Havergal Brian Volume 2 from Toccata Classics

[albion]

The booklet notes for the forthcoming Toccata Classics release (of orchestral extracts from the operas) are now available for perusal -

http://www.toccataclassics.com/cms/uploads/CyberLabel/documents/doctype/liner_notes/TOCC0113-notes.pdf

[albion]

The booklet notes for the forthcoming Toccata Classics release (of orchestral extracts from the operas) are now available for perusal -

http://www.toccataclassics.com/cms/uploads/CyberLabel/documents/doctype/liner_notes/TOCC0113-notes.pdf

The album is also now available to download -

http://www.toccataclassics.com/cddetail.php?CN=TOCC0113

on first listening, this is a very positive addition to the Brian discography! There is some really fabulous orchestration on display throughout and many moments of lyrical, and unexpectedly diatonic, warmth (particularly in the nine items from Turandot) which will come as welcome relief to those who find the symphonies rather hard-edged.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I agree with Albion's assessment of this latest HB release - it really is excellent.

One curious thing: the sound is better (less dry) than in vol. 1, but - vol. 2 was recorded at the same venue by the same engineer and a month earlier than vol. 1... Very strange.

[albion]

Yes, I was also taken aback by the much more 'giving' acoustic on the latest disc - the Burlesque Variations in particular could have done with a bit more bloom around them. I'm not complaining though - two fabulous Havergal Brian releases from Toccata which greatly expand our knowledge of this composer's sheer versatility and orchestral virtuosity (how can anybody still subscribe to the patently ridiculous notion that, because he did not hear much of his music performed, he didn't really know how to write for an orchestra?)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Yes, I was also taken aback by the much more 'giving' acoustic on the latest disc - the Burlesque Variations in particular could have done with a bit more bloom around them. I'm not complaining though - two fabulous Havergal Brian releases from Toccata which greatly expand our knowledge of this composer's sheer versatility and orchestral virtuosity (how can anybody still subscribe to the patently ridiculous notion that, because he did not hear much of his music performed, he didn't really know how to write for an orchestra?)

Indeed. Brian's Symphony No. 8 had its first performance in 1954 (1 February), just after he had completed Symphony No. 10 (16 January). But the utterly virtuosic and gorgeous Turandot score was completed three years earlier. So he didn't need the 'reality-check' of a performance to improve his skill in orchestration. One wonders, though, if the performances that started in the 1950s did have an influence. Are the symphonies from nos. 11 and 12 onward, and Faust and Agamemnon, in any way differently scored than the works predating that important change in Brian's fortunes?

A question for those with more time on their hands and a greater expertise than I possess...

[albion]

Malcolm Macdonald addresses the question of Brian's neglect and its impact on his musical style in general terms (Symphonies Volume 3, pp 289-291) -

Then there is the great red herring (with which to chop down the tallest tree in the forest): 'Don't you think the fact that he never heard his work for so many years adversely affected his technique?' The neglect of Brian's music is a very important consideration in judging the quality of his work: but this question is actually the wrong one to ask. For what it's worth, the answer must be a resounding No, and for the following reasons.

Brian was a composer, an ex-orchestral player, and a professional music critic [...] He was up to his ears in music of all kinds. This would outweigh any technical disadvantages of not hearing his own works in the inter-war period. But he had in any case heard his early works up to 1915, and conducted some of them himself. [...] Brian- as I have stressed - knew very well what he was about. As for supposed 'awkwardnesses' and 'miscalculations' in his symphonies, these are in some cases essential and deliberate features of his style, and in others the result of inadequate performance ...

The lack of performance of his music in Brian's lifetime was indeed a tragedy, but for precisely the opposite reasons from those which conventional wisdom tries to apply. The damage wasn't technical, it was emotional.

Much of Macdonald's discussion relates to structural issues, but it can be applied to instrumentation - certainly, Brian's orchestration developed throughout his lifetime, always expert but always highly idiosyncratic. The composer's re-orchestration of the Prologue to The Tigers (made right at the end of his life when there seemed no hope of recovering the 'lost' full score) was subsequently found to bear very little relation to the original - but I defy anybody to say that when scoring the opera in the 1920s he did not know what he was doing, and with a very precise aural sophistication. Furthermore, despite one or two miscalculations, the Burlesque Variations (1903) are a tour-de-force written by a basically self-taught young man who was quite clearly a natural-born orchestrator.

His ideas of instrumental colouring (relating to the separate polyphonic strands of his basically contrapuntal style) may have clarified and crystalised throughout his long career, but I don't think that there appears to be a conscious change in his approach to the orchestra as a specific reaction to the broadcasts. It is significant that he was not a composer to go back and 'tinker' with earlier scores, which indicates that Brian believed that they were orchestrated to the best of his ability and in a manner entirely appropriate to their material.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The composer's re-orchestration of the Prologue to The Tigers (made right at the end of his life when there seemed no hope of recovering the 'lost' full score) was subsequently found to bear very little relation to the original - but I defy anybody to say that when scoring the opera in the 1920s he did not know what he was doing, and with a very precise aural sophistication.

I hope that one day we'll have a recording of that alternate version, too. It should be highly instructive.

His ideas of instrumental colouring (relating to the separate polyphonic strands of his basically contrapuntal style) may have clarified and crystalised throughout his long career, but I don't think that there appears to be a conscious change in his approach to the orchestra as a specific reaction to the broadcasts. It is significant that he was not a composer to go back and 'tinker' with earlier scores, which indicates that Brian believed that they were orchestrated to the best of his ability and in a manner entirely appropriate to their material.

Indeed. And that's why it's such a shame the full score of Prometheus Unbound has disappeared. It would be fascinating to know whether its orchestral style is just as pared-down as that of Symphony No. 5. Any future orchestrator will have to ask himself (herself?!) the same question...

[Lord Hereford]

Listened to the samples, it sounds wonderful - does anyone know when the CD (ie. actual physical CD as opposed to downloads) will be available?

[eschiss1]

(Quibble about the promotional material @Toccata Classics that I need must be sending otherwheres than here...- "since none of them has yet been staged, this CD reveals for the first time some of the remarkably inventive and powerful orchestral pieces hidden within those scores." Some have been given complete concert performances (The Cenci; The Tigers- and as noted in the appreciated 21-page PDF downloadable from the site- the pleasantly detailed sleevenotes!...--- and as I'd momentarily forgotten though I've in fact a quite good (and I still say memorable...) concert recording of it myself, Agamemnon...) and so I think the chain of logic may be weaker than it should be here- in fact, I'm not sure how one follows from the other...none might be staged and all the purely orchestral music could... ah bother it. As I said; a quibble.)
But I don't see information on the release date of the CD - strong hint of by-end-of-this-year, though.

[albion]

(Quibble about the promotional material @Toccata Classics that I need must be sending otherwheres than here...- "since none of them has yet been staged, this CD reveals for the first time some of the remarkably inventive and powerful orchestral pieces hidden within those scores."

Well, you can't really blame them trumpeting such an important release! The concert performances of The Cenci, Agamemnon and extracts from Turandot would perhaps not have been widely noticed by the general musical public, and likewise broadcasts of The Tigers and the Prologue to Faust are unlikely to have sent the listener figures soaring. To Brian's admirers they were no doubt precious but (fleeting) experiences, not always in as water-tight performances as might have been desirable.

With this music at last committed to disc and available commercially, it is thereby revealed here in a very real and permanent sense and accorded a significant place in Brian's output. The excellence of the BBC Scottish SO under Gary Walker and the quality of the recording itself does effectively 'reveal' even such a (relatively) familiar piece as the Symphonic Variations from The Tigers.

[eschiss1]

You are almost certainly right even if my quibbling mind interjects that a -slightly- muted trumpet (with exaggerated or even inaccurate phrases removed and the whole matter even rephrased to emphasize what is still new and stunning about a release- speaking more generally- when those phrases do apply, that is!) can still be an appropriately and quite loud one - erm..

[albion]

a -slightly- muted trumpet ... can still be an appropriately and quite loud one - erm..

You've not heard me play - when my rusty embouchure comes under strain (after about three minutes) the results are slightly flatulent and compliments generally do not flow thick and fast .

[albion]

Now scheduled for 5th December -

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Toccata%2BClassics/TOCC0113

[Dundonnell]

That will make two Brian cds in the space of seven days: the Brabbins Gothic followed by the Toccata release

I must admit to a certain pride that the two Scottish orchestras should be doing so well on cd at the present time-the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Dutton and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on Hyperion and Toccata. The RSNO is a much better orchestra these days than it was even under Sir Alexander Gibson all these years ago and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is really an exceptionally fine band

[Alan Howe]

The two Scottish orchestras seem to be enjoying a golden era. Marvellous bands both.