SRCD.219 STEREO ADD SIR CHARLES VILLIERS STANFORD (1852 - 1924) SIR CHARLES VILLIERS 1 Irish Rhapsody No.4 Op. 141 (1913)* (The Fisherman of Lough Neagh and what he saw) (18’52”) 2 Funeral March ‘The Martyrdom’ from Becket Op. 48 (1893)*† (6’45”) STANFORDSTANFORD Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor Op. 126 (1911) (37’32”) IRISH RHAPSODY 3 1st Movement: Allegro moderato (15’38”) FUNERAL MARCH (BECKET) 4 2nd Movement: Adagio molto (11’32”) PIANO CONCERTO NO.2 w 5 3rd Movement: Allegro molto (10’22”) (63’20”) Malcolm Binns London Symphony Orchestra *London Philharmonic Orchestra Malcolm Binns conducted by LondoN Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Braithwaite *†Sir Adrian Boult London Philharmonic Orchestra Nicholas Braithwaite Sir Adrian Boult The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end. ൿ 1985 *†ൿ 1978 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. This compilation and the digital remastering ൿ 1992 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. © 1992 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Lyrita is a registered trade mark. Made in the UK LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth, NP25 3WX, UK by gently arpeggiated chords, and echoed at the conclusion of each phrase by the cellos (who are later joined by violins and violas).The subtle and sensitive sequence of harmonies suggests that Stanford was not above taking a hint from his own pupil, John Ireland. There is a contrasting middle section, richer in texture and slightly faster, which culminates in some delicate figuration and trills for the soloist (the nearest thing to a cadenza in this concerto). The motto theme, quietly played by the trumpet, prefaces an elaborately-scored recapitulation and a serene coda, in which ideas from both sections are combined. The composer lingers over these dreamy concluding bars as if reluctant to rouse himself from his reverie; but from the first moment of the finale he wakes up with a vengeance. The splendidly athletic main theme (which gives off as unmistakeable an Irish smell as a pint of draught Guinness) is played at length three times in all; twice the piano is the protagonist, but on the third occasion the orchestra usurps the lead, urged on by the hammering of the timpani. There are two contrasting sections; the first (which occurs twice) is smoother in character and entirely new, the second is a welcome reworking of the main ideas of the adagio. The closing pages bring together the motto theme and a new C major version of the Irish tune; the former, which had been briefly heard earlier in the movement, is now confidently re-asserted by the trombones. In combination they supply the riotous ending customary in a concerto. GEOFFREY BUSH www.lyrita.co.uk Note © 1985 & 1992 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England The original recording of the Piano Concerto No.2 was made in association with THE RVW TRUST Cartoon of Stanford by 'Spy' from the Lewis Foreman Collection Design by KEITH HENSBY WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public performance, copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE 7 to write the incidental music for his tragedy Becket. The Funeral March recorded harles Villiers Stanford was born in Dublin on September 20, 1852. He here is subtitled ‘The Martyrdom’; the violently abrupt opening may well be taken Cstudied organ and piano playing with gifted local musicians, and made his to represent the murderous attack of the four knights on the defenceless debut as a composer at the age of eight with a March which was included in the Archbishop. Otherwise there are no surprises; two outer sections in D minor pantomime ‘Puss in Boots’. In 1870 he left Ireland for Trinity Hall, Cambridge (marked can largezza e maestoso) contrast with a consolatory middle section in D University, where he was awarded the organ scholarship; subsequently he went to major - the key in which the March, after some eerily chromatic writing for strings, Leipzig to study under Carl Reinecke (from whom he learnt how not to teach finally comes to rest. Irving was delighted with it; according to Plunket Greene, the composition). For a long time Cambridge remained his headquarters; at the age actor ‘never missed coming down behind the curtain to hear the last entr’ acte’. of twenty he became conductor of the University Musical Society and a year later was appointed organist of Trinity College.To his lasting regret he was never made The Piano Concerto (second of three) was completed in July 1911 and given a Fellow of the College, but in 1887 he was elected to the University Chair of Music. its first performance four years later in America, at the Norfolk (Virginia) Music The professorship was perhaps a mixed blessing; it firmly established his position Festival. (It did not reach England until 1919). This makes the work exactly ten in the world of music, but left him vulnerable to the witticisms of his fellow years younger than another masterpiece for the same medium in the same key: Irishman, Corno di Bassetto. Rachmaninov’s superb 2nd Concerto. For a fleeting moment the driving piano In 1883 the Royal College of Music was opened in London, and from the start bass of the introductory bars of Stanford’s work recalls the Russian master’s Stanford was the principal teacher of composition. His methods could be ruthless: opening gambit, but then their paths diverge. A rising, fanfarelike figure is John Ireland has recounted how he was made to copy all the orchestral parts and announced by the horns, which proves to be the motto of the whole concerto. (The then listen to a disastrous run-through of a score which Stanford must have known intervals used are a fourth followed by a fifth, but on subsequent occasions this is beforehand was “full of all kinds of errors”. But the result was beneficial: “he made changed to a third followed by a sixth.) A powerful first paragraph is succeeded, you feel that nothing but the best would do”. Stanford’s strictness forced his pupils after a transition, by a lyrical melody played by the pianist’s right hand over gently to perfect their technique and at the same time fostered a spirit of rebelliousness rocking triplets; the key is now the relative major, traditional for ‘second subjects’. which prevented them becoming mere carbon copies of their teacher. Consider a The orchestra forcefully re-asserts itself in preparation for the development few of their names: Bliss, Boughton, Bridge, Goossens, Holst, Howells, Hurlstone, section, much of which is taken up by a tranquil meditation on themes we have Ireland, Gordon Jacob, E.J. Moeran, Coleridge Taylor and Ralph Vaughan previously heard, in a slower tempo and scored for what is to all intents and Williams. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. purposes a chamber music group: solo cello, two clarinets and piano. The In his own student days Stanford visited Bayreuth and conceived an recapitulation (which begins over a dominant pedal) is considerably abbreviated. immense enthusiasm for Die Meistersinger. Perhaps it was this that led him to There are also some key changes which will intrigue the attentive listener; by a devote his main energies to writing operas. (In Victorian times all the best reversal of roles the first theme is now in C major, the second (refreshingly) in A composers of English opera were Irishmen.) The herculean nature of the task can minor. A last stormy intervention by the full orchestra restores the home key in be judged from the fate of his first stage work, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.It time for the emphatic coda. was accepted for performance at Frankfurt by the chief conductor of the The second movement, deep in feeling, simple in design, is in every sense the Stadttheater, Ernest Frank - who then promptly resigned his job. Fortunately this heart of the concerto. A beautifully-poised melody for the solo piano is supported 6 3 setback was only temporary; when Frank moved to Hamburg, he made the Irish Rhapsodies. (The title Rhapsody, by the way, is misleading; nos. 3 and 6 are production of Stanford’s opera a first priority. According to Eric Walter White’s miniature concertos for cello and violin respectively, while the rest are symphonic ‘The Rise of English Opera’, its success in Germany was instantaneous; but it had poems of Lisztian dimensions.) In his study of Stanford’s choral and instrumental to wait twelve years before it was produced at Covent Garden, where it received music his pupil Thomas Dunhill noted that the Rhapsodies make a strong appeal one single performance in an Italian translation. (It is easy to blame our Victorian ‘by reason of the wild, natural poetry that is in them. The scoring, too, is more composers for writing German instead of English music; but is it to be wondered inspired, more full of light and shadow, of colour and glamour.’ This last at, seeing that the only encouragement they got was from Germany rather than observation is particularly true of the fourth - indeed, Dunhill claims that it is the England?) one he would choose to play ‘if I wanted to impress a foreign unbeliever with the Stanford did not have much better luck with his later operas, although The real beauty of British music at its best’.