John Foulds Sakari Oramo Susan Bickley - John Foulds Three Mantras (15 tracks) +Album Reviews

A Relatively Unknown British Composer: Some Thoughtful Insig

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 05/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"John Foulds is not a name that leaps to the top of lists of even the more inquisitive surveyors of British music, but taking the time to listen carefully to his compositions as excerpted on this well-recorded CD gives notice of another influence on the now ubiquitous groups of composers devoted to the influence of Eastern music on Western compositions. Britten did it with his gamelan-inspired works (even including his final 'Death in Venice') while other composers still living (Arvo Part, Tan Dun, Unsuk Chin, Philip Glass, Andres Hillborg etc) continue to mine the sounds and techniques of reproduction on old instruments and melodies. Foulds, while not a great composer, did do is part in influencing the trend in his time.

Of the works here recorded the 'Three Mantras' from 'Avatara' (his abandoned Sanskrit opera) show a gift for orchestration that rivals Strauss. His 'Lyra Celtica, concerto for voice & orchestra is well performed Susan Bickley in an extended wordless vocalise. His 'Apotheosis (Elegy), for violin & orchestra is likewise performed with great dignity by the gifted violinist Daniel Hope. And the collection concludes with the huge 'music poem' Mirage, for orchestra. For a composer who died in 1939 his music is quite progressive and deserves more exposure.

Sakari Oramo conducts the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a committed fashion, obviously with deep respect for a composer who is all but unknown today. This is a far more interesting CD than is being credited, and for those who are eager to know more about 20th century composers who have been neglected, this is a fine selection to try. Grady Harp, May 06

"

Ignore the other reviews

Douglas M. May | 09/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Finding fault with this music because it fails to accurately incarnate the devices of an exotic musical culture completely misses the point. If this is musical kitsch, then so is The Dance of the Seven Veils and Mahler's employment of Chinese pentatonic scales in Das Lied Von Der Erde, not to mention such distant antecedents as the Alla Turca movement from the Mozart A Major variation sonata. In each case, the music should be judged for what it is and not as a failed attempt at ethnomusicological reconstruction.

Secondly, how could anyone compare this with contemporary New Age music when it obviously eschews the repetitive harmonic devices of trance music and demonstrates a modulatory dynamism typical of turn-of-the-century composers? And finally, if you're going to hold a Victorian composer responsible for 1980s soundtracks, then why not pillory Mahler for having given birth to Max Steiner?

I first heard Foulds' music 20 years ago on a Pearl recording of the Quartetto Intimo by the Endellion Quartet, and I was enthralled by the sheer technical finish of the music and the composer's investigation of such esoteric devices as quarter-tones in an enriched diatonic context. His is an original voice, although it is an eclectic originality that doesn't hit you over the head with the sheer invention of a Janacek or Stravinsky.

Nevertheless, anyone who enjoys British music of the 20's and 30's will probably find something to admire here. Foulds may not "sound" exotic in the Three Mantras but his use of microtones, Eastern scales, polyrhythms and even metrical modulation (in the first Mantra)is in fact quite forward-looking. Certainly there is nothing in Vaughan Williams, Walton or Bax that resembles it. The other pieces are just as beautifully scored, but not as inventive in their musical content. The Apotheosis comes right out of the world of the Dvorak romances. The Lyra Keltica (NOT the Keltic Lament) seems to invoke the vocalise passages in the VW Pastoral Symphony and ends in an absolutely rapt coda in which the vocalist stretches her wordless cantilena around whole tones, microtones and quarter-tones (Susan Bickley does it effortlessly). "Mirage" is the most derivatively Straussian, but certainly is beautifully scored and contains many inspired passages of woodwind writing.

Although there are passing references to Strauss and Scriabin, the cooler flames of Elgar, Bax, Bridge and Howells are much in evidence. I also hear Pingoud, Raitio and Merikanto in some of Foulds' orchestral textures, and it is probably no coincidence that a Finnish conductor, Sakari Oramo, has produced the best recordings to date of Foulds' music--with apologies to the old Barry Wordsworth LPO performances on Lyrita.

Demonstration-class sound and highly recommended.

"

Romantic Masterpieces

D. A Wend | Buffalo Grove, IL USA | 10/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I got to know John Foulds music through the second CD that was recorded by the CBSO and Sakari Oramo, which led me to get the first. John Foulds was an accomplished and remarkable man whose music - it surprises me - has been unjustly forgotten. The earliest work on this disc, from 1909, is the fourth music-poem Apotheosis, an elegy for orchestra and violin dedicated to the memory of Joseph Joachim. Cast in a single movement, the music is divided into five stanzas and contains allusions to the violin concertos of Beethoven and Brahms. The music begins with a funeral march that is heard again later in the work.

The fifth Music-Poem Mirage was completed in 1910 and is scored for a large orchestra and has six sections which were given titles indicating the philosophical program of the music such as "Immutable Nature" and "Man's ever-ambition." Oddly, the music was rehearsed by the Halle Orchestra but never was played during Fold's lifetime. The music is passionately Romantic with illusions to Wagner and Richard Strauss. A work that aimed at a wider audience was the Lyra Celtica (Celtic Lyre) - a concerto for voice and orchestra. It is an unfinished work with two complete movements with a third partially completed. It is a beautiful and mysterious piece but will not be to everyone's taste as the wordless voice is a work of this length (16:11) can become monotonous.

The Three Mantras come from an abandoned Sandskrit opera called Avatara which was written during the 1920s. The Three Mantras are all of the music that survives from the opera and represents the preludes to each of the three acts and represent the action that will take place. The Mantras work well as concert works with Mantra I a highly energetic toccata representing the theme of activity followed by a movement representing bliss; a peaceful movement that includes a chorus of wordless women's voices. Mantra III, representing Will, returns to the shattering energy of the first movement. The movement contains Foulds' most complex and explosive music.

The music is beautifully recorded and performed. If you like the music of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler and do not know John Foulds you will probably be pleasantly surprised.

"

Foulds gets better as he ages, and the lush "Three Mantras"

Discophage | France | 09/25/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I discovered John Foulds and his music a few years ago, in the early days of the CD era, through his pieces for String Quartets played by the Endellion Quartet on Pearl (Foulds: String Quartets). I was bowled over by their searing lyrical intensity, announcing Britten's three string Quartets. From there, I tried to buy every I could find of Foulds, but there wasn't much then. It slowly trickled, but there still isn't so much of it now. So this recording by Sakari Oramo, and its later companion John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych; Music-Pictures III are more than welcome additions to the discography. I'd like to think that they, along with the recent revival of Foulds' World Requiem (Foulds: A World Requiem [Hybrid SACD]) are annunciatory of a rediscovery of sorts and more recordings. But let us not hope too much and welcome what we get.

That said, I didn't find the works on this disc as original and advanced as the two quartets, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Three Mantras are the only remnants that Foulds salvaged from his projected and abandoned Sanskrit opera "Avatara", on which he worked from 1919 to 1930. The surviving three Mantras were the original preludes to the three acts. They lay unperformed until their first performance in 1988, while the Concert premiere took place only in 1997. They are huge and lush late-Romantic piece, powerful in the two outer Mantras, even savage in the third one, and mysterious and mystic and with subtle timbral colors (and a wordless chorus) in the central one. They are sometimes evocative even of Vaughan Williams, Bloch or Villa Lobos' "Amazonian" compositions.

It so happens that the three Mantras were also featured on one of those earlier Lyrita discs I mentioned above: by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth (John Foulds: Le Cabaret; April-England; Pasquinade; Etc.). While I don't hear much that can give preference to one or the other in the second Mantra (Oramo is more relaxed and languid, Wordsworth more urgent, but the subtle colors and sense of mystery are there), Oramo conducts with more élan and drive than Wordsworth in the first (compare his 5:10 to Wordsworth's 5:57), but in the third he goes more for savage weight than, as Wordsworth, snap and bite. Both approaches are effective and offer valid alternative views. But Warner's more spacious sonics do make a marked difference in favor of Oramo in such lush and powerful music, and, for instance, his climax in the third Mantra (at 5:00) is significantly more powerful and effective than Wordsworth. Three Mantras is an impressive composition, equal to any of the masterpieces of late-Romanticism (you name `em).

Lyra Celtica is a Concerto for voice, that is, wordless vocalise, of which the last movement Foulds never completed. It was presumably written between 1917 and the mid-20s. I wonder why so few have been written, using the voice purely for its instrumental character rather than its ability to convey words. The voice is as beautiful an instrument as any other, and I'd love to hear, say, Renée Fleming performing Sibelius' Violin Concerto. But other than the occasional vocalise-etude, the only substantial compositions in the form that come to mind are Villa Lobos Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras #5, the finale of Vaughan William's Pastoral Symphony and Glière's Concerto for soprano coloratura. To that very short list you can now add Foulds. It is a pleasurable work, lyrical, sunny and insouciant in mood, stylistically well within the mainstream of British music in those years - Delius and Bax come to mind.

The two "Music-Poems" featured here are earlier works and I found them more disappointing. "Apotheosis (Elegy)", subtitled "Music-Poem #4 for Violin and orchestra" was completed in 1909, and on a blind test, I would have thought it were the slow movement of a Violin Concerto by some Brahms epigone - not even Max Bruch, but Hermann Goetz or someone like that, Joachim maybe. And - spot on: it is "dedicated to the memory of Joseph Joachim".

A year later, in 1910, Foulds had advanced a big step: In "Mirage (Music-Poem #5 for orchestra) from 1910", it is first Strauss (Richard) that Foulds sets out to imitate - and Strauss' many styles at that: it starts like Death & Transfiguration, goes on like Don Juan, and then comes a waltz evocative of Salome's Dance or maybe Ravel's La Valse - then Wagner (Siegried's Magic Fire music seems to have made a strong imprint in Foulds imagination). It is an enjoyable composition and has some poetic and evocative moments, and nobody would object if it HAD been written by young Strauss, but under Foulds' pen it does sounds derivative. There is one striking orchestral touch, though: at 1:33 and again 2:25 into the 3rd section (track 12), quarter-tone downward glissandis, which the annotator suggests are evocative of "Man's inevitable decline into despair". It lasts only a few seconds. There is an alternative version of Mirage, the premiere recording by the unlikely Luxembourg Orchestra under Leopold Hager (Masters of the English Musical Renaissance). Oramo conducts it with more bite and urgency.

Outstanding liner notes by the Foulds specialist Malcom MacDonald, and a moving testimony by "Major John Patrick Foulds", John's son. TT a generous 78:13.

"

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