Customer Reviews

William Wallace: Symphonic Poems

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William Wallace (1860-1940) was a Scottish composer and writer on music, a professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music, a classical scholar and Hebrew scholar, a medical doctor (eye surgeon), poet and painter. Maybe he spread his net too wide, for his compositions have more or less sunk without a trace - in that respect the Hyperion revival, consisting of this and a companion disc devoted to his Creation Symphony, is very welcome. Is the music worth it? I'd go for a "yes", although there are no hidden masterpieces here, nor even an individual voice - yet there is much to savor nonetheless in his very late romantic, Wagnerian (and Lisztian) music. I don't recommend expecting another Bantock, but historically Wallace and Bantock belonged to the same generation of composers who sook to break away with the conservativism of their time, looking instead to the opulent and dramatic post-Wagnerian late romanticism that was developing in e.g. Germany.

Wallace wrote six symphonic poems, four of which are given here. They are consistently extravagant with stirringly dramatic passages and full of color. On the flip-side, there is rarely any really memorable themes, and the works are generally longer than their somewhat episodic structures can really sustain. Nevertheless there is much good music here.

The topic of the Scottish rebel hero William Wallace (of Braveheart fame, I suppose) was an obvious topic for a symphonic poem, I guess, given that he shared name and nationality with the composer. It is appropriately dramatic in the battle scenes and wistful in its depiction of Scotland, although not particularly memorable overall. The Passing of Beatrice is of course based on Dante and depicts the transition from Purgatory to Paradise; the music is reverential and opulent, redolent at times of Parsifal - Wallace was good at calm radiance, but here it goes on for longer than ideal. Sister Helene is a melodramatic work of frustrated love, murder and sorcery. It is apparently conceived of as a portrait of Helen, and is thus interestingly many-layered and ambiguous with warmth as well as fiercely desperate insanity.

Most rewarding, however, is Wallace's last symphonic poem, Villon. A mischievous, clever piece, it is (as one might suspect) a not-too-distant cousin of Elgar's Falstaff and Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel - not perhaps quite on the same level of inspiration, but a very attractive work nonetheless. Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony play with all the flair, spirit, color and opulence the music needs, and while this might not perhaps be an essential release, it is still a very attractive one, and one that can be safely recommended to lovers of late romantic, lush orchestral works.

I was pleased with myself when I heard this recording and thought highly of it, only to see the English magazine, 'Grammaphone' highlight it as a featured album of the month when it came out about 12 years ago. Needless to say, this William Wallace is NOT the same Wallace featured in the movie 'Braveheart', but a Scottish composer of 400 years later. All the works are very pretty, and prettily performed, with the expected influence from Wagner, and none from any more modern composer. Amazon's list price is a bit steep, as it originally listed for around $17, typical of a Hyperion release.

Great if you are fond of early 20th century UK music.