Alwyn conducts Alwyn: Symphonies 1 & 4

William Alwyn (Composer), William Alwyn (Conductor), London Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: London Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: William Alwyn
• Composer: William Alwyn
• Audio CD (November 14, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Lyrita
• ASIN: B000027QWL
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,902 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative composer-led performances of music of no great individuality, December 10, 2006

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Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Alwyn conducts Alwyn: Symphonies 1 & 4 (Audio CD)

As I wrote in my review of the companion disc, containing symphonies # 2, 3 and 5 (Alwyn: Symphonies 2, 3 & 5), this Lyrita CD is a self-commending purchase for the aficionado of Alwyn. Conducted by the composer himself in interpretations recognized as fully authoritative, these recordings from 1975 (symphony #4) and 1977 (Symphony #1) are still sonically state-of-the art. There are other complete recordings of the symphonies, but the one made by Richard Hickox in the early 90s entails the purchase of 5 full-priced Chandos CDs if you want to get the orchestral and concertante pieces that complement each disc, or a 3CD box if you are going for the symphonies alone. The recent one on Naxos with David Lloyd-Jones is also on three, budget-priced CDs, thanks to which you will get also the Sinfonietta for Strings and the Harp concerto "Lyra Angelica". But none of these subsequent recordings can boast, of course, the presence and authority of the composer at the helm.

Now, for those how do not know the music of Alwyn and would like to know what it sounds like before risking a purchase, let they be warned that, even more than on the companion disc, they might not find here a compositional voice of striking originality.

The first symphony (1949) is a highly-charged romantic composition showing a deft hand at orchestration, but couched in an international and rather anonymous idiom full of grandiloquent straussian (in the first movement ; try the passage starting at 8:50) and mahlerian gestures (try 6:50 onwards in the 3rd movement, or the Finale at 8:20, and you might think you were in one of Mahler's adagio finales), often evocative of Vaughan Williams with whiffs of Shostakovich, but even more of film-music - which comes as no surprise, considering Alwyn's training and considerable output in the genre.

In view of the more personal voice found by Alwyn in his thornier 3rd and 5th symphonies, the sunnier 4th (1959) is somewhat of a disappointment. I wrote of his 2nd symphony that it evoked the kind of film music that might have accompanied a Robert Flaherty documentary, and the same holds true with the first movement of the present symphony, while the finale sounds to me like a cheap imitation of a Mahler adagio as some Hollywood film composer could have written it, leading after 6 minutes to more grandiloquent perorations. True, the 2nd movement "Presto vivace" generates considerable excitement, but even there it brings to mind the Presto of Walton's first symphony (with strong hints of Stravinsky's Petrushka, try 1:20 or again 8:20), similar movements in some Tippett symphonies or again the Diaes Irae of Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, without eliciting the same kind of raw, motoric tension as these.

In the touching autobiographical notes presenting his first symphony, Alwyn claims that "originality does not come by rejection of one's heritage but through its acceptance; individuality (or style) is founded on the past.". Well, I can hear how much his music bears on the past (or present - Alwyn's, that is), but the originality is (to my ears) amiss. Don't try Alwyn before you hear the symphonies of Vaughan Williams or Walton, it would be like listening to Hummel before Schubert or Bruch before Brahms. Yet, those with a taste for the music of, say, John Williams, might find more qualities in these symphonies more than I do.