Search - Heward, Halle Orchestra :: Heward Conducts British Gramophone Premieres

Essential British Classical Music Performances due for a Rei

McGillicuddy | Ojai, CA United States | 11/10/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This woefully out of print CD is illustrative of a rare Harmonic Convergence that listeners of vintage classical music do indeed experience once in a blue moon... For we have here:

--A Great British Symphony (which undeservedly is still little known despite great stereo recordings by both Boult and Handley)

--As written by a Great English composer (who died prematurely in 1950 while finishing up his second symphony)

--As interpreted by a marvelously talented Conductor, Leslie Heward, (who also died before his time--indeed shortly after these performances were committed to wax...)

--In a vintage, wartime (1942) premiere recording that was made in the presence of the composer....

--Lovingly remastered by Michael Dutton so that the music here is presented in the best possible sound...

...and that's just the Moeran Symphony #1 in G minor! The same largely holds true for Eileen Joyce's premiere recording of Ireland's exhilaratingly romantic piano concerto that was recorded earlier the same year...

All of the above qualities contribute to make one of the truly essential CD issues of vintage British Classical music.

This Dutton CD was my introduction to both composers and since acquiring the disc in 1994, it has seldom strayed far from my CD player. The Symphony #1 in G minor is a sort of sonic depiction of Moeran's beloved County Kerry Ireland; and of friends lost in the first world war. If you love British composers like Arnold Bax (a friend of Moeran's), Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst (all of these composers by the way were folksong collectors as was Moeran); and if you respond to the Nature Music of Jean Sibelius--music that seems to depict natural phenomena like Winter Storms, Windy Moors, pithy nights full of shimmering constellations, etc. etc.....then you really cannot go wrong here. In fact you are likely to fall in love with both pieces.

It's a real shame that this stellar CD is currently out of print...Oh well, perhaps the good folks at Dutton Laboratories will Reissue this as part of their Historic Budget series. Here's hoping! And listener beware: these are glorious MONO recordings. If that's too difficult a pill to swallow, by all means check out the two superb stereo accounts that are both currently still available(Sir Adrian Boult's on Lyrita; Vernon Handley's on Chandos). But let it be known that these two premiere recordings are very special. And as performances they are unlikely to ever be surpassed..."