Grace Williams (1906-1977)
Violin Concerto1 (1949-1950)
Elegy for String Orchestra2 (1936, rev.1940)
Sinfonia concertante for Piano & Orchestra3 (1941)
Geneva Lewis1 (violin), Clare Hammond3 (piano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Jaime Martín1, Ryan Bancroft2, Jac van Steen3 (conductors)
rec. February and September 2022, Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Wales (Elegy & Sinfonia Concertante), August 2023, Royal Albert Hall, London, England (Violin Concerto – live performance)
Lyrita SRCD.447 [59]
Recent years have seen a well-deserved upturn in the number of recordings dedicated to the music of Welsh composer Grace Williams. Leading this charge has been Lyrita who dedicated two fine orchestral collections to Williams back in the days when that represented just about her only presence in the catalogue. Just this year has seen a further pair of Lyrita discs with the Missa Cambrensis enthusiastically welcomed here and here as well as the 1966/BBC Broadcast/Richard Itter recording of her opera The Parlour reviewed here.
Now Lyrita have produced their third Williams disc of the year and it proves to be every bit as enjoyable and engaging as the earlier two. As before, Paul Conway has written and enthusiastic and informative liner note that goes into considerable detail about both the composer and the works. The orchestra for all three works is the ever-impressive BBC National Orchestra of Wales directed by three different conductors, and two soloists. The recordings spanning roughly eighteen months between February 2022 and September 2023. The latest date being a live concert broadcast of the Violin Concerto from the 2023 BBC Proms.
This is the performance that opens the disc and mightily impressive it is too. As a record of a live performance there is a degree of audience ‘participation’ including warm applause at the end. That said the playing of the orchestra and especially soloist Geneva Lewis is outstanding. Lewis is a young New Zealand/American violinist who I had not heard before. By definition this must have been an unfamiliar work for her but she plays it with total technical command and musical authority. This is a work I had only previously heard via a rather murky BBC recording preserved on YouTube played by Yfrah Neaman with Vernon Handley and the BBC Welsh SO (as was) in 1967. I see that Matthew Trussler can also be heard from 2006 in another BBC NOW broadcast which I have not heard. By timings alone this new performance is the broadest, running just shy of 29:00 whereas Neaman was roughly 27:00 and Trussler nearer to 25:00. But in no way does Lewis feel in the slightest “slow”. Key to this is Williams’s marking of “liricamenta” for the opening – longest – movement.
Williams’s musical childhood was in no small way shaped by her experiences accompanying an award-winning choir run by her father. Conway quotes the composer tellingly; “music for me has got to flow, because I have been brought up in the singing tradition”. Singing is exactly what this work and Lewis achieves. Given that Williams was yet another pupil of Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, it is lazily easy to clump her together as ‘just another’ British Pastoralist. Key to dismissing this is the fact that Williams’s other teacher was Egon Wellesz with whom she studied in Vienna. The result is her essentially lyric style being tempered with a little more harmonic ‘steel’ and formal rigour. The wide-arching, yearning solo lines are to a degree reminiscent of Walton but this remains a deeply individual and wholly accomplished work and its relative neglect is genuinely a mystery.
Williams’s proudly-held Welsh roots are displayed in the central Andante sostenuto where the primary material is drawn from the Welsh hymn Yr Hen Dderby first played with exquisite tenderness by the principal oboe of the BBC NOW. Apparently Williams had used the same theme in two previous works; one of which she had withdrawn and on the other occasion as part of a film score that never made it beyond the cutting room floor. Conway quotes Williams as saying; “queer how I clung to that tune – third time lucky!” Another composer quote describes this movement as “contemplative and serene”. Perhaps there is a slight ‘risk’ in having two essentially slow movements adjacent to one another but again credit to the composer and performers for making this rapt movement such an intensely compelling listen. The closing Allegro con spirito follows without a break and has a perky march-like quality perhaps reminiscent of Arnold. Lewis’ consumate playing continues to impress especially in the demanding cadenza. Just when it seems probable that the work will end in serene repose Williams adds a single – fairly unexpected – loud chord which in all honesty sounds slightly forced. Nevertheless this is an admirable work given a genuinely excellent performance.
The Elegy for String Orchestra that follows was originally written some thirteen years before the concerto. Conway describes it as a “brooding deeply personal score” which exhibits a “profound sense of loss” although there is no elaboration about whether the work does memorialise a specific person or event. In just 7:33 Williams concentrates a great deal of powerful and effective string writing again beautifully played by the strings of the BBC NOW here conducted by Ryan Bancroft. Originally written in 1936, it was revised in 1940 although the amount of revision is again not detailed. Perhaps the uncertainties of wartime explain the poignant and sorrowing writing. Certainly this is yet another work that is emotionally engaging and impressively executed so its unfamiliarity is baffling. Again there seems to be an attractive fusion of a kind of pastoral lyricism allied to post-modernist Viennese anguish which finds a degree of resolution by the very last peaceful chord.
Apparently Williams had been considering a large-scale concertante work for piano and orchestra as early as 1934 although she did not commence serious work on it until the same year the Elegy was revised – 1940. Originally titled a “Concerto”, Williams took the advice of pianist Michael Mullinar in 1942 who suggested that Sinfonia Concertante was a more accurate reflection of a work where soloist and orchestra collaborate rather than compete. The soloist here is Clare Hammond (who this same month has a disc released on BIS, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where she plays another British Sinfonia Concertante – the one by Walton). Both this work and the Elegy were made under studio conditions in the Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff. Again the BBC technical team have achieved a very good balance and soundstage and the performance is every bit as authoritative as the previous two. The work – at just 23:27, quite a bit more compact than the Violin Concerto – is in the standard three-movement format with a central Poco Lento. The work again exhibits Williams’ trademark fusion of lyricism with effective orchestration and harmonic tartness. These qualities are most evident in the central movement mentioned above which also has a kind of yearning Romanticism that is relatively uncommon in Williams’s music. Pianist Eluned Davies who gave the work its second performance in 1947 characterised this music perfectly; “Its harmonies move like ocean rollers – slowly, majestically, and above them the melody soars”.
The closing Alla Marcia is not as instantly engaging as this powerful movement, Williams makes much of a slightly nervy dotted marching rhythm which is contrasted with another more flowing theme. The basic tempo is relatively steady although Hammond makes light of the considerable demands of the keyboard writing. Overall this is another work that further showcases Williams’ considerable skills although on a purely personal level it does not engage me as much as the other two works on offer although the central movement is genuinely beautiful. In no way is this a reflection on the performance – simply my response to the music itself.
This is a typically fine Lyrita production both artistically, musically and technically. Paul Conway’s note is a model of information and valuable detail although the liner chooses to omit Williams’s dates and directs the curious to the artist’s own websites for any biographical information. What is never in doubt across this and recent releases is the real quality and individuality of Williams’ music. The hope must be that greater awareness will lead to a wider appreciation and by extension even more recordings and performances.
Nick Barnard
Previous review John Quinn
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