As he grew older Berkeley
became increasingly sophisticated. Hearing
his excellent music of the 1930s and
1940s this trend was not always to the
good. While orchestral textures became
lucid and transparent the emotional
rewards became more slender as the years
passed - more ascetic than passionate.
Elegance and lucidity are there in quantity
as you may find them in the later works
of Walter Piston but majesty and the
power to move operate at a distance.
This may be the way you like your music
- or the way you like it at times -
but be aware.
The First Symphony
is from the second year of WWII. Its
first two movements while full of incident
are busy and their lyricism partakes
of that of Rawsthorne rather than the
more emotionally upholstered voices
of the British musical renaissance.
Only in the long searching lines of
the Lento does one feel the undertow
of tragedy. For the finale the composer
returns to a neo-classical busy-ness
of the type we know so well from the
Serenade for Strings. It leaves
little impression behind.
The Second Symphony
was commissioned by the Feeney Trust
for the CBSO. The premiere was conducted
by Andrzej Panufnik during his brief
tenure in Britain's second city. This
symphony too suffers from a certain
opacity of expression and despite his
revising ministrations in the 1970s
an occasional thickness of voicings,
a ponderous gait. This leaden weighing
down is lifted by rhythmic material
particularly to the fore in the allegro
vivace which here seems to go less
than vivace. The third movement
is again a Lento - untouched
by the 1970s adjustments. This has a
sombre majesty that is most impressive
- listen to the glowering brass chorale
at 2.10 onwards - redolent of Rubbra's
Eleventh Symphony. Once again the finale
is more athletic and celebratory though
ending with the feel of a sinfonietta
rather than a grand symphony.
The Third Symphony
in a single movement is also on Lyrita
and is a fine concentrated piece where
emotion and style are in ideal equipoise.
These two Berkeley
symphonies derive from Lyrita Recorded
Edition LPs: SRCS-80 Berkeley Symphony
No. 1 Op. 16; Concerto for 2 Pianos
and Orchestra Op. 30 (Beckett, McDonald
- pianos/Del Mar, LPO) and SRCS-94 Berkeley
Symphony No. 2 Op. 51; Piano Concerto
in B flat Op. 29 (Wilde (piano) Braithwaite,
LPO, NPO).
These are fine and
handsomely recorded performances though
I wonder whether things would have been
better if a more winged mercurial approach
had been evident in the second movement
of the Second Symphony.
Rob Barnett
Lyrita
Catalogue
for details
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Norman Del
Mar (1); Nicholas Braithwaite (2) 
