Alfred Hill (1870-1960), the Australian composer whose music is virtually unknown here, was a musician who was thoroughly grounded in his profession, as a violinist, composer, conductor and teacher; as much from birth into a musical family as by his four years' training in Leipzig where so many composers, from Europe as well as almost everywhere else in the world, went at around the end of the last century. Apart from his studies, he gained valuable experience in string playing as a member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and later in Australia and New Zealand as a solo violinist. As well as being a composer, he was clearly a man of thorough musicianship and this is obvious from the compositions on this disc.
The odd thing is that he apparently composed in 'layers' of musical genres, starting with stage works, then changing to chamber music for five years and finally turning to orchestral music: and even odder is that of his 13 symphonies, 12 are orchestrations of his earlier string quartets. As the latter were written in the 1930s it shows no great desire to develop his style or to experiment. The two symphonies played on this disc are both in this category and show the skill of h is work, for you would never guess their origins.
The Fourth is a short symphony of three movements lasting only just over 19 minutes, which shows that whatever his merits or otherwise, Hill says what he has to say concisely and does not linger over it. This is my favourite of the two here recorded; its material is concise and memorable; and provided you are not averse to romantic music and remember the time and the influences on Hill, you should find it most enjoyable. If you like, say, Parry's Fifth Symphony, you will take to Hill's Fourth.
The Celtic is a rather longer affair, though still succinct at under 24 minutes, but the reason I like it less is its frequent use of the over-familiar Irish-jig style. I imagine this to be bogus Irish, for one such jig sounds very like another to my ears; but one should remember that Hill was a considerable scholar who researched Maori and aboriginal Australian music, so his Irish tunes may certainly be genuine, especially as he incorporates a real Irish song in his slow movement. The music is all very alive and the invention copious. The 'poem for orchestra', The Sacred Mountain, is very short and impressed me less. The playing, however, is consistently good.
The sound is not so clear as one expects from CD and I think this is may be due to the recording (in the Camberwell Civic Centre, Victoria) rather than to the composer's rich orchestration. My other two small grouses are that the type-size of the note is too small to be read with any ease; and that the information concerning the bands on the disc is confusing. However, you soon get used to that and the music is really worthwhile.'