Fanfare Reviews
from September/October 1997

THE GRAINGER EDITION, Volume 4: Works for Wind Orchestra. Timothy Reynish¹ and Clark Rundell² conducting the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra. CHANDOS CHAN 9549 [DDD]; 60:56. Produced by Ralph Couzens. (Distributed by Koch International.)

GRAINGER: Hill Song No. 2². Ye Banks and Braes O'Bonnie Doon². Faeroe Island Dance². The Lads of Wamphray March². Irish Tune from County Derry¹. Shepherds Hey!¹. The Merry King². Molly on the Shore². Country Gardens¹. Colonial Song¹. In a Nutshell Suite: The "Gum-Suckers' March"². Lincolnshire Posy¹.

Considering Grainger's skill and fame as a composer for band, it's surprising how little of his wind music shows up in the catalogs: the only other all-Grainger band collection in the current Opus is a Delos entry featuring the Michigan State University Symphonic Band conducted, in the main, by Keith Brion. Reviewing that earlier CD (14:5), Robert McColley rightly dubbed it "good enough to bring out the estimable qualities of the music." But in the latest installment in Chandos's Grainger project (for more details, see 20:4), the Royal Northern Collegians are a lot better than "good enough," and they show themselves to be more in tune with Grainger's quirky style.

Two differences in approach are especially telling. First, despite cultural clichés about brash Americans, the British group turns out to be less apologetic when it comes to Grainger's earthy colors--his delight in uncouth sonorities (often at registral extremes), and his preference for unexpected instrumental juxtapositions. To give but one example: the opening salvo of The "Gum-Suckers' March" is more pungent, even acrid, on the Chandos release; the Delos version is comparatively bland. Second, the British group is more tolerant of the boisterous disorder of Grainger's polyphony, letting conflicting musical lines crash against each other where the Americans are more apt to usher secondary material politely to the side. Thus, Grainger's late reworking of his perennially popular Country Gardens sounds more grotesque under the Royal Northern Collegians, who make more of its off-kilter harmonies and snarling accompaniments.

The British band plays with more security as well: not necessarily with more exactitude (hardly a virtue in Grainger), but with a bolder pulse and more definitive attacks. This vehemence not only benefits the rough-and-tumble numbers (say, the swaggering Lads of Wamphray March) and the more obstinate efforts (e.g., the Faeroe Island Dance, an obsessive gnawing at a folk tune that Nielsen also set), but also invests the more lyrical music with a stronger rhythmic profile (note how they swing the climax of Colonial Song). To be sure, the two discs overlap on only five items--so the Brion recording still holds an honorable place in the Grainger discography. But if you're looking for a single representation of Grainger's band music, this richly recorded new Chandos disc is the easy choice. Strongly recommended.

Peter J. Rabinowitz

MOZART: Serenades: [No. 10] in Bb for Twelve Wind Instruments and Double Bass, K. 361¹; [No. 12] in C Minor for Wind Octet, K. 388. Philippe Herreweghe conducting the Harmonie de l'Orchestre des Champs Élysées (Marcel Ponseele, Taka Kitazato, oboes; Jane Booth, Laurenzo Coppola, clarinets; Guy Van Waas, Jochen Segelke, basset horns¹; Claude Maury, Petrus Dombrecht, Christophe Feron¹, Denis Maton¹, horns; Marc Vallon, Jean-Louis Fiat, bassoons; Michel Maldonado, double bass¹). HARMONIA MUNDI FRANCE HMC 901570 [DDD]; 70:26. Produced by Jean-Martial Golaz. (Distributed by Harmonia Mundi USA.)

Times change. Thirty years ago, no one would have dreamed of listening seriously to a French recording of Mozart's wind serenades. Though woodwind playing in Paris in those days could on occasion be excellent, the typical 1960s horn-player's saxophonelike tone, wide vibrato, and fallible intonation were ill suited to Mozart's fastidious textures. Now, by contrast, the city's--and much of the country's--musical culture has in this respect caught up with the rest of Western Europe, and you are as likely to encounter a fine performance of Mozart's wind music there as anywhere else.

The irony is that, if their names are anything to go by, not many of the excellent players in the wind ensemble of the Orchestre des Champs Élysées would long survive the advent of a Jean-Marie Le Pen administration. Fully half of the musicians involved, including the conductor, must be either foreigners or the descendants of foreigners, and as such would probably be sent packing in short order, so that the results of the recent French elections must have come as something of a relief to them.

These performances are mostly on a high musical and technical level. They also benefit from an admirably warm and clear sound, in which the double bass--excellently played, moreover--is very effectively balanced with the large wind ensemble of K. 361. Slow movements in both works flow beautifully without ever sounding rushed, and many passages, notably the second trio in the fourth movement of K. 361, are nuanced with delicious artistry. Mozart's characteristic sf and sfp accents are for the most part judiciously observed, though one or two in the initial statement of the Andante theme in the C-Minor Serenade are missed. Tempos are well judged too, with the possible exception of a slightly hasty first Allegro in the same work.

I regret the omission of the second-half repeat in that movement. Less damagingly, the repeats left out in the da capos of the Minuets in both works. I have not had an opportunity to compare these performances with Sir Colin Davis's Bavarian Radio Winds version in an identical coupling on RCA Red Seal, but some of my colleagues in these pages have found his reading of K. 361 a shade on the sober side. One of my own favorite recordings of K. 361, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, seems to have disappeared from the catalogs. In Fanfare 20:4 I wrote enthusiastically about the English Concert Winds' (absolutely complete) Hyperion recording of K. 388, coupled with K. 375 and some operatic arrangements, while missing in it some of the magic achieved on Philips (though regrettably minus too many repeats) by a group under Heinz Holliger's leadership. For a more nearly complete run-down of the competition, I refer you to John Wiser's review of the Linos Ensemble's recording in Fanfare 18:6--even if I can't go along with his cavalier dismissal of the old Furtwängler version.

Bernard Jacobson

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Fanfare Reviews from September/October 1997

Fanfare Reviews
from September/October 1997