MacCunn: Land of the Mountain and the Flood and other music [CD]

I like the cd because it reflects the Scottish nature, rough but also gentle. Especially the piece "Land of the mountains and the flood". Just close your eyes and listen. You're almost within the Scottish nature. Just imagine the beautiful country and what it does to you. Similar is the CD from BBC SSO: Alexander Mackenzie: violin concerto, Pibroch-suite and Benedictus op.37, no.3. With no doubt it is written by a Scottish composer ! Excellent ! I didn't know such beautiful music exists !

'The Land of the Mountain and the Flood' is probably Hamish MacCunn's most well known work and, while it might not appear on our concert programmes with the frequency it once did, many listeners will be familiar with it from discs of orchestral compilations or from the radio. Here it is offered as the first in a collection of three illustrative orchestral pieces based on Scottish subjects. It is a stirring work, very much in the central European Romantic tradition, enlivened by a nationalist strain in the melodic writing; the notes don't state whether the thematic material is entirely MacCunn's own or whether he makes use of traditional tunes - either way it is splendidly evocative and all the more remarkable for being the product of an eighteen year old youth. This assured early work takes its inspiration from a passage assigned to the bard in the sixth canto of Scott's 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel', a paean to the character and landscape of medieval Scotland; the two other overtures have more specific narrative intent and the ballads on which they are based are printed in the liner notes. To my mind, they are just as inspired as the more familiar opening track if not more so at times - take the dirge and noble coda of 'The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow', for instance, or the haunting woodwind and horn scoring in 'The Ship o' the Fiend'. The latter is particularly impressive: impassioned, melodramatic even - it's difficult to disagree with the booklet essay on the latter point but then the lurid ballad upon which MacCunn drew for his musical tale would scarcely be satisfied by anything less full-blooded; there is a splendid sense of menace built up from around the seven minute mark as the eponymous vessel hurtles towards its catastrophic end along with its unfortunate human passenger (there are obvious parallels with Burger's 'Lenore' and the oft-set-to-music story of 'The Spectre's Bride').

It is from this point onward that the disc becomes less satisfying, for me at least. According to the liner notes, Nicholas Temperley stated that 'Jeanie Deans' was "unquestionably the finest opera of the late Victorian period" and the music here certainly whets one's appetite to hear more yet I can't help but wonder whether the excerpts selected for this recording could have been more judiciously chosen. Isolated numbers, such as Dumbiedykes' and Effie's songs are undoubtedly attractive as is the latter's touching lullaby; and the remaining extracts stand testament to MacCunn's skill at word setting but the overall impression is rather piecemeal and certain dramatic moments (at least in the context of this recording) don't achieve the sort of synthesis of music and text that really grips or moves the listener (or this listener, to be precise) - the scene in which Deans curses his daughter, for example, strikes me as perfunctory and anticlimactic rather than admirably and realistically succinct. It's a little frustrating to read about one of the opera's most impressive scenes - during which Jeanie pleads passionately to the queen on her sister's behalf - only to find it is not included here; surely it would have made a better case for the work than the introductory chorus and dialogue of local youths or the pretty but relatively conventional scene between Effie and her lover, Staunton?

Performances throughout - both orchestral and vocal - are very good and extremely persuasive; I didn't feel that they quite matched in refinement the same forces' recordings of orchestral music by MacCunn's contemporaries and fellow countrymen Alexander Mackenzie and William Wallace* but then MacCunn's idiom often has an earthy, rugged quality to it that is quite distinct from their music (and they are quite different from each other too, it should be added). Sopranos, Janice Watson and Lisa Milne, as the sisters Jeanie and Effie respectively are both affecting and Stephen Gadd, as Dumbiedykes, is characterful in his song.

Production values, as you would expect from Hyperion, are high quality: there is an excellent and comprehensive booklet essay, which provides (as I have mentioned) the poems on which the three overtures are based, and the texts are supplied also for the excerpts from `Jeanie Deans' with useful interlinking paragraphs that put the extracts in context.

This enterprising disc is something of a mixed bag then: the highlights from `Jeanie Deans' certainly show promise that the complete work is worth reviving, at least on disc, even if I don't find all of them particularly convincing when presented as "bleeding chunks" here, but the three purely orchestral pieces are quite splendid examples of atmospheric, Romantic tone painting - it is those that draw me back (and do so repeatedly) to this release.

With the provisos I have mentioned, this is a generally recommendable disc to anyone interested in British music during the Victorian period.

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* See:

Wallace - Wallace - Symphonic Poems and Wallace: Creation Symphony

Mackenzie - Mackenzie/Orchestral Music and Mackenzie: Violin Concerto/ Pibroch

For many years now I have regularly herd Hamish MacCunn's perhaps best known piece, "The Land of the Mountain and the Flood", played on the radio and been inspired to remember some of the places I have visited in Scotland.

I will claim to have looked in many a tourist shop to find a copy of this work, but to no avail.

The only place I can ever remember hearing it as a recording, was on an LP loaned from a music library, which is probably where I first became aware of the piece. (Except that I gather it was used as the theme tune for the BBC's "Sutherlands Law" television series - although I can't claim to have watched that, so far back.)

So, once the Classic FM "Official Chart" show mentioned a new recording of this work in particular, but with the opportunity to add several, lesser known items by MacCunn, I seized the chance to take it up.

Clearly it is the main track which makes the greatest impact, but it is a very well worthwhile collection of pieces, which would otherwise probably not have seen the light of day again.