Robert Tear in Songs by Vaughan Williams, Elgar and Butterworth

This recording dates from 1979,  somewhat later than my usual time frame. I transferred it for another forum; in the end it wasn't needed there, but I thought it might be of interest to some here.

Robert Tear
by William Bowyer (1986)

I remember being very excited to acquire the LP when it came out. It was the first recording of a favorite work, Vaughan Williams's "On Wenlock Edge," with orchestral accompaniment in place of the usual piano and string quartet. It also included Elgar and Butterworth songs that had not been recorded before. And it featured an artist I much admire, tenor Robert Tear. I wrote about Tear soon after his death in 2011.

Even so, I must admit that this is not one of his best records. I felt that way nearly 40 years ago and my recent audition has confirmed that belief. Tear adopts a declamatory approach to the Vaughan Williams songs. This probably was because of the orchestral accompaniment replaced the usual chamber ensemble. But the inward Housman settings in particular don't benefit from this extrovert manner.

You may disagree with this assessment, of course. Trevor Harvey in The Gramophone thought that Tear "quite rightly brings out its [i.e., the orchestration's] more dramatic quality." (The download includes the review along with EMI's advertisement from the same issue.)

Harvey also was impressed by the Butterworth settings of W.E. Henley, and by some of the Elgar works. He liked Elgar's settings of his own words that were based on Eastern European folk songs,  but was less taken by the composer's settings of Sir Gilbert Parker's poems. All of these are well handled by Tear.

Vernon Handley

The orchestral accompaniments are beautifully done by the City of Birmingham Symphony, conducted by Vernon Handley, an English music specialist. The late analogue recording is fairly good, although the upper strings can be a bit glassy.

Oddly, Tear re-recorded the Vaughan Williams about three years later with the same orchestra and Simon Rattle. Presumably this was to replace the analogue recording with the new digital variety. EMI has reissued the Rattle version more than once, but the Handley recording not at all.

"On Wenlock Edge" in its piano and string quartet guise has appeared here twice before: the first recording with Gervase Elwes (the work's dedicatee), pianist Frederick Kiddle and the London String Quartet; and in a 1953 effort by Alexander Young, pianist Gordon Watson and the Sebastian String Quartet. Both are excellent.

Lambert's Façade, Sargent's Wand of Youth

Tonight, two versions of Walton's Façade music from Constant Lambert, plus music of Elgar conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Side one of the LP above contains the two Façade instrumental suites for orchestra, as devised by the composer in 1926 and 1938. (Lambert intermixes the numbers of the two suites.) The second side has the first of two Wand of Youth suites that Elgar devised from his earliest compositions.

Walton by Michael Ayrton

Façade has a complex performance history. Originally devised as a family entertainment by poet Edith Sitwell, her brothers and their friend William Walton, its first public performance came in 1923. The audience saw only a curtain painted with a head. Sitwell and the instrumentalists were backstage, with the poet declaiming her words through a megaphone poking out of the mouth, to the tune of Walton's sophisticated musical parodies. This upper-class leg-pulling created a succès de scandale in certain circles, making enough of a stir that it became a mini-industry in itself, with Sitwell producing additional poems and Walton composing more music. Eventually there were ballet versions as well, and Walton was adding new pieces as late as the 1970s.

Lambert by Christopher Wood

Constant Lambert was closely associated with Façade. He appears to have been the first reciter other than Sitwell herself to present the work, on the occasion of its second performance in 1926. In 1929, he and Sitwell were the speakers in a Decca recording conducted by Walton. I have transferred that version from an LP dub in my collection and added it to the download as a bonus. Lambert was a remarkably facile reciter, who was well matched with Sitwell.

Lambert returned to the recording studios with Façade in 1950, this time as conductor of the  orchestral suites found on the LP above. These give a good impression of Walton's musical achievement, with characteristically fine performances from the vintage Philharmonia.

Sargent by Gerald Festus Kelly

Elgar's Wand of Youth suite could hardly be more different from the Walton-Sitwell "entertainment,"
although it was composed within 15 years of Façade. The Edwardians had a tendency to romanticize youth; several of Elgar's works display this characteristic. (See my post from several years ago discussing The Starlight Express, for an example.) Even so, it would be hard to dispute the charm, warmth and appeal of Elgar's heartfelt music.

Elgar himself conducted both suites for a 1928 recording. I believe the first suite's next appearance on record was in 1949, in a version directed by Eduard van Beinum. The Sargent effort with the Liverpool Philharmonic came only a few months later. Liverpool did not have a top-flight orchestra at the time, but they are in better fettle here than they were a few years earlier in the Horoscope recordings I recently featured.

Edith Sitwell with her brother (Osbert, I believe) in 1922

Sargent's Second Dream

Malcolm Sargent conducted one of the most famous of all recordings of Elgar's oratorio The Dream of Gerontius. This isn't it. This, rather, is his second go at the piece, which didn't receive much praise upon its issue in 1955, or thereafter.

Honestly, it's really not that bad! Gerontius is sung by the estimable Richard Lewis, in his first recording of the role. He is among the strongest proponents of the role. John Cameron provides a notably well sung Priest and Angel of the Agony. Marjorie Cameron is not to the level of some other Angels, but is certainly a fine singer.

The reviews would have you believe that Sargent skates over the surface of the music, but I don't hear that, although I will admit that it does not have the passion of Barbirolli's account.

Sargent's first recording of the piece has received ecstatic reviews almost since it came out in 1945. Heddle Nash was considered an ideal interpreter of Gerontius, and the praise has continued to this day. My own view is that this second version, issued to mark Sargent's 60th birthday, is not markedly inferior.

If you haven't heard this piece, a few words of introduction. First, Elgar's music isn't reputed to travel well, and this may be one of his most unexportable works. The work concerns the death of an old man (Gerontius) and his passage into the afterlife. It is based on Elgar's edited version of John Cardinal Newman's very Roman Catholic poem. These days, this kind of poem (and music) could hardly be more out of style. It is, nonetheless, a magnificent work, with sublime music perfectly married to the text by an inspired composer. I find it quite moving.

This is transferred from a mint copy of the original issue.

REMASTERED VERSION (JUNE 2014)

Elgar with Sir Adrian

For years there has been something of a debate about who was the ultimate Elgarian conductor - Adrian Boult or John Barbirolli. They both had long careers and made many great records of Elgar's music. If forced to choose (and I am forcing myself via this rhetorical construction), I would point the critical finger at Sir Adrian. He's a particular favorite of mine.

So I am pleased to present this 10-inch LP of Elgar's lighter music in a 1954 recording with the London Philhamonic, which Boult led at the time. It comes to us through the good graces of my friend Don (aka Sacqueboutier), who offered this on Symphonyshare and simultaneously suggested it to me for presentation here.

The recordings were made in February and October 1954 in Kingsway Hall, one of the most famous venues of its time, with Kenneth Wilkinson engineering - one of the most famous engineers. A first-class production, to be sure.

These recordings also were issued on a 12-inch LP, which I have in my own collection, but which has previously been issued by my friend Fred on his blog Random Classics. There they were coupled with Malcolm Arnold's English Dances (which are delightful) - so if you want Boult's version of those pieces, go see Fred.

I've quite grateful to Don, who is a veritable transfer machine, because I am having trouble producing any posts whatsoever, having been working around the clock. I hope to enjoy some leisure (and music) soon.

LINK

Elgar's 'The Fringes of the Fleet'

A few unusual works by Edward Elgar have come my way recently, and I thought I might write a bit about them.

The first is The Fringes of the Fleet, one of the lesser-known Elgar works, dating from 1917. It has been issued in an outstanding recording by the superb baritone Roderick Williams with the Guildford Philharmonic conducted by Tom Higgins, who prepared the performing edition. It's been written that this is a "lost masterpiece" by Elgar, but that's not so. It's been recorded at least three times, and while it's a fascinating work, it's not what most people would consider a masterpiece.

The composition is Elgar's setting of four poems by Rudyard Kipling, from a short book of the same name dealing with naval life during wartime. Kipling was gifted with an ability to summon atmosphere and storyline in a few words; and the poems are intended to provide vivid impressions of the naval service. Elgar, similarly gifted, set these poems to memorable tunes. The resulting work was heard not in the concert hall but as part of a wartime variety show at the London Coliseum.

Frederick Stewart, Harry Barratt, Charles Mott, Frederick Henry

As you can see from the production photo above, this was very much a popular entertainment. The four singers were baritones Charles Mott (the solo voice), Harry Barratt, Frederick Henry and Frederick Stewart. But being popular did not mean it lacked depth. Although the first song, "The Lowestoft Boat," is a comic ditty that indulges in unlikely-soldier stereotypes that will be familiar to anyone who has seen a Hollywood war movie, it also acknowledges the possibility of death more than once. That possibility is made real in the eerie "Submarines," where "we arise, we lie down, and we move / In the belly of Death."

Shortly after the first performance, Elgar added a fifth, acapella song called "Inside the Bar," to words by Gilbert Parker. This forms a conclusion of sorts - it's a hearty sailor's song, telling of home and his fine lass.

After the work had been taken on tour, with Elgar conducting, Kipling objected to the performances and the work was mostly forgotten. The usual reason given for this is that Kipling was bereft by the death of his own son in war; however, his booklet was not published until after that happened, so the reason seems improbable. It may be that he did not like the variety-show approach to his work - or even that he did not like how "Inside the Bar" had been tacked on to his efforts.

Elgar recorded the work for HMV with Mott and the other singers three weeks after it opened. I have dubbed their recording from an out-of-print LP and rebalanced the elderly sound using the new recording as a guide. The results are very listenable, keeping in mind that this is an acoustic recording from 1917. [Note (June 2023): I have cleaned the transfers up considerably. They are now in ambient stereo, which brings the elderly sound forward.] The link is in the comments, as usual, containing the transfer along with the texts. Here is a link to a PDF of Kipling's booklet.

When I posted the transfer above, I had been listening to a fascinating BBC reconstruction of The Starlight Express, a children's play by Violet Pearn based on a book by Algernon Blackwood, with music by Elgar. This is one of those conceits that posits that children are pure and adults are spoiled, and somehow if we all were more sympathetic, the world would be a better place. (And because this was mounted for the Christmas season of 1915, presumably the point was that there would be fewer wars.)

Charles Mott

The play is a period piece, but certainly will strike resonances with people who love its near-contemporary, Peter Pan, or one of the other Edwardian evocations of a make-believe time when children behaved with perfect manners and spoke with perfect diction - and had a mystical bent as well. The BBC performance of the play, from 1965, was offered years ago over at the classical music blog The Music Parlour, where it is no longer available.

The original lead male voice in The Starlight Express, as in the Fringes of the Fleet, was Charles Mott. He was called to active service during the run of Fringes of the Fleet, and was killed in France in 1918. There is a remembrance of him on Music Web International.

Elgar by Lawrance Collingwood

In January 1934, Edward Elgar supervised recordings of his music by telephone from his sick bed. He was to die only a month later.

The conductor of that 1934 session was Lawrance Collingwood, who returned to the studio 20 years later to make this recording of Elgar's music. Collingwood was a house conductor and producer for EMI for many years, as well as principal conductor at Sadler's Wells and a composer. Most of his recordings were accompaniments, but he did make this and one later Elgar LP.

I have included the contemporary Gramophone review by Trevor Harvey in the download, and I agree in general with his assessment - the Serenade for Strings performance is bland (and sounds curiously modern because of it), but the Bavarian Dances are quite well done and the Nursery Suite has a very beautiful violin solo in the last number. I also agree that the LP is well recorded - although I did have to do some readjusting of the sound balance to bring that out.

The download also includes (English) Columbia's two-page Gramophone ad for its September 1954 releases, including discs featuring Karajan, Cluytens, Kletzki, Anda, and Gieseking.

This record has not been reissued to my knowledge - but I imagine someone will let me know if it is otherwise available.

Elgar by Beecham

We've had a British thread underway here for a while without any contribution from the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and eccentric. Here's one that combines Beecham's talent with that of an English composer who is not Delius, for once. It's Elgar.

For many years I read that Beecham and Elgar did not mix. Beecham didn't like Elgar's music and seldom performed it.

It's true that he did not perform Elgar that often - but then there were quite a few holes in Beecham's repertoire. Whether he liked it or not I can't say, but I can say that he conducted the Enigma Variations beautifully - and here is the evidence.

When conducting Elgar he did not evoke a unique atmosphere, as he did with Delius. But then this is much different music. What you get is superbly performed, well shaped, and seemingly sincere. You can't ask for much more than that.

This performance is from 1954. Recording venue was Walthamstow Town Hall.

Vaughan Williams and Elgar by Sargent

What better way to herald a post on the Brits than a cover with two royal shields and the symbol of that most English of labels, His Master's Voice, or HMV, with its royal overtones of His/Her Majesty's Ship, or HMS. Even old Nipper looks majestic in this company. The music is by the two most popular English composers, Vaughan Williams and Elgar, performed by the royal favorite conductor, Malcolm Sargent, and the empire's own BBC Symphony, which Sargent led in the early 1950s, when this was recorded.

That said, Sargent was never the favored conductor of these composers, Boult and Barbirolli were; the BBC was not the best English orchestra at that time, the Philharmonia was; and the impressive cover was actually HMV's default design, which afforded economies in production. Even the left royal shield proclaims that the Gramophone Company (HMV's parent) purveys "gramophones, records, radio and television apparatus to the late King George VI." They apparently hadn't signed up the new Queen yet. Perhaps I should ask if she would like to be the sponsor of this blog and I could rename it the Royal 10-Inch Record.

Despite what the above paragraph may imply, this is a very fine performance and recording of some exceptionally beautiful music.