Havergal Brian: Violin Concerto; Symphony No. 18; The Jolly Miller Overture [CD]

My experience of this obscure composer has been one of works either inspired or instantly forgettable. Happily, this second Naxos issue is the second valuable entry from that label to Brian's discography. A pithy little symphony plays second fiddle to a highly charged and apparently very difficult (to play) concerto for violin. Melodic, mucular and essentially British. Not plain sailing, but well worth having alongside the Gothic Symphony.

The other reviewers have, I must say made some interesting points. I'd never thought of Brian as a British Charles Ives, other than his persistence in the face of neglect, but I think there is some truth to it. One thing you won't get is a great deal of vernacular music or dense polytonality / microtonality. Even so his music is dense, right from his first works to the last. The chromatic language of the Violin Concerto reminds me of Ives's music - somewhere between his Second and Third Symphonies.

Brian's handling of form is difficult to grasp because his music is often in a state of flux where the material he uses continues to develop and transform. He, therefore, leaves you with few points of reference or memorable themes to grasp. The shape of the whole and the journey count for everything.

The Jolly Miller Overture is a later work that includes his more astringent harmonies and ambiguity but, as its title suggests, its a light work whose use of folk material makes it easier to grasp than many of his works.

The Violin Concerto is clearly a major work and accounts for well over half the music on this disc. Written in the 1930s it is built on a late romantic scale with a late romantic musical language, albeit with expanded and chromatic melodies. Despite his harmonic advances this still sounds like a work with a late romantic view - Elgar meets early Schoenberg. The violin part sounds pretty demanding and may reflect Brian's own skill with the instrument. Cast in three traditional fast - slow - fast movements it is a relatively extrovert work for Brian and the finale does include an easily memorable theme. There's a lot of rich and dense music in this work and I can't pretend to have completely cracked the piece but it is mighty impressive nonetheless. There aren't many major British violin concertos but this deserves to sit side by side with them.

The 18th Symphony is unusual for Brian because it was commissioned, or rather he wrote a new work when he was promised a performance. Like all the later symphonies it is quite a pithy work but, with the prospect of a performance, Brian seems to have pushed his harmonic ambiguity and complexity a notch further than his preceding works, shortening the symphony to under 15 minutes but including plenty of action. It is a generally extrovert work with martial sounding outer movements and gentle inner one. Tonality is stretched almost beyond breaking point for much of the way. Unlike his preceding symphonies this is a multi movement symphony. This affords less of the thematic drift that we get in some of his other symphonies but the density of material certainly makes this a satisfying if demanding journey.

The performances sound pretty decent to me but there's nothing else to compare them to ,so beggars can't be choosers anyway. This music cannot have been familiar to anyone involved so they deserve great praise for this recording. This original Marco Polo release is well engineered too. Praise to Naxos for re-releasing this series too.

Brian occupies a somewhat awkward position - he is not what you would call a conservative composer - but he never wrote the kind of atonal music fashionable in the 1960s - so therefore he has ended up stranded between two camps. It is easy to come to Brian with all sorts of expectations - is it like Elgar, or like English pastoral composers - or like Bax - or is he like Pettersson or Langgaard - tortured composers of extremely expressive music.
To be quite honest, on first hearing this music, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Brian's music (each separate work) has a tendency to seem dangerously episodic to begin with, but with repeated hearings, it takes shape and becomes very original and interesting. It becomes clear over time that Brian has a style all of his own - idiosyncratic and with a strong flavour. It will appeal greatly to some, and will be hated and despised by others, rather like a strong Stilton.
The Violin Concerto here is maybe the most substantial work - written in Brian's middle period, and very much in the large-scale style of Symphonies 3 and 4. It clearly takes the Romantic concerto as a model, in three movements, with at times a distinct Elgarian nobility. However the profusion of ideas can only remind me of Charles Ives. This concerto combines extreme complexity with simple folk-like melodies in such a way that I've only heard in Ives' music. It is at times very violent, and even militaristic - the violin is doing battle with the orchestra.
The Symphony No. 18 and The Jolly Miller Overture are later works, and considerably denser in their expression. They are both well worth hearing. The Jolly Miller has a lot of nice tunes, but they are combined together, and considerable complexity has been added in a manner that again reminds me of Ives. Symphony No. 18 is very interesting. I particularly enjoyed the 2nd movement. This music is again very dramatic, with violence in the outer movements, and a powerful beauty in the central movement. It again has moments that remind the listener of Elgar.
In this music there is a lot to get your teeth into - and if its your thing you will get a lot out of it. You won't find music much more violent, dramatic or abounding in ideas than Brian's. It is not background music, and it is not something you will like the first time you hear it, because it is too complex. To begin with it seems like Brian has got a hyper-active imagination that results in his music being incoherent - one could say the same thing about Ives. But it does come together....
The orchestra has made a good job of what is clearly very difficult music to play - and the soloist in the concerto does a good job of playing a very difficult violin part.
I recommend this wholeheartedly - but there will be those who don't like it.