Search - Malcolm Arnold, Vernon Handley, London Philharmonic Orchestra :: Arnold: Beckus the Dandipratt; The Inn of the Sixth Happiness; Flouish for a 21st Birthday; Symphony No. 6; Philharmonic Concerto

A Malcolm Arnold Festival

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 11/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If there is anyone who conducts the music of Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006) better than Vernon Handley, I don't know who it is. This CD is a live recording of a concert by Handley and the London Philharmonic Orchestra during an Arnold Festival in September 2004. Handley has a natural way with Arnold's music which is so immediately accessible in the right hands, but is more complex than it sounds. Handley makes sure that we grasp the main threads of Arnold musical argument, a real plus particularly in the somewhat knotty Sixth Symphony which is given a sterling performance here.



The CD starts with one of Arnold's most popular works -- understandably so -- the comic overture 'Beckus the Dandipratt.' I always smile before I even heard a note of this work because I am always tickled by its title. A 'dandipratt', by the way, is an urchin. This work is Arnold's 'Till Eulenspiegel' and is delightful both for its high spirits and its memorable themes and their inventive handling. The performance here is one of the best I've heard.



Arnold was a busy movie composer and the suite from 'The Inn of the Sixth Happiness' is both typical of Hollywood big-picture music and of Arnold's big-hearted approach to composition. This is a movie, based on a true story, in which Ingrid Bergman plays an Englishwoman who goes to China and ultimately winds up saving the lives of a large number of Chinese children by shepherding them over the mountains to safety just ahead of the Japanese invasion in World War II. There are three sections here: London Prelude, Romantic Interlude, and Happy Ending. The latter accompanies the trek over the mountains and is based on the nursery song 'This Old Man, He Plays One' which Bergman teaches the children to sing to calm their fears. The movement is a set of variations on that well-known tune, marvelous for the changes of instrumental color that Arnold achieves.



'Flourish for a 21st Birthday' (1953) is a rumbustious extended fanfare that Arnold wrote for the LPO on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of their founding. This is its first recording.



The Sixth Symphony, written during a particularly happy period in Arnold's life while he was living in Cornwall, nonetheless contains some of his most angst-ridden music. Two lively movements -- 'energico' and 'con fuoco' and, according to the composer, with some homage to the style of saxophonist Charlie Parker -- surround a slow anguished middle movement, Lento, that the booklet writer likens to Berlioz's 'March to the Scaffold'. I don't hear that, but one cannot doubt that the movement represents a nightmarish period of soul-searching. The agitated contrapuntal finale goes some way to dispel the mood of the Lento but an uneasy undertone persists to the finish.



Arnold wrote his 'Philharmonic Concerto' for his beloved London Philharmonic. It is a concerto for orchestra written for the LPO's 1976 tour of the US during that country's bicentennial celebrations. Arnold wrote that he wanted the piece to contain 'as much brilliance as I am able to muster.' Certainly there is instrumental virtuosity coupled with Arnold's characteristic conservative melodic and harmonic procedures, although there is occasional polytonality. All the principals have ample opportunity to shine. I particularly respond to the lovely viola solo at the beginning of the second movement followed by a lyrically silken violin melody. Orchestration is brilliant throughout and the LPO are at the top of their game.



This is a marvelous collection of some of Arnold's orchestral works with superb playing by the London Philharmonic. One is glad to have more of Vernon Handley's performances of Arnold's works. This collection is a welcome companion to Handley's no-long-available (alas) box set of all the symphonies.



Enthusiastically recommended.



Scott Morrison"

Excellent Arnold Sampler

J. F. Laurson | Washington, DC United States | 12/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Malcolm Arnold's Symphonies are a truly great achievement, not just for an English composer. The music more the vain of Mahler and Shostakovich than Elgar or Vaughan-Williams, it's as far from the "cow-pat" style of music (to use Elisabeth Lutyens' devastating quip). His 9 Symphonies (11, if you include the Symphony for Brass and Symphony for Strings) have been recorded by Handley for Conifer, by Andrew Penny for Naxos and by Hickox (together with Rumon Gamba) for Chandos. Chandos hasn't released a complete set, the Conifer recordings were (briefly?) re-issued by Decca in the UK, and the immensely attractive Naxos "White Box" cycle has been inexplicably taken off the shelves, too. Until they re-appear, this recording on the London Philharmonic's own label is a very attractive introduction to Arnold conducted by Handley. The Sixth Symphony is typical of Arnold's musical bite without being forbidding, the couplings are works Arnold wrote for the orchestra that plays them here."