Customer Reviews

Brian: Symphony No. 2; Festival Fanfare

5 star:		(1)
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3 star:		(2)
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Brian, like Brahms, started writing symphonies relatively late in his career. He was in his mid-40s when he began the mammoth First "Gothic" symphony, which was completed nearly a decade later. Anyone who loves that sprawling masterpiece of exuberant lyricism and magical sonority will love the Second Symphony every bit as much. Those who know Brian's oeuvre know that with each symphony his style follows a tightly evolving spiral, eventually arriving at the cryptic, craggy, almost impenetrable musical language of the later symphonies. He wrote 32 in all. But the early symphonies occupy a world all their own, and there are all too few of them. Exuberant and intensely lyrical, they combine the expanse and psychological complexity of Mahler, the grandeur of Wagner's musical mythology, and the sensual richness of Impressionism. All of this is brought together with a quirkiness and at the same time a cosmic, all-embracing vision. The Second Symphony is another prime example. One might call it music's answer to Heironimous Bosch's painting "Garden of Earthly delights". The four movements follow, more or less, the standard dramatic layout (Sonata allegro, slow mvmt, scherzo, march finale), with many surprises inside. This is richly textured, engagingly lyrical music that in its 53 minutes never falters in its sense of purpose or in its ability to fascinate the listener. Highly recommended.

I'm not quite sure which is the greater issue: the murky sound quality and low recording level, inaccurate playing, or some simply messy countrapuntal writing. This recording suffers from the same lack of clarity that the Arte Nova issue of Furtwangler's 2nd symphony suffers from. When compared the Chicago Symphony version of Furtwangler's 2nd, It was clear that the orchestra was the problem in the Arte Nova release, not Furtwangler's writing. In this case, it's likely it's a combination of all three. The orchestra seems like it's trying to smear over flubbed notes, and the compressed sounding recording makes detail impossible to make out. This is a very interesting symphony and I'll certainly give the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd a shot, but the performance and recording make it hard to really get an impression of how good this symphony actually is. Hopefully the recordings of the 1st and 4th on Naxos are of better quality.

I have a lot of time for the music of Havergal Brian, but I don't recommend this recording as a way in.
The first two movements sound like an incoherent mess as if little attention or care has been taken over them. The last two movements are truly imaginative and powerful enough to carry the work through, but you would be better off starting with the excellent recording of the 3rd.