Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885)
Piano Works
Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia (piano)
rec. 2024, Opera Studio, Traversara, Ravenna, Italy
Naxos 8.574586 [66]
With reference to Sir Julius Benedict, we are informed on the back cover of this most enterprising of Naxos releases that “his most famous work is the opera The Lily of Killarney.” It might be more accurate to state that it was the only work by which he was known today, and even then only to experts in the field of Victorian opera. Although in that era it had established itself firmly in the repertory as part of the sarcastically so-called “English Ring” (although “Irish Ring” might have been a more apposite description), it has – unlike its bedfellows Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl and Wallace’s Maritana – never been recorded in the modern era, even when other long-neglected Victorian operas have been the subject of both investigation and revival in recent years. It can only be heard in extenso in a couple of BBC broadcast relays online (one restricted to excerpts), although its libretto after a play by Dion Boucicault places it in a literary category a notch above most of its contemporaries. It is intriguing, and frustrating, to learn from Rodney Smith’s lengthy and comprehensive booklet note that Benedict failed during the 1870s to bring to fruition plans for an opera in conjunction with Gilbert.
At all events, we have here a conspectus of Benedict’s piano music written over an extensive period of his composing career, beginning in Germany but ending with fifty years spent in England. Before his emigration he had studied with both Hummel and Weber, and the influence of his teachers lies heavily on his teenage Piano Sonata No 1 which constitutes just over half the music on this disc. Its four extensive movements include a minuet (testimony to his innate conservatism in 1823) and three full essays in sonata form, all of them around 9-10 minutes long. But I have regretfully to observe that, even granted the nature of the sonata as a student work, they do not display any very distinctive signs of individuality. Indeed far too much of the material of the opening movement seems to consist of successions of ascending and descending scales, either in octaves or unaccompanied except for occasional supporting chords. The Andante slow movement has rather more thematic distinction, but only the finale really acquires any signs of personal engagement, with its interesting notion of combining both first and second subjects in a contrapuntal form during the recapitulation (a sort of anticipation of Bruckner), although even here it lacks a real sense of consummation or achievement. The playing by Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia, neat and precise, might have perhaps benefitted from a greater sense of rhythmic and dynamic freedom – although I can understand his unwillingness to offend against what, in that pre-Chopinesque era, would have been regarded as an appropriate classical style. Rodney Smith in his note refers to “beguiling key changes” but I must comment that these seem quite anodyne by comparison with Schubert in the same era, let alone later developments in the nineteenth century.
The other works on this disc, all works of Benedict’s later years, do however demonstrate a greater maturity and sense of engagement. Particularly notable is the Study for the left hand published in Benedict’s final years, which not only displays remarkable skill in the subtle manner in which he contrives to imitate standard two-hand melody-and-accompaniment textures, but also a sense of dark foreboding which brings a sense of depth to the music. The Reverie published in 1848 also has a real personality and emotional weight, although it perhaps extends itself a little too luxuriantly for its limited thematic content. And the undated Gigue ecossaise is a real triumph of what Rodney Smith calls “comedic and characteristic elements” which was presumably designed for popular consumption (although it was only published posthumously) but also displays Benedict’s own wit in a manner that reflects sections in The Lily of Killarney (and makes one lament even further the lost opportunity for collaboration with Gilbert).
Rodney Smith also informs us that Benedict wrote three piano concertos (he was a skilled performer himself), and that music from these was combined into the concert work entitled Andante and Rondo brillante in 1867, although the latter section apparently dates back as far as a piece composed in 1827 (Benedict was always ready to cannibalise earlier works for use in later compositions). It was scored either for piano solo or for piano with orchestra, and as such forms a parallel to pieces such as Chopin’s Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise. Unfortunately by comparison with Chopin’s work, Benedict’s shortcomings are all too evident: not so much in the rather beautiful Andante, which slowly gathers pace into a cadenza, as in the closing rondo section. This, with its emphasis on the upper register of the keyboard (perhaps a reflection of the sound produced by early nineteenth century pianos) results in an effect that could be more accurately described as delicatezze than as brillante, and the conventional nature of the piano transcription of the orchestral writing means that the any sense of contrasting weight is largely sacrificed. The revised work might perhaps have sounded better with orchestral accompaniment, but then Benedict’s orchestration itself appears to have been generally relatively conventional (to judge by a broadcast performance of his Second Symphony available online). The Rondo brillante was recorded in its by Howard Shelley in its original form as the finale of the Third Piano Concerto in 2009 as part of Hyperion’s ‘Romantic Piano Concerto’ series, one of the very few recordings of Benedict in the current catalogue.
In the later works Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia achieves a more sonorous effect from his piano, in an acoustic that sounds finely resonant if a little closely observed by the microphone (this is of course largely a matter of individual taste). His playing is superlatively precise throughout, delicate and impassioned by turns and clearly responsive to the writing. As I have noted, Rodney Smith’s booklet notes are comprehensive and informative (it is clearly hardly his fault that so many of Benedict’s pieces are of uncertain date), and my only criticism of the presentation might be that the pauses between individual tracks are so short that more than once the next piece seems to begin even before the resonance of the previous one has had time to die away. In the end however we must above all be grateful to Naxos and to Nicolò Giuliano Tuccia for their enterprise in exploring an area of the repertoire that must be totally unknown to all but a very few experts in the period. Apart from the recording of the piano concertos mentioned, the only works of Benedict currently available on disc are songs and other miniatures. It would be nice to hear more – and The Lily of Killarney at all events awaits a modern recording.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
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Contents
Piano Sonata No 1 in E, Op.2 (1823)
Scherzo in E (pub.1859)
Study for the left hand (pub.1880s)
Study in A flat (undated)
Reverie, Op.39 (pub.1848)
Gigue écossaise (pub.1904)
Andante and Rondo brillante in A flat (pub.1867)
