SRCD.316 STEREO DDD BRITISH HORN CONCERTOS GORDON JACOB (1895-1984) YORK BOWEN (1884-1961) Concerto for Horn and Strings (20’35”) Concerto for Horn, string orchestra 1 1 Allegro Moderato – Cadenza (8’48”) and timpani, Op. 150 (16’27”) 2 2 Adagio (5’43”) 7 1 Allegro, non troppo – poco tranquillo (6’59”) 3 3 Allegro con spirito, quasi presto (6’04”) 8 2 Poco Lento e Serioso (3’44”) 9 3 Finale: Allegro molto, con spirito (5’44”) MALCOLM ARNOLD (1921-2006) Concerto no. 2 for Horn and RUTH GIPPS (1921-1999) Strings, Op. 58 (14’03”) Horn Concerto, Op. 58 (17‘11”) 4 1 Con Energico (5’15”) 10 1 Con Moto – Tranquillo – Cadenza (6’35”) 5 2 Andantino Grazioso (5’00”) 11 2 Scherzo: Allegretto (4’28”) 6 3 Vivace (3’48”) 12 3 Finale: Allegro ritmico – giocoso (6’08”) GILBERT VINTER (1909-1969) Hunter’s Moon 13 Allegro (with good humour) – Lento (very tenderly) – Tempo I (6’22”) (74’42”) David Pyatt, horn London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite 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 2007 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. © 2007 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 huntsman revisiting memories of a long lost romance? Or rather, is the booze still talking, and is he “spooning” with the barmaid at that inn? All too soon a whirlwind in the strings spirits us back into the chase, until, with a brilliant sustained top B on the horn (E on the piano), the huntsman salutes us before the strings’ final flourish. here was little concerto repertoire by British composers for the horn before the Second World War. Ethel Smyth’s Double Concerto for Violin, Horn and T LEWIS FOREMAN Orchestra first performed in 1926 and Leighton Lucas’s Sinfonia Brevis of 1936 were possibly the only significant examples, though during the War, Britten’s Serenade for www.lyrita.co.uk Tenor, Horn and Strings certainly established the horn as a significant and expressive solo instrument. In the hands of Dennis Brain it set the tone for the subsequent Note © 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England development of the repertoire, much of it intended for Brain himself. Copyright Lyrita photo of David Pyatt by Reg Wilson. Composer photographs courtesy of the Lewis Foreman collection. Design by KEITH HENSBY Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) It was the concertos and instrumental music of Paul Hindemith that brought the term Horn Concertos by Gordon Jacob, York Bowen, Malcolm Arnold gebrauchsmuslk into common usage between the wars, meaning utility music, music Recording location:Watford Town Hall Dates: (]acob) January 10th & 11th 1994. (Bowen) January 11th & 12th 1994. written for a specific purpose or occasion, not necessarily aspiring to higher flights of (Arnold) January 12th & 21st 1994. artistic purpose. The nineteen concertos of Gordon Jacob tended to be encompassed Recording Producer: Andrew Keener by this tradition, and he was a brilliant worker within the gebrauchsmusik spirit.Yet, Recording Engineer: Tryggvi Tryggvason from time to time, as in his horn concerto (and perhaps his Elegy for cello and piano Horn Concerto by Ruth Gipps and Hunter’s Moon by Gilbert Vinter (written for Lyrita)), a more passionate, engaged composer shines through. Recording location: Henry Wood Hall, London Gordon Jacob studied at the Royal College of Music, a pupil of Stanford, Boult Dates: (Gipps) February 8th & 9th 1996. (Vinter) February 9th 1996. and Howells, and he subsequently was on the staff of the College for 40 years as Recording Producer: Andrew Keener Professor of Composition and Orchestration. Among his pupils were Malcolm Arnold Recording Engineer: Tryggvi Tryggvason and Ruth Gipps, both of whom designated their horn concertos as “Op. 58”! Other works by MALCOLM ARNOLD available on Lyrita: Jacob’s Horn Concerto was first performed by Dennis Brain and the Riddick Symphony No. 4 String Orchestra conducted by the composer at London’s Wigmore Hall on 8 May London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold………………………………SRCD.200 1951. The first movement’s opening accompanying strings might have suggested the English, Irish, Scottish & Cornish Dances, Solitaire - Sarabande & Polka most un-engaged neo-classicism, but the fanfaring soloist and running passage work London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold………………………………SRCD.201 on horn quickly builds to an engaging dialogue between plangent lyricism and more virtuosic fast music. With the cadenza, largely slow though ending brilliantly, Jacob WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public achieves real eloquence, and the movement ends suddenly with, as he promised Brain performance, copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an it would, a top C. The nocturnal slow movement finds the strings in regretful mood, infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public the horn musing evocatively. Over a walking bass the horn elaborates long lyrical performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE 2 7 Gilbert Vinter (1909-1969) questionings, which later return before fading to the shadowed close. The finale is Gilbert Vinter was born in Guildford, Surrey, and is best remembered as a composer and particularly brilliant and engaging, the horn explodes on the scene, with its brilliant arranger for the brass and military band, and as the conductor of the BBC Midland Light repeated-note theme, soon contrasted with a slow tune, at first over fast string Orchestra. A chorister at Lincoln Cathedral and successively a student at the Royal Military passage-work. A catchy dancing theme which arises on the horn is heard twice before College of Music at Kneller Hall and the Royal Academy of Music, during the 1930s he played the soloist assumes a twilight distance and the distinctive evocative sound of stopped in the BBC Military Band and with the leading London orchestras, and was appointed horn, before fast music presages a final flourish. professor of the bassoon at the Academy in 1938. His band music includes a Symphony of Marches, the well-known tone poems James Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006) Cook Circumnavigator and John O’Gaunt and the Salute to Youth written for the National Sir Malcolm Arnold’s early career as a composer (he was, of course, at first an Youth Brass Band. orchestral trumpeter) took off when his popular overture Beckus the Dandipratt was Gilbert Vinter wrote Hunter’s Moon in collaboration with, and for, the horn player John taken up by the celebrated Dutch conductor Eduard van Beinum in 1947, and was Burden, when they were both posted to Torquay in 1942. Here they rehearsed daily, and quickly recorded on a 78rpm disc. Written soon after Beckus, in 1945, Arnold’s First Hunter’s Moon was given its first performance by John Burden and the local Torquay Horn Concerto, in fact his first concerto for any instrument, had been written for a Municipal Orchestra conducted by the composer. It was published later in 1942, in an colleague, the distinguished horn player Charles Gregory, principal horn of the LPO. arrangement for horn and piano as well as in full score. Much later it was taken over as a Ten years on, his Second Horn Concerto Op. 58 (and his eighth concerto all-told) was party piece by Dennis Brain who played it a number of times, particularly in 1957 during the written for Dennis Brain, and completed on 15 December 1956. Brain gave the first last few months of his life. performance at the Cheltenham Festival with the Hallé Orchestra, the composer The title was originally to have been “Diana of the Chase” but this was rejected as being conducting.That was on 17 July 1957; early in the morning of September 1, Brain was too elaborate. “Hunter’s Moon” is the name for the full moon following the harvest moon. killed when his sports car crashed into a tree near Hatfield, as he attempted, in pre- The latter falls within a fortnight of the autumn equinox, so we are referring to the full moon motorway days, to drive the 400 miles back to London overnight, after a concert in that shines at the end of October, or the beginning of November - at the beginning of the Edinburgh. foxhunting season. The introduction depicts the assembly of the hunt, and they were Like other Brain commissions, Arnold largely writes for the horn’s upper certainly a boozy lot! The bold outlines of the music suggest a daylight scene, but we might register paying particular attention to lyrical writing, and requiring golden tone. In well imagine a nocturnal one, the countryside bathed in brilliant silvery moonlight strong the first movement the music is contrasted between busy exchanges with the strings enough to throw dramatic black shadows, with more than a hint of frost in the air, and the relaxing into effortless cantabile. The concerto revolves round the sound of sustained ghost of the hunter riding the countryside for ever. John Burden tells us that there is no truth horn phrases, as exemplified in the lyrical central Andantino Grazioso, which in its in the story told by some horn players that Vinter’s title came from the name of a favourite seemingly effortless singing line was written to exploit Brain’s cantabile playing. The local pub, though there is a “Hunter’s Moon” in Torquay.