Phantasy
Piatti Quartet
Zahra Benyounes (viola), Adrian Bradbury (cello)
Tom Hancox (flute), Chris Richards (clarinet)
James Gilchrist (tenor), Sharon Carty (mezzo-soprano)
rec. 2024, St Silas Church, Kentish Town, London
Reviewed from digital download
Rubicon RCD1130 [62]
Apart from one interloper, all the works here are linked to the music patron Walter Cobbett (1847 – 1937). Cobbett was a successful businessman and chamber music patron who, inspired by his love of 16th and 17th century instrumental ‘fancies’, in 1905 created a competition for British composers; the prize was for a ‘Phantasy’ with no work to exceed fifteen minutes. The first prize that year was the substantial sum of 50 guineas, and went to William Hurlstone, one of 67 entrants. The initial competitions ran until 1919, with Herbert Howells entering in 1917 and Ina Boyle in 1919. They restarted under a slightly different format in 1923, running until 1950. The nineteen-year-old Malcolm Arnold entered his work in 1941.
In addition to the competition, Cobbett commissioned new works and this is how Vaughan Williams Phantasy Quintet of 1912 came to be. Vaughan Williams seems to have enjoyed the freedom of the phantasy form, which is open to interpretation, and the work unfolds in a wholly natural and engaging way. Although the four movements play without a break, they do still sound like four separate movements. Written in the same period as the Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis and the London Symphony, it is one of my favourite Vaughan Williams works and successfully blends folk-like elements with moments of contemplation alongside a few surprises.
The work opens with an elegiac modal solo on the first viola, which was Vaughan Williams’ own instrument. The rich texture created by the addition of a second viola and the exquisitely connected playing by the Piatti players gives the movement, as the notes rightly observe, more than a hint of the Tallis Fantasia. Next comes a dynamic scherzo in the unusual time of 7/4 which is very Holstian and which the players here draw every bit of dynamic variation. The ‘Alla Sarabanda’ dispenses with the cello while the other instruments are muted. It is one of the composer’s contemplative movements and, even in its brevity, a real balm to the soul. Here, the quartet achieve the most unbelievable pianissimos while maintaining a rich velvety tone. I found myself holding my breath while listening to it. The finale, marked ‘Burlesca’, is in several contrasting sections and like Vaughan Williams ‘The Running Set’ it sounds as though it could be used for a folk dance gathering. The return of the elegiac Prelude music reins in the hijinks, and after a tiny outburst of dance music, the work ends quietly. This is a superb performance of the work. The dance-like elements are vigorous and fun while the mediative music draws the ear in.
The Irish composer Ina Boyle, who in the 1920s became a pupil of Vaughan Williams, entered her Phantasy Sonata for viola and piano in the 1919 Cobbett Competition. She was unsuccessful as she misinterpreted the rules which had asked for ‘piano and strings.’ Boyle’s musical career suffered, as did that of many female composers of the time, by her having to juggle family life and expectations with her composing. She did however compose regularly but performances were very few and far between. The Piatti recorded her E minor String Quartet three years ago (review).
Her Lament for Bion was written in 1945 when she tried unsuccessfully to have it performed. She then entered it in the music category of the 1948 London Olympics, where it was awarded a Diplôme d’honneur. Even after that, it did not receive a performance until 2022. Scored for tenor and string quartet, it is a dark, atmospheric and deeply emotional setting, in 5/4, of extracts from a Greek poem maybe by the third century poet Moschus in an English translation by John Maxwell Edmonds. Echoes of Vaughan Williams and Finzi are clearly heard but it is far more than imitation. James Gilchrist has a rich tenor voice, and we can hear every word of the poem, but he has too wide a vibrato for my taste.
Dark, atmospheric and deeply emotional could also describe the next work, Boyle’s 1948 setting of Edith Sitwell’s war poem ‘Still Falls the Rain’. The poem, subtitled ‘The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn’ is an allegory of Christ’s passion. This version is very different to Britten’s later dramatic setting of the same poem for tenor, horn and piano, and I found the chanting nature of much of the vocal setting less than engaging It only really came alive for me in the setting of the final two stanzas. The hushed final moments are very moving. The score calls for a contralto, a voice I associate with a rich velvety sound; Sharon Carty’s mezzosoprano seemed to me too light here.
Dame Elizabeth Machonchy wrote of her close friend Boyle, “Her music is predominantly quiet and serious, never brilliant, though it has its moments of wit or passion.” That is certainly true of the works here. I note that recently the Ina Boyle Trust have entered into a partnership with Faber Music to make many of her scores available, so we will hopefully get to hear more of her well-crafted music.
Listening to Howells’ Phantasy Quartet, it is easy to see why he was considered the most gifted of Stanford’s then pupils. It is a work of brilliant economic construction that in its thirteen minutes contains so much variety. It is therefore extraordinary that Howells came second in the 1917 competition to the now forgotten Harry Waldo Warner who won with his Folk-song Phantasy on ‘Dance to Your Daddy’, which, being a Geordie, I would love to hear.
The 1917 competition was for a Folksong Phantasy, though the panel seem to have been quite open minded, as the Howells work uses no traditional folk songs, rather melodies of his own in a folk song style. Howells’ work sounds very sober when compared to the Vaughan Williams. It is certainly pastoral, but any overt ebullience is kept firmly in check until circa eight minutes in, when a dance is briefly allowed to take off. Before that, Howells explores his ‘folksong’ material through expert quartet writing, double stops on all the instruments add richness to the textures and careful solos and judicially placed duets gives the effect of a larger group. It is all beautifully managed by the quartet who play with just the right amount of vibrato and some daringly placed portamento links.
After the previous works on this recording, Malcolm Arnold’s Phantasy, written when he was just nineteen, comes as quite a surprise – and a good one. Though it was not good enough to win first prize, which went to his friend Ruth Gipps, Arnold told me that he had written the work at the last minute, and at great speed, and indeed the score bears the dates June 6th – 11th 1941. The sixteen pages of the manuscript are crammed full of notes that seem in danger of falling – and indeed do fall – off the page; he drew extra lines on some pages to accommodate the notes and one page spills into the next. There are crossings out and blotches which indicate he was composing straight onto the paper. The quartet had originally been called ‘Vita Abundans’, but when he found out the requirements for the competition, that title is crossed out and ‘A Phantasy forstring quartet’substituted.
It is proto-Arnold, featuring disparate elements, sly hints of the nightclub alongside Bartokian outbursts. Structurally the piece is three sections: moderate, slow, fast, with coda, and all of the sections are based on the material heard in the first few bars. It is a hard work to bring off, as the players need to pull all the very different elements into a satisfying whole. They do not hold back. The slinky opening melody is just the right side of sleazy, the aggressive pizzicati are sufficiently violent, the slow section marked andante to be played molto espressivo and with dynamics ranging from pp to fff is held in check. The quartet manage to capture something of the excitement Arnold clearly felt in rushing to get the notes on paper. It is easily the best performance I have heard.
Augusta Holmès was born in Paris to an Irish father and Scottish mother and became a naturalised French citizen in 1871. I am not at all sure why she is included on the disc as there is no Cobbett connection. She was a prolific composer, and a close friend of Franck with whom she studied. Noël d’Irlande, the seventh of her ’Vingt Mélodies’, published in 1897 is here given in an arrangement by Michael Small for cello and string quartet. A snowy Irish landscape is effectively portrayed, and Ann Richardson is a fervent soloist. But why is it here?
The disc ends with a tiny work by Tippett. He did not win the Cobbett Prize but was awarded the 1948 Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music. To commemorate Stravinsky’s death in April 1971, the music journal Tempo commissioned a number of composers to write very short pieces as tributes. Tippett’s publisher Schott notes the work as lasting one minute but here it is barely thirty seconds. A passionate rising figure leading to some wind fluttering a quiet chord and the work is over. An enigmatic aphorism capturing a moment of grief that is a curious ending to the programme.
The programme shows what a fine group of players the Piatti are. When needed, they play with a wonderful earthy vigour and at other times are beautifully poetic. They demonstrate wonderful musicianship throughout and make their guests very welcome. The liner notes, though brief, are informative and give us texts for the vocal works.
Paul RW Jackson
Contents
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Phantasy Quintet (1912)
Ina Boyle (1889–1967)
Lament for Bion (1945)*
Still Falls the Rain (1948)*
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Phantasy String Quartet (1917)
Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)
Phantasy for String Quartet ‘Vita Abundans’ (1941)
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Vingt Mélodies No. 7, Noël d’Irlande (1897)(arr. by Michael Small)
Sir Michael Tippett (1902-1998)
In Memoriam Magistri (1972)*
* world premiere recordings
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