Foulds - Hellas; (3) Mantras [CD]

I discovered John Foulds and his music a few years ago, in the early days of the CD era, through his pieces for String Quartets played by the Endellion Quartet on Pearl (Foulds: String Quartets). I found them works of searing lyrical intensity, announcing Britten's three string Quartets. From there, I tried to buy every I could find of Foulds, but there wasn't much then. This CD with orchestral pieces conducted by Barry Wordsworth was originally published in 1993. It boasted the premiere recording of two of Foulds' orchestral masterpieces, the Three Mantras and Pasquinade Symphonique. A minor Foulds rediscovery seems underway, if the two CDs of orchestral music conducted by Sakari Oramo on Warner (John Foulds: Three Mantras, John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych; Music-Pictures III) and the set with Foulds' World Requiem (Foulds: A World Requiem [Hybrid SACD]) are to be taken as pointers. The two Oramo collections duplicate some of the material contained on this CD: "Three Mantras" and "April - England" (the second instalment also contains the Piano Concerto Dynamic Triptych, thus duplicating another Lyrita disc, where it is coupled with Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto, Vaughan Williams: Piano Concertos; John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych)).

"Le Cabaret-Overture" from 1921 is exactly that: Cabaret or Vaudeville music and an example of Foulds lighter style, and can be quickly forgotten. On the other hand "Pasquinade Symphonique No. 2" (1935) and "April - England" (first originated as a piano piece in 1926 and orchestrated in 1932) are two fine works couched in late-Romantic style, equal to anything that was written in the same years by Bax or Delius. Under Foulds' pen April in England starts off in a sunny and carefree mood, but evolves into some irresistibly glorious and triumphant tunes, evocative of the "boundless fecundity, opulent burgeoning of Springtime". The original piano piece by the way can be heard on John Foulds: Seven Essays in the Modes, etc.. The Pasquinades Symphoniques were conceived as a triptych, #1 being entitled "Classical", #2 "Romantic" and #3 "Modernist", but the last one, which was to have been a palindrome (reverse) of the first one, was never completed. As for the Pasquinade #1, there is a recording by the unlikely Luxembourg Orchestra under Leopold Hager, Masters of the English Musical Renaissance. The generic title "Pasquinade", after a 16th Century Italian term designating an anonymous lampoon in verse or prose (see the great, free and user-operated Internet Encyclopedia), Foulds had used in some other works, applying it to music of Scherzo character. Here, in Pasquinade #2, there is neither Scherzo nor, as far as I can hear, satirizing intent. The work as rich, lush late-Romantic colors and tunes and rises to glorious climaxes. .

"Hellas, A Suite of Ancient Greece" again originated in a Suite of five movements for piano written in 1915, "Recollections of Ancient Greece", composed in the Classical Greek modes and on the white keys. In the subsequent years Foulds essayed various orchestrations of individual pieces, and in 1932 finally scored them for double string orchestra, harp and percussion, adding a brief fast finale. As the titles of the individual movements indicate, the music is solemn, processional, chant-like, hushed, meditative. Satie (Socrate), or Debussy's "Jeux" or "Epigraphes antiques" come vaguely to mind.

"Three Mantras" is Foulds' orchestral masterpiece. They are the only remnants that he salvaged from his projected and abandoned Sanskrit opera "Avatara", on which he worked from 1919 to 1930. The surviving three Mantras were the original preludes to the three acts. They lay unperformed until their first performance in 1988, while the Concert premiere took place only in 1997. They are huge and lush late-Romantic piece, powerful in the two outer Mantras, even savage in the 3rd, and mysterious and mystic and with subtle timbral colors (and a wordless chorus) in the central one. They are sometimes evocative even of Vaughan Williams, Bloch or Villa Lobos' "Amazonian" compositions.

I don't have Oramo's second instalment to compare the interpretations of "April-England", but in Three Mantras, if anything the sonics give an edge to Oramo. Interpretively, while I don't here much that can give preference to one or the other in the second Mantra (Oramo is more relaxed and languid, Wordsworth more urgent, but the subtle colors and sense of mystery are there), Oramo conducts with more élan and drive than Wordsworth in the first (compare his 5:10 to Wordsworth's 5:57), but in the third he goes more for savage weight than, as Wordsworth, snap and bite. Both approaches are effective and offer valid alternative views. But Warner's more spacious sonics do make a marked difference in favor of Oramo in such lush and powerful music, and, for instance, Oramo's climax in the third Mantra (at 5:00) is significantly more powerful and effective than Wordsworth's (at 4:55).

Ultimately then, if only on the grounds of sonics Oramo must be the first choice. Add to that that Oramo's disc is a generous 78:13, compared to Lyrita's 61:07. The liner notes in both are by the authoritative scholar who single-handedly promoted the Foulds revival, Malcolm MacDonald, and they are even more detailed in the Warner disc. Wordsworth then is for the serious Foulds collector happy with multiple versions. Nice thing with Foulds is that it is still easy to be a completist.

My main complaint with this disc is the sloppy engineering. The soundstage is cramped and detail blurred when comparing with the other labels ....very disappointed.