
very essence of the words in sonic terms.
The piano writing often extends with
dramatic effect to the opposite extremes
of the keyboard in the manner but not
the style of
Janáček. The recorder’s
imitative ticking clock which opens
the first song in The Hour Hand,
for example, is no mere simplistic pictorial
device but the precursor of a subtle
translation of the poet’s message that
time is ever moving though the hour
hand itself might appear to be static.
The result in short
is that each poem is enhanced as is
a jewel by a fine setting, which of
course is ultimately what the art song
is all about. Inevitably this demands
an uncompromising standard of technical
as well as artistic ability, which from
these executants is a sine qua non.
Much thought too has
gone into the planning and layout of
this recording, in which the four song-cycles,
balanced in contrasting pairs, are separated
by two substantial chamber works. Kontakion
for cello and piano written in 1971
on the death of a friend of the composer
is a moving and intense 13-minute slow
movement in sonata-form making use of
the traditional Eastern Orthodox chant
for the dead. Improvisation for
recorder and piano likewise is a tribute.
This time it is to Howard Ferguson,
Joubert’s old teacher at the RAM, on
the occasion of the latter’s eightieth
birthday in 1988. It is a model of what
such a piece should be. Drawing on three
works written during his period of study,
one of which was given its first performance
by Ferguson, and working in a quotation
from one of his teacher’s own pieces
from the same period as well, it adheres
despite the title to a strict mirror
structure A-B-C-C1-B1-A1.
So perhaps this should be regarded as
a formal extemporization on the given
themes, in which the pupil demonstrates
to the master the skills he has acquired,
both impressive and endearing however
you look at it.
The casual browser
in a record shop who espies the title
Shropshire Hills on the cover
of a CD might be excused for supposing
this to be another pastoral setting
of Housman. The roll-call of familiar
place names is there – "… round
top of Wrekin, Corndon, Clee and Wenlock
Edge" – but the poems set in this
cycle are by Stephen Tunnicliffe, father
of the cellist who plays on this disc.
The substance of the poetry, and thus
also of the music, deals with the natural
life of that magical area rather than
the human drama which infuses Housman’s
poetry. Just once in a furious climactic
passage poet and composer rebel violently
against human intrusion in the form
of the "jets of war" unwinding
"their foamy trains" on low
altitude practice runs up the Clun Valley.
The cycle begins quite beautifully with
the voice alone and ends with an extended
passage for piano which to my ears at
least - and also my surprise - carries
more than a hint of the spirituality
of William Baines.
The Rose is Shaken
in the Wind takes its title from
the song of that name, written originally
in memory of Tracey Chadwell, whose
performance of another Joubert song
cycle, The Turning Wheel to texts
by the same New Zealand poet, Ruth Dallas,
is preserved on BMS CD 420/421. This
was expanded into the present set at
the instigation of John Turner. Both
this cycle and The Hour Hand
demonstrate the composer’s skill at
bringing harmonic richness to the spare
linear textures of solo voice with recorder.
He encompasses on the one hand the desolation
of Horizontal Beams from the
latter set, so redolent of Warlock’s
Curlew, or the sombre mood of
Tombstone Song coloured by the
tones of the bass recorder (with an
answering refrain ending each stanza
that inevitably calls to mind Housman’s
Is my team ploughing). On the
other hand we have The Gardener’s
Song, in which the gardener/poet
scolds her garden pests and looks forward
to an after-life free of them. Without
in any way diminishing the emotional
impact of the cycle this "horticultural
patter-song", as the composer describes
it, is an absolute winner. It is a tour
de force for both Lesley-Jane Rogers
and John Turner, this time playing the
sopranino recorder.
It has always surprised
me that Emily Brontë’s poems have
not attracted the attention of song
writers more frequently - we desperately
need a recording of Pamela Harrison’s
cycle The Lonely Landscape. Perhaps
some are daunted by her mystic pantheism.
No such reservations afflict Joubert’s
Six Poems by Emily Brontë,
differing from the six chosen by Harrison
and selected with Warlockian meticulousness,
as he puts it, "to outline a spiritual
journey from a mood of regret for the
past to one of defiant optimism".
Suffice it to record that the music
says it all, a worthy complement to
the poet’s vision and in the life-enhancing
affirmation of Emily’s last poem, a
telling conclusion to this splendid
release.
Roger Carpenter
See also
review by Rob Barnett
Toccata
catalogue
for details
Sound
Sample 
