Cliffe Symphony No.2 Recording Project

[christopherfifield]

Martin (27 October).  I got my sound engineer to run me off a copy with the scherzo as the second movement and the slow movement third. This gives it a bit more of slow-quick-slow-quick structure. I'm not sure I would record it that way though - what do you all think?

Thanks Alan for your last posting - heartwarming to read.  ALL of you could email Bo Hyttner at Sterling records and beg him to set up a recording. He emailed me his very positive response to the cd and asked me for players' numbers which I duly sent him.  Encouraging but regular prods are needed please.

If there is a P M Gregory out there please email me (cgfifield@btinternet.com)

[christopherfifield]

I should have added Sterling's email address -

sterling@mbox301.swipnet.se

Get emailing!

[Alan Howe]

I have been listening to Scriabin's symphonies over the past few days and I've had this strange feeling that Cliffe 2 is somehow quite closely related to them stylistically. I'm assuming it's the shared interest in Wagner's style and methods that's at the heart of this seemingly unlikely meeting of musical minds. Or am I way off here? I have also been put in mind of Joseph Marx. Tell me I'm going mad...

[Mark Thomas]

I'll tell you if you like, but I don't think that you are! You've hit the nail on the head, I'm sure, with your assumption about the influence of Wagner, which indeed permeates almost every bar of Cliffe's Second. There's also the unfettered giganticism of fin de siècle romanticism which they (and Mahler, Marx, von Hausegger etc.) also share, but that may well stem from Wagner's later works too.

[Alan Howe]

So the men in white coats won't be coming after all. Phew!

[Alan Howe]

Seriously, though, this makes Cliffe quite a radical in the British context of 1892...

[Mark Thomas]

Oh, absolutely, and especially when judged against the then-establishment of Stanford, Parry and Cowen. Much more radical in fact than Elgar proved to be 10 years later. Fascinating stuff. From Christopher's booklet note it appears that Cliffe's diffident nature militated against any sort of self-promotion, so his modernism existed in a vacuum which he wasn't prepared to do much himself to dispel.

[Alan Howe]

Rob Barnett has now given the CD a typically generous review over at MusicWeb:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Nov/Cliffe_sy2.htm

[christopherfifield]

There are two errors in Rob Barnett's review, which I shall ask him to correct.  The performance of the Coronation March took place in December 2014 not 2015. The orchestra is not Ealing but Lambeth !

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I noted his mention of 'Ealing' and thought his geography was a bit off...

[christopherfifield]

Both errors have now been corrected.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, excellent.

[Aramiarz]

Mr Fifield.
   How can I get one piece? I can by paypal send you the money?
You have made a great discovery

[christopherfifield]

I have only a few cds left. Please email me your email address; mine is cgfifield@btinternet.com

[Aramiarz]