Recorded between 1950
and 1954, in London and Philadelphia
(a rare example of Beecham’s work in
that city) this is an example of perspicacious
programming. What the works share is
the balletic. Sibelius’ The Tempest
was written for a production at the
Royal Theatre Copenhagen in 1926 and
it was Beecham who introduced it to
British audiences eight years later.
He was still playing it twenty years
later when he took part in the 1954
Sibelius Festival with the Helsinki
City Orchestra. The same year that The
Tempest premiered in Stockholm, Lord
Berners’ The Triumph of Neptune opened
in London under Diaghilev’s aegis –
the only English ballet he commissioned
other than Lambert’s Romeo and Juliet.
The book was by Sacheverell Sitwell
and choreography was by Balanchine;
Stravinsky was one of the many who were
impressed by it. Later on it was one
of the pieces toured by Beecham, even
during his (in)famous 1936 and 1937
German tours. He recorded it soon after
the end of the second continental tour.
Meanwhile Richard Arnell has always
credited Beecham with encouragement
and help. Beecham took up a number of
the composer’s works and played them
in New York and London. Punch and the
Child was not actually a Beecham commission
but it has links with the Berners, having
been first performed by Balanchine’s
New York City Ballet. The music from
the ballet was given its British premiere
by Beecham in 1949 and this recording
followed in May of the following year.
All three performances
are vivacious and beautifully played
examples of Beecham’s idiomatic understanding.
The Sibelius features those famous principals
in characterful form albeit Beecham
does rather chop and change the pieces
– there’s no Prelude and other movements
(Harvesters and the Interlude) from
the first suite and the Dance Episode
from the second are also missing. Nevertheless
we can admire the hints of strength
and menace in Caliban’s Song and the
strange power held by The Oak Tree.
Similarly one feels that the soloists
have sufficient room to breathe and
to phrase in the Canon. The moulding
of the Chorus of the Winds is splendid
and the succeeding Intermezzo finds
an emotive congruity with the preceding
one in Beecham’s hands. There’s a delicious
lilt to the Dance of the Nymphs and
a wonderfully Handelian Prospero, full
of baroque gravity. I particularly admired
the play of upper and lower strings
in Miranda and the accomplished Storm
with which Beecham ends this invigorating
performance.
Even though Beecham
had recorded the Berners before the
War, as indeed he had the Sibelius,
it’s still richly entertaining to hear
the Philadelphians under his lead. There’s
fizz and sauce a-plenty here, not just
in the bagpipery and singing of the
Schottische or the drunken crooning
of The Sailor’s Return but also in the
riotous Hornpipe and the reserved burnish
of the strings in The Frozen Forest.
This movement is notable also for the
wind tracery and vague Russo-Englishry
of the writing. The singer by the way
is not identified here; it was R Grooters.
Arnell certainly wrote
an arresting and punchy work, wonderfully
evoking what Beecham later asked him
to do with a work commissioned for the
RPO to play at the 1956 Edinburgh Festival;
Write me a Concertante piece for
the orchestra, to show them off well,
but not a symphony, my boy. There
are too many British symphonies this
year, or any other year, for that matter.
(Cheltenham ones presumably)
In that case he wrote Landscapes
and Figures but Punch and the Child
serves almost as well in its transported
form from ballet to concert work. This
is a driving and vivacious piece of
writing fully reflecting the outsize
theme of the ballet. All sections get
a chance to impress, from delicious
winds to muted brass to the increasingly
malign patina of the Second Scene. This
works very well as an orchestral tour
de force with its flourish and drama,
the bold burnish and melodrama intact.
Amidst all the tumult though is the
serene and moving Recapitulation, Barber-like
in its serenity.
Graham Melville-Mason’s
notes are a constant adornment to this
series, introducing just the right weight
of incident and historical detail. Both
the Arnell and Berners were last available
on Sony SBK62748 but this is another
splendid entrant in the uniform Beecham
series from Sony.
Jonathan Woolf
see also
review by Rob Barnett
Sony
Beecham CBS Edition
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
