These recordings were
made within two years of the composer’s
death. Her conducted the works on the
first and supervised those on the second.
Mathias wrote three
symphonies and did so at the ages of
32, 49 and 57. He completed the last
symphony within a year of his death
and after the recording sessions for
the first disc. There is a Sinfonietta
which was initially called ‘Dance Suite’
written in the same year as the First
Symphony. This was for the Leicestershire
Schools Symphony Orchestra who were
conducted by that orchestral and repertoire
pioneer Eric Pinkett (1911-1979). It
was recorded by them in 1968 on Pye
LP GSGC 14103 but re-recorded in 1975
by the National
Youth Orchestra of Wales/Arthur Davison.
The choice of works
for these two discs was apt and practically
motivated. Until then only the First
Symphony had been commercially recorded.
The Oboe Concerto was a recent work
and Helios and Requiescat
were needed to complete the discography
of Mathias’s sequence of single movement
orchestral works. Laudi and Vistas,
both inventive companions from the 1970s
had already been recorded in 1977 by
Decca-Argo and reissued by Lyrita on
SRCD328.
It was only a pity that the Violin Concerto
(1992) could not have been added; it
still awaits a commercial premiere recording
as do Litanies and the final
major choral work World’s Fire.
Nimbus and Lyrita are
now united by the Wyastone Estate Limited
stable. The two record labels have contributed
decisively indeed miraculously to the
grown and growing reputation of Welsh
composer William Mathias. The three
Lyrita discs present recordings licensed
from RCA, EMI, Pye and Decca-Argo. The
Nimbus discs clustering around the present
brace have built a resilient and successful
niche for Mathias. The Nimbus and Lyrita
CDs are a perfect complement to each
other. There is no overlap.
The Welsh composer
wrote three half hour symphonies of
which the First Symphony launches the
trilogy in an outburst of effervescence
and exuberance. It was a commission
from the Llandaff Festival and was premiered
by the CBSO conducted by Hugo Rignold
in the year in which the same forces
recorded the John Blow Meditation
and Music for Strings for
Lyrita.
The composer's description
of the First Symphony is apt:
a work of energy, colour and affirmation.
Here is positively blazes and rocks
with a sanguine power which momentarily
recalls Tippett's propulsive Second
Symphony, William Schuman's Third Symphony
finale and the thrawn and rowdy bustle
of the Easter Fair of Stravinsky's
Petrushka. Earlier movements
show the lavishly stocked and brooding
influence of Bax.
The Second Symphony
might easily be dubbed 'The Mystical'
or, given the Welsh DNA of the
piece, 'The Druidic' or 'Taliesin'.
Mathias was always something of a magus
when it came to the orchestra and had
a facility for rapidly grasping of atmosphere.
The three movements glimmer and shimmer
with the essence of Summer. This is
expressed through the easy-wheeling
progress of the stars in a summer sky
in the middle movement. This process
rises majestically from ease to effort
in an antiphonal crest of brass fanfaring
at 4:49 onwards (tr. 3). The all-conquering
onrush of summer is expressed through
the finale the score for which carries
the superscription: "My ark sings
in the sun / At God speeded summer's
end / And the flood flowers on."
Throughout Mathias's orchestration rings,
chimes and peals through a world often
noticeably indebted to the Bax symphonies.
The two Mathias symphonies
are conducted by the composer who was
unable to serve in this capacity for
the second disc. He was however in attendance
and supervised the 1991-2 Nimbus sessions.
Beyond the symphonies,
yet of equal dynamic and psychological
moment, are Mathias's 'landscapes of
the mind'. These single movement orchestral
statements may well contain the quintessential
Mathias. They are Litanies, Laudi,
Vistas, Helios and Requiescat.
Two of these are on this second disc.
The Laudi and Vistas are
on Lyrita SRCD
328.
Helios is
inscribed to the memory of the Welsh
composer Grace Williams who died on
10 February 1977. The Mathias work was
premiered by the RLPO who had recorded
several Grace Williams LPs for EMI in
the early 1970s - those recordings can
be heard on Lyrita SRCD
327 and SRCD 323.
The music of Helios was inspired
by the composer's holiday in Greece
in 1975 in much the same way that Vistas
was brought about through Mathias's
visit to the USA during the early 1970s.
The woodwind folk-dance segments of
Helios (5.43) recall the Greek
Dances of Skalkottas
but also the more ambiguous and nuanced
potency of Gordon Crosse's masterwork
for oboe and orchestra Ariadne.
There is a violent edge to this
music whose tramping rawness is suggestive
of the Cretan Minotaur. Many years before
the same landscapes had inspired Carl
Nielsen in his own Helios overture but
the lambency of the Nielsen piece is
very different from the engulfing flood
of exultant light and danger that lends
rampant power to Mathias's Helios
even if at the end it fades into a chiming
mysterious Baxian haze that links Druidic
Cambria with Pagan Mediterranean pastures.
Requiescat is
another of the composer's 'inscapes'
which alongside Laudi and Litanies
suggest through their titles a religious
underpinning. As heard before in the
first two symphonies Mathias there are
echoes of the bleak-warmth of Bax's
Fifth Symphony and the cold gales of
Tapiola.
Other episodes suggest that the insect
rustling opening of Martinů's Sixth
Symphony had lodged deep in the composer's
psyche. Requiescat is
the shortest of the inscapes.
I mentioned Crosse's
Ariadne earlier - a magnificent
work on Lyrita SRCD
259. This brings us to Mathias's
three movement Oboe Concerto.
It is here played with a sort of impudent
sweetness by David Cowley. The work
was premiered by Sarah Francis for whom
Ariadne had been written. The
Mathias work is not as challenging for
the listener as the Crosse but it is
a glorious work whether in its cheerful
lyricism or in its hypnotic and tender
Baxian Adagio. The capering Vivace
finale and for that matter the first
movement are somewhat reminiscent of
the Oboe Concerto by Malcolm Arnold
but a shade more thorny.
The Third Symphony
was a BBC commission and its first
movement has the stamp of Stravinsky's
Le Sacre and of the tricky pitched-blast
opening of Tippett's Second Symphony.
The central Lento might well
remind you of one of Vaughan Williams
long marches of Everyman perhaps suggestive
of the indomitable spirit of man in
the Sinfonia Antartica. For me
there is about this work a sense of
the ceremonial and invocatory. In the
finale another aspect can be heard in
the gaunt fanfaring that has so much
in common with the remorseless tread
of William Alwyn's Fifth Symphony Hydriotaphia
on the words of Sir Thomas Browne -
an author also referenced by Mathias
in Requiescat.
These recordings remain
resplendent and detailed and achieve
this regardless of the differing session
venues.
Nimbus did not stop
their Mathias mission with these two
discs either. They have also recorded
the Organ Music (NI5367) and Choral
Music (NI5243) – there’s more too.
I was very pleased
to be asked to review this pair of discs
which remind us of the debt we owe to
Nimbus. When they launched this series
it may have seemed a left-field choice
but the results repay the listener in
bell-haunted spells, enchanted coinage
and sturdy Celtic magic.
Rob Barnett
WILLIAM MATHIAS
Symphonies Nos 1 & 2
NIMBUS NI 5260 [59.25]
BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra
William Mathias, conductor
1 Symphony No.1, Op.31 I Allegro moderato
7.55
2 II Vivace 3.38
3 III Molto Adagio, sempre flessibile
11.19
4 IV Largamente - Allegro con brio 8.08
World premiere recording
5 Symphony No.2 (Summer Music), Op.90
I Aestiva Regio (Summer Region)
Molto moderato e misterioso - Allegro
12.50
6 II ('A'm gwlad gysefin yw bro sêr-hefin...')
('My original country is in the region
of the summer stars...')
Lento molto - Lento - Molto moderato
7.27
7 III 'My ark sings in the sun
At God-speeded summer's end
And the flood flowers now'
Allegro non troppo, sempre molto ritmico
8.00
NIMBUS NI 5343 [72.22]
1 Helios, Op. 76 15.02
2 Oboe Concerto (1989) I Allegro non
troppo 4.27
3 II Adagio espressivo 6.28
4 III Vivace 5.31
5 Requiescat, Op. 79 8.51
6 Symphony No. 3 (1991) I Allegro moderato
9.01
7 II Lento appassionato 11.00
8 III Allegro non troppo, e risoluto
11.23
for details
BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra/William Mathias
