Havergal Brian Gothic Symphony from Hyperion

[Jimfin]

Sorry, I had to study "The Old Wives' Tale" for O Level, which resulted in me now reading Arnold Bennett about as much as people in Stoke. Yes the Hanley premiere of "King Olaf" was where Brian decided to become a composer and that "Elgar was the man for me". I can just imagine the scene.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Many thanks to Peter for his story. Wish I had been there! I read David Brown's account of the event in the Newsletter only in the early 1980s, when I became a member of the HBS. There is a photo of the concert in the book the HBS published with two studies of The Gothic (by Paul Rapoport and Harold Truscott). I think I'll send David a link to your post!

[Gareth Vaughan]

I think it's a little unfair to say that Brian was more talented than Bennett. One isn't really comparing like with like. I enjoy the music of the one and the literature of the other.

[Alan Howe]

You are right, Gareth. The comparison is pretty invidious, I'd've thought.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Probably entirely my fault for mentioning Arnold Bennett in the first place! Any comparison is clearly invidious, but to link Bennett and Brian isn't entirely lunatic. Both were born in the Potteries, both came from fairly humble families, and each became infused by currents of thought whose origin and influence lay way outside the parochial nature of Potteries customs and traditions. Both men then forged ambitions that could not possibly flourish in the place of their birth, and to turn their backs on Stoke.

If I propose that between Bennett and Brian we have a great writer and a great composer then maybe all disagreements will cease. And if, in addition, I venture the proposal that Bennett and Brian each made a permanent and more significant mark on our culture than did Captain Smith and Stanley Matthews we shall all be one in the celebration of the former pair!

However I'm not going to give up entirely! There is obviously a lot of the Potteries in the Bennett novels. Many of the books are set in the five towns that now make up the city, and in them we encounter real flesh and blood characters who once you would have met in the pot banks, pubs, and streets of the place. And having been sentenced to live in or near the Potteries for 34 years in order to earn my crust of bread until, gloriously, I got out of it, and having thus developed a familiarity with the culture of the place, I often hear elements of the Potteries in Brian's music. I'm thinking of a certain gruffness, a ruggedness and independence of thought, a jocularity of humour occasionally breaking into a swaggering jollity or else a grim resolute despair, a determination to be his own man and to say what he likes regardless of others, an insistence on his own forms of expression, sometimes immense energy and powers of endurance, a disdain for mere prettiness, a sometimes ruthless bluntness and honesty..... Notoriously difficult to capture in words what we might feel about a piece of music, but aren't these some of the elements that we find in Brian's music? Become acquainted with Stoke and you'll recognise all such elements in Potteries culture and history - however of course in recent years with the collapse of the pottery industry, and mile upon mile of near derelict factories and pot banks, all this traditional culture has disappeared.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

In one of his novels (I forgot which) Arnold Bennett has a character, a composer, based on Havergal Brian. I must have read this in Ordeal by Music / Havergal Brian - the man and his music by Reginald Nettel, a Potteries man himself.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

A new review on Musicweb by Dan Morgan... Just scroll down a bit.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Jan12/DL_roundup_Jan12_2.htm

[Alan Howe]

..and how gratifying to read this in DM's review:

One of the joys of reviewing is the chance to revisit and re-evaluate works that, for one reason or another, have failed to gel first time round. Suk's Asrael eluded me until I heard the recent BIS recording, but as compelling as that is I had to admit it was not a Damascene conversion. This performance of 'The Gothic' most certainly is.

[Dundonnell]

Excellent review

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I have complimented Dan Morgan on his review (by tweet). He replied: You are most welcome. 'The Gothic' will be one of my picks for 2012, I'm sure.

[alberto]

The French monthly magazine "Classica" (march 2012 release, pages 80-81) has elected the Hyperion recording of Brian's Gothic Sym. "recording of the month" (the long and fully enthusiastic review is written by Michel Fleury, I would say prominent among French critics).

[Dundonnell]

That is very interesting

I had often thought that the French were immune to a lot of British music

[Jimfin]

I was just thinking the same, and how lovely it was that they should have taken such an interest here.

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps Brian's music isn't so quintessentially English...?

[albion]

Brian Reinhart's enthusiastic and detailed Musicweb review - http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Feb12/Brian_Gothic_CDA679712.htm