BRIAN Symphonies Nos 3 & 17 (Pope)

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Orchestral

Label: Heritage

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 67

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: HTGCD153

HTGCD153. BRIAN Symphonies Nos 3 & 17 (Pope)

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Symphony No. 3 Havergal Brian, Composer
New Philharmonic Orchestra
Stanley Pope, Conductor
Symphony No. 17 Havergal Brian, Composer
New Philharmonic Orchestra
Stanley Pope, Conductor

There is a good case for considering Havergal Brian’s Third Symphony (1931 32) his first symphonic masterpiece. Beautifully balanced, dramatic and atmospheric by turns, its lush, post-Romantic orchestral sound in places out Baxes Bax. It opens – as Malcolm (aka Calum) MacDonald noted – in a spirit of high endeavour (Brian transfiguring Elgar in a wholly personal manner), progressing through the gripping first movement, the dense and fantastical landscapes of the ensuing Lento sempre marcato e rubato, high-spirited Scherzo and solemn finale to a rousing, optimistic conclusion. Although there is no overt Beethovenian connection (or funeral march!), there is something to the notion that this is Brian’s Eroica symphony.

Initially conceived as a two-piano concerto, Brian ‘resolved’ it into a symphony early on. The two pianos remained, however, at times part of the orchestral texture, at others clearly concertante soloists. Ronald Stevenson and David Wilde proved heroically minded performers in the work’s premiere in 1974 (13 months after the composer’s death). Stanley Pope, who conducted several of Brian’s works from 1958 on, directed the then New Philharmonia in a remarkably fluent account given the limited rehearsal time, but – occasional details aside – not quite as strong as Lionel Friend’s in the same studio (following a public performance) 14 years later.

The Seventeenth (1960 61) was the last of a set of five single-movement symphonies that heralded Brian’s final period (20 works followed, including 15 more symphonies). It opens fetchingly with a romantic violin solo (all Brian symphonies contain a violin solo: No 17 has two!) ushering in a dramatic, three-part work where concision of expression, as opposed to No 3’s open-hearted expansiveness, is the order of the day. The late Michael Oliver described it as ‘a locus classicus for studying Brian’s technique of progress through metamorphosis rather than “development”’; certainly Brian’s elusive, allusive style makes this a tougher proposition. Pope and the Royal Philharmonic make as great a case for it as Adrian Leaper and the Ireland National Symphony Orchestra did 16 years later. There is really nothing to choose between the performances, nor the sound. Splendid.

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