Gerard Schurmann (1924-2020)
Man in the Sky (Concert Overture) (1957/1994/2020)
Piano Concerto (1973)
Romancing the Strings (2015)
Gaudiana (2001)
Xiayin Wang (piano)
BBC Philharmonic/Ben Gernon
rec. 2023, MediaCityUK, Salford, Manchester, UK
Chandos CHAN 20341 [65]
Gerard Schurmann was born of Dutch parents in the former Dutch East Indies, but lived in England from childhood until 1981, when he moved to the United States. I think that move resulted in a reduction of his UK profile, much as it did for his contemporaries Iain Hamilton and Peter Racine Fricker. In all three cases it was Britain’s loss.
Schurmann studied piano from an early age, and developed a virtuoso technique. As a composer, he was largely self-taught, though he studied privately with Alan Rawsthorne whose sound-world was a major influence on his own. Through Rawsthorne, he joined the heavy-drinking artistic Soho set which also included composers Constant Lambert. Elisabeth Lutyens and Dennis ap Ivor, as well as artists such as Francis Bacon and Isabel Lambert/Rawsthorne.
Schurmann’s early success was as a composer and orchestrator of music for films. He worked forty-five feature films, among them two Oscar-winning scores for Lawrence of Arabia and Exodus. His role in the huge success of Lawrence of Arabia cannot be underestimated, as he noted years later (article). Chandos released a disc of his original film music which Rob Barnett welcomed warmly (review).
Film music aside, Schurmann was self-critical, and a painstaking slow worker. It is a pity that his meticulously crafted, highly inventive works are not better known. Among his best known are the Six Studies of Francis Bacon, a result of his close friendship with the painter. Chuench’i, a miraculous setting of Chinese poems for high voice and piano, later orchestrated, draws the listener in with its wistful expressiveness. The cello concerto, Gardens of Exile, made quite a stir when it appeared in 1991 and then sadly disappeared. It is good, then, to have this well-filled disc with music from all periods of the composer’s long life.
As I noted, Schurman was meticulous and self-critical. The programme opens with his overture Man in the Sky, which uses music from a 1957 Ealing film score. He rewrote it as a concert work in 1994, and revisited once again shortly before his death. It is full of the heroic and noble music one expects from a film with Jack Hawkins as a brave test pilot. It goes without saying that it is very effective. Sections were, however, so reminiscent of Alan Rawsthorne’s film music that I wondered if Schurmann had taken over the project from him.
Schurmann was great friends with John Ogdon. The main work here is the Piano Concerto he wrote for Ogdon. In the 1989 television drama Virtuoso on Ogdon’s troubled life, Schurmann (played by Sverre Anker Ousdal) is seen excitedly encouraging the pianist (played by Alfred Molina) to leave his own party early and sight-read the recently finished first movement. Ogdon does so with panache, and is even keen to repeat it, much to the displeasure of his wife Brenda Lucas (played by Alison Steadman). That Ogdon could apparently do that is remarkable, for the piano writing is fearsome even if well laid out for the instrument. Schurmann clearly knew Ogdon’s strengths. Much of the music is similar to Ogdon’s writing in his own Piano Concerto of 1966. Like Ogdon the man, the music has moments of great calm followed by moments of great energy.
Schurmann’s Concerto is shaped in basically two movements. The first begins with a moody piano cadenza which introduces much of the material developed in the movement. The orchestra then joins in and the pace becomes fast and dynamic. The second movement again starts off slowly but picks up pace. It ends with some brilliant writing for soloist and orchestra to end the work with a flourish.
It is not that the piece is particularly dissonant, but it is very chromatic. That is why some of its undoubted delights may only reveal themselves with repeated listening. Xiayin Wang, who seems to be the first performer of the work since 1978, plays fearlessly. She probably took it in her stride, as she previously recorded the piano concertos by Alberto Ginastera with this orchestra under Juanjo Mena. She shapes the lyrical passages beautifully, and has enough power in the exuberant sections so that her part is never obscured.
That film music disc included Schurmann’s score for the 1963 Walt Disney production Dr, Syn, Alias the Scarecrow. The tale of smuggling in Georgian England contains some very effective cues. He revisited a particularly noble one in 2015. He based on it a set of six variations he called Romancing the Strings, which he dedicated to his wife Carolyn. It was premiered in Arizona in 2016 as a string nonet. Here, it is here played by a full string section, and is all the better for it. It only lasts ten minutes, but it could easily have gone on for longer, not something I say very often. The sheer invention of the variations, and superb string writing – and here string playing – make it an absolute winner. Elegiac, lyrical moments are contrasted with more vigorous treatment of the material. A dynamic fugal fifth variation leads to the finale. It starts quietly and builds inexorably to a glorious redemptive climax. This work would definitely fit easily alongside more standard string fare.
The CD cover is a picture of part of Antoni Gaudi’s extraordinary Catalan cathedral Basílica de la Sagrada Família. Itinspired the last work here, Gaudiana, a six-movement set of symphonic studies. Rumon Gamba first performed it in Barcelona in 2005. Before the premiere, he observed that Gaudiana “isn’t a graphic type of music, but rather music that creates a general impression. It doesn’t transmit images, but rather emotions.”
The work is scored for a large orchestra used sparingly and with great sophistication. The opening pieta is for strings, joined in the final moments by timpani. The chorale-like writing with its Ivesian clusters as in the Piano Concerto lays out material explored in the remaining movements. Anyone looking for overtly Catalan music will be disappointed. There are the briefest of hints at folk music, but this is not picture postcard writing. It is a heartfelt response to a great piece of religious architecture.
The orchestra play magnificently under the gifted Ben Gernon. They know him well: he was their principal guest conductor in 2017-2020. The Chandos engineers capture magnificently the wide-ranging soundscapes of all these works.
Paul RW Jackson
Previous review: Néstor Castiglione (September 2024)
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