June 10, 2019

  • Exploring Bennett's Concert Music

     

    Bennett: Orchestral Works, vol. 3
    Dame Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/John Wilson
    Chandos 5230
    Total Time:  64:34
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012) is perhaps best known for some of his film scores notably Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Equus (1977), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).  Chandos has been mostly exploring the composer’s concert music and in this third volume four works provide a sampling of the composer’s later pieces for orchestra.  While Bennett’s popular music could be quite romantic, his concert music tended to blend serial technique alongside jazz and cabaret music all cast in a more atonal sound world.  These two tracks of composition tended to not overlap.  Richard Hickox earlier began to explore some of Bennett’s music, but these more recent releases are helmed by conductor John Wilson, who is the Associate Conductor of the orchestra recorded here.  The music on this third volume features four works, two from earlier in his output and two composed toward the end of his life.  Each of the works has a personal relationship connection with the composer.

    Bennett’s Symphony No. 1 (1965) was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra who performed it in February 1966 under the direction of Istvan Kertesz.  The piece is cast in three movements and opens at a frantic pace and though the main ideas tend to be fairly jagged, the orchestration is crystal clear with delineated lines and shapes to the music that ease some of its more difficult harmonic language.  The central movement features a lyrical idea cast in winds and brass that floats above and through the texture here until it dies away.  It is in many ways the heart of the symphony.  During the work on this symphony, the composer met and fell in love with the tenor Dan Klein who would become his long-term partner.  It is to him that the central movement gets its inspiration.  The music moves to a more intense and insistent finale that manages to maintain its sense of clarity amidst its serial design.  In fact, most will hear this as a modernist atonal work with hints of Henze and perhaps late Walton—the latter especially in some of the climactic brass writing.  It is an interesting work that serves as a fitting opening for the album.

    Poetry by his sister Meg Peacock follows in A History of the Dansant.  The recording here is of a new chamber orchestra version from 2011 following its 1994 setting for mezzo-soprano and piano.  Dame Sarah Connolly recorded that earlier version a few years ago and returns for this orchestral version.  The three texts are a sort of triptik of reports of travel.  The music is set as 1920s dance crazes:  two foxtrots and a tango.  The texts have a bit of humor but the music seems to point out a potential darker side.  In some respects, the music has an almost musical theater-like quality—due to the musical forms underlying them.  Connolly’s performance here is simply stunning.

    Reflections on a Sixteenth-Century Tune (1999) takes it inspiration from a melody by Josquin des Pres (“En l’ombre d’ung buissonet”).  The piece was intended for youth string orchestras and Bennett sets up his theme and then treats it to four variations with a finale bringing things to a quite close.  It falls into the great wealth of English string music and the third movement is an homage to Peter Warlock.  The composer dedicated this work to the conductor John Wilson.  Here we get a great example of some of Bennett’s lyricism and rich harmonic palette in a very accessible work that is an excellent expansion to string literature.  For many this may be the album’s highlight with a lush performance.

    Finale, the album closes with Zodiac (1975-76) which Bennett dedicated to his friend, and fellow composer, Elizabeth Lutyens’ 70th birthday.  It was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra as part of the American Bicentennial celebrations.  The music is a series of brief musical snapshots of each sign of the zodiac serving as a sort of Baroque concerto for orchestra featuring ritornelli that frame each of the three zodiac signs that are grouped by season.  One might say it is Bennett’s Four Seasons meets Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

    Wilson proves to be an excellent interpreter of Bennett’s music.  He manages to help create clean and clear textures and Chandos has provided a warm acoustic that does not muddy this at all but provides a crystalline support and balance.  This is a good sample of Bennett’s concert music that may have some picking up earlier volumes.