CHAN 9910 Front.qxd 17/7/07 3:21 pm Page 1 CHANDOS CHAN 9910 CHAN 9910 BOOK.qxd 17/7/07 3:23 pm Page 2 Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 15 34:20 1 I Moderato con moto – Agitato – Tempo primo – 9:36 2 John Lewis II Vivace – Animando – Largamente – Cadenza – 9:35 3 III Passacaglia 15:08 John Veale (b. 1922) premiere recording Violin Concerto 35:33 4 I Moderato – Allegro – Tempo I – Allegro 15:55 5 II Lament: Largo 11:47 6 III Vivace – Andantino – Tempo I – Andantino – Tempo I – Andantino – Tempo I 7:49 TT 69:57 John Veale Lydia Mordkovitch violin BBC Symphony Orchestra Stephen Bryant leader Richard Hickox 3 CHAN 9910 BOOK.qxd 17/7/07 3:23 pm Page 4 bursting with tart wit and novel effects’ was holding the rhythm and almost giving the Britten/Veale: Violin Concertos how an American commentator described it, sensation of a sultry slow waltz, before a and it appears to have been a ‘terrific short coda in which the rhythmic figure still success’. persists. Britten: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra considerable reputation and achievement, and The persistent and pervasive timpani figure The music moves into the central scherzo In the years after the Spanish Civil War an early engagement in the USA was to attend heard at the outset becomes an without a break. We are now in 3/8 time, the Benjamin Britten wrote a number of overtly the first American performance of his accompaniment to the ambivalent, bittersweet, rhythm here established by the soloist. This political works, largely setting texts by his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge at lyrical theme which is soon introduced by the figure eventually passes to a pair of bassoons friend W.H. Auden. These included Our Hunting Carnegie Hall. His first major score to be solo violin. This theme quickly leads to a while the soloist introduces the main theme of Fathers, Advance Democracy and the Pacifist completed, largely composed during May and short, cadenza-like passage for the soloist, the movement. Although not marked as a trio March, and were crowned by the powerful but June at Saint-Jovite, Quebec and finished by after which it returns on the orchestra, the in the published score, a more lyrical central still surprisingly little-known Ballad of Heroes, the end of September, was this Violin accompanying rhythm always present. Michael section follows in which the soloist pitts 3/4 written in memory of the British members of Concerto. Once he was aware of the work, Kennedy has suggested that ‘to the against the orchestra’s 6/8. Finally the violin, the International Brigade who had died in Barbirolli at the New York Philharmonic uninstructed listener… the movement is a playing pianissimo, soars into the stratosphere Spain. The general atmosphere of impending pressured his directors until they agreed to threnody’. Brosa claimed that it was Spanish in and heralds the return of the scherzo’s 3/8. war, together with Britten’s feeling that to give the premiere, which took place on 28 inflection and played it with a ‘Spanish lilt’. The texture brings Shostakovich strongly to realise his musical ambitions was an March 1940 with Antonio Brosa as soloist. Bearing in mind the soloist’s nationality and mind as two piccolos at the top of their impossibility, tempted the composer and Peter The British premiere happened while Britten the fact that Britten and Brosa had previously register are matched against a tuba at the Pears to follow their friends Auden and was still in the USA, on 6 April 1941, for worked together on Britten’s music at the bottom of his, all accompanied by tremolando Isherwood to the USA. Britten now had no which the soloist was Thomas Matthews. The 1936 International Society for Contemporary muted strings. The rhythmic music is again family ties in the UK, so he and Pears were music is dedicated to Henry Boys, teacher and Music festival in Barcelona, we may surmise worked through at length and eventually decided on leaving by the possibility of a writer on music, who had earlier encouraged that this is indeed a work in which Britten reaches a Largamente passage in which Hollywood film score (it in fact came to Britten’s interest in the leading musical trends looks back and tries to sum up his strings and flutes, playing in octaves, lead nothing) and sailed from England in May 1939. of the day and had written one of the first achievement so far. The soloist plays grandly into the soloist’s extended cadenza. At this time Britten was revolting against extended articles about Britten, in October figurations around the theme, leading to the This recalls material from the first movement, the prevailing English musical tradition and a 1938. He later worked with the composer on second subject which is presented against a not least the persistent rhythmic figure. seemingly oppressive musical environment. He the vocal scores of The Rape of Lucretia and chorale-like theme on the horns. The material The last movement is a Passacaglia: ten would most likely have been amazed to be AIbert Herring. is elaborated and developed before the first variations, into the first of which the soloist told that he personally would contribute Britten’s concerto was revised in 1950 and subject returns in the upper strings, the sails from the cadenza without a break, substantially to the regeneration of that again in 1958, though these revisions all accompanying figure now with the soloist. playing the first movement’s opening theme. tradition, and would map its future path. In comprised comparatively minor amendments Finally the time-signature changes to 3/2 for The complexity of this final movement is 1939 he was already a composer of and deletions. ‘A brilliant violin concerto, the brief recapitulation, the muted strings now predominant at the beginning where Britten 4 5 CHAN 9910 BOOK.qxd 17/7/07 3:23 pm Page 6 starts fugaIly, the contrapuntal treatment period he wrote incidental music for the them, although they were unique manuscripts, emerging with a significant career apparently gradually relaxing as the music proceeds. From Oxford University Dramatic Society, including and the film company promptly destroyed in prospect. the point of view of Britten’s later Anthony Besch’s 1947 production of Love’s them. That’s the only reason they wanted However, like many another young British development this is the work in which most Labour’s Lost featuring fellow students them!’ Thus, although he was, fleetingly, a composer working in a tonal idiom at that time, familiar fingerprints are to be found, for the Kenneth Tynan and Lindsay Anderson. Veale leading name in 1950s film music, Veale could Veale became persona non grata almost passacaglia is the form he employed for some reports that he got on very well with Wellesz not readily respond to the later vogue for film overnight as a consequence of the avant-garde of his most memorable music. The first section on a personal level but was completely out of music on CD. revolution engendered by William Glock’s is followed by four others before reaching the sympathy with him as a composer. Perhaps Veale originally sketched his First appointment as Director of Music at the BBC. central climax of the movement, a vigorous more important in Veale’s early days was Symphony in 1944, while he was in the army, There followed a long period in which he nearly and typical Alla marcia. Three further sections William Walton’s enthusiastic encouragement: and it reflects the period when doodle-bugs gave up composition and his music was follow (Molto animato, the soloist in brilIiant ‘I did not study with Walton,’ underlined the began to fall across England. The symphony unheard. His most recent orchestral score at running spiccato triplets, – Tempo primo – composer, ‘I don’t think he had any students, was completed in 1947, and was performed in that time was the four-movement Second Largamente, lento scale figures running but he was very helpful’. Cheltenham by Sir John Barbirolli and The Symphony, completed in 1965, and when I first impressively up and down) before we reach In 1949 a Fellowship allowed him to study Hallé Orchestra in 1952. Veale had a growing telephoned him out of the blue in the early the extended, concluding Lento e solenne. in the USA where he opted for the American pattern of early successes. These included the 1980s to enquire about his (then two) Launched with the violin low in its register composer Roger Sessions. However, when, evocative portrait of San Francisco, the Bay symphonies I asked, rather tentatively, ‘Is that over muted trombones, this section produces after a year, he was able to renew the and the Golden Gate Bridge, which he called John Veale – the composer?’ and his response a sense of resolution that is underlined by the scholarship, Veale chose Roy Harris and thus Panorama, introduced by Sir Adrian Boult and was an explosive, but not unfriendly: ‘Good diatonic character of the writing, which is in became possibly Harris’s only English pupil, a the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1951 God!’ – no one had asked that question for contrast to the chromaticism of much of unique influence felt briefly in Veale’s works of and at the BBC Promenade Concerts in 1955; many years! Britten’s earlier treatment of the score. This is the time. the concert overture Metropolis at London’s It was the Violin Concerto on this recording reinforced by the violin at the very end when, In 1947 Veale had worked for the Crown Royal Festival Hall by the London Symphony which, by a lucky chance, was introduced to high in its register, it repeats the falling Film Unit writing mood music and in the Orchestra with Charles Groves, also in 1955; the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester when the semitone of its first two notes in the first 1950s he became a leading composer for the and the Clarinet Concerto the year before.