A Garland for the Queen

To celebrate a coronation 70 years ago, the Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned 10 leading composers to provide choral works in honor of the new Queen, Elizabeth II. In doing so, it was in effect recreating the famous choral compilation, The Triumphs of Oriana, that had attended the accession of Elizabeth I nearly 400 years earlier.

Sheet music

The resulting Garland for the Queen is unlikely to leave such a lasting impression, and was not particularly well received following its premiere by the Cambridge University Madrigal Society in the Royal Festival Hall. As critic John France noted, "it is conventionally regarded as being a generically substandard work from its ‘composer collective’."

That said, it is hard not to enjoy the works as prepared by the "collective" - Arthur Bliss, Arnold Bax, Michael Tippett, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Lennox Berkeley, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Alan Rawsthorne and Edmund Rubbra. The first performance was led by Boris Ord, who recently appeared here leading music for an Easter service. He and his choir then recorded the program for a 1953 UK Columbia LP.

Today's post is devoted to what I believe to be the second recording of the "garland," as done by the Exultate Singers, conducted by Garrett O'Brien. That ensemble was previously heard here in a program of choral music composed for the 1953 coronation. (Both records were issued to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.) The Singers also have appeared on the blog in a Vaughan Williams choral program.

Ad in The Gramophone, June 1977

In his Gramophone review, Roger Fiske wrote that the Singers "have a clean fresh youthful quality, especially the two soprano soloists. They have all been meticulously trained and agreeably recorded." He did complain about the sameness of the settings and the inability to understand the texts.

The latter complaint is a valid one, especially so in that RCA did not include texts with the LP. It's a shame because the words are by notable poets of the time - Henry Reed, Clifford Bax, Christopher Fry, Ursula Wood, Paul Dehn, James Kirkup, Walter de la Mare, Edmund Blunden, Louis MacNeice and Christopher Hassall. I have partially remedied the text void by hunting down the words for six of the 10 compositions.

Southwark Cathedral

I believe this program was recorded in London's Southwark Cathedral, where O'Brien was on the music staff.

In the process of posting three of the Exultate Singers' LPs, I have yet to find a photo of the group or its conductor. There is an ensemble with the same name today, but it doesn't seem to be related. RCA managed to misspell O'Brien's first name on the cover of this LP. Sic transit gloria mundi musicale.

ADDENDUM - A friend of the blog found a photo of Garrett O'Brien and the Exultate Singers, dating from a program in Grimsby, England in 1972 and taken from the local Evening Telegraph. He admits it is "laughably poor," but we can see O'Brien at the left and note that he wore sideburns in the fashion of the time, also glasses. See below.

Concertos for Phyllis and Cyril, and Much More

Pianists Phyllis Sellick (1911-2007) and Cyril Smith (1909-74) were long-time fixtures on the English concert scene. Both pursued separate performing and teaching careers following their 1937 marriage while also appearing as a piano duo. That changed in 1956, when Smith suffered a stroke, rendering him unable to use his left hand. 

Subsequently the couple began performing works for piano three hands, eventually leading three leading British composers to prepare works for them to perform. These were collected on a 1970 LP that is the centerpiece of this post.

Also on offer are three other albums. They contain the couple in a 1952 recording of a Mozart sonata for two pianos, and Smith's recordings of the Dohnányi Variations on a Nursery Song and that old stand-by, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Concertos for Phyllis and Cyril

The three smiling musicians on the cover above are the composer Malcolm Arnold, who conducted this record, along with Sellick and Smith.

Together with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the trio produced this winning LP of "Concertos for Phyllis and Cyril," with two new works and one new arrangement from three of England's best-known composers.

Smith and Sellick introduced Arnold's Concerto for Phyllis and Cyril during the 1969 Proms, where it was quite a success. The brief work, in the composer's most genial manner, is highly engaging. Its finale is written in a sort of 1920's pastiche, which provides a nice segue to the second work on the program, which was actually composed in 1921.

An early work by Arthur Bliss, the Concerto for Piano, Tenor, Strings and Percussion, was written when the 29-year-old was, from the aural evidence, under the spell of Stravinsky's Petrushka. Bliss later reconfigured the work as a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra. Finally, he worked with Clifford Phillips to produce a three-hand edition specifically for Smith and Sellick. It's quite an enjoyable work.

The longest work on the program is Gordon Jacob's Concerto for Three Hands, again written for the couple, and dedicated to them as the composer wrote, with profound admiration, adding, "in view of what they have achieved in adversity which would have overwhelmed lesser people, this is no empty phrase."

Arnold was a pupil of Jacob, whom he greatly admired. In his autobiography, Arnold observes that "somehow the [Jacob] Concerto never takes flight — well, not completely, because it is too well-made." With Jacob, emotion never took the upper hand, Arnold observed.

Sellick and Smith play as one on this record. Their precision and lovely tone are admirable; so are the compositions, orchestral playing and vivid recording. As Edward Greenfield wrote in his Gramophone review, "[T]he two central characters in this enterprise are both marvelously responsive, reacting warmly to music written or adapted for them."

Music by Mozart and Dohnányi

Seventeen years earlier, Sellick and Smith were recording for EMI's other marque, Columbia, which produced this odd coupling of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 488, and Ernö Dohnányi's sly Variations on a Nursery Song, which dates from 1914. The latter is a work for single piano (here, Cyril Smith) and orchestra.

The Mozart sonata recording dates from December 1952, and displays the same unanimity of approach and tone heard on the Arnold recording. Phyllis and Cyril apparently were well matched both in music and in marriage.

Andrew Porter in The Gramphone was only mildly impressed, calling the performance "cool and gracefully turned," but "not in any way memorable." However, he reserved his real scorn for the coupling.

Dohnányi's work generally elicits two responses - one, it is clever and delightful; two, it is a bore. Porter was decidedly of the latter view, calling it "a tiresome piece of music," and complaining that Smith doesn't display the panache needed to bring it off.

Well, perhaps, but I will note that Smith's pianism is nicely fashioned and always apposite. Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Philharmonia accompany in this January 1953 recording from Abbey Road.

Smith's way with the Dohnányi must have been popular with the record buying public - this go-round was a remake of a 1944 recording, of which more below.

March 1954 Gramophone ad

The First Variations on a Nursery Song

In 1944, Columbia took Cyril Smith up to the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool for the pianist's first attempt at the Variations on a Nursery Song (or Theme, as it is called here). 

Malcolm Sargent was again the leader of the ensemble; he was then the Liverpool Philharmonic's chief conductor. This February 1944 recording date was just a week before Sargent was knighted.

Sir Malcolm Sargent

Honestly, there is little difference between the two recordings. The Philharmonia produced a more refined sound, but Smith is much the same.

Contemporary reviews were split; some thought Smith was too poker-faced; others thought he was fine. Howard Taubman in the New York Times praised him being "a piano soloist who knows how to play with a light touch." But then the critic was a fan of the work.

I did not include US Columbia LP discmate, a Liszt concerto not with Smith but Witold Malcuzinski.

Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2

Smith, Sargent and the Liverpool Philharmonic were again collaborators for a June 1947 spin through Rachmaninoff's ever-popular Piano Concerto No. 2.

Cyril Smith

The critical opinions were again divided: some thought that Smith was not a big enough keyboard personality to match up with the powerful Rachmaninoff. But the Gramophone Shop Supplement insisted that "by avoiding the rough and ready pounding found in most of the extant versions, this work can be and is taken out of the doldrums. A reading that combines power with restraint."

My own view is that while Smith plays beautifully, a bit more personality might not have been out of place.

The first two LPs above come from my collection. I've filled out the post with transfers I've remastered from Internet Archive needle drops.

I am sorry that I don't have a solo recording from Phyllis Sellick to offer. However, I can recommend the 1945 recording of William Walton's wonderful Sinfonia Concertante, with Sellick and the composer conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony. The transfer is by my friend Bryan Bishop, aka Shellackophile, done for Internet Archive and available here.

Solomon Plays Bliss and Liszt

My recent post of Arthur Bliss' Checkmate ballet score elicited a request for more music by that composer. So here is the first recording of his fascinating piano concerto, with the distinguished British pianist Solomon, who is making his blog debut.

The concerto was written for the 1939 New York World's Fair, and was premiered by the New York Philharmonic on a program that also included Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus (which can be heard here) and Bax's Seventh Symphony. Solomon was the pianist for that program, which was led by Sir Adrian Boult, who also is the conductor here.

Arthur Bliss in 1937

This particular recording comes from a 1943 session with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. It is in good sound, and the orchestra, while hardly glossy sounding, provides a sturdy backing. [Note (July 2023): this has now been remastered in ambient stereo and sounds even better.]

The concerto's first movement is in the knock-'em-dead virtuoso style that was even then out of fashion. It is all very impressive in its own way, not the least because of Solomon's sovereign command of the proceedings. The Adagietto second movement could not be more of a contrast. It is introspective and quite ravishing. The third movement is motoric, as was common in concertos of the time. Its conclusion is impressive.

My transfer comes from a World Records LP release, with a cover (at right) that gives Solomon's skin an unearthly glow. The album coupled the Bliss concerto with Solomon's fine 1948 recording of Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia, perhaps because the latter's romantic style is a predecessor of the Bliss concerto.

The Liszt was made with the Philharmonia Orchestra in Abbey Road Studio 1, and has quite good sound, displaying Solomon's beautiful tone and remarkable technical control. Conducting was Walter Susskind, then a 35-year-old Czech expatriate who had become the music director of the Scottish Orchestra in 1946. He later led the orchestras of Melbourne, Toronto and St. Louis.

Solomon's career was cut short by a 1956 stroke that paralyzed his right arm. He was 54.

1952 Steinway ad

Ballet Music from Meyerbeer-Lambert and Bliss

Here are two souvenirs from the Sadler's Wells Ballet's 1950 season, directed by its staff conductors John Hollingsworth and Robert Irving - Les Patineurs, a pastiche of Giocomo Meyerbeer's music, and Checkmate, with a score by Arthur Bliss. 

Both works were premiered in 1937 and conducted then by Constant Lambert, the Vic-Wells music director at the time.

Massenet-Lambert - Les Patineurs

The Royal Ballet's 2009 production of Les Patineurs 

Les Patineurs has no connection with Émile Waldteufel's famous waltz of the same name. Lambert arranged Les Patineurs from melodies found in Meyerbeer's operas Le Prophète and L'Etoile du Nord, principally the former. Although seldom heard today, Meyerbeer's works were very popular in the 19th century, and this immensely tuneful and pleasing score shows why.

Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann - Les Patineurs 1937

Lambert conceived the idea of the ballet and using Meyerbeer's music; Frederick Ashton was the choreographer. As the title implies, the complete ballet depicts skaters, with the setting a Victorian skating party. Ashton's biographer Julie Kavanaugh notes that such productions were not a novelty: "Skating ballets themselves were a genre of sorts... but only Ashton's work has endured... [I]t is the paradigm of an Ashton ballet, perfectly crafted, with a complex structure beneath the effervescent surface."

Les Patineurs was something of a recorded specialty for Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet conductors - Lambert recorded it in 1939, Robert Irving in 1952 and Hugo Rignold in 1958. John Hollingsworth conducted this recording, although he and Irving shared 1950's live performances, as also was the case with the Bliss ballet.

Bliss - Checkmate

The 1947 Sadler's Wells staging of Checkmate

Bliss's Checkmate ballet music could not be more of a contrast to Les Patineurs. The composer himself conceived the idea of the ballet, with Ninette de Valois executing it. The concept is simple, taking place on a chess board with the pieces coming to life and eventually battling until a tragic checkmate.

Gillian Lynne as the Black Queen, Checkmate 1937

The music is dramatic and Robert Irving's performance with the Covent Garden orchestra is a good one. However, the reviews of the music as heard on this LP were not kind. "Meretricious melodies" sneered one. "Noisy, overscored and without anything musical to say" asserted another. Nor was Irving spared - Hollingsworth was deemed a "far superior leader." I think both positions were overstated.

Harold Turner as First Red Knight, Checkmate 1947

Regardless of the disdainful notices for the music, Checkmate has been a staple in the Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet repertoire for many years.

Both these recordings are somewhat abridged from the complete scores. To my knowledge this was the first recording of music from Checkmate. The sound is excellent in both works. The download includes additional production photos and reviews.

Hollingsworth has appeared here several times recently. Irving was heard in music by Arnold and Britten. Constant Lambert has been a frequent guest on the blog. Bliss' music for the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals, as conducted by Lambert, can be found here.

1947 poster

Lambert Conducts Bliss and Adam Ballets

From time to time, I have been exploring the recorded legacy of composer-conductor-orchestrator Constant Lambert. Today we return to his activities as the music director of the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

This present 10-inch LP derives from two productions in the 1946 season, the ballet's first in residence at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Arthur Bliss and Constant Lambert during a 1944 rehearsal

The first side has music from Miracle in the Gorbals, written by Lambert's friend Arthur Bliss and premiered by the company in 1944. This recording was made on the same day as the opening of the 1946 revival, June 14.

Shearer and Rassine as the lovers

"The Gorbals" was and is a sector in Glasgow that had become a notorious slum by the time of the the 1944 production, which had a scenario by Michael Benthall and choreography by Robert Helpmann. The heavily symbolic action elicited strikingly fine music from Bliss, well conveyed in Lambert's authoritative performance. Bliss himself, among other conductors, later recorded more extensive versions of the music.

The second side of the LP presents a suite from Adolphe Adam's music for Giselle, one of the most popular ballets of all time. In this recording, Lambert performs the dual role of conductor and orchestrator. Although the music was written in 1841, Adam's orchestration was not published until the 20th century. Rather than licensing that version, ballet companies such as Sadler's Wells found it less expensive to commission their own orchestrations - and of course that company had a highly skilled arranger on staff in the person of Lambert.

Margot Fonteyn as Giselle

The Giselle recording session came two days after the March 16, 1946 opening of the ballet, a revival of a 1934 staging.

The sound is good on these recordings. The download includes the contemporary Gramophone review, plus additional production ephemera.

In addition to Miracle in the Gorbals and Giselle, Lambert was also in the studios to record three other ballets from the 1946 season - The Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia and Gavin Gordon's music for The Rake's Progress. I plan to transfer all at a later date.

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