Rawsthorne: Symphonies Nos. 1-3 CD

The orchestral works of Alan Rawsthorne can be characterized as formidable, serious, and dark. Some of the finest music out of post-World War Two Britain, these disturbing, astringent symphonies almost give off the whiff of cordite and disturbing memories. The First symphony is a thunderous, bounding, jagged affair, relieved by quieter moments of irony. The Second symphony, a so-called "pastoral" symphony, inspired by Rawsthorne's sojourn into the English countryside, is not pastoral at all---unless you think gnarled landscapes and malevolence are pastoral. It is a haunting and haunted work, a meditation of anguished beauty, with more than a few march-laden outbursts. It ends with a melancholy vocal movement. The Third was Rawsthorne's experiment with serialism, and it is astringent and angular. The second movement Sarabande is lauded as one of Rawsthorne's most interesting compositions.

The performance by David Lloyd-Jones and the Bournemouth is top notch, so are the sonics. There are fine older recordings of the Rawsthorne symphonies conducted by John Pritchard, Nicholas Braithwaite and Norman del Mar, but this set is superior.

Lloyd-Jones conducts the Rawsthorne Symphonic Studies, and the Cello and Oboe Concertos on another Naxos disc. It is also outstanding.

Rawsthorne's three symphonies haven't exactly fared well on record - until now, when two versions have appeared within short time. Now, I hasten to add that they aren't in the end a match for Walton, nor for the Rubbra or Alwyn symphonies. Yet, they are indeed very worthwhile and they surely presents an individual voice, so I am glad that we have them in performances as good as these.

The first symphony displays these personal touches in full, with characteristic harmonic progressions and melodic details which are very much recognizable Rawsthorne. The second, `A Pastoral Symphony' - complete with a soprano soloist in the final movement - might lead the thoughts to Vaughan Williams' work, but musically there is little resemblance. Here is none of that wistful sadness that earned the latter work the infamous and inaccurate "cowpat" epithet; Rawsthorne's utterance is a chromatic and slightly spiky, dissonant work, with little reliance of folk-melody - but with some simple, almost naïve, themes in the middle movement, and a light, summerly touch with the Country Dance of the third. The final movement is desolately melancholic if a tad grey; a fine work, all in all.

The third is even spikier with some reliance of serialism and original instrumental touches. In the end, I think this last one might be the best of the three, but it certainly doesn't reveal all its secrets on first listening. And all three are indeed very worthwhile (if frankly not masterpieces) and with playing like this (and fine sound quality), this disc is easily recommended.

The music of British composer Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971) is not well-known in the United States. In a lifetime of concert-going I've never heard a single work of his performed. I've known some of his music from a well-regarded series of Lyrita recordings from the LP era, including a recording of the Second Symphony. And, of course, I've known his best-known piece, the 'Symphonic Studies.' More recently I had reviewed favorably a Naxos release of his piano concertos. Thus, I was eager to hear this CD of all three of his symphonies. I must say, however, that this is difficult music to get one's ears around, at least partly because of the tonal ambiguity of so much of it, particularly in the First and Third Symphonies (and perhaps some familiarity with the soft, more lyrical Second Symphony helped me 'hear' it more easily). Part of the problem is a kind of unrelenting grayness that comes from Rawsthorne's handling of harmony. Although nearly completely tonal, it is actually what I would call 'ambitonal' in that the tonal center keeps changing, sometimes within very few measures, largely because of the way he uses augmented triads with their conflicting sets of major thirds. First you think you're in F major then it suddenly becomes C sharp minor, then C sharp major, say. Confusing, but it does tease the ear. Another aspect of Rawsthorne's style is that he doesn't mess around with unnecessary passage work or standard development; rather he tends to progress by juxtapositions of unlike material. He plunges right in and carries one forward breathlessly, even in his slower movements. This is particularly so in the First Symphony, which is not only dramatic but even rather tumultuous. Still, once one gets attuned to Rawsthorne's harmonic and gestural fingerprints, this can be powerful and evocative music. I would suggest to anyone who buys this CD that they listen to only one movement or perhaps just one symphony at a time, and several times, before moving on to the next. Perhaps that's not a bad recipe for listening to any new music, but it is particularly helpful for music as hard to grasp initially as this. I've found with the two unfamiliar works that it helped immensely to concentrate on a movement at a time. Generally, by the third time around it has begun to sink in, make sense and evoke an emotional response.

These performances are unexceptionable. David Lloyd-Jones is a fine conductor, as his other recordings (Holst, Bax, Elgar, Vaughan Williams) attest, and of course the Bournemouth Symphony is a known, and valued, commodity. Soprano Charlotte Ellet, who sings the poetry of Henry Howard's evocation of the arrival of summer in the finale of the Second 'Pastoral' Symphony, has a bright, lyrical voice that imparts the joy of that event, while the orchestra underscores it with the darkness that both the poem and the composer apparently feel summer contains ('Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs').

Scott Morrison