Customer Reviews

Symphonies 11 & 15

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Brian's symphonies are in the same league as any other composers' in the 20th century, in my opinion. To be fair to Brian detractors, his music has flaws (or more commonly can be poorly interpreted); however, Brian makes up for that with the mass of musical ideas he usually puts in his music. He was something of a nostalgic romantic and was fully dedicated to (a very adept at) tonality, but he also had an extreme bent towards the experimental and the modern. On this CD you get 77 minutes of works spanning a 60-year period of Brian's life. "For Valor" (1906) does sound a lot like movie music, but if you like Korngold or Williams, you'll probably like this. Elgar is probably the closest comparison. The second early work (1912) is an interesting (Rickard) Straussian satire (perhaps more homage than satire). More modern are the Symphony no. 11 and Symphony no. 15, written 50 years later. Parts of the 11th remind me of Mahler (at least in the first 2 movements), and the opening Adagio really does rank as some of the best slow music Brian wrote, although you will not necessarily appreciate this in the first few listens. Symphony no. 15 reminds me of Mozart in sensibility (i.e. classical structure and very felicitous themes) but with plenty of modern idiom. It is also a youthful and rambunctious work (written at a spry young age of 84). So why is Brian so hard to get? Some blame it on his "ellipsis" which suggests Brian only partially presented a musical idea and expected the listener to fill in the rest. However, I would tend to blame it on his self-imposed terseness, a necessity given the number of musical ideas this composer typically likes in his symphonies. A lot of ideas means you can't spend much time developing any one of them, and once they are expressed, Brian moves on. This doesn't characterize all of Brian's music (or symphonic movements), but I think it may explain why initial listens to some of his more "compressed" work sound chaotic and poorly structured. However, subsequent listens have always repaired that (at least for me). This is an excellent introduction to previously unfamiliar and important Brian. I'd also like to encourage the re-release of Brian recordings: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Sir Charles Groves), Symphonies 6 and 16 (Myer Fredman), and Symphony no. 7 (McKerras). Just this sampling alone reflects a very broad range of both symphonic development and creativity that is rare among the "average" great composer.

Brian's symphonies are in the same league as any other composers' in the 20th century, in my opinion. To be fair to Brian detractors, his music has flaws (or more commonly can be poorly interpreted); however, Brian makes up for that with the mass of musical ideas he usually puts in his music. He was something of a nostalgic romantic and was fully dedicated to (a very adept at) tonality, but he also had an extreme bent towards the experimental and the modern. On this CD you get 77 minutes of works spanning a 60-year period of Brian's life. "For Valor" (1906) does sound a lot like movie music, but if you like Korngold or Williams, you'll probably like this. Elgar is probably the closest comparison. The second early work (1912) is an interesting (Rickard) Straussian satire (perhaps more homage than satire). More modern are the Symphony no. 11 and Symphony no. 15, written 50 years later. Parts of the 11th remind me of Mahler (at least in the first 2 movements), and the opening Adagio really does rank as some of the best slow music Brian wrote, although you will not necessarily appreciate this in the first few listens. Symphony no. 15 reminds me of Mozart in sensibility (i.e. classical structure and very felicitous themes) but with plenty of modern idiom. It is also a youthful and rambunctious work (written at a spry young age of 84). So why is Brian so hard to get? Some blame it on his "ellipsis" which suggests Brian only partially presented a musical idea and expected the listener to fill in the rest. However, I would tend to blame it on his self-imposed terseness, a necessity given the number of musical ideas this composer typically likes in his symphonies. A lot of ideas means you can't spend much time developing any one of them, and once they are expressed, Brian moves on. This doesn't characterize all of Brian's music (or symphonic movements), but I think it may explain why initial listens to some of his more "compressed" work sound chaotic and poorly structured. However, subsequent listens have always repaired that (at least for me). This is an excellent introduction to previously unfamiliar and important Brian. I'd also like to encourage the re-release of Brian recordings: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Sir Charles Groves), Symphonies 6 and 16 (Myer Fredman), and Symphony no. 7 (McKerras). Just this sampling alone reflects a very broad range of both symphonic development and creativity that is rare among the "average" great composer.

Brian's symphonies are in the same league as any other composers' in the 20th century, in my opinion. To be fair to Brian detractors, his music has flaws (or more commonly can be poorly interpreted); however, Brian makes up for that with the share mass of musical ideas he usually puts in his music. He was something of a nostalgic romantic and was fully dedicated to (a very adept at) tonality, but he also had an extreme bent towards the experimental and the modern. On this CD you get 77 minutes of works spanning a 60-year period of Brian's life. "For Valor" (1906) does sound a lot like movie music, but if you like Korngold or Williams, you'll probably like this. Elgar is probably the closest comparison. The second early work (1912) is an interesting (Rickard) Straussian satire (perhaps more homage than satire). More modern are the Symphony no. 11 and Symphony no. 15, written 50 years later. Parts of the 11th remind me of Mahler (at least in the first 2 movements), and the opening Adagio really does rank as some of the best slow music Brian wrote, although you will not necessarily appreciate this in the first few listens. Symphony no. 15 reminds me of Mozart in sensibility (i.e. classical structure and very felicitous themes) but with plenty of modern idiom. It is also a youthful and rambunctious work (written at a spry young age of 84). So why is Brian so hard to get? Some blame it on his "ellipsis" which suggests Brian only partially presented a musical idea and expected the listener to fill in the rest. However, I would tend to blame it on his self-imposed terseness, a necessity given the number of musical ideas this composer typically likes in his symphonies. A lot of ideas means you can't spend much time developing any one of them, and once they are expressed, Brian moves on. This doesn't characterize all of Brian's music (or symphonic movements), but I think it may explain why initial listens to some of his more "compressed" work sound chaotic and poorly structured. However, subsequent listens have always repaired that (at least for me). This is an excellent introduction to previously unfamiliar and important Brian. I'd also like to encourage the re-release of Brian recordings: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Sir Charles Groves), Symphonies 6 and 16 (Myer Fredman), and Symphony no. 7 (McKerras). Just this sampling alone reflects a very broad range of both symphonic development and creativity that is rare in the "average" great composer.

Havergal Brian's life story, as told by those who promote his music, is an admirable one. Brian was mostly unknown, and his music was rarely performed. In spite of this neglect, his output was huge. His most famous piece, the Symphony No. 1 titled the "Gothic," is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the longest symphony ever composed. He wrote 32 symphonies, 21 of them after age eighty, along with a violin concerto, a cello concerto, three operas and numerous other works. He completed his thirty-second and last symphony when he was 92 years old. Although he received some recognition toward the end of his life, he died without hearing most of his music. The Havergal Brian Society was established to make music lovers aware of this unrecognized master and promote the performance of his music. This CD was produced under the auspices of the Society.

Sadly, after hearing this CD, I feel that the Society's efforts would be better directed elsewhere. The concert overture "For Valour" reminds me of the type of music you would hear in a coronation scene in a two-color technicolor Warner Brothers film from the 1930's. The two symphonies (11 & 15) are best described as "clunky." The music is derivative, and sounds very much like the orchestral writing of other twentieth century British composers, such as Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, Holst and Walton, though of much lower quality. The pieces on this CD are not neglected masterpieces by a neglected master. Rather, the quality of the music demonstrates why it is neglected: it just isn't good enough to justify performances. This CD will satisfy the curiosity of those who want to hear what Brian's music sounds like, but they are unlikely to lead the music-loving public to recognize him as a great composer.