Havergal Brian - Symphonies Nos. 8, 21 & 26 (Alexander Walker)

Information

Composer: Havergal Brian

• Symphony No. 8 in B flat minor
• Symphony No. 21 in E flat major
• Symphony No. 26

New Russia State Symphony Orchestra

Alexander Walker, conductor

Date: 2017

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.573752

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Review

This is both a milestone recording and a disc of milestones. With the issue of the 26th (1966), all 32 of Brian’s numbered symphonies have been commercially issued, 45 years after the first recordings, made for Unicorn (available on Heritage). One of the two works from that groundbreaking release, Symphony No 21 (1963) receives here its first professional recording. And, opening proceedings, we have the second of No 8 (1949), the very first Brian symphony to be performed, way back in February 1954.

Alexander Walker’s track record in Brian – particularly late Brian – is almost second to none, as with this disc his tally runs to 10 symphonies plus the First English Suite; only Martyn Brabbins has recorded more orchestral Brian. Walker’s reading of the Eighth – one of Brian’s very finest – is confident and controlled. The players of the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra sound quite at home with Brian’s very individual idiom and respond to the dark, tragic atmosphere of this freewheeling single movement with its violent outbursts and pair of virtuoso passacaglias. This newcomer is a minute and a half quicker than Groves’s pioneering, slightly tentative account for EMI, now available only as part of a Warner Classics 24-disc set.

Walker is even stronger in No 21, surpassing the fine performance by the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, swifter in the opening pair of movements, slower in the final pair. Although marked Adagio cantabile e sostenuto, the pacing for the second movement strikes me as about right (pace Deryck Cooke’s review of the original recording). And last but not least, No 26, a typical example of Brian’s late, armour-plated jocularity, revealed here as a gripping and convincing symphony. Highly recommended; I must find time now to listen to all 32 in sequence.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Nov/Brian_sys_8573752.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Jan/Brian_sys_8573752.htm

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.573752&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Havergal-Brian-Symphonies-Orchestra-Alexander/dp/B074XT3C4Z

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Havergal Brian (29 January 1876 – 28 November 1972) was a British classical composer. Brian was extremely prolific, his body of work including thirty two symphonies, many of them extremely long and ambitious works for massive orchestral forces. Brian enjoyed a period of significant popularity earlier in his career and rediscovery in the 1950s, though his music fell out of favour and since the 1970s he is vary rarely studied and performed. Today, he is often remembered for his First Symphony which calls for the largest orchestral force demanded by any conventionally structured concert work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havergal_Brian

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Alexander Walker (born 1973) is a British conductor. Walker was educated at the Royal Grammar School High Wycombe and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Walker is known for conducting amateur and youth orchestras. Walker teaches conducting at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and is an aural teacher at the Royal Academy of Music where he also conductors the Junior Academy Sinfonia. In 2017, he was awarded the Elgar Medal, the highest honour awarded by the Elgar Society, for the work he has done to promote the composer's music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Walker_(conductor)

http://www.alexanderwalker.org/

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