Records: Topical Britten

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 11

Records: Topical Britten

Benjamin Britten's Cello Symphony, a work which has attracted considerable acclaim since it

first appeared two years ago, is now available in a performance conducted by the composer. The musical forces are the dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) and the English Chamber Orchestra, and the recording is Decca stereo SXLM.6I3B (42s 6d). The work offers a new approach to the problem of integrating soloist and orchestra. It is not a concerto but a symphony in which the solo cello has a role of special importance.

“The Times” noted that it represented an advance in Britten’s own language, something most evident in “the first movement’s combination

of powerful, structural logic, a new and impressive soundworld (derived particularly from the imaginatively creative use of light textures in extreme registers), and a wide but skilfully integrated range of emotion—at one moment the music is profoundly poignant, at the next almost violent.”

It is a powerful work, sometimes dark, dissonant and sinister, and at others extraordinarily elequent and elated.

It is praiseworthy that such an interesting work should be available on disc here so . early in its career and in such an authoritative performance, but then it is a work which ■ should be found in as many collections as possible. Com-

pleting the disc is another “new” work, the delightful Haydn C major Cello Concerto, which was discovered only a few years ago. Admirers of Britten's music should also note the coupling of the three-year-old Cantata Misericordium, which has a Latin text dramatising the Good Samaritan parable, with the Sinfonia da Requiem of 1941 on Decca mono LXTM.6175 ( 42s 6d), also stereo. In the first Britten conducts i the London Symphony and its small chorus, with Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as soloists, and in the second Britten conducts the New Philharmonia. Although there is a commentary on the sleeve, and the writing in the Cantata evokes much of the action, presentation would have been improved by inclusion of a translation of the Latin,

Vaughan Williams’s “London” Symphony is the second of a trio celebrating sea, city and nature. Opinions were

divided about it some years ago, but today, like the symphonies of Elgar, it might be treasured for those period qualities which once aroused irritation. The 30-year-old performance by Sir Henry Wood and the Queens Hall Orchestra, and recording have limitations, but at least the work is accessible again. The aisc, Decca mono ACLM.2SS (22s 6d), is completed with “The Wasps” Overture and the Fantasia on Greensleeves. The instrumental works of an earlier great British composer, Handel (who spent nearly 50 years writing music in London), contain too many riches to be overlooked, although the grouping of pieces like the Concert! Grossi in dozens make it a bit harder to remember which one is which.

From the Op. 6 set Yehudi Menuhin and the Bath Festival Orchestra play Nos. 3,6, 10 and 12 on HMV stereo ASDM.S9B ( 42s 6d). They are four minor key works, but all are different. Au interesting feature of No. 6 is the way the oboes double the strings.

The performances have a vitality and warmth, especially with the more thoughtful Handelian airs, with No. 12 particularly finely done. The recording is outstanding.