Brian: Symphony No. 1 The Gothic (HYPERION CDA67971/2) [CD]

This is far and away the most coherent performance of Brian's massive 1st Symphony I have ever heard. Admittedly there haven't been too many of them - the gargantuan forces it requires have seen to that, never mind Brian's lack of popularity. Bryan Fairfax's premiere back in 1961 was blest with a fine array of soloists including Kenneth Bowen and John Shirley-Quirk, but was otherwise a fairly ramshackle affair. Boult five years later is the performance I have listened to most often over the past half-century (on a private tape from the BBC transmission) and is now available on a testament CD. Boult and his massed forces certainly have much more the measure of this huge juggernaut of a symphony, but sadly the BBC engineers never really got to grips with the aural demands of the work. Too often the extremely complex counterpoint - particularly in the choral second half - disappears in a disappointing mush of sound. The Marco Polo discs with Lenard and his Slovak forces at least made the work more readily available and it's in stereo. But that's about all that can be said for it. They are so far off the idiom of the piece that their performance becomes almost counterproductive in trying to come to terms with it.

So this much lauded performance from last year's Proms comes as something of a revelation. At last we can hear the Gothic in all its true glory. And glorious it certainly is.

At last we have the sort of sound quality this piece absolutely demands. The Albert Hall acoustic is reverberant (as it always is), but not enough to muddy the waters of the multiple strands of counterpoint that are so characteristic of the composer. Brian called his symphony The Gothic not to evoke a world of ghosts and ghouls, nor yet punkish youngsters with black hair, nails and lipstick. It is the great glories of Gothic architecture, of Chartres and Rheims, Canterbury and Salisbury cathedrals that is at the heart of his conception. And the acoustic captured by the BBC engineers is totally at one with that. It is also wonderfully rich and true to Brian's often quirky orchestration.

More to the point is the performance itself and Brabbins and his huge forces really do understand this idiom. It has always seemed to me that the key to performing Brian - from his 1st to his 32nd symphonies - is to understand his harmonic thinking. He was always at heart a tonal composer but his way of moving rapidly from key to unexpected key, often with the most abrupt or outlandish modulations is far from usual. It makes his work tonally centred but highly chromatic. To take just the opening bars of the work, the first subject group of gritty, very Brianesque motifs are firmly in D Minor. But within just some 25 odd bars we have moved to a shimmering B Flat Minor. But then that chord dissolves with a harp arpeggio into a luscious D Flat Major for the second subject, surely one of Brian's most gorgeous tunes. Brabbins has the way of making all these rapid shifts seem absolutely logical and inevitable.

And his control over his vast forces is just awe-inspiring. The density of the contrapuntal writing in Part 2 is seriously scary - 2 eight-part choirs, children's chorus and the huge orchestra in a vast panoply of canons, fugues and every other kind of counterpoint. Somehow Brabbins manages to hold it all together magisterially. It's back to Brian's view of Gothic again for it seems to me to echo those huge Renaissance choral works, written for the great Gothic spaces, like Striggio's 40-part Mass or Tallis's 40-part motet, Spem in alium. I doubt that Brian had heard these pieces back in 1917 (though Tippett and his Morley College Choir were already performing the Tallis around the end of World War II). Nevertheless, it's a sound world that is not so dissimilar and highly appropriate to his concept.

It's not all structure and harmonic perception in this performance, though. Brabbins manages to conjure some magical sounds from his orchestra, so full of exotica. The glow on the fairy-tale modulating horn fanfares in the third movement in this reverberant acoustic is perfect. The Finale's quirky A Minor processional and recessional march for 9 clarinets on their own (yes, nine: 5 B Flat clarinets, 2 Basset Clarinets and 2 Bass clarinets) has never sounded better. And the terrifying tattoo by 6 timpanists on 18 drums not long before the hushed ending will probably make the hairs on your neck stand on end. The soloists acquit themselves well. Susan Gritton is beautifully ethereal in her big solo, though Peter Auty is a little strenuous in his big sing at the beginning of the last movement.

The achievement of this performance is towering. The scale of the work precludes many performances (though its reputation seems to have given it more outings than many other of the Brian symphonies), so to experience a very special piece in a very special performance, look no further than these two triumphant CDs.

This double CD is a recording of the BBC Promenade Concert performance of 17 July 2011 which has all the thrill of a live performance. The last track, lasting more than eight minutes, consists entirely of the uproarious and fully deserved applause, and even this is faded out, showing no sign of coming to an end. A massive and glorious triumph for the hundreds of performers.

I have known this work for many years, particularly the first three movements which could stand by themselves as a purely orchestral symphony and were performed as such many years ago by the BBC. This is followed by the choral section, again in three movements, beginning with a setting of the Te Deum. The invention at all levels is breathtaking with some passages quite unlike anything written before - or since.

This is a huge work to get to grips with and whether it works as a whole is still debated. Although it is Brian's first proper symphony, he was by no means inexperienced at the time he wrote it, and by any standards it is a major intellectual and artist achievement, revealing a composer with a rare aural imagination.

Ultimately, we have Roger Wright, Controller of BBC Radio 3, to thank for the whole project. He has been a friend to British music during his time doing the job. We also owe thanks to the late Robert Simpson, BBC producer and distinguished composer. His deliberate search for unjustly neglected composers led to the whole Brian revival decades ago.

The insert notes contain an interesting essay on Brian and the symphony by Calum MacDonald. The text is also included.

I tried to get tickets for this concert, but missed out and so it is very pleasing to have this record of the event. I have long been a fan of Havergal Brian's symphonies and there have been some very good recordings, such as Havergal Brian - Symphonies 7 & 31; The Tinker's Wedding,Brian: Symphony No. 3

However, while it was good to hear the Gothic Symhony - the previously available version on CD : Symphony 1 " Gothic " - was distinctly lacking, in terms of sound quality. Now we have this version and what an improvement! This truly does justice to Brian's masterpiece and Hyperion must be applauded for the recording quality, along with all those who made this concert possible.

In many ways it is impossible to describe the sounds here - the vast choral forces and massive orchestra, creating music of such density and complexity, rarely heard in the concert hall and it is must have been a hugely difficult task to capture this.

I found the first 3 movements went past very quickly and while the playing was spectacular, as well as the sonorous organ sound - it left you wanting more of this glorious music. But the second half really delivers and from the moment the choir enters in the 4th movement, you know this is something special.

This is spiritual music - in every sense - music that addresses the big questions and is also a celebration - sometimes an overwhelming experience and sometimes mysterious - as in the penultimate movement - which is perhaps the only place that some momentum is lost?

Otherwise, this is a great journey that Brian takes us on - Gothic yet not over-elaborate - rolling on relentlessly to that final peaceful ending and the inevitable outpouring of applause!

I can't recommend this highly enough and it's a good 2CD package with comprehensive notes and a listing of every single one of the hundreds of people who took part. While the external graphics are functional - wonderful photographs of the event itself, decorate the inner backing and discs, showing the huge extent of the forces used.