Alistair HINTON (b.1950)
String Quintet (1969-1977)
Sarah Leonard (soprano)
Jagdish Mistry (violin)
Marcus Barcham-Stevens (violin)
Levine Andrade (viola)
Michael Stirling ('cello)
Corrado Canonici (double bass)
rec 1999 UK
ALTARUS AIR-CD-9066(3) [3CDs: 41.23+62.45+65.14]

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Alistair Hinton's 2¾ hour String Quintet was written during the second half of the last century. It is written in an idiom no more forbidding than that of Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet and the denser lyricism of Bernard van Dieren and Kaikhosru Sorabji although there are some unapologetically Schoenbergian passages in the finale. Hinton was, after all, a pupil of Humphrey Searle although this is by no stretch of the imagination a doctrinaire work.

The Quintet is remarkable, at one fairly mundane level, for the presence of the double bass when other composers might have been tempted to add a second viola or a second cello to the orthodox string quartet 'unit'. It also strikes me as enigmatic that the title is String Quintet when the singer (a sixth artist) plays such a crucial role in the last movement and that movement lasts far longer than all the other movements put together.

The Quintet is in five movements accommodated here across three CDs. The score runs to 269 pages. The first three movements are on the first disc. The minuscule fourth movement (at only 3.38) is on CD2 together with the start of the fifth movement which is completed on the third disc. The first and fifth movements lack a tempo marking. The first four movements are for instruments only and play for about three quarters of an hour. They are followed by a massive two hour fifth movement in which the string players are joined by soprano Sarah Leonard.

The fifth movement amounts to a song cycle. It follows the anthologising tradition of Bliss (Morning Heroes, Pastoral, Beatitudes), Britten (War Requiem, Spring Symphony) and Mathias (This Worlde's Joie). Hinton sets words by: Arnold Schoenberg, John Keats, Kahlil Gibran, Delius, Milton, Norman Douglas, Sorabji, Tagore, Berlioz, St Thayumanavar and Browning. There are also brief extracts from The Upanishads. The sung words are mostly in English.

Bandings across the three discs are minimal and individual track timings are disdained by Altarus. There is no information about the total playing time of each disc. The message is to ignore such quotidian irrelevances and focus on the music. Who could argue with that. It is only compulsives like yours truly that choose to break the spell by including these details in reviews.

The first movement (23.38) has no tempo marking but seems to be a moderato. Impressions flood in: amongst the first being the spider web diaphanous fantasy of Warlock's string part-writing for The Curlew. Perhaps late Beethoven and certainly Zemlinsky can be heard as well. The first movement, from 23.07, proceeds amid high harmonics in a slowly chanting descent into silence. The second movement (7.14) is a macabre allegro scherzando alive with chittering and a wispy col legno clatter. It has a slight flavour of grand guignol suggestive of Shostakovich. The third movement takes the form of a Theme and variations - adagio. It is of exactly ten minutes duration. This is music of tender reflection - slowly undulating amid dreamlike sentiments like a modern echo of the Schubert String Quintet. You may also think of the quartets of George Rochberg and Robert Simpson; even the pasticcio piano solos of Valentin Silvestrov. The music rises to a pitch of intensity at 7.09 rather like a collision of worlds between Howells and Szymanowski. The end of the movement is in keeping with the heartfelt descent into silence that memorably rounds out the first movement. The final purely instrumental movement is a scherzo - allegro con brio. It is extremely brief at 3.38. The style harks back to Warlock's Curlew, to the hothouse density of Van Dieren's still unrecorded Chinese Symphony, to Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony and to late Goossens.

The fifth and final movement is bigger than the other four movements put together (58.30 of it being accommodated on disc 2). The music can be tense, trembling, intense and sinister (6.30) as well as passionate. It includes some of the most dissonant music experienced across the five movements. Other impressions, before the voice enters at 15.30, include Shostakovich's sardonic serenades and invocations and parallel moods in Frank Bridge's third and fourth string quartets.

At 27.58 bell sounds are 'screeched' down by the violins in a strikingly memorable moment preluding the Keats sonnet written in disgust at vulgar superstition. This theme is dominant across the texts. There is a Zarathustran conviction of confidence in self to the point where the praise of the many is condemnation to those of true judgement and where isolation is extolled. This is so much more than an elevation of the old saying about the 'dogs of village bark but the caravan passes by.' The sentiment is one familiar enough from Sorabji's own writings and from those of Delius. It may perhaps also be echoed by those who are driven to create in the face of an impassive, uninterested, repudiatory or aggressive public. Such a 'reception' to creativity was encountered by Pettersson, Vermeulen and Havergal Brian.

There is a desperate shivering intensity about much of the string writing. Leonard speaks the words of Delius at 39.05. The exact moment (47.18) at which the textual emphasis switches from an attack on populism to the extolling of the mystical qualities and exaltation attained by and through music is pivotal and is soon buoyed up by some sublimely beautiful singing. We encounter this further at 49.00. This is the same direction taken by Savitri in her hymn of love (Holst), by Szymanowski in The Song of the Night, in Holst's Ode to a Grecian Urn (part of the Choral Symphony) and in Patrick Hadley's The Trees So High. The music is also redolent with echoes of parts of the Delius Requiem, the alpine and fulsomely floral fields of Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet and the song of the unborn children in the garden after the torture and execution of Rafi and Pervaneh in Delius's music for Flecker's Hassan. The exhausted bliss of the husks of mortality and the star-scattered souls of Part III of Bantock's Omar Khayyam are also a spiritual triangulation point.

The final movement continues on CD 3 but for a long time without contributions from Ms Leonard. The music sometimes takes on a fugal character. The manner is suggestive of Schoenberg with the music slowly wheeling and spiralling towards what becomes an iterated pavane. This evolving and slowly cycling dance becomes Bach-like being decidedly tonal but antique in feel.

A chugging double bass ushers the pavane out and we return to the Schoenbergian fugal manner. A mephisto quality develops (22.31) with a lacerating violin line which prompts thoughts of Paganini, Schnittke and late Shostakovich.

Sarah Leonard resumes singing at 25.01 amid more atonal writing. This melts away at 30.09 emerging into a Straussian skein of lyrical quietude with the writing prompting thoughts of Strauss's Four Last Songs. There is then an hypnotically steady ascent towards high singing violins (47.11 and 64.00) towards the words 'beauty supreme' rounding out this invocation with high violin harmonics and a tender pianissimo murmur.

The recorded sound is good except for the fallible balance at the start of the Keats sonnet where Leonard's voice takes an unequal and obscured place amid the five instruments. At that point you can hardly hear what she is singing.

In the booklet there are thirteen pages of introductory notes by the composer who appears in two photographs but is inadequately profiled in a single page. It was a missed opportunity not to provide a full list of his works with dates and details (these are now linked to this review). The texts as sung (and sometimes spoken) by Sarah Leonard are printed across ten pages. There are full page photographs and profiles of all the artists involved.

The three CDs are housed in the usual double width coffer.

This ensemble is an ad hoc group whose playing individually and in communion evinces great concentration. I speculate, but I would imagine that the composer must have been very pleased with the results.

The present review must be regarded as a provisional report. Ultimately I hope I might return to report further with more enduring impressions. For now let me sum up: This is a major work that impresses by its obdurate refusal to embrace the obvious and the threadbare and by its sincerity, its subtlety and its lyricism.
Rob Barnett

 
AVAILABILITY
Altarus Records
Easton Dene
Bailbrook Lane
BATH BA1 7AA
United Kingdom
Phone
01225 852323
Fax
01225 852523 +44 1225 852323
E-Mail:
100775.2716@compuserve.com
or
100775,2716@compuserve.com

---

THE MUSIC AND LITERATURE OF ALISTAIR HINTON

CONTENTS
GENERAL INFORMATION 02
CATALOGUE OF MUSIC AND LITERATURE 03
DISCOGRAPHY 06

GENERAL INFORMATION

Alistair Hinton was born in Scotland. Hearing Chopin’s 4th Ballade on the radio at the age of 11 evoked the altogether understandable wish to become a composer; ("I just wanted to know how music was made - and to make some of my own"). His first Sonata for piano was written immediately and displays some facility in its assimilation of fleetingly encountered influences. He continued his musical studies simply by studying music, passionately ("one learns composition by composing, as one learns wine-tasting by tasting wine"). His early work attracted the interest of Benjamin Britten with whose advice and help he attended Royal College of Music London for lessons with Humphrey Searle and Stephen Savage. His music dates from 1962 but he destroyed much of his pre-1985 output.

A significant encouragement of his compositional development was provided by the music, literature and friendship of Parsi composer Sorabji; these played an important rôle in exposing him to crucial formative influences, including Szymanowski, Busoni, van Dieren, Medtner, Godowsky and Stevenson which, together with a deepening admiration for Chopin, were to enhance his love of the piano and preoccupation with the challenge of writing for it.

Having persuaded Sorabji in 1976 to relax the long-standing embargo on public performance of his music, he took an active part in fostering international interest in it. This led to his founding The Sorabji Music Archive, of which he is curator. Based in Bath, England, the organisation was renamed The Sorabji Archive in 1993; it is a research source for performers and scholars, maintains a continuously expanding collection of literature by and about the composer, assists and oversees the compilation of new authentic editions and issues copies of his scores and writings to the public.

He has published articles and reviews in journals including Tempo, The Organ, International Piano Quarterly, The Godowsky Society Newsletter and The Ronald Stevenson Society Newsletter, acted as executive producer of various recordings and contributed to radio and television productions in several countries including USA, Scotland, Netherlands and England. The author of two chapters of the book Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, ed. Paul Rapoport (Scolar Press, UK, 1992, repr. 1994), he also contributed substantial valuable research material to it; he has since assisted another of its contributors, Marc-André Roberge, towards a substantial biographical study of Sorabji due for publication in 2002.

His extant works include a String Quintet, a song-cycle Wings of Death (Tagore), for soprano and orchestra, a Violin Concerto and numerous piano works. His Pansophiæ for John Ogdon, for organ, commissioned in 1990 in memory of the great pianist with whom he collaborated during preparation of his legendary recording of Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum, was first heard in 1991 in a recital devised and given in Ogdon’s honour by Kevin Bowyer. In 1993 he received four commissions, of which the last, Variations for Piano and Orchestra, was completed in February 1996. More recent works include Szymanowski-Etiud, for wind ensemble (1996), Sinfonietta (1997) and a cadenza for Medtner’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (1998) commissioned by Carlo Grante for its Italian première. In 1999 he concentrated principally on chamber music. His Six Songs, Op. 40 were commissioned by the Planet Tree Festival 2000 for the soprano Sarah Leonard. He is currently engaged on a commission for a series of piano pieces entitled Sieben Charakterstücke and a wind ensemble work, Concerto for 22 Instruments.

His piano work Variations and Fugue on a theme of Grieg and his organ works have been released on the prestigious Altarus label. Altarus has also recorded his most ambitious composition to date, the String Quintet, due for release in 2002; they also plan to record other works including his euphonium and piano pieces Conte Fantastique (1999) and Passeggiata Straussiana (1999-2000) and Piano Quintet (1980-81).

Artists who have to date performed, broadcast and recorded his work include pianists Donna Amato, Ian Brown, Carlo Grante, Yonty Solomon, Ronald Stevenson and Nicola Ventrella, sopranos Sarah Leonard and Jane Manning and organist Kevin Bowyer. The participating artists in the String Quintet recording are Jagdish Mistry and Marcus Barcham Stevens (violins), Levine Andrade (viola), Michael Stirling (’cello) and Corrado Canonici (double bass), with Sarah Leonard (soprano).

All enquiries concerning ALISTAIR HINTON are welcome.

© 08 October 2002

CATALOGUE OF MUSIC AND LITERATURE

All items unless otherwise indicated are available from:-

the sorabji archive

EASTON DENE, BAILBROOK LANE, BATH, BA1 7AA, ENGLAND

Tel:	From UK Ex UK	01225 852323 +44 1225 852323			Fax:	From UK Ex UK	01225 852523 +44 1225 852523
E-mail	100775.2716@compuserve.com			Website	www.music.mcgill.ca/~schulman/sorabji.html

Supply format and item description

• All items are issued as duplex (double-sided) photocopies, enlarged where practicable to aid legibility and ring-bound in hard card covers unless otherwise specified or requested; these include new editions, computer-set scores and autograph manuscripts.

Editions

• New editions other than those described as "Publication" are either printed or in the editor’s hand.

Copy quality

• Master copies of all items supplied in photocopy form have been prepared by The Sorabji Archive from original autograph manuscripts and new editions; some early manuscripts were in poor condition at the time these were made.
• All copies supplied are prepared in-house to order. Copy quality is the highest achievable from the originals using our analogue monochrome photocopier which, whilst it has served us well over the years, we hope in the future to replace with an equivalent digital copier (such machines do not, however, come cheap, especially in UK).

A guide to the catalogue

• The Date column gives the year of completion of each work or the years in which it was composed or revised.
• The No. column shows the composer’s work numberings.
• The Dedicatee column shows the names of dedicatees where applicable and known.
• Durations are given in minutes; those of works yet to be performed are allotted estimates in the form "c.[xxx’]".
• The Pages column shows the number of pages in each item and indicates how their prices are calculated.
• The Format column gives paper size / orientation: P = Portrait and L = Landscape.
• The Edition column gives descriptions of the publication format of each item. All items without such a description are copies of the composer’s autograph manuscripts. The designation "Ms." likewise refers to Hinton’s autograph manuscripts but appears only in instances where other edition formats of the same work are also available.
• The Price column shows the amount in £ sterling (GBP) payable for each item including packing and ordinary mailing within UK only; prices remain valid until further notice. Surcharges for guaranteed, express or other special mailing / shipping services and for all orders to be shipped outside UK are quoted on request. In the interests of our valued customers we no longer ship items by sea mail due to adverse past experience; it may in some cases appear somewhat more economical, but we have found it also to be very unreliable. Most of our prices have remained unchanged since the Archive’s foundation, despite increases in costs of materials and shipping.

Payment

Payments are accepted in £ sterling (GBP) only in favour of The Sorabji Archive by any of the following means:

PAYMENT TYPE	PAYMENT CONDITIONS	PAYMENT METHOD
Personal/company cheque		By mail to the above address
Bankers’ draft	Must be negotiable on a UK bank	By mail to the above address
£ sterling Travellers’ cheques		By mail to the above address
Direct credit to our bank	Net of ALL bank / agent charges (our bank makes no charge)	Bank Coutts & Co.	A/c The Sorabji Archive	Sort Code 18-00-02	A/c No. 92313310
Crossed Postal Order		By mail to the above address
International Money Order		At a Post Office or by mail to the above address
Charge Card / Credit Card	Subject to status: please quote: Name as on card Card number & expiry date Address where card is registered	MasterCard / Visa

 

 

This catalogue is regularly updated to incorporate new and newly completed editions, recently discovered works (if any) and other new information. Please refer to copyright date on pages 2 & 6 when comparing earlier issues.

MUSICAL WORKS BY ALISTAIR HINTON

Medium/Title	Date	No.		Dedicatee(s)	Duration	Pages	Format				Edition			Price
SOLO INSTRUMENT(S) AND ORCHESTRA
Violin Concerto No. 1	1979	19		Jane Manning	17’	31			A3P	Full Score			£10
									A4P	Miniature Score			£6
Variations for Piano and Orchestra	1995-96	31		Donna Amato	23’	75			A2P	Full Score			£55
									A3P	Miniature Score			£20
VOICE(S) AND ORCHESTRA
"Wings of Death" (soprano solo) (Tagore)	1970-71	9			35’	51			A3P	Full Score			£14
									A4P	Miniature Score			£8
ORCHESTRA
Sinfonietta	1997	34			9’	51			A2P	Full Score			£42
									A3P	Miniature Score			£15
ORGAN
Pansophiæ for John Ogdon	1990		22	John Ogdon/Kevin Bowyer	44’	44		A3L							£12
Amatory Offertory	1990		23	Chris Rice/Donna Amato	10’	6		A3L							£5
Offrande d’Amour	2002		44	Chris Rice/Mercedes Jeudy	6’	11		A3P							£6
VOICE & PIANO
Five Songs of Tagore (soprano solo)	1970		7		14’	22		A3P							£9
In Solitude - In Plenitude (bass solo)	1996		33		5’	6		A3P							£5
Six Songs (soprano solo)	2000		40	Sarah Leonard	17’	36		A3P							£10
CHAMBER ENSEMBLE/SOLO INSTRUMENT
Piano Trio No. 1	1966		2		7’	12		A3P							£6
Three Pieces, for flute	1966		3		8’	15		A3P							£7
Sonatina, for oboe	1969		4		5’	9		A4P				Edition (Rumson)			£6
												Ms.			£5
Piano Trio No. 2	1970		6	Geoffrey Osborn	12’	19		A3P				Score			£8
												Parts			N/A
Soliloquy, for ’cello	1971		10		4’	3		A4P							£5
Improvisation, for violin	1977		12	Ishani Bhoola	9’	4		A3P							£5
String Quintet (2 violins/viola/’cello/double bass + soprano solo [last movement])	1969-77		13	Sarah Leonard	170’	269		A3P A3P				Full score Parts			£65 £59
						59		A3P				Piano reduction of vocal extracts			£15
Three Page Essay before a Sonata, for oboe and piano	1993		27	Donna Amato/Chris Rice	1’	3		A3P				Score			£5
												Parts			N/A
Szymanowski-Etiud, for 18 wind instruments	1992/96		32	Karol Szymanowski	35’	122		A3P				Score			£37
Conte Fantastique, for euphonium and piano	1999		36	Morten Wensberg/ Donna Amato	8’	16		A3P				Score Part			£8 £5
Sonata, for ’cello and piano	1999		37	Rohan de Saram	20’	39		A3P				Score			£11
												Part			£5
String Quartet No. 1	1999		38	Chris Rice	16’	38		A3P				Score			£11
												Parts			£19
Passeggiata Straussiana, for euphonium and piano	1999-00		39	Morten Wensberg/ Donna Amato	7’	16		A3P				Score Part			£8 £5
Concerto for 22 instruments (Movt. i only)	2000-		41		Movts. ii & iii IN PROGRESS
					11’	56		A3P				Score			£16
Piano Quintet* (Movt. i only)	1980-?				20’*	81		A3L				Score			£25
Duo, for violin and ’cello	2001		42	Jagdish Mistry	23’	47		A3P				Score			£14
Après une lecture de Liszt, for viola and double bass	2001		43	Levine Andrade/	18’	27		A3P				Score			£9
				Corrado Canonici
Medium/Title	Date		No.	Dedicatee(s)	Duration	Pages		Format				Edition			Price
PIANO
Piano Sonata No. 1 (part lost)	1962		1		11’	10		A3P							£5
Piano Sonata No. 2	1969		5		70’	70		A3P							£20
Capriccio	1970		8		3’	3		A3P							£5
Morceau d’Anniversaire pour Kaikhosru Sorabji	1974		11	Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji	2’	3		A3P							£5
"Cabaraphrase" (concert paraphrase on themes from the musical play/film "Cabaret" [John Kander])	1978		14	Neil Rhoden	13’