Cliffe Symphony No.2 Recording Project

[semloh]

Ok, thanks, Alan.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I was not in a financial position to make a contribution to the costs of this project at the time of its inception, but would very much like to purchase a CD at an appropriate cost, if this were possible.

[Alan Howe]

It would be worth contacting Chris Fifield direct, Gareth. I'm sure he'll work out something for you.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Thanks, Alan. Will do.

[badams@nl.rogers.com]

My contribution towards this project was relatively modest.  At the time the looney was in rather a feeble state and my contribution of 20 pounds cost me close to C$40 as it was, so I have no expectation of getting a complimentary copy of the CD or anything like that.  But like Gareth, I would be more than happy to have the opportunity of purchasing a copy.

[Alan Howe]

If you've contributed, I'm sure you'll get a copy.

[Alan Howe]

I asked Chris Fifield how the recording session yesterday went. He replied:

"Extremely well.  We all (60 players) loved it."

Chris hopes to post a report soon - which I'm sure we're all looking forward to reading.

[christopherfifield]

I am happy to report that yesterday (Saturday July 18th) I finally played and recorded Cliffe's Symphony No.2 in E minor with full orchestra. This was not a public performance, though we were delighted to have Forum member John White present for the afternoon session. Sixty of my friends in the Lambeth Orchestra met at All Saints, West Dulwich for a full day of recording. In the morning we started with the slow movement ('Night') followed after the break by the scherzo ('Fairy revels'); after a picnic on the lawn in front of the church and in perfect summer weather, we resumed with the last movement ('Morning') and then the first ('At sunset'). This was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time since 1902 that the symphony had been heard. It had a life of ten years, having been commissioned by the Leeds Festival in 1892, performed under Cliffe on Thursday October 6th (in the second half of a concert in which Mozart's Requiem formed the first!) August Manns then did it (with some revisions to the 2nd and 4th movements by the composer) at the Crystal Palace on October 29th.

'Hearing with the eye' as you have to when studying a score which has never been played in living memory, proved a revelatory exercise. When Cliffe wrote it in 1892, Bruckner had four years to live, Brahms five. Also this was barely three years after Cliffe's own first symphony which took the musical press and public by storm at Crystal Palace in 1889. Members will know my recording for Sterling, and I consider that to be a great work. The harmonic idiom of the second symphony is not straightforward, indeed when we had a strings-only rehearsal two weeks ago (we had one with full orchestra except timpani, harp and tuba two days before the recording) it sounded more 1950 than 1890, a lot of fussy writing and player-unfriendly passage work with no obvious sense of shape and direction. Adding the wind and brass made (obviously) a clearer picture. A string player wrote to me this morning. "What a lovely day it was yesterday. I really enjoyed it and came away feeling exhilarated. It also turned out to be quite a social event. I hope that you will be pleased when the final recording is released. I must say however that after the first string rehearsal I was wondering what on earth I had let myself in for but after that things just got better and better", while a wind player wrote, "I hope you enjoyed yesterday as much as we did? It goes against all my principles to admit, but I really enjoyed playing the Cliffe, and those around me did too! It was really refreshing to be able to rehearse and record in such detail and I think the orchestra really benefited from the whole experience".

How to pin-point influences...  Well Cliffe certainly was Wagner-influenced (Tristan) but then few weren't! His rhythmic energy is often Dvorak (popular in England at the time), his musical angst is that of Tchaikovsky, who died the following year. Some of his melodies have an Elgarian flavour but we must remember that the second symphony appeared seven years before the Elgar explosion with Enigma Variations in June 1899. 'Fairy Revels' is pure Mendelssohn and has tunes a-plenty which are quintessentially English in character and it's no surprise that it was encored on occasion. The slow movement 'Night' features those nocturnal sounds which so obsessed Bartok half a century later in his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. The opening movement sets a stall out with melodies and rhythmic motifs which will reappear later in the work. The finale was problematic at the time and subjected to cuts, which caused editorial headaches when, several years ago, we played it through at a rehearsal but from the original handwritten parts, producing many a car crash. Patrick Meadows and Lionel Harrison produced a cleaned-up score, I proofread the result and pointed out errors and inconsistencies. I was still doing that the night before the recording. It never ends...

I conclude by thanking those members of the Forum who contributed to the fund which paid for the hire of the churches (rehearsal and recording venues) and extra players. I stayed within budget and find myself in profit to the tune of £18, which will be used to post out cds.

I am assured the music is all 'in the can' and will be in touch when cds are available in particular to those who contributed to the project.  Please let Alan Howe have your addresses; he has kindly agreed to manage that distribution.

Warmest wishes

Christopher Fifield

[kuula]

Christopher, we all owe you a huge debt.  I will gladly pay whatever price you name for this recording.
Thank you so very much!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Seconded in spades.

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed. Well done. I'm looking forward very much to hearing the Symphony. Such a shame that I couldn't be there myself...

[Alan Howe]

I too am full of admiration for and gratitude to Chris for taking on this wonderful project and bringing it to fruition in London yesterday. Please could everyone who has already contributed financially to the making of the recording let me have their postal address and I will ensure that the CDs get posted out as soon as they are available.

[christopherfifield]

I have been sent a taster by my recording engineer, namely the last six minutes of the first movement ('Night'), and I can report positively even though it's a rough cut.

[John H White]

As the only member of the audience present at this recording session, I must publicly thank Chris and his  orchestra for the kind welcome I received from them. I even got a round of applause when Chris mentioned to them that I had come all the way from the Isle of Wight to witness this historic occasion!
   I arrived just after 2pm when they had already started playing through the finale. I was puzzled to note that certain passages were then repeated as at a rehearsal but the whole movement was not played through again. I was told afterwards that the recording engineer would be able to insert the better versions of the passages concerned electronically, using some very clever software. I gather that is somewhat akin to stitching together a series of photos to make up a panorama. I thought the short slow introduction to the finale very cleverly written, starting with low murmurings on the double basses and then bringing in other groups of instruments in turn. The main part of the finale, to me, was of a triumphal nature with a number of brassy climaxes. The only criticism I could make of Cliffe's scoring was that most of the time, at least from where I was sitting, the harp was completely  drowned out by the rest of the orchestra. I was told afterwards that the harp really did come into its own in the quieter middle movements that were recorded in the morning session that I missed. Lastly, the opening movement was played and turned out to me to be a very relaxing triple time piece in a sort of lullaby style, although even here there was the odd fortissimo climax.
    I certainly look forward to hearing the complete CD when it comes out. Meanwhile, I sent for a copy of Chris's CD of Cliffe's 1st Symphony.
Well done Chris and well done the Lambeth Orchestra! 

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for the report, John. It's a shame that more of us couldn't be there.