Havergal Brian (1876-1972) In Memoriam Festal Dance Symphony No. 17 Symphony No. 32 Havergal Brian was a very long-lived composer: his creativecareer, begun in the 1890s, continued into the late 1960s. The works on thisdisc, from the early and late portions of that career, span 60 years, from 1908to 1968. The symphonic poem In Memoriam was composed at Trentham,Stoke-on-Trent, in 1910 and completed on 27 October of that year. Essentiallyan extended symphonic study in the slow-march rhythms which fascinated thecomposer throughout his career, in the context of Brian’s early achievement itis a major work. Although published in 1913, In Memoriam was only twiceperformed in his lifetime (a pair of performances by the Scottish Orchestraunder Sir Landon Ronald in Edinburgh and Glasgow on 26 and 27 December 1921respectively), and then probably slightly cut. Brian seldom referred to thework, or gave any clue as to its inspiration. He did, however, deny that InMemoriam had any connection with Tennyson’s poem of the same name, or that itcommemorated King Edward VII (who died on 6 May 1910), despite an apparent echoof the National Anthem in the central section. The manuscript deepens the mysteries. On the spine of thecover, in gold lettering, stands the title ¡¥Vigueur de dessus¡¦ (rather curiousFrench, possibly intended to mean ¡¥Utmost Strength¡¦) - which appears nowhere onthe manuscript itself; and on the first page is the cancelled subtitle ¡¥Homageto an Artist¡¦. (If a particular artist is being celebrated here there is aslight chance it was the noted Potteries musician James Whewall, founder of theNorth Staffordshire District Choral Society, who was a friend and mentor toBrian throughout the decade up to Whewall’s sudden death in November 1909 -just after he had crowned his career by conducting a concert with his singersbefore the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.) The manuscript also shows signsof an erased programme, apparently the depiction of a funeral ceremony. Theonly evidence of this to survive into the printed score is the division of thesymphonic poem into three ’Scenes’, played without a break. The first ’Scene’ [1] has a six-bar introduction (headed’Invocation’ in the manuscript), starting with a funeral-march rhythm in solotimpani and swelling out to introduce most of the orchestra (a large one, withtriple woodwind, two harps, and organ). This is the first example of a speciesof opening Brian was to use in several of his Symphonies, such as Nos. 8, 10,and 13. This initial rhythm, and the nagging triplet figures which immediatelydevelop from it, have an important secondary rôle to play in the unfoldingstructure. The first Scene proper, marked Lento (e con moltoespressione) is built around a grave and noble march-tune, rather Elgarian intone, announced by violas and clarinet, and a number of subsidiary figures ofwhich the most prominent is the peremptory horn motif that follows immediatelyon the first statement of the melody. The various elements - most of themsharing a basic rising-falling shape - are treated to an extensive development,frequently involving veritable explosions of orchestral lamentation, thoughthere are quieter, more intimate passages notable for their sensitive scoring.Brian manifests an impressive ability to construct substantial paragraphs onthe ostinato-repetition of various of the subsidiary figures. After a huge climax, the music gives way to the Second Scene[2], Andante ma solenne e religioso. In the manuscript this was in factdesignated ’Religious Scene’, and it begins quietly in muted strings - thefour-part texture carries a hint of choral singing - with an extended themewhich appears to quote from the National Anthem. While the principal tonalityof the First Scene was C, that of the Second is E major. As it develops, withsome faster episodes, this music embraces the most impressionisticorchestration in the whole work, with multi-divided string textures andimaginative use of the harps, eventually heard in consort with the organ. The episodeworks up to a scintillating, apparently triumphant, climax, only to be stoppedin its tracks by a thunderous tutti restatement of the opening march-tune. This returns us to C major and ushers in the Lento ThirdScene [3]: much shorter than its predecessors, with something of the characterof an epilogue. Fragments from the First Scene reappear in transparent scoring,before a final climax based on the march-tune (in which horns and cellos areurged to ’exult’). A very quiet, peaceful coda appears to be veering towardsthe E major of the Second Scene, but In Memoriam contrives to expire in C witha distant breath of horns and a soft cymbal-stroke. In strong contrast to In Memoriam stands Festal Dance,composed two years earlier - one of the two surviving portions of an earlymulti-movement work which Brian originally entitled A Fantastic Symphony.Practically speaking, this was his real ’Symphony No. 1’; but it did notsurvive as a complete entity for more than a couple of years, and The Gothic (MarcoPolo 8.223280-1) now stands as the official First. The Fantastic was asatirical, quasi-programmatic Symphony (possibly inspired by the example ofRichard Strauss’s Sinfonia Domestica), erecting a large-scale, virtuosicorchestral structure on the basis of the tune and tale of the well-knownnursery rhyme ’Three Blind Mice’. Many details of the work remain matters for conjecture, butit is clear that the Fantastic Symphony was composed in 1907-8, probably infour movements with a scherzo and slow movement. By July 1909 Brian had recastit into a three-movement work, Humorous Legend on Three Blind Mice, with only acentral scherzo (whether the music itself was revised at this stage remainsobscure). Some time later he dropped the scherzo and decided to keep the firstand last movements as separate works: the former became Fantastic Variations onan Old Rhyme while the finale -previously entitled Dance of the Farmer’s Wife -was renamed Festal Dance. There is some evidence that both scores were revised in1912, prior to publication; but the surviving manuscript of Festal Dance,though corresponding to the printed version, still bears the original date ofcompletion: ’Stoke on Trent, Aug. 5th 1908’. First performed in Birmingham byBrian’s great friend Granville Bantock on 14 December 1914, Festal Dance wasnext heard at a Promenade Concert in the Royal Albert Hall during June 1915,under Sir Thomas Beecham, and was played several times in the inter-War periodunder Bantock and Sir Henry Wood (who featured it in two further Prom seasons,in 1920 and 1935). Despite its original function as a symphonic finale, FestalDance is in a ternary scherzo form, and is notable for the ’advanced’ nature ofBrian’s scoring, particularly the use of the percussion ensemble. Althoughthere are Straussian aspects to this, the general orchestral style is verydifferent, its fierce abandon suggesting affinities perhaps with the workswhich Prokofiev was to write over a decade later, such as the ballet Chout. Thevery opening, Allegro vivo [4], displays a bold use of the percussion alone(anticipating by some years Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale). The percussionestablish the basic 3/4 rhythm on which virtually the entire work is built, andthe orchestra immediately erects upon it a pounding E major idea (whichforeshadows, by many years, the scherzo of Brian’s Third Symphony). Out of thisopening subject Brian derives a more flowing Grazioso tune, first heard in thewoodwind against a quickly marching quaver pulse in pizzicato strings (a’pre-echo’ of an important figure in the first movement of The Gothic). TheGrazioso music grows freely, modulating swiftly through many keys and colourswhile the initial rhythm surfaces occasionally in the timpani. The excitementand the dynamic level increase in an extended development, the tune going intomajestic canon before the opening subject returns explosively to the scene,only to be replaced by a Misterioso central section in C major [5] (thealternation of tonalities, E-C, is the exact reverse of the situation in InMemoriam). This is a fugue. Brian had already composed choral fugues,but this, his first orchestral one, is gloriously unorthodox. Based on adeliberately rather galumphing subject, it begins very quietly on cellos andbasses but rapidly develops into a new display of orchestral pyrotechnics.Brian’s sovereign disregard of mere transition-passages is already evident:rather than complete its form the fugue modulates back towards E and gives wayabruptly to a curtailed return of the Allegro vivo music and the Grazioso tune,whose canonic form now introduces an extended coda. This is concerned with avariant of the basic 3/4 rhythm, tutti statements of which are interrupted-byfierce, dissonant horn-blasts before a culmination of Dionysiac triumph. Ifthis is the Farmer’s Wife dancing, one sees why the mice never stood a chance. Five decades and a radical metamorphosis of musical languageseparate Festal Dance and In Memoriam from Brian’s Symphony No. 17, composed atShoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, in the last months of 1960 and completed in earlyJanuary 1961. During the 12 months preceding his work on this Symphony he hadwritten four others, Nos. 13-16, each in a single movement on a comparativelylarge scale and calling for large orchestral forces. No. 17, also in onemovement, marked a change of emphasis towards a relatively smaller scale and anorchestra of more orthodox size - though Brian retains a large percussion bodyand pairs the tuba with a euphonium. It is also the most compressed andallusive Symphony he had written since No. 12 in 1957 (Marco Polo 8.223447),and almost alarmingly fluid in its formal processes. In contrast to itsimmediate predecessor, the heroic Symphony No. 16 (1960), No. 17 - a Symphonynot so much ’in’ the key of C minor as orbiting around it - is one of Brian’smost abstract and elliptical utterances: there are fleeting hints of Romanticimagery and mysterious hymnody, but in general it might best be considered as aspecies of polyphonic fantasia in several clearly-defined sections, a kind oforchestral equivalent (though entirely different in language) to the bigkeyboard toccatas of Bach, which Brian much admired. At the age of nearly 85, he had much to say, but said ittersely, in a swiftly-moving train of thought. Development is continuous,multitudinous contrasts of mood and texture following each other with sometimesbewildering rapidity. Nevertheless, the Symphony’s single movement falls intothree well-defined spans each with its own thematic material, the wholepreceded by an Adagio introduction [6] whose principal ingredients ofsolo violin and horns in group harmony tinge the opening music with a Celticromanticism. The irruption of timpani and bass drum prove this to be illusory:the first main section, Allegro moderato, concentrates instead on strenuous andsometimes martial contrapuntal activity set against a calmer, more flowingsecondary theme. This volatile, continuously changing music shows Brian’spowers of sheer spontaneous invention working at full pitch. A gentler transition passage, bringing back the solo violin,prepares the way for the Lento second section [7]. This, too, contains abruptcontrasts, but spaced out in more static fashion, slow-march motifs alternatingwith calm homophony and mysterious wind-instrument solos. A climax in marchrhythm is soon succeeded by a curious whirling music for woodwind and fullpercussion, which introduces the Symphony’s final section. This [8] beginsAllegro con brio as a kind of highly contrapuntal symphonic waltz. To someextent this is a transformation of the motifs of the previous section. Soon,however, the music begins to deconstruct itself, progressively simplifying itstextures and material, and before long it makes way for a massive Adagio coda -a choleric outburst, deploying the full power of the orchestra in Brian’scharacteristic slow-march style, which makes a highly impressive conclusion toone of his least orthodox symphonic designs. The Symphony No. 32 in A flat, Brian’s last and indeed thelast work of any kind that he completed, is superficially far more orthodox inlayout, in four movements with a slow movement and scherzo placed second andthird respectively. However, the last two movements play without a break andthe overall effect is rather of a structure in two large halves, the firstmoderately-paced and brooding, the second fast and energetic. Brian composedthis Symphony in his final home, a council flat overlooking Shoreham Beach, atthe age of 92. It does not seem designed as a testament or summing-up - he hadanother four years to live, and the fact that he wrote no further works seemspartly due to problems with his eyesight and to a final drying-up ofinspiration. ’It is the last I do believe’, he wrote to a friend just after his93rd birthday, ’for I’ve had no thoughts of music since and have enjoyed andstill enjoy silence’. Nevertheless, in the way it continues to explore Brian’sinner world and find new landscapes of the mind, and in its characteristiccompound of dark, difficult thoughts and defiant affirmation, Symphony No. 32in the same key as the First Symphony of Brian’s lifelong hero Elgar -represents a satisfying termination of his creative output. Despite its tempo-marking Allegretto, the first movement [9]is an introspective polyphonic invention which bears some resemblances to asonata form. The real contrasts here, however, are between the gaunt and jaggedlines of the opening complex of ideas and the more smoothly flowing andconfident music which occupies much of the place of the development. Acompressed recapitulation of the initial materials brings an irascibleclimactic coda with part-writing of extraordinary, almost uncouth harshness,with a sudden quiet cadence to finish. The Adagio slow movement [10], one of the profoundestinventions of the composer’s last years, begins with drifting fragments ofthemes which are slowly welded into a purposeful motion, gathering power andimpressiveness until we encounter the very last of Brian’s funeral marches.This rises in three great waves of sound, the material continually developingand metamorphosing, eventually blotted out in an angry roar of sound. After apause, a brief coda ends the movement in a similarly drifting, enigmatic moodto that in which it began. The second half of the Symphony is a deliberate foil to thefirst, rejecting its oppressive brooding in favour of a tigerish energy andsane but not shallow optimism. It begins with a vigorous scherzo, Allegro manon troppo [11], in a loping 6/8 metre. At its centre is no formal trio but alightly-scored and dancing music, for alternating groups of solo woodwind andstrings. The main scherzo music returns in fuller orchestration and developsnew offshoots, then a slower, lyrical coda leads straight into the finale,Allegro moderato. This [12] is an open-ended, continuously-evolving structurewhose ceaseless flow of freely-developing polyphony has a vivacity altogetherremarkable in a man of 92. The thematic focus is the pair of ideas announced inits opening bars: a rising four-note figure in even crotchets and a descendingsemiquaver sequence. But these simple ingredients give rise to a seamless andvirtuosic display of contrapuntal high spirits which endorses Brian’soft-repeated conviction that (as he wrote in 1932) ’the greatest of moderncomposers are those who have shown the greatest talent in continuouscontrapuntal writing’. A brass fanfare, finally emerging from the sustainedwelter of activity, leads to a broad and noble cadential coda, triumphantlyconfirming the overall authority of A flat. © Malcolm MacDonald National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland The RTE Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1947 as part ofthe Radio and Television service in Ireland. With its membership coming fromFrance, Germany, Britain, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Russia, it drew together arich blend of European culture. Apart from its many symphony concerts, theorchestra came to world-wide attention with its participation in the famousWexford Opera Festival, an event broadcast in many parts of the world. Theorchestra now enjoys the facilities of a fine new concert hall in centralDublin where it performs with the world’s leading conductors and soloists. In1990 the RTE Symphony Orchestra was augemented and renamed the NationalSymphony Orchestra of Ireland. Under its Principal Conductor, Geroge Hurst, itquickly established itself as one of Europe’s most adventurous orchestras withprogrammes featuring many 20th century compositions. The orchestra has nowembarked upon an extensive recording project for the Naxos and Marco Pololabels and will record music by Nielsen, Tchaikovsky, Goldmark, Rachmaninov,Brian and Scriabin. Adrian Leeper Adrian Leaper was appointed Assistant Conductor to StanislawSkrowaczewski of the Hallé Orchestra in 1986, and has since then enjoyed anincreasingly busy career, with engagements at home and throughout Europe. Bornin 1953, Adrian Leaper studied at the Royal Academy of Music and was for anumber of years co-principal French horn in the Philharmonia Orchestra, beforeturning his attention exclusively to conducting. He has been closely involvedwith the Naxos and Marco Polo labels and has been consequently instrumental inintroducing elements of English repertoire to Eastern Europe. His numerousrecordings include a complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies for Naxos, andHavergal Brian’s Symphony No. 4 ("Das Siegeslied") for Marco Polo.