No one nowadays, I
hope, thinks of the English "pastoral"
school as an irrelevant backwater. It
would take some obstinacy to find that
Vaughan Williams’s "Pastoral Symphony"
is no more aware of the world issues
around it than a cow staring over a
fence, and it is notable how, in the
work of the later generations, a sense
of darkness encroaching upon their local
soil becomes predominant. This can be
felt very strongly in Finzi, but also
in a minor musical poet such as Alec
Rowley, especially when he wrote in
B minor, for some reason. By the time
of the post-war "Concerto da Chiesa"
by Sir George Dyson, only eleven years
younger than Vaughan Williams but another
long-liver, the darkness seems almost
complete. Though the first movement
is based on the Christmas hymn "O
Come, O come Emmanuel", heard in
a very fragmented form, the promise
of Christ is apparently unable to subtract
Dyson from his mood of anguish and stabbing
grief. It is, commentator Ray Siese
tells us, "probably the darkest
music Dyson ever wrote".
I have to part company
with Siese in my reactions to the remainder
of the work, and unless my ears deceive
me, I think Lloyd-Jones does so too.
For Siese, "the variations on ‘Corde
natus’ [the second movement] … are all
light, an ineffable grace pervading
their swift progress … from joyful dancing
to radiant rejoicing". I can see
that it might be possible to play the
movement a lot quicker, concentrating
on grace and lightness, but as played
here the doleful mood of before is continued.
I find it restless, uneasy, and the
interpretation certainly sounds plausible.
In the finale, too,
Dyson seems to set his sights on bustling
human endeavour as the only chance of
getting anywhere; the interjections
of "Laetatus sum" remain interpolations,
almost irrelevant ones. And lastly,
I cannot find that the final appearance
of "O come, O come Emmanuel"
is "sublimely transfigured into
a vision of eternal rest". Rather,
it seems a forlorn hope, and one that
is rudely brushed aside. There may be
other ways of interpreting this work,
which here emerges as subtly subversive
of the Christian faith, but Lloyd-Jones’s
is perfectly convincing on its own terms.
As to whether this
is quite "a work in the great tradition
of English string compositions from
Purcell to Tippett", I fear its
pessimism will never endear it to audiences
who have learnt to love the Hardy-like
stoicism of Vaughan Williams’s Tallis
Fantasia, and having mentioned that
work, it is inescapable that a good
many of its sounds have found their
way into Dyson’s piece, limiting its
individuality. All the same, as a private
listening experience I expect to be
returning to it quite often.
It is certainly the
most remarkable piece on the disc, though
the most enjoyable would have to be
"At the Tabard Inn", a neatly
wrought independent fantasy on themes
from Dyson’s popular hit of 13 years
previously, "The Canterbury Pilgrims".
As for the symphony,
I fear the ultimate judgement will have
to be that of "a noble failure",
but it does not go down without a fight
and its form is certainly interesting.
Basically, I would say it consists of
four slow movements, for however hard
three of them try to get up a head of
steam, it seems that meditation lies
at their heart. The first movement actually
open challengingly and bracingly, but
the mood is relinquished very early
on. Thereafter a number of long-spanned
crescendos, based on Sibelian scampering
string figures, seem to want to bring
back the bracing mood but in the end
meditation wins the day. The slow movement
again suggests Sibelius in some quietly
chugging phrases which give it momentum,
as well as in some more powerful crescendos.
But in Sibelius the powerful crescendos
are invariably capped by some moment
of blinding revelation; Dyson’s just
stop getting louder and start getting
quieter again.
The scherzo is actually
a set of variations (is this unique?),
and this form allows Dyson to depart
completely from his bracing opening
and resume his mood of meditation. Indeed,
the movement makes more sense if you
regard it as another slow movement with
an energetic opening and an energetic
passage in the middle. It sighs away
into the finale, which begins with an
extended slow introduction. When the
"Allegro assai" finally begins
it offers the one piece of sustained
fast writing in the symphony, and seems
strangely light-hearted after all that
has come before. Except that it is in
four-time, it has far more of a scherzo-character
than the scherzo proper, with hardly
the strength of a true finale. It appears
almost parenthetical as the concluding
"Andante molto moderato" begins
and so this movement, too, is revealed
to have been another slow movement.
A grand dénouement seems to be
in the offing but in the end we are
left rather in the air.
If I have written so
much about a symphony which seems to
me not entirely successful, it shows
that my curiosity has been aroused.
The unusual shape of the work may come
to seem convincing in the end, but I
am bound to say that not all the thematic
material is particularly characterful
or memorable. To take another British
composer who wrote just one symphony
during the same decade, the structure
of Moeran’s symphony may be questionable,
but it nevertheless has clear-cut, memorable
themes and an atmosphere all of its
own. Still, explorers of post-romantic
tonal symphonies are going to find plenty
to interest them in Dyson’s. I haven’t
heard the alternative version under
Hickox, but Lloyd-Jones sounds so good
– and the Bournemouth orchestra so rich-toned
– that I find it difficult to imagine
any alternative being worth the extra
money. I did listen to an old Unicorn
recording of the Overture under David
Willcocks; the slower tempi on the older
disc produced an affectionately jaunty
effect, and the slower themes were tenderly
nostalgic rather than lush, but in the
closing stages the effect was a little
heavy, so Lloyd-Jones’s credentials
as a Dyson interpreter emerged reinforced.
In sound, performance and presentation
– Lewis Foreman provides reliable introductions
to the composer, the Overture and the
Symphony – this disc feels like a quality
product.
Christopher Howell
see also
review by Rob Barnett
NAXOS 8.557720 [72:33] 
