With Toccata CDs you
are guaranteed something unusual, new
to disc or challenging. Adventure is
the key. To this the company couple
good documentation, in this case provided
by the composer.
Joubert was born in
South Africa but in 1946 came to London
to study at the Royal Academy. He has
been extraordinarily productive and
with this disc - one of several issued
to mark Joubert's eightieth birthday
- we are introduced to his songs and
some of the chamber music. Of the six
works featured three involve John Turner,
the recorder virtuoso, champion of the
instrument and single-handed commissioner
of many British works.
The little cycle The
Hour Hand sets words by Edward Lowbury
– poetry well worth searching out -
in music that chimes with woodnotes
tapped directly into the British pastoral
heritage. There is a quietness about
this music - supernal moods and a Howellsian
witchery.
The three songs making
up Shropshire Hills are to words
by Joubert's accustomed collaborator,
Stephen Tunnicliffe. These songs are
more dramatic-operatic than the first
cycle. Tunnicliffe, like Housman, feels
the hand of previous ancient generations
and these ‘voices’ shiver and shudder
in Joubert's music. That said, the composer
finds a curving horizon's warmth in
the final song Clun Forest. These
are exceptionally fine songs and I wonder
if Joubert has thought of a version
with orchestra. Lesley-Jane Rogers who
I should have mentioned earlier is intelligent,
responsive to variety of dynamic and
pleasingly without wobbling vibrato.
Improvisation was
written as tribute to Joubert's teacher,
Howard Ferguson and is based on material
from pieces Joubert was writing during
his studies with Ferguson in 1947-50.
The music bespeaks a certain loneliness
but also a romantic drama redolent of
Ferguson's piano sonata.
Kontakion is
the traditional Russian chant for the
dead. Its outline lodged in the composer's
mind when it was played during WWII
school church services to mark the tragic
deaths of various ex-pupils. It's a
single continuous span with a keening
viola edge and a not altogether surprising
subtext of outrage. This is set off
by the happiness of the episode from
3:34 onwards which resolves into a crystalline
dream. The general set of this piece
recalls Rubbra’s passion and expressive
potency.
The Rose is Shaken
in the Wood comprises four songs.
While The Hour Hand uses only
treble recorder this cycle deploys treble,
bass and sopranino instruments. The
poems are by the New Zealand poet, Ruth
Dallas. Apart from the jaw-tangling
The Gardener's Song with
its sopranino ornithological piping
these songs radiate a sombre haunting
beauty. Here we find a concern for mortality
and the passing of all things apart
from the richness that some will pass
on to future generations.
The Six Bronte Songs
are from the 1960s and again return
to Joubert's accustomed landscapes of
the mind; nature poetry is not his prime
concern. This cycle describes an arc
via desolation, bereavement, death to
consolation. The steady symphonic pulse
in the centre of Oracle is impressively
done and the operatic luminosity of
the final three lines of the last verse
is memorable. After the desolation in
Caged Bird comes the defiance
of Immortality. However that
last song sounds rather like a hoped
for desperate consummation rather than
a grand blaze of confidence. I wondered
whether the climax had actually been
achieved in Oracle. There is
however no doubting the power of this
last song which certainly has an air
of high finality about it.
As expected, this majestically
confident collection is matched by a
booklet that includes the complete texts.
This is a crucial disc
in the advocacy and appreciation of
Joubert's music. It is however essential
that we get to hear the Herefordshire
Chronicles and The Raising of
Lazarus, the symphonies, the opera
Under Western Eyes and the concertos.
Rob Barnett
Toccata
Catalogue
for details
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano); John Turner
(recorder); Richard Tunnicliffe (cello);
John McCabe (piano) 
Sound
Sample 
