Frederick Delius: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello (1915) LP Raymond Cohen

	£		15
	$		20

Frederick Delius: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello (1915)

Raymond Cohen - violin, Gerald Warburg - cello. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar

?

Alan Bush: Variations, Nocturne and Finale on an old English Sea-Song

David Wilde - piano, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Snashall

?

UK 1966 LP Pye Records Catalogue GSGC 14073 (Stereo)

?

The invaluable website of the Delius Trust and Delius Society permits to flesh out the scanty information given about the Double Concerto. This was its premiere recording, made in September 1965 and first issued on Pye, Golden Guinea Collector Series, GSGL 14073. The Bush Variations were the original pairing (I've found the LP on eBay and there, the "Nocturn" was called "Nocturne"). The work has remained rare on disc, still today, with only three more recordings since: Menuhin-Tortelier-RPO-Meredith Davies for EMI in June 1976 (on EMI Studio, paired with Brahms' Double, Brahms / Delius: Double Concertos), Tasmin Little and Raphael Wallfish under Charles Mackerras with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in July 1991 on EMI Classics for Pleasure (Paris Song of a Great City), and Tasmin Little again, now with Paul Watkins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davies, a recent Chandos SACD recorded in October 2010 (Delius: Double Concerto; Violin Concerto; Cello Concerto).

Written in 1915 or 1916 (sources differ) and a work of its composer's maturity, Delius' Double Concerto is everything you expect from that composer, especially if you are already familiar with the Violin Concerto from the same year(s), which has slightly more currency thanks to the early recordings of its premiere performer Albert Sammons (1944 with Sargent, I have it on Dutton, Sammons Plays Delius & Elgar) and of Jean Pougnet with Sir Thomas Beecham in 1946, Violin Concerto (and Tasmin Little also made two recordings, with the same two conductors as her Double Concertos, Frederick Delius Violin Concerto et al Tasmin Little (Argo), and on the same 2010 Chandos CD as above): one long (here 21:27) songful, all-out romantic melody, heart-on-sleeve lyrical, often intense and emotional in its lyricism but never brutal and aggressive, with an orchestra that, except for a few dialogues with solo woodwinds, remains always in the role of a background support, never that of a confrontational sparring-partner. One of the most remarkable features of Delius' writing is that you can't really say that the two soloists "dialogue" with each other: they don't toss around phrases, they constantly sing together, as if cello and violin were one single instrument spanning five octaves. As the Violin Concerto I don't think the Double Concerto is a masterpiece - it runs too much in the same sentimental and lyrical mood and lacks a few edges for that - but it is certainly a masterpiece in its limited genre and mood and its soaring lyricism certainly offers its rewards.

Norman Del Mar is a noted conductor of British music, with soloists, Raymond Cohen and Gerald Warburg talented but no well known. Proof again that you don't have to be well-known to be a fine musician. Score in hand, the performers respond with admirable precision, beautiful tone and great musicality to the myriad changes of tempo and mood, the sonics and transfer are great, the recording pickup is very natural, meaning that the two soloists are embedded into the orchestral sound rather than artificially sticking out of it, the cello is sometimes covered by the violin and some of the woodwind solos are occasionally covered by the soloists, but nothing essential is amiss. Ten years later, Menuhin and Tortelier's impassioned reading was strongly spotlighted by EMI's sonic pickup: nothing of the cello was lost, but the woodwinds could barely be heard, and the two soloists' undue prominence and very emotional playing turned the concerto almost into a sonata for violin and cello, which their highly emotional playing sentimentalized a little too much for its own good. Ultimately I find that Cohen and Warburg's greater restraint and their more embedded presence into the orchestra's texture, Symphonie concertante-like, serves the composition better.

The disc's main interest is Delius' Concerto I think, and it certainly was for me. The Alan Bush Music Trust provides the desired info about the composer's Variations NocturnE (indeed) and Finale. It was composed in 1962 and premiered at the Cheltenham Festival in July 1965 by the same David Wilde who performs it here. "The theme is an 18th century whalemen's ballad called 'Blow, ye winds'; and it is followed by 13 variations, of which the last three are in the style of piano studies, with orchestral accompaniment. The next movement is a Nocturne, which `evokes the nostalgia of a long voyage', while the Finale suggests 'the excitement, dangers and glory of a triumphant chase`. In these two movements, as in the variations, the musical material is derived from the ballad theme". It is an agreeable piece that breaks no grounds and plumbs no depths, developing, in the course of its 20 minutes, what could be considered to be a safe and traditional 20th century language even if the piece had been composed 20 years earlier, around a theme strongly evocative of the kind of music Percy Grainger made music with. But it has moments of fine and hazy atmospheres produced by the piano resonance, and its toccata-like variations and Finale have an exciting sweep.

Sleeve EX--

Record EX

P&P UK £4.00 Overseas at cost