572014 bk Brian 29/4/10 12:04 Page 12 Also available Havergal BRIAN Symphonies Nos. 11 and 15 RTE´ National Symphony Orchestra Tony Rowe • Adrian Leaper 8.570308 8.572014 12 572014 bk Brian 29/4/10 12:04 Page 2 Havergal Brian (1876-1972) Also available For Valour • Doctor Merryheart • Symphonies Nos. 11 and 15 Havergal Brian was never a conventional composer, but of that year’s Promenade season. The work was next the three later works on this disc, very different from played in 1911, at Crystal Palace, under Samuel one another, rank among his most unconventional Coleridge-Taylor, and Thomas Beecham conducted it in approaches to symphonic form. Their common feature, Birmingham in 1912. The score was printed by however, is the way they concentrate on developing Breitkopf & Härtel in 1914, and was actually on the short motivic cells to create a large-scale form even presses at the outbreak of World War I (perhaps when the music appears to be shaped by other dictates, unsurprisingly, copies are scarce). As published, For such as an extra-musical programme (as in Doctor Valour is dedicated to Brian’s friend Dr Graham Little – Merryheart), or free-flowing associations of mood the extant manuscript bears no dedication, yet according (Symphony No. 11). to The Staffordshire Sentinel’s 1905 report, the original The overture For Valour, by contrast, is more dedicatee was A.F. Coghill (a clergyman and benefactor obviously patterned after an orthodox idea of musical of the North Staffordshire Triennial Festival, who later form, albeit one that he treats in his own individual way. received the dedication of Brian’s cantata By the Waters Among Brian’s earliest surviving orchestral works, this of Babylon). is an ambitious one: its instrumental line-up (including As to the work’s extra-musical origins, the triple woodwind, six horns, four trumpets, three programme for the 1907 Promenade Concert states that trombones, tuba, and organ) is bigger than the few For Valour was inspired by a passage from Walt previous examples known to us. Whitman’s Drum Taps: The extant manuscript full score is dated October 1906. Yet at its world première, under Henry Wood in Adieu, dear comrade, the Queen’s Hall Proms on 8th October, 1907, the Your mission is fulfill’d – but I, more warlike, programme note stated that For Valour ‘bears the date Myself and this contentious soul of mine, 1904’; and there is ample documentary evidence in Still on our own campaigning bound, Brian’s local newspaper, The Staffordshire Sentinel, to Through untried roads with ambushed suggest the work indeed existed in some form by that opponents lined, earlier year. Brian was mentioned, in the issue of 14th Through many a sharp defeat and many October, 1904, as a composer of ‘overtures’ (note the a crisis, often baffled, plural: yet For Valour is the only independent one we Here marching, ever marching on, a war know of in this period). On 24th November, 1905, the fight out – aye here, paper announced that For Valour was to have its To fiercer, weightier battles give expression. première in Bournemouth under Sir Dan Godfrey (a performance which did not take place), and the work These lines are the second half of the poem Adieu to a was briefly but recognisably described: from a reading Soldier; I correct the punctuation and lineation of the of the score the anonymous writer suggested, not programme-note writer, who makes no attempt to relate unreasonably, that Brian’s models included Wagner’s them further to Brian’s overture. Inspired, like so much Meistersinger and Elgar’s In the South. of Whitman, by the poet’s experiences during the What seems certain is that in 1906 Brian revised American Civil War, they are perhaps in themselves For Valour, probably producing a new score, and this is sufficient correlative for the strenuous, martial nature of 8.570506 the form heard in London in 1907 – his second première much of the music. (Though significantly, in bidding 8.572014 2 11 8.572014 572014 bk Brian 29/4/10 12:04 Page 10 RTE´ National Symphony Orchestra farewell to his soldier-companion, Whitman implies that prominently includes a slower, chromaticised version of his own ‘mission’ is a different sort of war, a soul-war the falling figure, soon reiterated con passione. The The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra plays a or mental fight, in the Blakeian sense.) Another slant is opening theme returns; with a new extension it leads central rôle in classical music in Ireland, through live offered by the 1905 Staffordshire Sentinel report, which into a third theme which might be considered a massive performance, broadcast and touring. Previous makes no mention of Whitman but notes that the piece’s augmentation of itself, and the biggest orchestral tutti so international tours have visited Britain, France, ‘poetic basis’ is ‘the pompousness and magnificence of far. This is cut off for a brief transition to G, where a Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Hong Kong and war as contrasted with the more reflective pastoral life solo clarinet gives out the main second-subject theme, the United States. As an integral part of RTÉ (Ireland’s of the country’. The words ‘for valour’ are, of course, Andante tranquillo 2. Public Service Broadcaster), the orchestra reaches a the legend on the Victoria Cross, the British armed Perhaps its comparatively bucolic character stands great number of listeners through its weekly forces’ highest award for gallantry in action; and it may for the ‘reflective pastoral life’. Though beginning on broadcasts on RTÉ lyric fm and through its association well be relevant that Brian’s overture was composed in the orthodox dominant, it soon veers to E for a second with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). In the immediate aftermath of the Boer War, a conflict that melody and rapidly becomes more strenuous and addition to its annual subscription season, Horizons excited strong passions throughout British society, and passionate, climaxing in a third element, a sonorous contemporary music series, summer concerts series, which saw a considerable number of VCs awarded. Lento outburst for full wind and organ, which may be residencies and national tours, the orchestra continues Purely on the formal level, none of Brian’s early viewed as a further augmented form of the main dactylic to make a name for itself internationally through its works is more revealing of his potential as a falling figure. After a reminiscence of the first subject’s recordings with Naxos, Marco Polo and on the RTÉ symphonist, for For Valour is laid out as a clear, though second theme in solo viola, trumpets and side-drum label. In 2004 the RTÉ NSO won the Orchestra and unorthodox, sonata form, handled with confidence and introduce the third subject, marcato e pomposo, sempre Concerto: CD Première category of the Critics’ élan. Admittedly there is little in it, apart from a daring pesante 3, a jagged quick march for brass, strings, and Awards in the 2004 Cannes Classical Awards for its virtuosity in writing for bass instruments, that seems percussion (incidentally the only explicitly ‘warlike’ recording of Joly Braga Santos’s Symphony No. 4 especially personal to Havergal Brian; on the other theme in the overture), with further variation of the (Marco Polo 8.225233) under conductor Álvaro hand, the Wagnerian, Straussian, and Elgarian echoes falling figure. This ought to be the exposition’s ‘closing Cassuto. In 2005, Gerald Barry’s opera The Bitter are just that, not all-powerful influences. Though the group’; however, this section concludes, most Tears of Petra von Kant was released on the RTÉ label scoring is consistently full, heavy, and prone to unusually, with a restatement, beginning grandly in E to considerable acclaim. This has been followed by complicated contrapuntal detail, it could be argued that major, of most of the second subject. CDs of work by Raymond Deane, Seóirse Bodley and these characteristics are somewhat in keeping with the The short development section begins Allegro Deirdre Gribbin. Highlights of recent seasons have spirit of the piece. vivace in A minor 4 and is largely concerned with the included Ireland’s first complete Mahler symphony cycle, as well as complete cycles of Shostakovich, Bruckner, Brian’s later practice, in movements which refer to first subject’s opening theme, broken up into constituent Prokofiev, Beethoven and Schumann symphonies, a Brahmsfest, a Stravinsky retrospective and the orchestral song- sonata form, was to keep the exposition brief and motifs and climaxing in a brass fanfare in triplet rhythm. cycles of Mahler. In September 2010 a new artistic team begins with Alan Buribayev as Principal Conductor, Hannu concentrate on development. By contrast, For Valour’s The recapitulation then begins with the first subject’s Lintu as Principal Guest Conductor, and the Dublin pianist, Finghin Collins, as Associate Artist. exposition is very extensive, with three subject-groups, second theme, tranquillo. The remainder of the subject Full details of all upcoming RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra concerts are available at occupying almost half the work’s length. It begins 1 is reprised in orthodox fashion, so the first theme duly www.rte.ie/nationalsymphonyorchestra with tremendous energy: the key-signature suggests C reappears next; but Brian dispenses entirely with the major but the music in fact starts on E (oscillation second subject, so extensively treated in the exposition, between the tonalities of C and E recurs almost and moves, via a new transition (trumpets, cymbals, and obsessively in Brian’s early orchestral works). The pizzicato bass), to the jagged march-music of the third opening theme, vaunting in mood and rather Straussian subject, which now works up the excitement to a Più in accent, has for its salient feature a slashing four-note allegro coda 5.