Our notions of what an early romantic symphony ought to be are so strongly coloured by Beethoven that one is tempted to criticize Cipriani Potter simply because he is different. It is, I fear, broadly true that the symphonic tradition, as we have come to know it, has its roots in the practices of Beethoven, and Haydn before him, so historically there is a certain correctness in regarding music like Potter's as a mere tributary. But it is on the evidence of this record, a rich and exciting one. Potter (1792–1871), born into a family of musicians, studied under Attwood, Woelfl Forster and others, met Beethoven (who acknowledged his ''talent for composition''), was a virtuoso pianist reputed for his playing of Mozart and Beethoven, was admired as a conductor, and taught at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was Principal for 27 years. He wrote much piano I music, a handful of chamber works, and some ten symphonies; but he more or less gave up composing in 1837, partly because of professional pressures but also because he was, it seems, so aware of the superior gifts of others that he lost confidence in his own.
That is sad, because his abilities, on the evidence of this record (and of some of the piano and chamber works I have looked at in the past but never heard played), are quite out of the ordinary. Potter had a keen and sensitive ear for orchestral colour and an ingenious and poetic feeling for harmony. Looked at from a strictly Beethovenian perspective, one might say that these were his undoing. He does not, as it were, keep his eye on the symphonic ball, and see it carefully through rather he lets himself be drawn off into fanciful realms, as regards both tone colour and key. Several movements here begin with the same kind of pattern: an idea announced by one group (strings or woodwind), a response quite different in character from the other, then a return to the first group and a speedy, perhaps quite distant modulation. I find this appealing, very often, as both fresh and delightful, but his disinclination to consolidate his key structure is also a shade disorientating, and it results in a less purposeful handling of sonata form than any of the Viennese symphonists, not excepting Schubert.
The answer, of course, is to sit back and enjoy it. I am sure most readers will relish much that Potter has to offer. In the E flat Symphony, there is the handling of the fanfare-like figure that runs through the work, the subtle key shifts in its first movement, which has a highly original and luxuriant climax, the imaginative chromaticisms of this symphony's Andante con moto, music of much tenderness and warmth; and the rhetorical force of its finale (whose interesting second subject begins in quite a classical manner, then embarks on an excursion through a variety of keys). The G minor work has many sombre and sturdy ideas notably a powerful ending to the first movement, a very beguiling trio (predominantly for strings) to the scherzo (which has much crisply playful woodwind writing) and the slightly folksy second subject of the finale, which also has an uncommonly ingenious development. There is a lot of contrapuntal writing, with fugal and canonic passages; and there is also some graceful solo writing for cello and violin in the slow movement of the G minor work. This symphony dates from 1832 Wagner conducted it when he was in London in 1855. The E flat work is from 1828 but the slow movement here comes from Potter's 1846 revision.
I warmly recommend this disc to anyone with a dash of musical curiosity about them. It may not be great music, but it is very attractive and rewarding, and the playing of the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble I have not come across before, is admirable—they respond splendidly to the rhythmic vitality and the sharp ear for colour, and the command of the music's often unexpected shapes, shown by the conductor, Hilary Davan Wetton. The recorded balance possibly slightly favours the wind, but so does Potter's orchestration; and the trombones, which lend a characteristic rasp to his orchestration in the tuttis, come through splendidly.'