It’s been a pleasant
hour and a quarter getting to know Samuel Arnold, whom history
has otherwise cast into near oblivion. There are other reviews
on site of this invigorating disc and they delve into Arnold’s
biography in some detail so I shan’t replicate the shilling
facts here.
Arnold was a generation younger than William
Boyce and John Stanley, almost exact contemporaries, whose Handelian
affiliations were more pronounced than in the younger man’s
music. And whilst it can’t really be argued that there is anything
in Arnold’s music so arresting as the symphonies of Boyce or
the organ concertos of Stanley – both were after all composers
of the first order – Arnold does display some gallant gestures
in his Overtures and these are greatly enjoyable.
His ear was certainly
attuned to the developments on the Continent and to the music
of J.C. Bach in particular. His muse is buoyant but concise,
nicely scaled for outdoor performance in Marylebone Gardens.
There are some Mozartian hints in the central movement of the
first overture – I scribbled down Symphony No. 29 but looking
up the respective dates I see that that followed three years
after the publication of Arnold’s set. Still, there is certainly
a generalized awareness of his music that makes itself evident
from time to time and that represents its most contemporaneous
cast. Elsewhere it’s a question of elegance and a certain taciturnity
of expression in the slow movements, a decorous suavity. In
the slow movement of the F major for instance he makes do with
strings alone.
One can certainly
feel the whoosh of the Mannheim Crescendo in the opening Allegro
of the D major [Op.8 No.4] and in passing also note admiration
for the performers’ well-sprung diminuendi on the repeated phrase
of the slow movement of the first D major overture in the set
- there are three in that key. Care over dynamics is an attractive
feature of the performance by the modern instrument Toronto
Chamber Orchestra, though as the notes relate they are versed
in historical practice performance even if they don’t don the
mantle instrumentally themselves.
The incidental music
to Macbeth taps a vein of Scottishry that pleases whilst never
quite impressing. Handel stalks the March with its vigorous
percussion and there’s a Scotch Snap in the Music before
the Play – Birks of Invermay. There’s eventful wind writing
and rhythmic pointing throughout – specifically pipe imitation
- should you be a fan - in The Braes of Ballenden. The
warmth of the writing here and elsewhere makes one wonder as
to what kind of bowdlerised production was being performed.
For the overture to the opera Polly Arnold stitched thirteen
tunes together, balanced with musical appositeness and care,
to create a charming pot-pourri of the pleasures to come.
Mallon is more incisive
with his Toronto forces than he was in the last of his discs
I caught, his Boyce Symphonies, where the recording venue may
have contributed to a certain reticence. Here there is plenty
of thrust and counter-thrust with a recording to match. Clearly
these are no epoch thundering masterpieces but their reclamation
from the shelves is to be admired, and Arnold’s place in the
scheme of things in English music-making of the time is thereby
made more secure. Excellent notes.
Jonathan Woolf
see also Reviews
by Glyn Pursglove and John
France
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