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
Link
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