Mackenzie/Orchestral Music

A few weeks ago a Royal Scottish National Orchestra concert opened with one of the most delightful overtures I have ever heard. This was also the opinion of all those I met at the interval. That piece is called Benedictus and I just had to have it. Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie is Scottish and I wonder if he has gone out of fashion in this country just because he is not "foreign". I hope we hear more of his music played live by our orchestras.
Mackenzie/Orchestral Music

All the pieces on this disc are of the highest quality of inspiration and craftsmanship. The use of Scottish themes (in the Burns rapsody) is delightful without being sentimental. The Benedictus is very moving and deservedly one of Mackenzie's best loved pieces. It's difficult to understand why such a talented composer has been largely forgotten. Any of the items on this disc would be warmly received in concert. The orchestra and conductor are in top form here and given a beautifully warm recorded sound. Let's hope that more of Mackenzie's works will be recorded in the future.

Up until recently my only acquaintance with Sir Alexander Mackenzie had been his boisterous overture 'Britannia', Op.52, a pompous celebratory piece, the manner of which occasionally verged on the jingoistic; it didn't really inspire me to investigate the remainder of his recorded works, despite an interest in nineteenth century British music generally. Finally - as it usually does - curiosity got the better of me and some years later I splashed out on this and the companion disc containing his violin concerto*. And I'm very glad I did too - Mackenzie's might not be a particularly original compositional voice nor was he especially forward-thinking but, on the evidence of the works here, he was most definitely an assured craftsman, a melodist of some distinction and a man with a well-defined sense of wit as well as a dab-hand at orchestration.

The first two works on the disc bear witness to the latter quality, one a sparkling overture to his opera on 'The Cricket on the Hearth' and the other an overture (in scale, rather more akin to a symphonic poem) inspired by 'Twelfth Night'. Quotations from Shakespeare's comedy are written into the score and included in the liner notes here too, Hyperion helpfully marking the various points at which they occur with separate tracks. It's a warm hearted piece, with some lovely lyrical writing and a fine musical characterisation of Malvolio; the development section is particularly inventive, rendering the disorder and chaos of the unfolding story with a fugue though one far removed from any connotations of academic fustiness. 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is marked by a similar congeniality; there are no quotations appended to the score here but the quicksilver textures and cross rhythms of the opening apparently represent a kettle coming to the boil and it is impossible to mistake John the Carrier's arrival on the scene with the introduction of an orchestral whip - the score also calls for the ad. lib. presence of a mysteriously titled "cricket instrument", which is used here but about which the booklet sadly provides no further details. Piccolo and triangle add much to the bright-and-breezy delights of the piece, a taster that suggests the whole opera might well be worth reviving at least on disc.

The remaining works show a different side to the composer. 'Benedictus' is the composer's own orchestral transcription of what was originally a piece for violin and piano: it's a lovely outpouring of melody, the sensitive scoring of which skilfully avoids any sense of mawkishness; it became, as Mackenzie himself ruefully acknowledged, his most frequently performed work. Attractive though it is, the injustice of its popular success at the expense of his output as a whole is made clear by the 'Second Scottish Rhapsody' and the noble incidental music to Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus': the former reflects the composer's national heritage in a setting of three melodies associated with Robert Burns - the central section is notable (and all the more touching) for the restraint Mackenzie displays in handling his material and the contrast with the vivacious final section is as satisfying as it is engaging. The excerpts from the 'Coriolanus' music comprise the urgent and expressive prelude, a dignified funeral march and an entr'acte subtitled "Voces populi", which returns to something of the mood of the opening movement. It's a judiciously made selection and makes for a well-balanced tripartite structure.

Hyperion provides admirably clear acoustics for the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, which gives the music its all under the sure direction of Martyn Brabbins. The liner notes are exemplary, as you would expect from this label.

I don't make any claims about lost masterpieces being rediscovered here: Mackenzie's talent assuredly isn't on the same level as the great composers among his contemporaries and his music, it is safe to say, is quite conservative (though not in an overtly reactionary sense) for the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; but at the same time, it is also highly enjoyable and beautifully written. All in all, this seems to me, a novice as far as his music is concerned, to be a very well conceived collection that displays the range as well as the quality of his compositional gifts and on that basis it comes with a warm recommendation from this listener.

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* Mackenzie: Violin Concerto/ Pibroch