Hubert Clifford: Symphony 1940; Edgar Bainton: Symphony No. 2

Edgar Leslie Bainton (Composer), John Gough (Composer), Hubert Clifford (Composer), Vernon Handley (Conductor), BBC Philharmonic Brass (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic Brass
• Conductor: Vernon Handley
• Composer: Edgar Leslie Bainton, John Gough, Hubert Clifford
• Audio CD (October 19, 1999)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Chandos
• ASIN: B00001T6KJ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #302,079 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enterprising and Important., December 19, 1999

By 

David Anthony Hollingsworth (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Hubert Clifford: Symphony 1940; Edgar Bainton: Symphony No. 2 (Audio CD)

Add a serving spoon of Sir William Walton and Gustav Holst, a teaspoon of Vaughan Williams, and a couple of pinches of Sir Arnold Bax, Sir Edward Elgar, and Delius, and we therefore get the essence of Edgar Bainton's Symphony no. II in D Minor (1939-1940). The tragic expressionism of Sir Charles Villier Stanford's 4th symphony can also be felt when listening to this work. Bainton's Second Symphony is a one-movement piece (with 12 interlinking, continuous sections) and is rewardingly concise and telling. It's a work mixed with tradegy and seriousness with some sense of optimism. It's a epic piece not far from the Australian heritage Bainton grew up with.

Hubert Clifford's four-movement Symphony in D Minor (1938-1940) shares the similar idioms of the 1930s English music. Clifford's work is purly epic and optimistic, a premonition of life and of spring, and is not far from the optimism of Delius and later Malcolm Arnold's earlier symphonies. The Symphony is wholly attractive and compelling, with its thematic ideas distinctive and fresh. The Serenade of John Gough is a nice and memorable filler to this enterprising compact disc.

And this disc is enterprising. Vernon Handley and the BBC Philharmonic altogether gave the performances of the works with such a force, emotionalism, passion, and admiration that listening to them makes me want to get up and suggest to various North American orchestras to perform them as well (believe or not, music of Great Britain is not well-represented in North America or even in European countries outside Great Britain or Ireland). As usual, the Chandos recordings provide full, natural, and accurate sound. Well done!

May I hope for further recordings of works of these very fine composers?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Pleasure of Discovery, October 9, 2000

By 

Thomas F. Bertonneau (Oswego, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hubert Clifford: Symphony 1940; Edgar Bainton: Symphony No. 2 (Audio CD)

Discovery is one of the delights of collecting musical performances on CD, especially for those of us who either live too far from a major orchestra to be regular concert-goers or who simply lead lives too busy to accommodate the logistics of getting to the concert-hall and back, all in the evening of a distracting day. Not to mention that concert-programs tend to be limited to very mainstream classics and that ticket-prices for the major symphony orchestras have soared. So might one have known Holst's "The Planets" from the concert-hall, but for "Egdon Heath" or the "Choral Symphony" or the "Fugal Overture," one needed recordings - LPs in the old days, now supplanted by the more generous medium of the CD. And sometimes, indeed, it's not merely an unknown work by a composer whom we already know; it's a brand-new (to us) composer, all of whose works at present are a mystery. These remarks furnish the prelude to my strongest recommendation for a recent issue on Chandos: Symphonies by the Australian composers Edgar Bainton (1880-1956) and Hubert Clifford (1904-1959). These two big scores (Bainton's, in D-Minor, from 1939; Clifford's, no key signature, from 1940) belong identifiably to the British school, with recognizable affinities to Vaughan-Williams and Bax. As in Bax, so in Bainton does the orchestration reflect also a knowledge of what Russian and French composers could accomplish in terms of carefully calculated color. As in Vaughan-Williams, so in Clifford do modal harmonies unite with large-scale redeployments of baroque procedures like chorale and passacaglia. Clifford's is the heftiest of the two, clocking in at over forty minutes. Vernon Handley comes naturally into this new-old repertory and leads the gorgeous BBC Philharmonic with aplomb.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a cracker!, July 14, 2000

By 

K. Farrington (Missegre, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hubert Clifford: Symphony 1940; Edgar Bainton: Symphony No. 2 (Audio CD)

I followed the advice of the previous reviewer David A. Hollingsworth and purchased this CD and can only endorse his recommendation. This is a wonderful CD that literally leaves you 'gagging for more'. The Bainton Symphony Number 2 is a work that has sadly been ignored by the British probably because the composer had emigrated to Australia at the age of 53 just six/seven years before he penned this splendid work and they wrote it off as an 'Australian work'. Itis a mature expression of dignity and reverence for the past and it is a real shame that they did not pick it up; there is not an excess so we can just throw away and waste quality symphonic works of this calibre. The Australians considered it to be a British work, which in truth it is, and they ignored it accordingly as not representing their culture. Alas, what a loss to the listening public for this work is within the Stanford/Ireland lineage but has the Zeitgeist, subliminally so but still indeniably there, of the early 1940's impressed upon it. There is much of the northern fog and rain in the scoring that takes the orchestation of Debussy's sound world in the beginning of Gigues in the toned down coloration. This is not the bright aspiration of a new migrant, celebrating his arrival in a new land. This is the concern of a true Englishman who was afraid for the loss of his nation and his culture. It must be remembered that this man was born at the zenith of the Victorian age and witnessed the glory of Britain at her greatest. When Chandos decided to make this disc they really got it right. The delighful Gough is a miniature that sits amidst the Bainton with the Clifford Symphony 1940. This is a much more 'Australian' work in the sense that the composer was fourth generation 'digger' and the dynamics are much more marked. There is a great vigor and inner formal strength that is not so delineated as the Bainton but this is a totally different artistic expression. The orchestration is more free and the individual instruments and not as blended as in the Bainton yet we can see this was a considerable musical talent who may be allowed to emerge from obscurity thanks to this remarkable CD. Clifford was an Australian who came to the UK in the 1940's whereas Bainton was a Briton who had moved to Australia. Thus there is a symmetry in this work which shows the cross-fertilisation and interdependence of the two cultures at the time before Australia cast its immigration nets further afield and became more multi-cultural. I was totally knocked out by this and I can join my previous reviewer in repeatedly enjoying its manifold delights. Wonderful!