Joubert, Alwyn and Martelli from Dutton

[albion]

Yet more impending delights for the jaded listener -



John Joubert

Symphony no.2 in one movement op.68 (In memory of those killed at Sharpeville, 21.3.60) (1970): Poco lento – Allegro vivace – Lento e sostenuto – Allegro vivace

William Alwyn

Prelude from 'The Fairy Fiddler' (1924): Andante, molto tranquillo – Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Allegro – Andante, molto semplice – Tempo primo – Slower
Derrybeg Fair from 'The Fairy Fiddler' (1925): Allegro molto – Andante con moto – L'istesso tempo – Tempo primo

Carlo Martelli

Symphony op.4 (1955-56)
i. Allegro
ii. Allegretto
iii. Largo – Allegro

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates (conductor)

World premiere recordings

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, John, for relocating this to a separate thread.

[albion]

Here is Lewis Foreman's session report -

On 11 and 12 January the Dutton Epoch team were in Glasgow with Martin Yates conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. They recorded the Symphony by Carlo Martelli and the Second Symphony by John Joubert with orchestral music from William Alwyn's early opera The Fairy Fiddler for release at the end of May (CDLX 7270).

After the amount of snow that had fallen in December it was very much touch and go whether this session would take place, but in the event the weather warmed up while we were in Glasgow even if the Dutton van had driven there through a snowy landscape. I had long wanted to find a way of recording Carlo Martelli's gripping and dramatic youthful Symphony (written when he was 19) which I had first encountered in the early 1960s. When it was first played - at the Festival Hall - by the London Symphony Orchestra in October 1957 conducted by Norman del Mar it was given high praise by the press, The Times' critic describing it as 'a work not only of exceptional promise but of heartening achievement'. It soon received several broadcasts, one of which I was fortunate in chancing on. I was delighted with it, and Martelli seemed a promising name to look out for. However like that other British composer who seemed destined for big things in the late 1950s, Stanley Bate, Martelli then disappeared off the musical radar and apart from a Serenade for Strings which I once heard played by the Welbeck String Orchestra I looked in vain. Decades later I began to encounter the name again in light music programmes and it became apparent that Martelli's career had been a victim of that BBC change of stylistic direction in the early 1960s. So to be present while the symphony was recorded by a top line orchestra was for me a personal ambition finally achieved, and it was especially good to see the composer at the sessions as his youthful and energetic score unfolded. The orchestra seemed to enjoy it too and I am confident that lovers of British music of that period will want to revisit this involving and very approachable score. To quote that 1957 review again 'the language is direct and diatonic, but gives the impression of spontaneous originality'.

Dutton needed another symphonic revival from the mid-century to couple with it and another long-standing gap in the recorded repertoire was chosen - John Joubert's Second Symphony. This was first performed, also at the Festival Hall, in 1971 when the composer had conducted, but has not been heard for some time. In a symphony responding to the events of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, John Joubert in his programme note tells how he was inspired by the example of Alan Paton's novel Cry the Beloved Country. He draws a fascinating parallel with Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony noting 'but there Shostakovich uses Russian political songs as symphonic material, I resolved to make use of three African melodies to give my work a similar sense of urgency and immediacy of purpose'. This is a tremendously vivid and dramatic score finely caught by the RSNO under the direction of Martin Yates. The third of Joubert's African themes is a Zulu lament whose final appearance on solo horn gives the music a tragic and elegiac climax, though the work ends in violent conflict. This is a major score of the mid-twentieth century which will surely find many admirers when this vivid recording is issued.

The two symphonies made for a rather short CD programme. To provide a contrast the orchestra also recorded two delightful previously unrecorded short pieces by William Alwyn which were suggested by the Alwyn Trust. As so often with such discoveries, we immediately feel it is a mystery why we have never heard such attractive music before. These orchestral encores are the Prelude and 'Derrybeg Fair' music from William Alwyn's very early opera The Fairy Fiddler (1922 rev 1925, 1929). This is enchanting and colourful music which make a splendid contrast to the striving of the two symphonies on this programme.