Following up the welcome Lyrita reissue of all five of Alwyn's symphonies, conveniently fitted onto two CDs only (7/92 and 10/92), come these two discs of shorter pieces, again with the composer a most persuasive interpreter. It is interesting to compare Alwyn's readings with those in Richard Hickox's recent Chandos issues of Alwyn. On one of his discs he too offers the extended harp concerto, Lyra Angelica, as well as the tone-poem for cor anglais and strings, Autumn Legend, and though the composer's own view must remain authoritative, the Chandos issue brings its advantages, not just in the richer, fuller digital recording.
In Autumn Legend Nicholas Daniel is a warmer more expressive soloist than Geoffrey Browne on the Lyrita issue, and in both works Hickox makes the music flow a little faster and more freely. That makes a significant difference in Lyra Angelica, where Alwyn's scheme involves a sequence of four elegiac, predominantly slow movements, illustrating quotations from the epic poem, Christ's Victory and Triumph, by the metaphysical poet, Giles Fletcher. Alwyn himself with fair justice counted it his most beautiful work, but I find it gains in cohesion from Hickox's more flowing, more warmly expressive treatment, with Rachel Masters a most sympathetic soloist.
Not that Alwyn's own reading is in any way slack, and Osian Ellis on the harp is second to none. The coupling could well be allowed to dictate preference, with the Concerto Grosso No. 2 of 1948 a splendid piece, with a sensuously beautiful slow movement and with echoes of Elgar's and Vaughan Williams's string masterpieces in its contrasting of string quartet with the full string band.
Alwyn's other disc collecting four shorter works and the strong, toughly argued Sinfonietta for strings of 1970 brings two more duplications with Hickox. Again the wide-ranging Chandos recording brings obvious advantages, both in the evocative tone-poem The Magic Island, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, and in the boisterous but finely-controlled overture, Derby day. It is remarkable both how skilfully the composer conceals evidence of the 12-note techniques that he claims to use here, and for its restraint. Inspired by Frith's celebrated painting, this is a colour piece which is the more effective for using the orchestra with utmost delicacy, reserving its most rumbustious outburst for the end.
It is a pity that Alwyn recorded only four of his Elizabethan Dances, Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the original sequence of six, but they are most effective colour pieces, Nos. 1 and 5 with Elizabethean echoes from history Nos. 2 and 4 with overtones of the modern Ellzabethan age. The Festival March was written in 1950 for the Festival of Britain of the following year, very much in the mould of Elgar's and Walton's marches and echoing Alwyn's bold and colourful film-music. The big melody may not match those of Elgar and Walton in memorability, but this is a piece that deserves to be used as an alternative, strongly conducted by the composer.
Much the biggest work on the second disc is the Sinfonietta of 1970, not just longer (26 minutes), but tougher in the outer movements, with echoes of Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta in the coagulated chords of the finale. The central Adagio is among the most tenderly beautiful of Alwyn's inspirations, the more touching for its restraint. You would never know unless you have it pointed out, that half-way through Alwyn has woven in a quotation from Berg's Lulu as a tribute to the dedicatee, Mosco Carner, who was writing his book on Berg at the time. The serenity of the close of the whole work too is most moving.
There and throughout both these discs Alwyn's technical mastery and his ability to conceal ingenuity make for consistently strong, immediate music-making. It is most welcome to have his own interpretations restored to the catalogue, with the CD transfers offering bright, full, well-balanced sound, only slightly edgy on high strings.'