There is little connection between these three works
other than the obvious use of the same string duo as soloists, and,
in the case of Benjamin and Britten, the fact that the former was the
piano teacher of the latter at the Royal College of Music. It’s an enterprising
juxtaposition of works, none of them hard on the ear, Benjamin’s rather
exotic (complete with glockenspiel in its scherzo) three-movement Romantic
Fantasy having strong reminiscences of Mahler’s end-of-the-century
Fourth Symphony at various points throughout. The work was intended
for Tertis but he chose to retire from the concert platform just as
the composition was completed, nevertheless William Primrose, with violinist
Heifetz, made a more than worthy substitute on 24 May 1938 in London,
where it was played for the first time. [That performance by Heifetz
was issued on
CD in 1997:Heifetz Collection, vol.31 (RCA Gold Seal 09026617622).]
Britten’s concerto was sketched when he was nineteen
and very uncertain of his ability, so he kept it under wraps, making
his well-known Sinfonietta his Opus 1 instead. It was only in 1997 that
it was first heard in public (Aldeburgh Festival) after Colin Matthews
had prepared the score for publication (‘the instrumentation is so carefully
indicated in the draft that what is heard is not far from being 100%
Britten’). Curiously, like the Benjamin work, it too opens with horn
fanfares and develops a spare orchestral fabric, typically intense melodies
in the first two movements with a final splash of colour provided by
an exciting Tarantella finale in full syncopated cry. It’s all rounded
off by a return call from those horns.
Bruch’s work does not predate the other two by that
many years, a mere twenty or so when it appeared in 1911 when he was
73, and if he had still been alive in the 1930s he would have written
just the same work as his style never really developed much beyond that
of the 1860s. This is not his original setting for the work, it was
written for clarinet and viola, two alto instruments which he loved
so much, and for his son Max Felix, a good clarinettist who later moved
into the burgeoning recording industry. Bruch did however make this
version for violin and viola. It’s a lovely work, tunefully restful,
Romantic in the fullest sense of the word, its orchestration a thing
of curiosity for as it progresses through the movements it grows from
a chamber orchestra to a modest-sized symphony orchestra by adding extra
woodwinds and brass. Much of the elemental Bruch is there, the unique
recitativo-style, quasi-improvisatory sections from his first two violin
concertos, folk music from his suites, his inevitable plagal Amen cadences
and so on. In 1912 it could not, and did not, cause a stir, not like
the one which Stravinsky would set in train in Paris a year later for
example, but neither did it do harm. Nor does it today.
The two soloists and conductor, from Austria, Russia
and Israel respectively, do all three works immense justice, together
with the excellent Berlin Symphony Orchestra, by getting to the heart
of the British style with no problems, if they seem more at ease in
the style of the Teutonic Bruch. This is an imaginative combination
of works with Benjamin’s Romantic Fantasy the discovery for this reviewer.
An irritating error is the inconsistency between the CD case and the
enclosed booklet; Bruch’s Double Concerto is Op.88 (as described in
the booklet) whilst the case erroneously calls it Op.88a, which is his
Concerto for Two Pianos.
Christopher Fifield
EDITOR’S NOTE
Arthur Benjamin is a speciality of mine and the Romantic
Fantasy a particular favourite. The details supplied to Chris about
the premiere are incorrect. Readers may find the following background
useful:-
The Romantic Fantasy was composed in 1937. The
dedicatee is Bax with whom Benjamin had some informal lessons during
the early 1920s. The work took its theme from one of Bax’s early works.
Benjamin conducted the first performance on 24 March 1938 as part of
a Royal Philharmonic Society Concert. His soloists were Eda Kersey (who
in 1943 premiered the Bax Violin Concerto at a Saint Cecilia’s Day concert)
and the violist Bernard Shore. The work is in three continuous movements:
Nocturne; Scherzo and Sonata.
The mood of the Romantic Fantasy is also shared
by Bax’s Summer Music of 1917, (orchestrated in 1920) and, further
north by Levi Madetoja’s beautiful Second Symphony (1918). The air is
heavy with Delian languor, the warmth of summers ‘remembered’ rather
than experienced, the buzzing of insects and the first stirrings of
youthful romance and passion. The Fantasy is not wholly weighed
down with this atmosphere. The dialogue between the two instruments
is also briskly impassioned, at times taking wing in glittering display
passages which are woven into the fabric of the piece rather than having
been grafted on for the purpose of gratifying the egos of the soloists.
In 1965 RCA issued LP LSB6605 which had been recorded
in 1964. This included a performance of the Romantic Fantasy by
Jascha Heifetz and William Primrose. The horn soloist, Joseph Eger,
is separately credited, probably because of the prominently ripe role
given to the instrument. The orchestra is the RCA-Victor Orchestra conducted
by Izler Solomon.. As far as I am aware it has not been reissued on
CD.
Amongst the least neglected of Benjamin’s works the
Fantasy has a comparatively rich performance history: BBCSO 2 January
1939; Goteborgs Orkester 30 March 1939, BBC Promenade concert 18 September
1953, Japan Philharmonic SO 18 January 1968, BBC Scottish SO 6 May 1970,
Orchestra Sinfonica Colombia 21 October 1983, City of London Sinfonia
21 January 1987, BBC 25 March and 7 April 1990 and RCM conducted by
John Wilson on 20 April 1995.
In the United States it has received several performances,
including one given on National Public Radio, with David and Joan Korman,
the St Louis Symphony Orchestra and Raymond Leppard. More recently the
orchestra repeated the work in a concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin
on 5 May 1994. Before that the Fantasy was broadcast in a truly outstanding
performance, by Joseph and William de Pasquale, the Philadelphia Orchestra
and Eugene Ormandy. This recording has gained some prominence in radio
tapes issued to various foreign broadcasting companies.
RB
Benjamin Schmid (violin)