Ruth Gipps: Orchestral Works, Volume 4 (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Violin Concerto, Op. 24; Leviathan, Op. 59; Symphony No. 5, Op. 64. Charlie Lovell-Jones, violinist; Bill Anderson, contrabassoonist; Rumon Gamba, conductor; BBC Philharmonic. Chandos 20319

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of reviewing classical music is having to deal honestly with composers and compositions that one wants to extol but can’t fully. The problem is compounded when performers are sympathetic and deliver the works in question about as well as can be expected. I want to root for Ruth Gipps and her advocates here, much as I have wanted to root for Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Company in my past reviews. I feel tempted to make exaggerated claims for these composers out of sheer admiration for their life stories, causes, and even the considerable talent that each exercised. But if the peculiar failures of recent musicology and music criticism (where they can be separated anymore) are any indication, merely wishing for something does not make it so. I wish Ruth Gipps were a great composer rather than merely a very good one capable of the occasional outstanding effort, but she wasn’t. And as I suggested in my review of Volume 3 of her orchestral works, this reality weighs when comparing her miniatures and longer works. Volume 4 here contains two of the latter plus a solid miniature: not an auspicious beginning for my initial desire to give this recording a rave review.

Bill Anderson

We’ll start with the miniature. Leviathan is scored for the interesting combination of contrabassoon (or double-bassoon) and chamber orchestra. Frankly, I’ve always harbored a special affection for this solo instrument, and my curiosity is stirred whenever it receives more than background consideration. Happily, Leviathan is now my personal favorite work featuring it (whatever that distinction is worth!). Here is a study in atmospheric scene setting, where I imagine an open ocean scene under a saturnine sky with a large sea serpent or cetacean rolling at the water’s surface. Aided by that imagery the music gives me chills! At 5 minutes long it should be programmed and taken up by your friendly local contrabassoonist everywhere.

But then we come to the bigger works, and I just wish I were less frustrated by them. The main thing is that Gipps’s themes are not arresting and differentiated enough for extended treatment. Materials that more distinguished composers might use briefly for transitional purposes here get positioned in a front-and-center way. Her tendency of spinning larger forms from these materials is reminiscent of Vaughan Williams, but without either his sense of drama or melodic ability. These problems are more serious in the Symphony, where there is no soloist to provide relief activity. But even in the Violin Concerto there is too much sameness that lasts for too long. The trimmer, more inviting Horn Concerto of later years avoids this issue. (I do think solo winds are friendlier to Gipps’s sound palette.) However, when it came to symphonies she was never entirely able to overcome her limitations. And so, while her Fifth is beautifully constructed and (again) atmospheric, it just doesn’t pack the punch that a work pushing 40 minutes ought to do. Not even a “Missa brevis for Orchestra” finale provides enough interest to keep me from wishing it had all ended beforehand.

I’ll say it: Ruth Gipps tended to be at her best when she attempted less. And there’s no shame in this! Even a great composer like Chopin never produced a symphony or an opera. Schumann is still most enthusiastically praised for his songs and piano miniature cycles. It’s not that any of these individuals couldn’t do big orchestral things; it’s that what they had to say was so frequently said advantageously in the small and medium genres. Gipps won’t bear comparison to Chopin or Schumann, nor even to one of the great British symphonists, but she doesn’t have to for her specific gifts to shine.

Ruth Gipps Orchestral Works, Volume 3 (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Coronation Procession, Op. 41; Ambarvalia, Op. 70; Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, Op. 58; Cringlemire Garden, Op. 29; Symphony No. 1, Op. 22. Martin Owen, horn; Rumon Gamba, conductor; BBC Philharmonic. Chandos 20284

In this third installment of Ruth Gipps’s orchestral music, Chandos shows that there is plenty else by the Englishwoman that is worth exploring. Indeed, a couple of what I consider to be her finest compositions are on this disc. I imagine that few listeners are somehow already familiar with the “dance” Ambarvalia, which receives its premiere recording here. Despite its modest playing time of just over 7 minutes, this tribute to composer Adrian Cruft (who died early in 1987) is one of the loveliest British orchestral works I have ever heard. If I am not mistaken, it is Gipps’s last composition for an orchestral ensemble (albeit a small orchestra in this case). By this point Gipps had fully assimilated her influences and was able to wield a distinctive personal voice. In her mature works she often loves to revel in rippling melody and turquoise hues. These are nowhere better evidenced than in Ambarvalia, which deserves to adorn live concerts with at least intermittent regularity. 

 

Of course, many horn players have long known the Horn Concerto of 1968, already the beneficiary of multiple recordings. While not exactly a miniature work like Ambarvalia, its three movements are relatively short and feature many of the same stylistic fingerprints. A certain pastoral dreaminess governs the proceedings despite some virtuosic passages for the soloist. But what we hear is not merely second-hand Vaughan Williams; Gipps’ aesthetic world here is very much her own, whatever she occasionally owes to her famous teacher. Soloist Martin Owens may lack some of David Pyatt’s glittering brilliance (Lyrita SRCD316), but the former’s velvety tone strikes me as a better fit for such a balmy score. 

 

Rumon Gamba

While I’m comparatively less impressed with the other works performed here, all of them offer at least pleasant listening experiences. Each is from earlier in Gipps’s career. The Coronation Procession of 1953 is approximately the length as Ambarvalia, although perhaps lacking its younger sibling’s stronger flavor. Savvy listeners might recall the middle section melody being used in Malcolm Arnold’s Variations on a Theme of Ruth Gipps (1977). (The two composers were close friends from their student days. They also had much in common as opponents of avant-gardism during the age of its ascendance.) In his unsurprisingly excellent liner notes, musicologist Lewis Foreman calls Cringlemire Garden a “pastoral miniature.” Gipps herself subtitled it “An Impression for String Orchestra.” Indeed, the inspiration was the Lake District landscape. Compared to everything heard so far, this work is more glaringly indebted to Vaughan Williams. Though nice, I am not sure it is strong enough to compete with its more distinguished models. 

The third item receiving its premiere recording here is Gipps’s First Symphony, composed in 1942. This is the product of a student. It’s an extremely impressive effort for being that, but stylistically pretty much “Vaughan Williams plus water” (to modify a criticism once leveled, less truthfully, at the music of Charles Villiers Stanford). While Gipps would go on to compose four more masterfully constructed symphonies, she never quite sounds as convincing in them as she does in her smaller creations. The themes and pastel colors with which she paints in selections such as Ambarvalia, or even the Horn Concerto, poorly transplant to more extended structures. As one can read from my published work, I’m far from a stickler for traditional “symphonic form.” Much the opposite! But Gipps simply fails to hold the (or my) attention in this medium as she does in the best of her more concentrated efforts. 

 

All in all, Volume 3 delivers a soundly worthwhile listening experience. Conductor Rumon Gamba and his musicians yet again adroitly give some worthy music good exposure. I can’t help thinking, though, as I partake of release upon release churned out by Chandos and others, about potential audiences. How much of even the best of this material is being heard, and by whom? How much stands to catch on or endure in the ever-fraught marketplace for classical music? This is all increasingly on my mind, with no concrete answers in sight.

Ruth Gipps: Orchestral Works, Volume 2 (CD review)

By Karl Nehring

Chanticleer, Op. 28; Concerto in D minor for Oboe and Orchestra, Op. 20; Death on the Pale Horse, Op. 25; Symphony No. 5, Op. 57. Juliana Koch, solo oboe; BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rumon Gamba. Chandos CHAN 20161

Ruth Gipps (1921-1989) was an English composer who, although nearly unknown in the United States, was a major figure in British music, right up there with Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Holst, all of whose names are much more familiar to music classical lovers on this side of the pond.  She wrote five symphonies, seven concertos, and a number of chamber and choral works. I must confess to being about as guilty as anyone in this regard, as I have listened to a few recordings of some of her chamber works over the years, which I recall enjoying, but have never really followed up by digging more deeply into her catalog. By the way, a previous Chandos release, CHAN 20078 from 2018, includes recordings of her Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 plus a couple of shorter pieces performed the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Maestro Gamba. Although not labeled as such, it effectively serves as Volume 1 to the Volume 2 disc under consideration here.

The program opens with Chanticleer, a concert overture that begins brashly and steps along briskly. Perhaps because of the way it plays off the brass against the strings, or perhaps because of its generally impish mood, the music seems to nod a bit toward that of Malcolm Arnold, another prominent British composer. Arnold was, by the way, a contemporary and friend of Gipps, even composing a piece titled Variations for Orchestra on a theme of Ruth Gipps, which was first performed by the Chanticleer Orchestra conducted by none other than Ruth Gipps. So perhaps the hints of Arnoldian sonority are more than purely imaginary after all. In any event, the program is certainly off to a lively and pleasant start.

Given that Gipps’s chosen instrument was the oboe, it should come as no surprise that she would compose a concerto for that instrument. Her concerto is cast in the usual three-movement form, with two quicker outer movements surrounding a slower inner movement. I do not mean this at all disparagingly when I say that it sounds like what one would expect a fine British oboe concerto to sound like: lively, pleasant, tuneful, pastoral in spots. In a word, delightful. There follows Death on the Pale Horse, which from its title might seem to promise frightening and fearful passages, but that is not the case. This is death on a pale horse, after all, not a technicolor stallion. The music is moody, unsettled, perhaps disturbing – but in a reflective, not bombastic way.

The program closes with the major work of this set, Gipps’s Symphony No. 3, which she composed in 1965. It is in four movements, I Moderato; II. Theme and Variations; Scherzo; IV. Finale. The music throughout the symphony is rich in in texture. By that I mean not that it is thick in terms of scoring, but rather it is rich in terms of color and musical ideas. Gipps seems to use all the sections of the orchestra, but not in the sense of making it sound like a concerto for orchestra. The impression is of a musical tapestry woven of many colors and textures. The overall mood is somewhat subdued, reflective, quietly restless. In the end, the work leaves a pleasant but not particularly memorable impression. For all its beauty and color, the symphony never seems to gain any real momentum. At any moment, the work sounds something like music that Vaughan Williams might have written; however, the symphonies of Vaughan Williams have a dramatic flow, a dynamic structure, while this music never quite seems to develop in the same way. Still, it is a decidedly pleasant, well-crafted symphony, very much in that familiar English pastoral mode. On the whole, this is an appealing release for fans of British music that should help to increase recognition for the considerable talents of Ruth Gipps. Let’s hope to see a Volume 3 in the foreseeable future.