Havergal Brian Gothic Symphony from Hyperion

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Richard Whitehouse in his review of The Gothic calls it "a flawed masterpiece". Now one may or may not agree with his use of the word "flawed" but as a qualification of the word "masterpiece" I would deem that to be an acceptable point of view and by no stretch of the imagination "raving" about the work.

As someone who knows all of Brian's symphonies, I have come to recognise the passages where Brian has to get from inspired idea A to inspired idea B. Sometimes he just uses a pause, Bruckner fashion, but more often there is a (short) linking passage, built on a rhythm, that gets him into the target tonality. These linking passages can have their own beauty, but sometimes they are rather mechanical. This happens in The Gothic, too, but to these ears only in the final movement, where after the opening tenor solo you have a few minutes of choral build-up with no real payoff. That's the only flaw I see in the whole of The Gothic. The rest is absolutely inspired.

[Jimfin]

I think almost any work can be called "flawed": TS Eliot called "Hamlet" "an artistic failure" and Vaughan Williams found weaknesses (I forget what) in Beethgoven's "Choral Symphony". What's important is how much good stuff there is, and in the Gothic there is an incredible amount that is, as you say, absolutely inspired. What amazes me is that it doesn't flag: I know a number of much shorter symphonies that feel like they go on longer. And the Brabbins recording makes  that even clearer.

[Dundonnell]

I think almost any work can be called "flawed": TS Eliot called "Hamlet" "an artistic failure" and Vaughan Williams found weaknesses (I forget what) in Beethgoven's "Choral Symphony". What's important is how much good stuff there is, and in the Gothic there is an incredible amount that is, as you say, absolutely inspired. What amazes me is that it doesn't flag: I know a number of much shorter symphonies that feel like they go on longer. And the Brabbins recording makes  that even clearer.

Well said

[Dundonnell]

The February issue of The Gramophone magazine has a review of the Hyperion cd. The review is written by Guy Rickards and is enthusiastic. He makes the obvious point that the BBC should have filmed the performance.

However Rickards gets one column to review both the Hyperion discs and Volume 2 of the Toccata Brian releases. The consequence is that the Toccata disc gets precisely three sentences.

Rickards is a sensible reviewer and is notably well-informed about Scandinavian music but the length of his review gives him little opportunity to say much that is of any real value beyond comparing the speeds adopted by Boult, Lenard and Brabbins. Frankly, almost any of us could have written this review.

It is a waste of the man's talent and, yet another, commentary on the dreadful decline in the magazine's standards; a decline we have said much about already

[Jimfin]

I received my first copy of the IRR, four days after ordering it all the way from the UK to Japan, and am very impressed so far. Goodbye, Gramophone!

[Dundonnell]

I received my first copy of the IRR, four days after ordering it all the way from the UK to Japan, and am very impressed so far. Goodbye, Gramophone!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

@ Colin Thanks for that. I share your sadness at the decline of what was once an excellent magazine. Still, Guy Rickards' enthusiasm could sway some doubters, which is a positive thing.

[adriano]

In my personal opinion, Brain's "Gothic" is one of the craziest Symphonies ever (in a positive sense only), but, in first place, a great work indeed, full of splendour, power and inspiration! I love it deeply since I first got to know it, in the 70s, on an dreadfully sounding pirate LP (was it the B. R. Cook version?).
I love, admire, respect and enthusiastically welcome all three available versions on CD, and hate making comparisons: all interpretations are absolutely excellent - and since I am a conductor myself, I feel able to re-enact in my mind what these great conductors intend and realise, especially in this case, since I am able to follow the music with a score in my hands. All those who nag, should try to do the same first and start knowing the piece from the staves it's written on.
As far as the CD artwork is concerned: that was - amusingly - all rather plumpish since that first pirate LP. The recent Naxos re-issue artwork is worse than the old one, but one can easily have to cope with a bad cover by getting such great music!
Adriano
Zurich/Switzerland

[Alan Howe]

Spot-on, Adriano! - both in your estimate of the work itself and in you appreciation for all the extant recordings. I cut my teeth on taped recordings of Boult and Schmidt, welcomed with open arms the splendid Lenard CDs and now have the wonderful Brabbins set to remember the RAH Prom by. I feel privileged...

[Jimfin]

Quite, to think what all those conductors, Boult, Lenard and Brabbins (and Bryan Fairfax for that matter) in being able to put together a convincing performance of such a mammoth work when there was so little to compare it to is an astonishing achievement, and I wouldn't belittle any of them. But the Brabbins did make me feel like I was listening to the work for the first time

[Alan Howe]

The Brabbins is, for me at least, not simply a superb recording, but a momento of a wonderful event. That's what makes it special. However, if it hadn't taken place, I don't believe I would be significantly worse off as far as recorded versions are concerned. Not that I'm being ungrateful...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Wholeheartedly agree with Jimfin (and many others) that the achievements of Boult, Lenard and Brabbins in putting together a convincing performance of the Gothic was indeed astonishing - as their recordings testify.

But this isn't quite the full story. Having just landed myself a job at the Poly down the road (for what other reason would someone chose to live in Stoke-on-Trent?) I attended the performance in the Victoria Hall Hanley in May 1978. One can't measure grades of astonishment, but if anything that event transcended the astonishing enough Brabbins performance last summer.  All the performers (who vastly outnumbered the audience on that precious Sunday) were amateurs. They were recruited from all over the Midlands and sometimes beyond. I believe there had been some sectional rehearsals in the previous week or two, but all forces only came together for the very first time on Saturday, the day before the performance. Importantly, apart from the BBC tapes of the 1966 Boult performance to which the conductor, Trevor Stokes, had access none of the performers would have had any clear idea of the sound or texture of this vast symphony which surely must strike a newcomer to it as almost mad. For those performing it in the Victoria Hall that Sunday there was thus no kind of benchmark against which to work. I perhaps made the mistake of sitting near the front of the hall and thus easily able to see the look of sheer bloody terror on the faces of some orchestral players.

Given all this there was a high probability that the performance would collapse into incoherence or just grind to a halt. But not so at all. Not knowing any of the musical 'geography' of the symphony I was bewildered by some parts of it. Nonetheless it was abundantly clear that this was a performance that held together remarkably well, and that (and more) was certainly the view of those (such as David Brown) who reviewed it.

Thus the sheer difficulty of organising the whole event and then giving a wonderfully coherent performance of the symphony somehow go beyond whatever it is that counts as 'astonishment'. Some 34 years later it is still hard to believe that this happened in Stoke-on-Trent. Funny old place: if you ask a man in the street about Arnold Bennett, let alone Havergal Brian, you get a blank look. Reginald Mitchell who designed the Spitfire, Captain Smith of the Titanic, and above all Stanley Matthews are the real heroes of the place and the city fathers have built them monuments to them. Ah, but if they only knew that what happened in the Victoria Hall that day was one of the most significant events in the history of the place - and its astonishing nature a very great and permanent tribute to all the many who gave us this performance.

[Alan Howe]

A wonderful account of a seminal experience - thanks for posting it, Peter.

In 1978 I had probably not yet heard the off-air reel-to-reel recording of the Boult performance made by a friend of a friend, and I was certainly completely unaware of events in Stoke. So for me it was Boult (I eventually acquired a cassette transfer of the above-mentioned recording), followed by Schmidt (whose performance I attempted to record live on cassette only to find that radio reception hereabouts deteriorated as it went along) who introduced me to the work. And then finally Lenard came along in impressive sound and I was as happy as Larry (who?). But I hadn't attended an actual performance until last summer, which is why Brabbins will always be special, but not essential, for me...

[Jimfin]

People in Stoke don't know Arnold Bennett? How odd, since he mostly wrote about the area and is generally known in the UK! Still, I personally think Havergal Brian was a thousand times more talented than Bennett (and for that matter, rather more successful than the Captain of the Titanic!)

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Hm, I suppose it is true that inhabitants of the Potteries (sometimes known colloquially as 'potties') might have heard of Bennett - but they don't read him in spite of many of his novels being based in and around Stoke. Bennett's birthplace was for a number of years a greasy cafe, and then pulled down. The main Bennett house about a mile north of Hanley (in Cobridge) is a desolate place. Likewise the Brian house in Dresden (closer to Longton to the south of the city) is unmarked and uncommemorated. Both Bennett and Brian got out of the place at the earliest opportunity. At an earlier time Stoke was illustrious - largely on account of the choral works performed in the Victoria Hall. Elgar's King Olaf was first performed there in 1896. Later, Gerontius was heard in Hanley (and elsewhere) before London. In one of his letters Elgar remarks to a friend that he was about to go up again to his "beloved Victoria Hall" for a performance of one of his works (haven't checked but I believe I recall correctly that the First Symphony was performed there in 1908 - by Richter and the Halle - 3 days after its first Manchester performance and before being played in London). So Brian, though of humble origins, was born into a musically active environment. Lack of employment and very limited opportunities caused him to move to London from Stoke in 1912, and like Bennett, he never looked backwards.

After WW1 Stoke became a dreary place in which, judging by photographs, one could hardly see across the road for the smoke belching from the pottery kilns. I was especially dismayed - round about the early 1980s - when I got myself on a committee organising the music festival. We actually got the promise of the Beethoven Vn Conc from no less than Menuhin and the RPO - but were then refused the use of the Victoria Hall on that night because it coincided with the regular weekly wrestling match. Heaven help Stoke had Brian been around at the time! Like both Bennett and Brian I got out - though it took me much longer to do so.

Not so sure that Brian was "a thousand times more talented" than Bennett. The latter's 'Old Wives Tale' I consider one of the great 20th English novels....but if I pursue that theme I'll have Alan slapping me across the wrist!