Best "obscure composer" recording of the year!!
T. Hurst | Nevada, USA | 07/14/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"What a wonderful CD - the best I've purchased in a very long time. An exceptionally enjoyable and interesting piece of neo-romantic music, complemented by a nice performance and recording. Thorough notes, too. Sir Donald Tovey (1875-1940), a noted academic and writer _on_ music, shows here that he is also a writer _of_ music to be reckoned with. Obscure, certainly, but why I couldn't say. In my view Tovey is very much the equal of Edward Elgar or Ralph Vaughan Williams - truly an undiscovered gem. Peter Shore, a distant relative of Tovey and the instigator of the present recording, has written (on Musicweb) an interesting story about how this recording came about and was made. If you buy this Symphony recording, you'll certainly be inspired to explore upcoming Tovey recordings on the Toccata label - I'm told by the label that they have already recorded Tovey's Cello Concerto - its first recording since 1937, I believe - and will release it sometime in the Fall of 2006."
THE REMOTER OUTSKIRTS OF D MINOR
DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 10/22/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"If you are familiar with the idiom of Tovey's Essays in Musical Analysis, you will recognise the author of the phrase I have taken for my caption. Tovey's writings on music are works of little less than genius, for all their innumerable failings in care and accuracy. For a century or so they informed, educated and inspired young people who were starting to sense what it is that makes music something unique on this earth, and they worked their magic by means of a writing style in which the author's sheer enthusiasm and love of his subject effectively masked the depth of his conservatism. Tovey could entrance a 14-year-old (believe me) with talk about second subjects, canons by inversion in double counterpoint, modulations to the submediant, dominant preparation and cadence themes.
His own view of himself was that he was a `musician' rather than a writer. His talents as a performer are well attested, but from the reports I have read of his gigs 100 years ago I sense that his real urge was to be a musical communicator, to bring to the widest possible public the sublime creations that inspired his own entire life. The concerts, essays, lectures, broadcasts and involvement in inter-wars Workers' Education projects were all part of this. However his English gentleman's sense of obligation was still not satisfied, and he conceived it his duty to contribute the small flora of his own creativity to the garden of the muses that he tended so assiduously. At that rate I must believe it my own duty to someone who did so much for me to take an interest in his compositions, so now I have the chance to add his symphony and the prelude to his opera to my record collection that already contains his piano concerto.
The 4-star rating that I have offered relates to the performances here and the recorded quality. It's not a matter of what I think of the music, but as that must be unfamiliar to most music lovers a conscientious reviewer ought to do his best with that question as well. I'd say the prelude is actually very - I had almost said `surprisingly' - interesting. It is not like Wagner in idiom, but in its general tone it recalled to me the Vorspiel to Parsifal. It is mainly quiet but rising to a slow climax rather in the Parsifal manner, it is extremely beautiful in sound, the melodic inspiration seems to me genuine and not ersatz or contrived, and I would like to see some enterprising musical director try to get it established in the standard concert repertory. It lasts only 5 or 6 minutes after all, and while I would not call it the equal of the Parsifal job or of Vaughan Williams's great Tallis Fantasia there is a lot of music that is routinely trotted out month upon month that I would not call the equal of those.
I reacted to the symphony much as I did to the piano concerto, which is to say with polite but tepid interest. It lasts all but a full hour, although I suspect that a livelier speed in the scherzo could reduce that time to everyone's benefit. In general the performance does not strike me as being of quite 5-star standard. The orchestra is obviously not the Berliner Philharmoniker, but that is not my main worry. Even in the prelude, the tone of the climaxes is a little bit lacking in fullness of sound, but what I miss more is vitality in various respects. Tovey revised the tempo indications `downwards' in both of the first two movements, but the scherzo is still `vivace ma non troppo presto', and the latter qualification is taken so literally that the whole movement seems more than a little flaccid. Sensing my interest flagging in sympathy, I sought inspiration in the great man's own analytical note, not really expecting that he could still fill me with wonder and awe as he had done 50 and more years ago. As always, we hear all about the various themes, and the thought crossed my mind that it might have been a good idea if the conductor had heightened the `profile' of these a bit more. Give or take specifics like this, what I would have welcomed in general would have been greater impetus and particularly more sense of conviction in the climaxes.
The recorded quality gets no complaints from me; and of course the main liner-note material is by you-know-who. It's probably a little silly for a composer to comment on his own work in this way, but when I read that Tovey had written a 41-page synopsis of the opera I realised that we are getting off lightly here. With most composers the music is the thing; with Tovey, well, the thing is really what he says about music. That is what I appreciate him for, but I genuinely appreciate the chance I have been given to hear these pleasant compositions, and they will be getting more hearings than the two I have so far given them."
Track Listings (5) - Disc #1