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British Music for Cello
and Piano William WORDSWORTH(1908-1988)
Sonata No.2 in G minor Op.66 (1959) [16:19]
Nocturne Op.29 (1946) [5:39]
Scherzo Op.42 (1949) [2:38]
Sonata for Violoncello Op.70 (1961) [11:56] Josef HOLBROOKE(1878-1958)
Fantasie-Sonate Op.19 (1904) [14:38] William BUSCH (1901-1945)
Suite (1943) [13:54]
A Memory (1944) [3:14]
Elegy (1944) [7:09]
Raphael Wallfisch (cello); Raphael Terroni (piano)
rec. Menuhin Hall, Yehudi Menuhin School, Stoke d’Abernon, Cobham,
Surrey, England 9 October 2008 (Wordsworth) and 18 February 2010
(Holbrooke & Busch)
BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY BMS436CD [75:33]
As soon as you read the names of Wallfisch and Terroni on the
cover of this British Music Society CD you know you are in safe
musical hands for this journey through yet more unfamiliar British
music. And so it proves with another fine addition to the BMS
catalogue. Although both performers have extensive recorded
catalogues, has any performer done as much to enrich the catalogue
of British music on any instrument as Wallfisch has for the
cello? Any collector even passingly interested in this repertoire
is eternally in his debt.
All three composers have benefited in recent years from the
ever-spreading net of rare repertoire caught on CD. From a purely
personal standpoint I find that Holbrooke is the composer here
whose stature has increased least with greater familiarity.
Conversely, the music of William Busch – all but unknown to
even the most enthusiastic collector of British music – has
had to be seriously reassessed in the light of the excellent
orchestral CD from Lyrita
which of course included his Cello Concerto also played
by Wallfisch. Another Lyrita
CD from some years back featured symphonies by William Wordsworth.
For reasons I’ve never quite managed to fathom these works never
caught my imagination as much as many other contemporaneous
British symphonies. I will go back to that disc now in the light
of having enjoyed the first half of this disc devoted to Wordsworth’s
cello and piano works. Both of the sonatas recorded here - the
Op. 70 is for solo cello – are serious works. Although
neither could be termed ‘big’ in duration terms they both possess
concentrated intent and distilled energy that makes for compelling
listening. Malcolm MacDonald has contributed his typically insightful
and informative note. Regarding the Sonata No.2 Op.66 he
notes a kinship between the very openingmotif and Bach.
Somehow I think this is very intentional by Wordsworth – something
of the earlier composer’s formal rigour pervades the work. MacDonald
also hears a link with Shostakovich – Wordsworth had met the
Soviet composer in 1959; the year of this work’s composition.
I’m not so sure of that – to my ear it seems to have more to
do with a common ground tonally and musically from which the
work springs. The close of the work – it is written in one continuous
sub-divided movement – has more echoes of Walton I thought.
I cannot think of many other pieces of contemporary music written
for the viola da gamba but the Nocturne Op.29 is one
such. It is the earliest work by Wordsworth on the disc dating
from 1946 and was subsequently arranged for cello. The simplicity
and lyrical nature makes it both instantly appealing and ideally
suited to the instrument. The glorious sound Wallfisch makes
is present here as throughout but he finds just the right amount
of withheld projection so that this essentially simple music
is allowed to flow with easy grace. Likewise Terroni is a past
master at gauging the accompaniment making a virtue out of the
unassuming character of the work. The following Scherzo Op.42
again benefits from the easy virtuosity of the performers
allowing the quick-silver slightly angular character of it to
register with the minimum of apparent effort. At just 2:38 it
is literally the slightest work on the disc. As mentioned before
the Op. 70 Sonata is for solo cello. Aside from the Bax
Rhapsodic Ballad and some BantockI cannot think
of many British works for solo cello of this scale that predate
this one – the three Britten Cello Suites come from 1964-71.
There were the models of the Kodály and Hindemith sonatas but
this proves to be very much Wordsworth’s own work. Again, it
feels ‘bigger’ than a sub-twelve minute work. This time the
three movements are separate. Wallfisch is masterly at giving
the piece a sense of line and musical sense.
After that the big romantic gestures of the Holbrooke Fantasie-Sonate
Op.19 seem rather generic. Not that any of the Wordsworth
sounds at all English but it has its own definable character.
By its side the Holbrooke sounds simply broadly Romantic. According
to MacDonald Holbrooke competed for several of the W.W. Cobbett
chamber music prizes and he links this sonata in its multi-movement-in-one
form to that. I had always thought the Cobbett prize was more
linked to the Elizabethan Phantasy with thematic cross-referencing
within the single movement form. Given that the original version
of this sonata predates the founding of the prize in 1905 by
a year I think the link is coincidental. In later years Holbrooke
was to compete successfully for the prize but that is another
story. If you take the years 1904-5 for British music alone
it produced the Delius Mass of Life, Elgar In the
South and Introduction & Allegro, Vaughan Williams’
Sea Symphony was ‘in production’ and even younger composers
like Holst and Bax were beginning to flex their individuality
with The Mystic Trumpeter and Cathleen-ni-Houlihan
respectively. Perhaps it is not totally fair to compare
a relatively modest chamber work with big orchestral or choral
works but my point is the audible individuality that all of
the above contain in spades. For all his craftsmanship and flair
for piquant harmonies the conclusion remains that Holbrooke
was a lesser composer.
Conversely, the Busch Suite and particularly the Elegy which
closes the disc makes you wish for much more. Again, MacDonald
is bang on target when he describes the opening Prelude as having
the character of “an impassioned oration”. Both this suite and
the earlier 1940 Cello Concerto were written for Florence Hooton.
Here, as elsewhere in the suite, the effect is intensely passionate
and powerful but Busch’s skill is the economy with which he
projects this music. All four movements are models of clarity
in their writing. The dialogue between the two players is achieved
with easy perfection. The economy of writing reaches its pinnacle
in the shortest and possibly finest movement of the suite –
the third movement Nocturne is nothing short of masterly – a
short poignant musing over a past tragedy. Perhaps in the light
of that I find the closing Tarantella to be of least interest
– full of energy and flamboyance but somehow less significant.
The lyrical reflective tone of the Nocturne is revisited
in A Memory. According to Busch’s daughter Julia Cornaby
Busch in her article
about her father on this site he described this as “a peaceful
piece, I thought of looking into Nicholas’s room as he slept.”
The Nicholas mentioned is his son Nicholas Busch who went on
to become one of the great orchestral horn players in London.
His marvellous version of the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn
and Strings with Ian Partridge, or the horn solo in the Tennstedt/Lucia
Popp version of the Strauss Four Last Songs should be in every
collection.
Perhaps A Memory is somehow not of its time – 1944 –
but the composer’s voice speaks here with individuality and
originality – even more so in the closing Elegy. The
cello is very much the dominant voice here and surely in the
lamenting song the cello sings it is not too hard to hear the
work as an ‘anthem for doomed youth’ and as such very much of
its time. Wallfisch plays the entire programme superbly but,
as in a disc I reviewed recently of his performance of the great
Bridge Oration, he seems especially adept at projecting
angry regret. Busch allows a final ray of hope to appear as
the piece ends in a wispy major tonality; a wonderfully ambiguous
ending to a superbly concentrated work.
The quality of the recording comes to the fore here too. Although
dating from sessions some eighteen months apart producer John
Talbot and engineer Paul Arden-Taylor have created a perfect
balance between the instruments and set them just far enough
back into the hall’s acoustic to allow all the detail to register
without the sound being in any way oppressive. Heartfelt thanks
once again to the BMS for another triumphant disc. The Wordsworth
and Busch works are major contributions to the repertoire, the
latter especially and how wonderful to be in a position to be
able to hear the Holbrooke too even if it is the moon to the
other work’s sun. If by any chance the Lyrita
disc of the Busch concertos has passed you by I urgently
commend it to you. I hope that a company will look to record
the remainder of Busch’s far from extensive catalogue but in
the meantime this is a wonderful sample.
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