August 15, 2018

  • The Final Volume of Bjarte Engeset's Grainger Survey

     

    Grainger: Complete Music for Wind Band, volume 3
    Hans Knut Sween, organ.
    Royal Norwegian Navy Band/Bjarte Engeset
    Naxos 8.573680
    Total Time:  72:52
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    The third and final installment in Bjarte Engeset’s survey of wind music by Percy Grainger comes to a close.  Earlier this year (May 21st entry), Cinemusical, took a look at the second volume of this series.  Most band students will have played something by Percy Grainerg (1882-1961) who was one of the first to explore the wind band as a more symphonic ensemble.  His original compositions are among the important works in the concert band repertoire, as are many of his transcriptions of earlier music reconceived for wind band.  The final volume features eleven works among which is his significant work, A Lincolnshire Posy.  Renaissance and earlier music appear here in unique transcriptions coupled with Grainger’s exploration of folk music as well.  These come, as they did in volume 2, from the Chosen Gems for Winds and British Folk-Music Settings as well as a selection from Danish Folk-Music Settings.

     

    The album notes are quite excellent with each selection receiving its own easily-identified section.  They follow the same essay overviewing Grainger’s music and interest in the wind band which is a common practice from Naxos in their series of including the same intro in each booklet.

     

    Shorter works are interspersed in this album as well.  There are four more significant pieces here, and early march, a Danish folk song, the aforementioned Lincolnshire suite, and the Hill-Song No. 1.  The Lads of Wamphray March (1905) was the composer’s first large-scale work for band with a performing time of over seven minutes.  The tune is loosely based on a Scottish Border Ballad though, like many of these types of folkish pieces of the period, is essentially original music.  This is a really catchy tune, but it is in the big full band harmonies where the modal qualities of the music really come out well.  The way Grainger tosses ideas about his upper woodwinds and into brass statements is also stunningly performed here.  You can hear this British band style in the brass statements quite well with the warm rounded sound.  The woodwinds sparkle in an almost shanty-like dance.  The program also includes one of Grainger’s last works for winds, The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart (1918/1943-47).  He had been asked to write a work for the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers and also to honor Edwin Franko Goldman’s 70th birthday.  With time fast approaching for the work to be completed he decided to revisit an earlier piece.  This was originally a work for orchestra and organ which he had written in 1943.  This 1947 version is also his largest ensemble requirement needing harps, pianos, expanded percussion, and an organ (pipe or electric, of which the latter is used here, following likely his own Hammond registration recommendations).  This lengthy tone poem of sorts features some really fascinating blends of winds and organ with a broader harmonic palette.  Dissonance here is quite fascinating to hear in this very dramatic work that has an ancient Rozsa-like quality as if we are hearing a radio drama unfold.  Easily it is one of the albums highlights.  The six-movement suite, A Lincolnshire Posy, attained its final wind band form in 1937.  The music is taken from folksongs collected in Lincolshire, England.  As with his transcriptions of early music, Grainger wanted to try and recreate the specific singing style of these folk pieces with the people that he had heard sing them.  His careful notation of these performances is thus interpreted here in music that has this ancient, yet modern sense.  The rhythmic complexity and subtle colors are often hard to appreciate from the listener’s point of view, but they are all part of the intense focus needed for these pieces.  It is perhaps one of the most emotionally fulfilling pieces.  His different explorations of color help illustrate the versatility of the wind band like nothing else in the literature.  The concluding work on the CD is the Hill-Song No. 1 (1901-02) is a nearly 13-minute tone poem.  It features ideas that sort of spin out into new ones.  Grainger conceived of this early work as a contrasting approach to the more diffuse style of Delius.  His nature depiction is more anthropomorphic, letting the hills themselves relate their tales and music in their own swells.  Thus, this is a piece of constant themes without variations, if you will.  The result is one of the composer’s fascinating works with equally interesting scoring.

     

    The one brief original composition is also among the composer’s most popular works.  The Immovable Do (1933-1940) is a composer turning a bad situation into a humorous musical one.  The story is that Grainger was playing a harmonium that evidently had a leaking pipe, hence it sounded one note constantly regardless of what was played.  He then sat down and created a piece that would work across different performing groups.  The wind version is but one of them and is a delightful piece that is among his most fun to play as well.  Audiences listen to see where that “C” is coming from throughout the piece.  There are four transcription selections from Grainger’s Chosen Gems for Winds.  The first is a delightful discovery as it is a setting of a 13th Century carol, “Angelus und Virgenem” (1942).  He set three stanzas to display the brass and woodwind sections individually with a final tutti in this brief work.  It has a nice dancing quality that also explores this early modal quality.  Wind band literature is also often “teaching” literature as it can be music that introduces new players to different periods and styles.  This makes the transcription of Antonio de Cabezon’s (1510-1566) Prelude in the Dorian Mode (1941) equally fascinating.  The organ piece was carefully transcribed here to reflect period style and registrations exploring Renaissance polyphony.  The “Ballade No. 17” by de Machaut (c. 1300-1377) is another of these “elastic” orchestration examples that allow flexibility of instrumentation.  The performance here expands essentially the three lines of music to demonstrate the adaptability of Grainger’s orchestration.  The same can be said for the following Five-Part Fantasy No. 15 of John Jenkins (1592-1678).  These arrangements served an important purpose of introducing players to this early music at a time when it was not performed as often.  The Nightingale and The Two Sisters (1922-31; 1949) is a combination of two dark folk songs.  Grainger combined them to be part of his Suite of Danish Folksongs (it is the third movement).  The lower ends of the band are explored here and require some excellent low dynamic playing in dense chords.  Ye banks and braes o’bonnie Doon (1901/1932-37) comes from the British Folk-Song Settings.  The final wind version of 1937 is a fascinating model of economy in wind orchestration requiring careful phrasing with its long arching statements needing equally good breath control.

     

    The music on this final volume has a great balance of memorable, significant, and surprise works.  It would be hard to think of a wind band student who has not at least come across one of these pieces in their education or performances.  And there are plenty of pieces here to reconsider and program for band directors across the spectrum.  Grainger’s music is always a treat even at its most difficult, but the Royal Norwegian Navy Band makes these all sound so very easy and effortless.  The phrasing is impeccable.  Articulation is clear and concise.  The interpretations are all spot on and the result is thus a crowning achievement in the Grainger discography.  Now that all the volumes are out, it may be worth grabbing all three to luxuriate in this amazing music.