Robin Stevens (1958-2026)
Orchestral Music Volume Two
Oceanic Lullaby for solo oboe and small orchestra (1999, orch. 2009)
Cello Concerto (2018-2020)
Into the Deep (2025)
First recordings
Alice Neary (cello)
Stéphane Rancourt (oboe)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Paul Mann
rec. 2025, RSNO Centre, Glasgow
Toccata Classics TOCC0764 [58]

When I reviewed volume one in this series (review), the composer was still alive but having battled cancer for many years, sadly he died in January this year. In spite of his illness, he was indefatigable in putting his affairs in order. An inheritance from his mother meant that he was able to fund the three volumes of his orchestral music now available on Toccata, and to put in place publication of much of his music. His website, with his own candid writings on these projects and his life, is a model of its kind.

Dr. Stevens said that from an early age he found it easy to write pastiches and the Oceanic Lullaby for oboe and orchestra is soothing piece of British light music, very much in the style of say Paul Lewis. It effectively portrays a person floating on an ocean and being lulled to sleep. The person, one presumes, is the oboist Stéphane Rancourt who sounds appropriately soothed. The following works could not be more different.

The composer was a cellist and clearly a pretty good one, as in his youth he played the Elgar concerto, so I do not think it too much of a stretch to see this as a deeply personal work. In his unflinchingly honest biography on his website, he wrote “Temperamentally, the cello ‘fits’ who I am – intense and soulful, with a dash of flamboyance,” and that is what the concerto sounds like. Stevens was also deeply religious and the final work on the disc has a Christian story. I am, therefore, going attach a Biblical influence to this concerto – although the composer did not. It is a profound work, full of genuine emotion, and yes, anguish. Listening to it I find myself thinking of the opening line of Psalm 130 “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine” (Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord). None of the writing seems self-pitying, though all of it is heartfelt and often disturbing. It is also subversive, in that it sets up expectations and then instead of following through, goes in a different direction, so the opening movement begins with music of majestic mythic grandeur which reminded me of Bloch’s Schelomo – indeed, much of the writing throughout reminded me of that work – but then the bassoon enters with a perky little riff at odds with what we have just heard. The work expertly plays with our expectations throughout – or at least it does with mine – and constantly surprises. Use of hollow-sounding chords in fourths and fifths give the work an archaic feeling, and the not-infrequent use of quarter tones adds a sense of otherworldliness. These are most clearly heard in the lamenting slow movement, which is clearly the heart of the work. The cello’s first melody is unsettlingly coloured by nonstandard tunings. They appear throughout the movement, often alongside more traditional tunings subverting harmonic expectations. Impressionist textures and string harmonics make for a disturbing listening experience. The cello is pushed to its limits of expressivity and at the end of the movement seems to collapse with exhaustion.

There is little time to recover as the finale is not a jolly romp but another demanding eleven minutes in which the cello, harassed by the orchestra, seems to ask the question “why?”. As though the soloist will not be tired enough towards the end of the movement, there is a massive and very demanding cadenza, after which the work quickly ends with throwaway flourish, as if the composer is saying “just get on with life.” 

If my talk of quarter tones and angst makes the work sound scary, it is not. His vocabulary is of now, but that does not mean that it is one steeped in any dogma. It is wide-ranging in its choice of materials but fundamentally deeply lyrical. The cello sings throughout, the harmony advanced but understandable, and the orchestration spot on in its choice of colours that support the musical argument.

Maybe with its four movements it has more of the feeling of a symphony than a concerto. There is most definitely in its three eleven-minute movements a real sense of symphonic thought. Only in the brief, mischievous scherzo second movement is there any relaxation of structural tension. But ultimately the cello is much more than a primes inter pares; it is throughout the undoubted main protagonist. In award-winning cellist Alice Neary, the composer could not have hoped for a better advocate. She is attuned to all the nuances and unexpected turns in the music and brings a wonderful singing tone to the long lyrical lines.

The last work on the disc is Into the Deep, the composer’s final work for orchestra, written in the year he was told his cancer was terminal. It is based around Christ’s words in Luke, chapter five, and verse five, where he urges his disciples, who have caught nothing fishing, to ‘Launch out into the deep.’ They do so and the nets come back full. Stevens sees this as a “call to adventure and exploration” and the work is a mini concerto for orchestra. There are many solo passages for often neglected instruments: the bassoon, contrabassoon, bass clarinet, double-bass, tuba all get a chance to shine. There are also demanding parts for the first horn and the piano. It is a fascinating work which quite clearly shows the composer’s gift for brilliant orchestration. It holds many surprises in its fifteen-minute duration, not least more microtonal writing, notably here at the beginning in the strings and later for the three trombones. I did not quite hear the link to St Luke but as pure music it works very well.

Paul Mann and the RSNO recorded all three discs of Stevens’ music in one week. That was a tremendous achievement, as it is far from easy, and its quixotic nature cannot have been easy to get into. In ensemble, they have a wonderfully rich tone and in the many solos in the different works the players show themselves to be virtuosi of the first order.

The disc and booklet are produced to Toccata’s usual high standard. The programme notes by the composer are illuminatingly clear and free from musical jargon. While I could not hear the literary connection in the final work, whether in music or words Dr. Stevens seems to have wanted to communicate as clearly as possible. In the concerto, he has managed to write a work that is a major addition to the repertoire and one that I hope will have at least some outings in the concert hall.

Paul RW Jackson

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