The British Project (CD review)
Music of Elgar, Britten, Walton, and Vaughan Williams. Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. DG 486 1547.
By Karl W. Nehring and John J. Puccio
The music according to Karl:
Parts of this recording were previously made available by DG in dribs and drabs as digital downloads by DG but now the entirety of The British Project featuring the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla (b. 1936) is finally available on CD. Having been quite impressed by a previous recording by these same forces (https://classicalcandor.blogspot.com/2019/07/weinberg-symphonies-nos-2-21-kaddish-cd.html), and being quite a fan of British music, I have long been looking forward to this release. So, with a Lithuanian conductor and a German label, what do we have going here?
The program opens with Sospiri (“Sighs”) by Sir Edward Elgar, a brief composition for string orchestra, harp, and organ. This is not the Elgar of Pomp and Circumstance; rather, it is music that is plaintive and emotional, yes, but in a much more introspective way than we might expect from Elgar. In any event, it is beautiful music and its somber tone sets the stage for the next work on the program, Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, a work for large orchestra that the liner notes aptly describe as “a musical onslaught of rage and sorrow whose dark brilliance and concentrated emotional power can still thrill and disturb us today.” I spent some time comparing this version to two other versions that are well-regarded in audiophile circles, the Previn on EMI and the Stern on Reference Recordings. I was really surprised at how different the Grazinyte-Tyla version sounds from those two, both of which seem to go out of their way to sound dramatic, with drum sounds that seem to be heralding the end of time. As much as the audiophile got a kick out of that kind of sound, I must say that the music lover in me was won over by what seems to be the more rational, better balanced approach of Grazinyte-Tyla and the DG engineers. I just found myself enjoying the music more. Not to say that the DG engineering does not sound excellent; indeed, it is clean and well-balanced. But hey, I’ll still pull out the RR or EMI CDs when I want a guilty pleasure.
As far as Walton’s Troilus and Cressida music, which actually takes up the most time on this release, I unfortunately do not have much to say, as it is music with which I am completely unfamiliar. It is interesting enough, and has some dramatic moments (the movement titled The Lovers has some beautiful passages, and the Finale generates plenty of energy), and yes, it is good to have something to audition other than the “usual suspects.” The program ends with a rendition of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams that seems to begin with a bit more nervous energy than usual, but as it moves along, develops more of the calm, reflective beauty to which we are accustomed to hearing in this venerable composition, surely one of the landmarks of British music. Both the performance and the recording do a fine job of highlighting the antiphonal nature of the arrangement, helping to make this an appropriate performance to cap off an endeavor titled The British Project.
KWN
The music according to John:
For at least the last fifty-odd years I have had a deep admiration for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Of course, the orchestra has been around a lot longer than that. In fact, its origins (if not its name) go back hundreds of years. But it was only in the early 1970’s that I noticed them because EMI was making some of the best-sounding records available with the orchestra under their leader at the time, Louis Fremaux. When Fremaux departed, the orchestra got Sir Simon Rattle, who produced some of the most-enthusiastic performances I have probably ever heard from him. After a few more notable leaders (Sakari Oroma, Andris Nelsons), in 2016 the Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla became the orchestra’s newest Music Director.
Just as Rattle’s energetic ardour replaced Fremaux’s Gallic charm, so does Ms. Grazinyte-Tyla’s delicate touch supplant the bulkier styles of her predecessors. Not that she isn’t capable of generating a good deal of excitement, as several of the selections on this disc demonstrate, but it’s her more sensitive moments that linger in memory. At least that’s how I came away from this first listening to her work. It was a good first impression.
So, we have four British works on the agenda, the first being Edward Elgar’s Sospiri, an adagio for string orchestra, harp, and organ that Elgar wrote in 1914. Although it is brief, Ms. Grazinyte-Tyla makes the most of it--almost literally, as it’s the longest performance of the piece I think I’ve ever heard. To put that into perspective, Sir John Barbirolli took just over five minutes to perform it. Ms. Grazinyte-Tyla takes almost seven minutes. “Sospiri” in Italian means “sighs,” and that’s the way Ms. Grazinyte-Tyla plays it: as one, long, wistful sigh. The performance is a little different, but it’s quite a moving one, given The Great War that was about to change England and Europe forever.
Next, we have Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, the centerpiece of the album. Britten wrote it in 1940 for the Japanese government to celebrate the government’s founding. However, they rejected it for its use of Latin headings for the movements and for its largely grim tone. Maybe they didn’t understand the meaning of “requiem” (a mass for the dead). Good thing, in any case, given the coming Second World War. Fortunately, it found an audience at home and has been one of Britten’s more popular pieces ever since. Here, Ms. Grazinyte-Tyla can be fairly forceful, along with being subtle and conscientious. The work offers her every opportunity to show us her expertise as a conductor, and she comes through in both tender and thrilling fashion. She pulls the music gently in all directions and delivers a mournful yet warmhearted performance.
Following Britten is William Walton’s Symphonic Suite from his opera Troilus and Cressida. The opera appeared in the mid 1950’s to mixed reviews (it wasn’t “modern” enough), but the orchestral suite we get here (created in 1988 by Walton’s collaborator Christopher Palmer) has fared a tad better. It’s filled with high drama, which Grazinyte-Tyla elaborates with an easy grace.
The program concludes with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for double string orchestra. Vaughn Williams based the central tune on a hymn by the eighteenth-century English composer Thomas Tallis, and VW premiered it 1910. It was among his early successes, and under Grazinyte-Tyla’s graceful control it gets a splendidly relaxed yet spirited and sweetly flowing interpretation.
Producer Andy Guthrie and engineers Ian Barfoot and Jamie Hickey recorded the Vaughan Williams and Elgar at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England in November 2020 and March 2021; and producer Vilius Keras and engineer Aleksandra Keriene recorded the Britten and Walton at Elbphilarmonie, Hamburg, Germany in October 2019. The sound is quite good. Not quite in the same league as the old EMI/Fremaux recordings for ultimate clarity and impact but smooth, natural, and ultimately realistic, nevertheless. DG has always been good with dynamic range, and the engineers demonstrate their skills with the softest to loudest passages. The disc makes a pleasurable listen.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:
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.
Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor
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.
For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.
William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor
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.
The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.
Ryan Ross, Contributor
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.
I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.
Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst
I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.
Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.
Mission Statement
It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.
When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.
So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio
Contact Information
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Parts of this recording were previously made available by DG in dribs and drabs as digital downloads by DG but now the entirety of The British Project featuring the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla (b. 1936) is finally available on CD. Having been quite impressed by a previous recording by these same forces (https://classicalcandor.blogspot.com/2019/07/weinberg-symphonies-nos-2-21-kaddish-cd.html), and being quite a fan of British music, I have long been looking forward to this release. So, with a Lithuanian conductor and a German label, what do we have going here?
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