Frederick Delius, by Rosen, credit Wikipedia
Endnotes, May-June 2025
In this edition: Rachmaninov’s last great orchestral work; Delius, a paradise garden revisited; on Manx shores… music to a silent film, reviewed by Stuart Millson
New from the Chandos label comes an eagerly-awaited instalment in the Sinfonia of London’s Rachmaninov cycle; works from either end of the Russian romantic composer’s life: the Symphony No. 1 (so badly performed and received at its first performance in 1895) – and the shimmering, powerful Symphonic Dances of 1940, his last great utterance. We have all come to know and love conductor John Wilson’s performances and recordings (each one, it seems, a masterclass in interpretation and detail) but the Wilson-Sinfonia partnership has excelled itself this time.
The famous ‘Russian-Slavic gloom’ which haunts Rachmaninov’s music is immediately felt in the First Symphony – as if the listener is watching the shadows fall through a Siberian forest as winter edges closer. Listen out for the dark timbres of trombones and the deep register of the cellos and basses – all captured via the well-placed Chandos microphones: if only the composer was blessed with such dazzling playing at the first performance. But especially ear-catching are the strident, yet technically-tricky fanfares which ring out in the martial, sometimes dance-like waves and crests of the last movement – a breathless, physical sequence which one would love to see set to ballet, so spectacular is the feel of it. The thrill that this orchestral surge provides puts the listener in the right frame of mind for the second work on the disc, the Symphonic Dances. It was written in the United States, the country to which the exile and patriot, Rachmaninov eventually migrated; far away from the destructive, Bolshevik-Stalinist madness that had scarred his native land.
The Symphonic Dances are a masterpiece – of colour and mood; bold and rhythmic in their expansive, relentless first movement; yet suffused with a strange, fleeting light – evocative of Sibelius’s Valse Triste or Ravel’s La Valse. Gathering up all the energy from the First Symphony, the last section of the Symphonic Dances are a gripping moment in romantic music: a steady build up steam before a dramatic rush and restatement of earlier themes – percussion, bells, gong, side-drum suggesting bursts of light – the composer clenching his fist and bringing down the curtain on his symphonic stage.
The silvery tone of the Sinfonia is a splendid thing, and John Wilson must be delighted that his hand-picked orchestra has gelled in this way. Yet we recall performances of the Symphonic Dances in the 1980s from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir John Pritchard, and Royal Philharmonic and Vernon Handley, which seemed to belong to a different style of orchestral playing – in that the overall sound had a ‘darker-brown’, more burnished, less-higher-register feel. During the last 40 or so years, our large orchestras appear to have created a more ‘astringent’ sound; as if they are inadvertently copying baroque, or period ensembles – or is it the influence of modern recording techniques, that have fostered detail over density? And one final caveat; in the first movement, Wilson seems to direct his violins to slide during the big melancholic tunes (like a sentence with no breath or punctuation); the result – a rather sugary feeling that slightly diminishes the nobility of Rachmaninov’s writing. However, that is not to detract from the quality of this new recording, one that we thoroughly recommend.
Looking back, still, to a previous recording era, we recently re-played a sumptuous Delius CD (a production from 1988) of famous works, such as The Walk to the Paradise Garden, A Song of Summer, and In a Summer Garden. But there is another connection and memory to relate… For those who remember it, the classic 1977 BBC television programme which featured Sir John Betjeman reading his languid lines… ‘The Sky widens to Cornwall. A sense of sea/Hangs in the lichenous branches…/The tide is high and a sleepy Atlantic sends/Exploring ripple on ripple down Polzeath shore/And the gathering dark is full of the thought of friends/I shall see no more…’ was accompanied by the yearning music of The Walk to the Paradise Garden – a piece that could have been penned for the programme. However, the rhapsodic music has nothing to do with Cornwall and the sea. It is all about a walk to an inn, featuring ‘a village Romeo and Juliet’ [Editorial note; as the incomparable Radio 3 commentator Peter Barker once memorably observed]. Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of Owain Arwel Hughes, the CD conjures up the beauty of the summer garden; Delius’s intense pantheism and worship of flowers, meadows, water; and in A Song of Summer, the hazy horizon of Betjeman’s sleepy Atlantic, perhaps, the Philharmonia’s high-register violins shape a dream-like experience.
Finally, to the world of Manx culture, coasts and legends, and an intriguing album of orchestral music written by contemporary composer, Stephen Horne, to accompany an early film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The Manxman was the penultimate silent film to be produced by the master, who would go on to make Vertigo and North by Northwest. The latter titles were, of course, memorable for their music-scores, the work of the great cinematic composer, Bernard Herrmann. But for the vintage ‘Manxman’ – silence, until that is, Stephen Horne – with orchestration by Ben Palmer, who conducts on the album – provided a rich, salty, wind-blown suite for those old black-and-white frames, restored by the British Film Institute. Stephen’s music matches the mood perfectly, helping to tell the story of Manx island men, both in love with the same woman, and of the often pitiless land and seascape which frames their lives. Another firm recommendation from The Quarterly Review.
CD details:
Rachmaninov, Symphony No. 1 and Symphonic Dances, Sinfonia of London conducted by John Wilson. Chandos, Super Audio CD, CHSA 5351.
Delius, A Song of Summer. Philharmonia Orchestra, Owain Arwel Hughes CBE. ASV Digital, CD DCA 627.
The Manxman, Stephen Horne. Ulysses Arts, 0744365353844.
Stuart Millson is the Classical Music Editor of The Quarterly Review
