Havergal BRIAN (1876-1972)
In Memoriam (1910) [20:30]
Symphony No.1 Gothic, Part One (1919-1927) [39:01]
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
rec. October 1976, Royal Albert Hall, London
HERITAGE HTGCD172 [59:31]
This is a live broadcast performance of Part 1 of Havergal Brian’s First Symphony; The Gothic prefaced by his tone poem In Memoriam. It was given at the Royal Albert Hall and broadcast on 10 October 1976 on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate the centenary of Brian’s birth. Robert Simpson was the producer. The second part of the concert was given over to Berlioz’s massive Symphonie Funčbre et Triomphale and as Sir Charles Groves’ son Jonathan Groves relates in his share of the booklet notes, the conductor was not in great health. In fact, just before the concert Jonathan diagnosed a thrombosis, subsequently confirmed as soon as the evening was over when Groves was taken to hospital and successfully treated. To have conducted so gargantuan a concert in such circumstances makes one wonder at his dedication, professionalism and gallantry.
These two performances have been available via off-air recordings made at the time. The Havergal Brian society, of which I was once a member, has also had them available on its website. But here we have tapes direct from the BBC’s masters and these offer a thoroughly enhanced aural experience, capped by a fine Heritage booklet with its essay by John Pickard.
Groves is one of the heroes of the Brian discography for his recordings of Symphonies 8 and 9 on EMI. Here he shows his spurs once again in this repertoire and I doubt any British conductor of the time could have matched him in In Memoriam. His pacing is so fine, his negotiation of incident as he traces the music’s various scenes so precise yet flexible that one feels the music could hardly be taken better. The nobility and power are there, the percussion section is perfectly clear, and whilst the tread is inexorable, the expressive logic that has formulated it is always audible. The third panel is particularly memorable for the lyric interlude that sits at the heart of its fast section. The New Philharmonia plays devotedly, the Albert Hall acoustic doesn’t blunt articulation, and Groves – thrombosis or not – proves a majestic interpreter. In point of fact Geoffrey Heald-Smith (Cameo) with the forces of the Hull Youth Symphony Orchestra takes almost the same tempo as Groves, and both are more measured than the more impetuous Adrian Leaper and the National Symphony of Ireland on Marco Polo. But Groves and his orchestra are unmatched.
Brian himself wrote that Part 1 of The Gothic could be performed without the big chorale finale: ‘…The first three movements are a symphony in themselves and could be used as a concert piece or for broadcasting’ (I’ve toned down his capitalisations), he wrote to Malcolm MacDonald a couple of months before this performance. And that is the conception that Groves brings, one of symphonic cohesion throughout, ensuring that the three movements bear a cogent proportion each to the others and that the music flows with logical development. That’s why a direct comparison with Ondrej Lenárd’s Bratislava recording for Naxos is not wholly insightful, given Lenárd recorded the whole work. One is immediately aware that Groves’s conception is the more immediate and intense; his first section is faster than the Slovak recording and there is a greater narrative grip not subject to any extremes of rubato or phrasing. This powerful linear directness – the difference in this section is only a minute in length (12˝ to 13˝ minutes) but the rhythms kick harder, the lower brass bites, and the solo violin prefacing the cataclysmic build up, percussion laden and intense, is a real index of Groves’ rehearsal imperatives and excellent orchestral conviction. There’s greater verticality of orchestral sound in the central slow movement in this New Philharmonia reading, the music’s torrid intensity marshalled with control. In the last movement, which registers vividly in the recording – no swampy Albert Hall sound, the BBC’s microphones catching clarity – those Sibelian winds and brass fanfares register clearly and the hellish accumulation of material, of colour, and rhythm, the veritable Berliozian excess, are unavoidably massive. The Faustian nightmare is underpinned by the Royal Albert Hall organ. Unlike in a performance of the whole work, for this ‘symphonic’ reading Brian sanctioned a harp arpeggio to accompany the final chord.
This fiery, controlled, unsparing and dramatic reading is one to hear. You won’t encounter totally spic and span orchestral playing. This is a live and unedited heat-of-the-moment concert performance and no patching sessions are involved. It’s high voltage stuff. You will need Lenárd’s necessary recording which is, on its own terms, a vital and magnificent cog in the Brian discography. But I think that if you care about Brian you owe it to yourself to hear this disc.
Jonathan Woolf
