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William ALWYN (1905-1985)
Symphony No. 1 (1949) [38:29]
Symphony No. 3 (1956) [30:21]
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/David Lloyd-Jones
rec. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, 2-4 Aug 2004. DDD
NAXOS 8.557648 [68:50]

 

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The bargain price Alwyn-Naxos series continues to impress. The Lyrita discs are still available if you know where to look (Harold Moores) and there is Hickox’s Chandos set, available at reduced price and full of Chandos’s accustomed sonic glory. This entrant, led by David Lloyd-Jones, couples the first and third symphonies. If you’ve heard Barbirolli’s BBC Maida Vale studio broadcast of No. 1, made in 1952, you will know that the conductor who first performed it takes the symphony at a quicker clip than Lloyd-Jones, though not always by much. It’s really only the finale where we see a decided divergence with JB slashing through it in 9.16 to Lloyd-Jones’s 10.38. That Dutton-Barbirolli Society CD is coupled with the Second Symphony and is strongly recommended to interested parties – it was Alwyn who arranged for the recordings to be made and a good job too as the BBC, as too often, failed to keep it.

The First is a liberating work, full of colour and vigour and tremendous vitality. From its tense and powerful adagio opening it evokes a simmering Scandinavian half-light and sports an allegro section in the first movement of warm lyric impress. The second movement, a pulsating Allegro, gives us some unlikely sounding Dvořákian wind piping, VW string cantilever and Holstian (Planets) rhythmic stamp.  The warm and unfolding Adagio is judged just right – horns open and close – and the finale immediately bursts out into extrovert colour and builds itself up to an unshakeable and unstoppable climax. I’ve not heard the composer’s own performance of this though at Naxos’s tempting price this newcomer should not be spurned.

The Third is another work that reminds us how much Alwyn was taken by Holst. It’s cast in three movements and opens with determined, stentorian brass writing and driving percussion. There’s little immediately appealing about this drama and its agitation and terse tension is a mark of Alwyns’s superb compression of mood. Listen to the basses as they drive the second movement – or to the agitation that runs like a seam throughout, those marshalling trumpet calls adding dynamism and alarm. The finale opens with a Holstian march (Mars) of implacable drive before the seeming resolution of calming string and horn solos from 8’ onwards. The end comes as an almost half-hearted roar, a bellow that never quite convinces.

The sound is, as I’ve found with the entire series thus far, really first rate and captures an immense amount of detail. The notes are up there as well and the performances are detailed, thorough and strong.

Jonathan Woolf

see also Review by Rob Barnett

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