Search - Michael George, Edmund Rubbra, Richard Hickox :: Rubbra: Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 10; Symphony No. 11

Don't Miss This CD!

Craig LeHoullier | Raleigh, NC USA | 06/02/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My brother tends to plant classical music seeds in my collection. Knowing how tilted toward Mahler my music collection is, he introduces me to other composers via Christmas gifts. In that way, he introduced me to the wonderful music of Bantock, Bax, and Holmboe, amongst many others. My biggest debt to him, though,is for purchasing me this Rubbra disc a year or so ago. I now have the entire Rubbra cycle, and can heartily recommend them all.None is so lovely, though, as his Symphony #4. With an opening theme that is breathtakingly beautiful, and in fact indelible (one finds themselves playing this music in their heads throughout the day), this symphony is truly great, and deserves to be heard in the concert hall repertoire. Each movement makes perfect sense - each has many memorable moments. Symphonies 10 and 11 are equally worthwhile, but one has to learn Rubbra's musical language before completely coming to terms with them. #4 is definitly entry level and mandatory Rubbra - once you are hooked, much enjoyment awaits as you explore his entire wonderful, relevant symphonic output.Buy this CD...start the journey!"

Three for the price of one

Rodney Gavin Bullock | Winchester, Hampshire Angleterre | 05/13/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Edmund Rubbra was a man of great integrity and the rising star of English music from the late 30s to the mid 50s. After that, the classical music programme of the BBC came under the control of a man who was antipathetic to the work of composers who wrote in an accessible, tonal style. That included Rubbra and his music was in effect suppressed by default. His music virtually disappeared from the radio and the important Promenade Concerts. Things started to change in the late 70s and over the last few years, many of his most important works have become available on CD. This year (2001) is the centenary of his birth and the BBC is celebrating it with one work - the 4th symphony. Schoenberg will have nine works. The 4th symphony was first performed at the Proms under Sgt Rubbra and was well received. The opening is one of the most magical in English music. Although there is no slow movement as such, there is a slow, noble introduction to the finale. The main body of the last movement is a sort of 'catch-me-if-you-can', the music finally arriving at a slower, grand ending. The 10th (Sinfonia de Camera) was completed in 1974. As might be expected, it is for a small orchestra. It is in one movement but is divided into four sections differentiated by tempo. Each section mirrors the parts of sonata form - exposition, development, recapitulation and coda. It is a delightful work and sounds quite different to its siblings. The 11th was his last. Again, it is in one movement but this time it is for full orchestra. It begins with the horns - the interval of the 5th being prominent. It might be Bruckner. The piece progresses, the 5th being the building block for the entire work. There is no sign of sonata form here - the music growing organically throughout - a process common to most of his work. The playing of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Richard Hickox is excellent and the Chandos recording is, as always, superb. The notes are informative."

Rubbra: "Rich and Rare"

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 12/12/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Edmund Rubbra's (1901-1986) Fourth Symphony (1941) addresses the fact of the war just as Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony does: Not by representing it, however, but by an invocation of profound religious piety and serene faith in deliverance from evil. In a discussion of Gustav Holst in "Romanticism and the Twentieth Century" (1962), Wilfrid Mellers observed the importance of rhythm in a modally oriented ethos that lacks the internal conflict of sonata procedure and spoke of Holst's "repeated metrical pattern[s]" as the beginning of "the dominance of ostinato over British music." Yet Mellers also noted a paradox in any composer's reliance on ostinato to produce a feeling of movement, for "the effect of the ostinato is to destroy the time sense." Maybe. Ostinato can also generate a sense of crisis and tension. The five-pulse chordal figure (two quarter notes, one of them dotted, followed by an eighth-note and a couplet, all dotted) heard in the bass register in the combination of clarinet, oboe, and horn in the First Movement (Con Moto) of Rubbra's Fourth does just this, while the long-breathed melody given out by the violins pits its repose against the ostinato's slow restlessness. Harold Truscott wrote, in his chapter on Rubbra and Tippett in Robert Layton's symposium on "The Symphony" (1972), of the "sensuous colour" of this "rare and rich" score. In its timbres, indeed, Rubbra's Fourth does anticipate Vaughan Williams' Fifth, which followed a year or so later, not least in the colorational resemblance of the two opening movements. The Second Movement (Allegretto Grazioso) functions as an intermezzo in Brahmsian fashion and even manages to sound a bit like Brahms (gentle woodwind melodies over a slow dance rhythm, at times definitely a waltz, in the strings). The Third Movement is actually two movements in one: An "Introduzione" (Grave & Molto Calmo) and an "Allegro Maestoso." Faith triumphs as the Phrygian mode gives way to E-Flat Major in the coda. The Tenth Symphony (1974), Rubbra's penultimate, pares the instrumentation down to woodwind, two horns, and strings; it also collapses the traditional four movements into a single span, as in Liszt's "Dante" Sonata or Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. The Tenth constitutes an excellent starting-place for anyone interested in becoming acquainted with Rubbra, for it demonstrates his typical procedures in a most transparent way. He begins by offering a few intervals, continues by elaborating them into a complex, quasi-fugal web; the slow elaboration then gives way to a dance, based on the same material, but speeded up. There is a return to slower tempi followed by a brief coda - all in the space of fifteen minutes. The ultimate Rubbra symphony, the Eleventh, restores the full orchestra but compresses the working-out even more tightly than does the Tenth. Rubbra willingly explores the darknesses of his world, but always comes back in the end to the redeeming light. His creed might be summed up in lines of George Herbert: "Sure thou wilt joy, by gaining me / To fly home like a laden bee / Unto that hive of beams / and garland-streams." Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales turn in warm performances that sort out the difficulties of this music, as the critic wrote, "rich and rare.""