Christopher Gunning: Symphonies No. 8 & 9 (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

BBC National Symphony Orchestra of Wales; Kenneth Woods, conductor. Signum Classics SIGCD 949

The late English composer Christoper Gunning (1944-2023) is probably best known in the United States for having composed the theme music for the long-running ITV television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot, which featured Sir David Suchet so remarkably bringing to life the self-described “world’s greatest detective.” The charming series is still being shown across the USA by many PBS stations, with Gunning’s haunting alto saxophone melody memorably opening each episode. But there is much more to Gunning’s story than the theme music for Christie’s fastidious but brilliant Belgian detective with the mannered moustache. “Composing always seemed to be second nature to me,” he recalls in the liner notes, “I used to invent pieces at the piano long before I could read music. In y teen years I spent hours and hours listening to everything from Miles Davis to Charlie Parker to the pop music of the day and Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg.”  He then went on Guildhall School of Music, where he studied under the composers Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett. In his mid-twenties, Gunning’s musical career saw him composing musical scores for documentary films and working as an arranger and orchestrator for popular musical figures such as Dudley Moore, Shirley Bassey, and Mel Tormé. He also wrote music for a number of television commercials that became widely popular in the UK. From there, he transitioned into what he would often refer to as his “middle period,” composing music for television and movies. 

Then, at the age of 57, Gunning (left) composed his first symphony and returned to what he described as his first love – “serious classical music.” He went on to produce a total of 13 symphonies, plus some chamber music and concertos. Back in 2020, John Puccio reviewed a recording conducted by Kenneth Woods of Gunning’s Symphonies Nos. 2, 10, and 12 (you can read that review here), and then in 2023, I reviewed the Mahlerfest XXXV recording, also led by Maestro Woods, which included a live performance of Gunning’s Symphony No. 10 (you can find that review here). About his approach to composing his symphonies, Gunning has said, “what I’ve been keen to do in my symphonies is to compose music that is relatively easy to follow, so it does have themes and it does have motifs. Although on the face of it these are personal symphonies, they’re more than that. Other people are going to listen to them and they’re going to find personal things too and that, of course, is one of the wonderful things about music – which is that you can’t help but communicate with other people. As a composer I view that as my job.”

Kenneth Woods

Prior to auditioning this recording, my experience with Gunning’s music had been limited to countless viewings of Poirot and hearing his music for that series (there is, by the way, a documentary on the making of the series during which Gunning was interviewed about how he came up with that memorable theme) and then his Symphony No. 10 from the Mahlerfest XXXV release. The Poirot music is tuneful and thematic, while Symphony No. 10, which is in one movement, has a more serious, dramatic, almost urgent air about it. It is listenable, but well, serious-sounding. So I was not sure what to expect from this new release. Even before playing the disc, I noted that both symphonies comprised multiple movements, three for No. 8, four for No. 9. Both symphonies have a similar overall feeling about them; they both seem rooted in the English symphonic tradition. There is a pastoral air about them, but not in a vague, meandering way. The music is colorful, but not extravagant. Rather than big, sweeping melodies, there are smaller themes and motifs. Symphony No. 8 is the more intimate of the two, with an especially touching middle movement. The orchestration for Symphony No. 9 includes some scoring for percussion that was absent from No. 8 – nothing overly dramatic, just enough to add some more bite in places. Still, the overall mood is similar, making this a program that can be listened to in one extended sitting in one sustained pleasant frame of mind.

The recorded sound by noted engineer Mike Hatch is first-rate, and the CD booklet in not only attractive but also contains some useful information. All in all, this is a delightful release that I recommend highly to those looking to expand their musical horizons.