MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Gavin BRYARS (b.1943)
After Handel’s Vesper (1995) [11:47]
Ramble on Cortona (2010) [12:34]
Piano Concerto (The Solway Canal) (2010) [28:21]¹
Ralph van Raat (piano)
Capella Amsterdam
Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic/Otto Tausk ¹
rec. August 2010, Sweelinckzaal, Amsterdam and February 2010, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ, Amsterdam (Concerto)
NAXOS 8.572570 [52:42]

Experience Classicsonline


I will put my cards on the table. This is the first time that I have heard any music by the composer Gavin Bryars. It could be argued that this will preclude me from making any criticism of this CD either positive or negative. On the other hand listeners and reviewers have to begin somewhere: there is always going to be a ‘first piece’ from any composer that is consciously listened to. The emphasis here is on ‘consciously’ as I may have picked up some of his music on Classic FM or Radio 3. In some ways this is an advantage: I have no preconceptions as to his musical style save what I read in the liner-notes. So I hear this music with an ‘innocent ear’ and draw my conclusions based on analogy to other works. And this is important. One of the criticisms levelled against Bryars is his eclecticism. In fact, the liner-notes make a very high falutin’, almost sycophantic, claim for the composer – ‘He ... absorbs and integrates all the great possibilities in sound and style which mankind has acquired during the course of music history – both from its traditions and from the avant-garde.’ Surely avant-garde is also a part of musical tradition? In slightly less ingratiating terms this simply means that such diverse voices as Handel, Cage, Xenakis and Ives can be heard in his music. The test of this eclecticism is whether these influences are parodies or a genuine absorption of styles made into something new and vivid. On this matter, my jury is still out.

Three works are presented on this CD – two solo keyboard pieces and a major ‘piano concerto’ that also makes use of a choir. Any discussion of these works depends heavily on the liner-notes.

The first work, After Handel’s Vesper was composed in 1995 and was originally conceived for solo harpsichord. I find this a little bit of a ‘ramble’ in spite of the fact that the composer has tried to fuse seventeenth-century style with jazz and a higher degree of chromaticism than Handel would have cared to use. It is certainly an interesting work that engages the listener. However, the balance between its ‘baroque ornamentation’ and the ‘lush’ harmonies can be a little overstated. I always thought that only grass could be lush! The formal characteristics seem to be predicated on a ‘free and improvisatory playing style’ rather than anything based on a contemporary Handelian ‘sonata’ or ‘suite.’ Yet it works well for piano, possibly better than the original harpsichord: there are some lovely, moving moments in amongst the pseudo-minimalistic note-spinning. My only concern is that the great variety of material appears to lack cohesion.

Ramble on Cortona is perhaps an unfortunate title: Grainger-esque maybe in name, but not in concept or sound. Once again this is a ‘fusion’ piece that bases its material on themes from one of the composer’s earlier works, Laudes. This in turn was derived from a thirteenth-century musical manuscript found in Cortona in Italy. The Ramble is a well crafted work that takes the listener on a journey – more a meander than a ‘yomp’. However, like much of Gavin Bryars, the harmonies and pianism are well expressed and sometimes spine-tingling. Not a masterpiece perhaps, but certainly an enjoyable and important essay for the piano.

The major event on this surprisingly ‘economical’ CD (only 52 minutes long) is the Piano Concerto The Solway Canal. Naxos has been unable to give the text to the two sonnets by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan which inspired the work. Fortunately they are quite easy to locate on the internet, so there is no excuse for not perusing them. However, from my point of view I am not quite sure what the ‘makar’ is driving at in these beautifully written poems. Perhaps it does not really matter too much. I - naively perhaps - guess it is some allusion to ‘global warming’ and subsequent flooding.

The best description of this concerto is that it could be regarded as film-music. I guess each listener will provide his or her own screenplay - probably not based on the poet’s words. The piano is not used as a romantically-charged protagonist; rather it takes the role of a guide and leads the band and singers on a journey (Ramble?) through a variety of landscapes. However these landscapes are varied more in colour and mood rather than ‘geological’ structures. I am not sure what the singers actually bring to the party; however Busoni used a choir in his mega-concerto and also Beethoven in his less-than successful Choral Fantasy, so it is not really a novelty.

There is nothing particularly challenging about this music, especially if one likes misty, neo-impressionistic music that blurs harmonies and melodies into a gorgeous wash of sound.

The music is well played on this CD by the soloist Ralph van Raat, who also contributed the laudatory liner-notes. The Cappella Amsterdam and Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic under their conductor Otto Tausk provide an excellent accompaniment in the piano concerto.

This is an interesting CD that will appeal to a wide range of listeners who are comfortable with Bryars’ approachable style. However the down-side of this is that it could be argued that there is little to challenge the listener in these three works. Certainly the musical sounds are superb and often deliciously moving; however I do worry a little about the exposition of these pieces. Perhaps the title Ramble on Cortona is in danger of summing up the formal structures of all three works?

John France



 

 

 


 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.