8 1 SRCD.201 STEREO *ADD DDD present in these Dances, which are Cornish through the eyes of a 'furrener'. Arnold has strong views about the role of music in the twentieth century. His harmonies are often dissonant where the mood of the music requires it but he abhors the extreme experiments of the avant-garde. He believes that music should MALCOLM ARNOLD (b.1921) be a gesture of communication between peoples and that it is the duty of a composer to make this communication possible by writing something which can ENGLISH DANCES* IRISH DANCES Op.126 be readily understood. He is not ashamed to admit the influence on his music of Set 1 Op.27 11 1. Allegro con energico (1'42") jazz and rock as well as of Mahler and Sibelius, and when Arnold pays homage to 1 1. Andantino (3'15") 12 2. Commodo (2'45") Berlioz he sums up what the art of composition means to him: 2 2. Vivace (1'47") 13 3. Piacevole (2'19") "The greatest musical influence in my life has been, and still is, the music of 3 3. Mesto (3'28") 14 4. Vivace (2'32") Berlioz. His compositions always strike me as so fresh, and far more contemporary 4 in spirit than so much of the music written only a few days ago. If he can express 4. Allegro risoluto (1'41") SCOTTISH DANCES Op.59* his idea by a melody only he does so, and if it is a melody based on tonic and Set 2 Op.33 15 1. Pesante (2'39") 5 dominant harmonies (which would have been considered by some as 'old 1. Allegro non troppo (3'20") 16 2. Vivace (2'21") 6 fashioned' in his day) he is not afraid to do so. At times within a tonic and 2. Con brio (1'23") 17 3. Allegretto (4'07") 7 dominant context he will astonish by a harmonic change which is decidedly 'not 3. Grazioso (2'30") 18 4. Con Brio (1'26") done' — which goes to prove once again that so many of the things which are so 8 4. Giubiloso - CORNISH DANCES Op.91* well worth doing are decidedly 'not done'." Lento e maestoso (2'36") 19 1. Vivace (1'40") MARGARET ARCHIBALD SOLITAIRE 20 2. Andantino (4'30") 9 1. Sarabande (5'39") 21 3. Con moto e sempre parodia (3'24") 10 2. Polka (2'46") 22 4. Allegro ma non troppo (3'06") London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold .................................................................... The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end P 1990 * P 1979. The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England This compilation and digital remastering P 1990 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England C 1990 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. 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 2 7 respects but its rhythm is smoother and its tempo faster. In Arnold's dance the excitement increases as the melody is repeated time and again, gradually rising in pitch. The bassoonist seems to be drunk, however, for when his solo comes he can only play the tune at less than half speed and he lurches from note to note. The alcolm Arnold has always been closely involved with the musicians who play third dance features a lilting pentatonic melody in which the Scotch-snap rhythm Mhis music. He began his career as an orchestral musician himself, making a appears in gentler mood. The sound of the fiddle pervades the final dance which brilliant impression as a player. In 1942, whilst still only 21, he was appointed is the most vigorous of them all and must surely be a Highland Fling. principal trumpet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and his experience in The were first performed at a Promenade Concert in the brass section gave him an invaluable insight into the workings of a big 1966 with Arnold conducting his former colleagues of the LPO. Arnold believes symphony orchestra. He prefers to forget the double irony of the war years; that this kind of contact with the performers is vital for a composer and he himself despite his exemption as a conscientious objector he decided to join the army, only has always been prepared to listen to their ideas. He comments wryly that to find himself playing cornet in a military band. After this nightmare interlude he although their remarks may sometimes be insulting they will always be highly returned to orchestral playing and joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a illuminating. His own conducting is unorthodox; as one critic would have it, "he time before returning to the LPO. flags his signals like an impatient tic-tac man". He put conducting down in It was his own orchestra, the London Philharmonic, which gave him his first as a 'recreation' but he later changed his mind, coming to regard it as more big break as a composer, recording his Overture in 1946. of a disease. "No such unhealthy occupation should ever be a recreation. It brings Arnold had already been composing for years and had won the Cobbett out the worst in people, wanting to dominate..." Composition Prize as a student at the Royal College of Music. However, it was not Arnold lived very happily in Cornwall for a number of years, living with his until one of his colleagues in the orchestra started to badger him that he really wife and young son in a house which was once a row of three labourers' cottages; considered making his career as a composer. His colleague had been reading a his Cornish-English Dictionary testified to a more than passing interest in the book about the shortage of film composers and every day at rehearsal he would people and their folklore. Now his visiting-card proudly bears the title say to Arnold, "Have you sent a score to Denham yet?" At last Arnold sent one and Arnold is quick to point out that it is this title which appears and he was immediately asked to do a film. This was to be the first of countless in full; his other honours, CBE, Hon Mus D and Hon RAM, are represented only film scores, including which won him an Oscar and by their initials. which brought an Ivor Novello Award. Arnold sees in the Cornish people a highly developed sense of humour. Many In his film writing Arnold developed an uncommonly keen sense of music's are sea-faring folk, and all have been brought up to a tradition of fierce evocative power. His two sets of composed in the early 1950s independence. Yet despite these qualities Arnold believes that the Cornish have when he was still earning acclaim as a young composer, use this skill to the full. been ruthlessly exploited, the deserted engine houses of the tin and copper mines He has created miniature mood pieces which have all the vitality of the dance, bearing silent witness to this, their ruins radiating a strange and sad beauty. This each one highlighting some aspect of the English folk idiom. The first is typical in landscape is the setting for male voice choirs, brass bands, methodism, May Days, its lilting 6/8 metre; its easy drift and light embellishments give it the character of and Moody and Sankey hymns, and Arnold hopes that some of these things are an improvisation. The second dance is bustling and festive, the third mournful, yet 6 3 both are constructed in a way frequently found in folk tunes. The bassoon melody music to the original eight dances and for the centrepiece, a fine pas-de-deux, he which begins the third dance is particularly characteristic, its eight bar phrase composed a serene and stately Sarabande, following it with an almost facetious consisting of a two bar unit repeated four times, each time slightly varied. The unit Polka intended "to clear the air" in which the scoring is for wind band and itself is recognised by three essentially English features. First its opening rhythm, percussion alone with two shrill piccolos prominently featured. weak-strong, is one of the characteristic speech rhythms of the English language The were composed in 1986. Arnold himself conducted itself. Second, its initial melodic interval of a rising fourth, dominant to tonic, is their first performance the following year when the Wren Orchestra presented one which begins about half the tunes in one famous collection of English them as part of the Leeds Castle Festival on 10 October 1987. They are dedicated folksongs. Third, the melody moves predominantly by step with occasional thirds, to Donald Mitchell, a lifelong champion of English music whose long-standing winding round and round like the English country road. In the fourth dance, too, regard for Arnold led him to offer to act as Arnold's publisher in 1965, the year in the melodic shape is similar, but rhythmically it begins emphatically on a which Mitchell himself became managing director of Faber Music. As far back as downbeat. 1955 Mitchell had written a highly appreciative article on Arnold's music for the The fifth dance recalls the sound of the pipe and tabor. In this arrangement Musical Times, commenting on Arnold's "unique recovery of innocent lyricism". the dance is played by a piccolo and a side drum because modern symphony The Irish Dances are evidence that such a comment still held true thirty years on, orchestras do not normally carry players accustomed to fingering a simple pipe and indeed the first dance is no more nor less than a five-fold statement of a with the left hand whilst striking a small drum slung from the shoulder with the simple, direct yet powerful modal melody given a full-blooded orchestration, its right! The sixth dance, like the first, is in 6/8 metre, but its mood is more lively; like prominent tenor drum possibly redolent of Irish street bands.