Sep 16, 2011

Halle: English Spring (CD review)

Music of Bax, Delius, and Bridge. Sir Mark Elder, Halle Orchestra. Halle Concerts Society CD HLL 7528.

The Halle is the U.K.'s oldest orchestra (and fourth-oldest in the world), founded in 1857 and making its home in Manchester, England. Its current Music Director, Sir Mark Elder, has chosen for this album a program of pastoral music from early-twentieth-century English composers Arnold Bax, Frederick Delius, and Frank Bridge, the guys who specialized in such things.

The disc begins with Spring Fire, a suite of five impressionist tone poems by Arnold Bax (1883-1953). In it, Bax says he attempted to describe "the first uprush and impulse of Spring in the woods," and it comes complete with mythological woodland creatures. The first movement, In the Forest before Dawn, depicts a primeval forest in the hour before daybreak, a persistent drip from a recent shower providing the background. It's lovely and evocative, the best part of the score, and Elder and the Halle play it with an appropriate observation of still, quiet mystery.

The next movement, Daybreak and Sunrise, builds a lighter tone and leads to the sun's coming up in a sort of minor fanfare. Here, Bax's notes on the subject indicate the awakening of all sorts of legendary forest folk: nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and such rising with the glitter of the sun. Fair enough, although despite Elder's best efforts I didn't quite hear them.

Full Day comes crashing in with a sudden outburst of orchestral flurry. Then, once the clamor of daylight winds down, we hear Woodland Love. Bax marked the movement "romantic and glowing," and "drowsily." It sounds a lot like something his colleague Frederick Delius might have written--sinuous and meandering and, under Elder, a touch melancholy.

The work ends with Maenads, a boisterous chase through the woods as a band of merrymakers led by Bacchus and Pan fly after a group of maidens. It ends the day on a note of high-spirited fun and enjoyment. Spring has sprung.

Next up we find two pieces by Frederick Delius (1862-1934), an early one, Idylle de Printemps (Spring Idyll, 1889), and a later one, North Country Sketches: The March of Spring (1913-14). Both are folksy and serene, with the second piece setting a better focused, more-purposeful mood.

The program concludes with my favorite music, Enter Spring: A Rhapsody for Orchestra, by Frank Bridge (1879-1941). Bridge wrote it in 1927 as more than a subjective, impressionistic piece; it paints a fairly rousing picture of the emerging season. Elder seems to take the greatest joy in this music, too, giving it all the vitality and life it needs. At about twenty minutes, it is also the longest and most-complex number on the disc. I've long cherished an EMI recording of Bridge's work by Sir Charles Groves and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic to which this performance by Maestro Elder compares most favorably.

The Halle Concerts Society recorded tracks 1-6 live in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, in 2010, the sound somewhat soft, moderately distanced, warm, and sweet. An unfortunate applause interrupts one's pleasure after the Bax suite. Tracks 7 and 8 they recorded in BBC Studio 7, also in 2010, to much better effect. While the midrange is still more warm than transparent, the sound displays greater body and clarity, a stronger dynamic impact, and more-extended bass and treble response. It makes me wish the Halle had recorded the entire program in the studio.

JJP
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3 comments:

  1. THE HECTOR BERLIOZ WEBSITEJune 3, 2013 at 11:42 PM

    Updates: Halle picture plus information and other pictures of musicians and singers:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/84098662@N02/

    And: article on the musician John Ella (1802-1888) and family:
    http://www.hberlioz.com/others/RElla.htm

    Kind regards,
    Ray.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 9, 2013 at 5:46 AM

    Great pics and article by Raymond E.O.Ella (THE HECTOR BERLIOZ WEBSITE & FLICKR).
    Wikipedia however, get the musician J.Ella's birthplace wrong. It was not Thirsk but Leicester correctly pointed-out by Mr.R.Ella.
    Wikipedia seem to quote (not by any own research) from old and outdated publications, e.g., some books now out of copyright and Wikipedia are making money from it,!. The problem with this is that some researchers may repeat other past author's mistakes promoted by Wikipedia's "taking away of other peoples thunder on the cheep", so to-speak.
    Note: by all means look at Wikipedia but check for any recent research.

    Sandra Westfield, in the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 6, 2013 at 3:04 AM

    Another site with a mention of the musician John Ella (1802-1888) is:
    http://www.leicestertravel.co.uk/john-ella-musician-born-leicester-1802-family-history/

    Martha.

    ReplyDelete

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John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

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For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

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Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

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I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

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