Elisabetta Brusa (b. 1954)
Symphony no. 1, op. 10 (1988-90)
Merlin – Symphonic Poem, op. 20 (2004)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Daniele Rustioni
rec. 2018, Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, UK
Naxos 8.573437 [60]
I am a late arrival to the music of the Italian-British composer Elisabetta Brusa. The site welcomed this composer’s outings some years ago. This entailed two earlier Naxos 21st Century Classics volumes (review ~ review). The present disc is Volume 3 in the Naxos schema of this composer’s orchestral works.
On the evidence of the present disc, Ms Brusa is a melodist and an ambitious one at that. The forms, themes, melodic language and expressive style she adopts are all from the top drawer of the 19th century. Look at this entry: a symphonic poem on a Welsh-Celtic-Arthurian magical subject and a Symphony. The Symphony runs to 50 mins across four purposeful and determined movements. The work’s progress describes a traditional symphonic parabola. The “floor plan” comprises four movements bearing traditional expressive names: I. Allegro ma non troppo 11:46; II. Adagio 17:09; III. Allegro moderato 7:38; IV. Adagio 12:28. There’s a strong vivid illustrative aspect to this music. It tells a story and establishes a mood and a setting. This carries over into the taut little symphonic poem Merlin. This is about the duration of a concert overture but it feels symphonic and is both persistently romantic and indomitable.
The music is unafraid of repetition but is not minimalist. At close quarters, Brusa speaks in much the same terms as Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams. I also detect a fellow feeling, no doubt unconsciously absorbed, with the orchestral music of William Alwyn (First and Fifth Symphonies).
Rustioni and the ever-adaptable RSNO have absorbed the Brusa voice and express it with conviction. This conductor is a familiar figure although at this stage in his career there have not been hordes of recordings. I recall him as the conductor of a stunningly vigorous Mendelssohn Italian at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall (review). His wife is the violinist Francesca Dego who has been taken up by Chandos. In Birmingham she championed a very unfashionable and brimmingly romantic Violin Concerto: the one by Wolf-Ferrari.
The Merlin theme is picked up in the booklet cover which incorporates the painting “The Beguiling of Merlin” by Edward Burne-Jones. This Pre-Raphaelite enthusiasm happens to have been shared with Alwyn, who was beguiled by the that school. The liner-notes are by Gilberto Serembe. As to the technical side, we are in the securely imaginative hands of Mike Clements (engineer) and Andrew Walton (producer): no shortcomings there.
Rob Barnett
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