Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
King of Kings
Orchestrations by Sir Andrew Davis
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis, Martyn Brabbins
rec. 2023/2024, MediaCityUK, Salford, UK
Chandos CHAN20400 [68]
What a joyous, life-affirming recording this is! Alongside the usual technical and musical high-quality synonymous with Chandos, we have here an hour’s worth of the most glorious music lovingly arranged and played with great beauty and warmth. I cannot imagine a more fitting and uplifting tribute to the enduring legacy of Sir Andrew Davis. The listening world will always divide into those who find arrangements or orchestrations of existing music to be aberrations and distortions of the original, and those who find them to be rather wonderful and often revelatory. I am firmly in the latter group and these new orchestrations by Sir Andrew Davis triumphantly reaffirm the value of such works in throwing new light onto the process of composition, form and indeed performance.
The bulk of the arrangements were made by Sir Andrew Davis in 2023-2024 and he went into the studio to record four of them in November 2023 with a further group of sessions scheduled for the following September. Sadly, he died just five months after the first sessions shortly after his 80th birthday. Fortunately, Martyn Brabbins – the perfect alternative conductor alike ro Davis in manner, musicality and collegiate approach – agreed to complete the project and the result is the recording presented here. One of many remarkable features of this collection is the vibrancy and wittiness of the arrangements. By the time they were being created not only was Davis nearing his 80th birthday but he was also battling the leukaemia that was to take his life all too soon. Yet life-affirming, as I said at the beginning of this review, is the quality I hear most. There is a kind of cheeky irreverence too that I find wholly engaging. A beaming Sir Andrew on the CD cover seems to dare the listener not to be entertained. In the warmly affectionate and personal liner written by the recording’s producer Mike George, he relates the last written exchange he had with Davis regarding one of the arrangements; “…I have in mind a little joke at the end however….” he wrote. I find this approach to Bach very refreshing – too often the genuinely great music written by a genius can feel weighed down by an overly reverential and sober approach. Clearly, Davis knew this music deeply – he was an organ scholar at Kings College Cambridge for four years working alongside Sir David Willcocks and then played keyboard on many of the great early recordings of The Academy of St. Martins in the Fields. These works were in his musical DNA but not to the point of them becoming ‘religious icons’ that could never be touched.
Of course Davis is by no means the first conductor (let alone composer) to rise to the challenge of arranging these often monumental works for modern symphony orchestra. Stokowski’s name is probably the one most synonymous with such arrangements but a wonderful collection on Chandos titled Bach – The Conductors’ Transcriptions from 2004 underlines the fact that many great conductors have risen to this particular challenge. To that roster of illustrious musicians must now be added the name of Sir Andrew Davis. Davis demonstrated his skills in his reorchestration of the complete Messiah for Chandos which I enthusiastically reviewed in 2016 here. Returning to that review I was struck by my closing paragraph which I find equally applicable here to this Bach collection; “What does shine through this project first and foremost is Davis’ love for the work and his wish to serve it….. This is a project executed with above all passion with no room for complacency. In no way is this just another Messiah. Individual listeners will know before they try or buy whether the concept behind this new version will appeal. If you think that it will then prepare to be delighted, occasionally surprised, occasionally perplexed but more often than not thrilled by the majesty of this enduringly glorious music. A performance I will return to often and with great pleasure.”
There are so many fascinating and unexpected details in these arrangements. Davis, dating right back to his work as a continuo player for the AoSMF under Neville Marriner was exposed to the early embracing of historically informed practice with clean textures and bright tempi replacing the heavy, even lugubrious style often prevalent at the time. Clearly his choice of instrumentation here is not at all authentic but the spirit remains. Tempi always flow and textures are mainly kept light and clear. Davis does deploy a large orchestra but very often this is a question of registration rather than orchestration. The inner organist in Davis knows how and when to highlight musical paragraphs by switching from a wind to a string group for example. There are not many passages where Davis deploys textbook doublings of say flute with violin or bassoon and cello which thicken lines and add tonal weight. However, there are quirks too – Davis has quite a predilection for tuned percussion. So while glockenspiel (or celeste), vibraphone and even marimba will never dominate or lead a musical line their presence as a doubling instrument creates an aural halo around that line which is quite striking. This effect is one Korngold uses to great effect (using harps too – as does Davis) in his scores. Another composer brought to mind is Percy Grainger whose “elastic scoring” I can imagine Davis finding both effective and entertaining. Worth remembering that Davis conducted an appendix to the Chandos Grainger edition Works for Large Chorus and Orchestra.
Davis’ refusal to stick with arranging convention is evident in the very first bars of the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor that opens the disc. This is of course the work made famous in the Stokowski transcription and its subsequent use in Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia” although Davis characterised his own version as “anything less like Stokowski is hard to imagine”. The way the orchestra is handled suggests that Davis as organist preferred a lighter ‘lifted’ feel to this famously monumental music. As with so much Bach – it should, and does here, dance. Davis envisaged this programme to be based around four ‘big’ bi-partite works; the aforementioned Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565 and then the ‘Great’ Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV542, the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV582 and finally the biggest of all the Prelude and Fugue in E flat major ‘St. Anne’ BWV552. Between these are a series of beautifully played meditative Chorale Preludes. At the earlier sessions Davis oversaw four of the works including the ‘big’ BWV582 and 552 which means that Martyn Brabbins was responsible for the bulk of the programme. It is a measure of the success of this project that the two sets of sessions and conductors flow together so seamlessly. Both are non interventionist conductors allowing these remarkable works to simply unfold completely naturally – nothing is forced or over pointed.
The earliest arrangement dates from 2003-04 of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV582 which Davis made when looking for a work to preface a series of performances of a Bach cantata in San Francisco. This is a mighty work that has beguiled arrangers from Stokowski to Respighi – Carl Davis’ part-orchestration that he used in the score for the silent movie Napoleon is likewise superb. Right at the outset of the work Davis makes a novel choice with staccato notes on a piano emphasising the sustained repeating passacaglia bass line. George details what he calls a “highly distinctive sound-world… at once ancient and modern”. That description again fits the entire programme. I must admit I am not completely convinced by the staccato piano as I do not understand what that very distinctive overlaying of short and long timbres seeks to achieve. But that is part of the delight of this kind of novel and unusual reappraisal of familiar music where preconceptions and assumptions are challenged.
Wonderfully grand though the big four bi-partite works are, a particular gem in this collection is the chorale prelude Herzlich tut mich verlangen. This really does embody in just 2:11 the beauty and brilliance of this disc – in terms of playing and engineering as well as arranging. Here Davis dispenses with the upper strings creating a warm bed of tone by using bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet and a pair of bassoons. This supports the exquisitely beautiful melody played on the flugelhorn here by the BBC PO’s principal trumpet Thomas Fountain. Fountain adds just a hint of vibrato to his tone to magical effect. The collection ends though with the grandest work and arrangement – Prelude and Fugue in E flat major ‘St. Anne’ BWV552 which happily Sir Andrew did conduct. Again there is a strong sense of him arranging the work from the viewpoint of experienced organist choosing instrumental groups as ‘registrations’ which helps guide the listener’s ear through the dense complexity and sheer brilliance of Bach’s contrapuntal writing which inexorably builds to one final glorious affirmation.
Although clearly not originally intended as any kind of memorial CD, given Sir Andrew’s life-long association with the organ, his skill as an arranger and conductor and his affinity for this music it is hard to imagine one better suited for the role. Unalloyed pleasure from first note to last.
Nick Barnard
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Contents
Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731*
In dulci jubilo, BWV 608
Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn, BWV 630
Fantasia & Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 “The Great”
Herzlich tut mich verlangen, BWV 727
O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622
Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582*
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
Organ Trio super “Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend”, BWV 655*
Prelude & Fugue in E-Flat Major, BWV 552 “St. Anne”*
* Conducted by Sir Andrew Davis
