A friend of mine made
an interesting comment about Elizabeth
Maconchy. Admittedly her remarks were
based on having heard just a few of
her chamber works. She considered that
if Maconchy had been a man she would
have been in the ‘Top 10’ English composers.
I tend to agree with her. How many ‘music
lovers’ will have heard her name … far
less any of her compositions? Of course
this centenary year may be an exception
– the Music for Strings and the
Four Shakespeare Songs are being
performed at this year's Proms. However,
note that the former is played at a
matinee concert and that neither work
appears at the Royal Albert Hall. They
have been sidelined to the Cadogan Hall:
conveniently pushed to one side as if
someone at the ‘Beeb’ does not really
want to recognise her craft but feels
obliged to note the centenary.
I was first introduced
to Maconchy’s music by that great description
of London’s river – Proud Thames.
This was on the original Lyrita vinyl
issued around 1972. Then, as now, I
tend to see it in terms of Smetana’s
Ma Vlast – although there is
an intangible ‘English’ feel to this
music. Ironically this work was an entry
into the London County Council competition
of 1952 for a piece to celebrate the
forthcoming Coronation. I am left pondering
the possibility of Ken Livingstone sponsoring
such an event in these multicultural
days: steel drums and Tibetan finger
cymbals perhaps? Maconchy wrote that
the inspiration for this was ‘the river
itself’. She stated that it was meant
‘… to suggest its rapid growth from
small beginnings to a great river of
sound – from its trickling source among
green fields, to London, where the full
tide of the life of the capital centres
on its river." As I write this
review I am high above the Thames near
Blackwall Reach – and the memory of
her musical tone poem, for such it is,
on this misty summer’s day makes for
poignant thought. Proud Thames
is one of those works that should be
in the repertoire, along with Malcolm
Arnold’s The Smoke and John Ireland’s
London Overture; the reality
is that it will probably only receive
an occasional airing - if that. It would
have made a terrific ‘Last Night’ opener.
The Symphony for
Double String Orchestra is in the
same league as similar works composed
by Sir Michael Tippett and Ralph Vaughan
Williams. This is quite definitely a
masterpiece. Maconchy titled the work
‘on account of its weight and serious
content’. However the formal construction
of the piece owes more to Bach’s Brandenburgs
rather than to the ‘classical’ symphony.
This Symphony
is in four well-balanced but strongly
contrasting movements. The ‘allegro
molto’ opens with an insistent and quite
aggressive ‘five note figure’, however
this is offset by, as Rob Barnett calls
it, a ‘fandango pizzicato’ – quite a
‘pop’ tune! The second movement is the
heart of the work. Profoundly intense,
the composer scores for an expressive
solo violin. The music pushes towards
a great climax before subsiding into
the reflective opening material. This
is one of the great ‘elegies’ of British
string music. The ‘scherzo’ is wonderful
stuff: it well balances the heart rending
‘lento’. This music is written antiphonally
with the two groups of strings engaging
in a spirited conversation. Yet it is
not the traditional ‘joke’. There are
some serious matters to be discussed
in these pages. The movement ends with
nod to things Gallic - or are they Iberian?
The reflective mood of much of this
piece is continued in the last movement
– a well thought out ‘passacaglia’.
This is intense music that is well balanced
between a long ‘allegro’ section and
a soaring ‘lento.’ One is reminded of
a dozen composers – but it is never
possible to quite put the finger on
them! Originality is the keynote.
This Symphony for
Double String Orchestra is a fine
work. It is at the same time beautiful,
moving, well constructed and challenging.
It is so wrong that the vagaries of
musical appreciation in this country
have consigned it to the vaults of the
‘noted by the musicologists but unheard
by the public’ type of music. Thank
goodness Lyrita has re-presented this
work. Let us hope that somehow it will
become established in the repertoire
of many orchestras. Yet somehow I feel
that this will not be the case.
The Serenata Concertante
is perhaps the most challenging
work here. I guess that many listeners
may not relate to this music in the
same way that they would to Proud
Thames or even the Symphony.
Yet this is engrossing and demanding
music that reveals its glories quite
gradually. It is not an easy work to
describe – but perhaps a musical signpost
would be to say that it nods towards
the Walton of the Second Symphony
or maybe even Alban Berg?
The entire work is
full of energy and utilises a small
but effective chamber orchestra. Subtle
use is made of a variety of percussion
instruments. The solo part is certainly
not a full blown tour-de-force, however,
more is expected of the violinist than
would be normal for a ‘concertante’
work. The heart of the work is in the
‘andante.’ The music here becomes transparent:
the lightest of touches are used to
support the musings of the soloist.
The final movement is full of quicksilver
energy; however this is interrupted
by a slow section leading to a climax
before the piece ends quietly with a
conversation between the violin and
cor anglais. The work was written as
a Feeney Trust commission in 1962.
I have never heard
the Music for Strings (1983):
I understand that this is the first
commercial recording of this piece.
It was originally composed for the 1983
Proms. Somehow I would be surprised
if it has been heard many times since.
There are four movements. The tone of
the piece is certainly less ‘modern’
than the Serenata. In fact, Maconchy
seems to have made a conscious effort
to write in a romantic style. Parts
of this work are quite gorgeous, with
the opening ‘molto moderato’ being the
key to the whole piece. The ‘scherzo’
is much lighter weight – much of it
being written pizzicato. Yet even here
there is a short romantic theme – it
could have come straight out of film
music! The slow movement is quite sad
– the mood being defined by a lugubrious
solo viola melody. The finale is completely
extrovert. It must be one of the few
pieces in which Maconchy picks up on
the ‘jazzy’ exuberances of Leonard Bernstein:
other critics note the nod to Dag Wirén.
A great finish to an excellent, but
obviously underrated work.
I thoroughly enjoyed
this recording. Although I have known
all the works - except the Music
for Strings - for a number of years
it is great to hear them released on
CD.
Here is a small, but
as they say, ‘perfectly proportioned’
corpus of Maconchy’s music now available
to the listener. However is it just
a fond hope that perhaps Dutton or another
of the CD companies that specialise
in British music dust off the Symphony?
This work was premiered by Adrian Boult
in the 1920s but was subsequently withdrawn.
And how about coupling this with the
elusive Essex Overture and the
Suite: The Land based on a work
by Vita Sackville-West?
John France
see also review
by Rob Barnett
see also Maconchy
String Quartets
Lyrita
Catalogue
for details
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
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