Gavin Higgins (b. 1983)
Horn Concerto (2023)
Fanfare, Air and Flourishes for solo horn (2021)
The Faerie Bride (2021)
Ben Goldscheider (horn)
Marta Fontanals-Simmons (mezzo-soprano); Roderick Williams (baritone)
Three Choirs Festival Chorus
BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Martyn Brabbins (Bride), Jaime Martin
rec. 2024, Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff (concerto) & the Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK; live 23 July 2023, Gloucester Cathedral (Bride)
Texts included
Lyrita SRCD440 [2 CDs: 84]
Gavin Higgins grew up in the Forest of Dean. That part of Gloucestershire is situated close to where I live; geographically and, dare I say, culturally it forms something of a bridge between England and Wales. When I came to live and work in Gloucestershire nearly 40 years ago, it quickly became apparent to me that the people of the Forest of Dean are proud of their heritage and identity within the county of Gloucestershire. In the past, there was a very strong coalmining tradition in the Forest and, just as in many other mining areas of the UK, brass bands became an important part of the local culture. I think I’m right in saying that as a child, along with other members of his family, Higgins played in one such band. Later, he went to study first at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and subsequently at the Royal Northern College of Music where he studied the French horn and composition. In recent years he has developed a strong relationship with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBCNOW); he became the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association in 2020. His Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra made quite an impact, as I recall, when the BBCNOW and Tredegar Town Band premiered it at the BBC Proms a couple of years ago. Now, we can hear two recent works which Higgins has composed for his own instrument, the French horn.
The concerto was written for and at the instigation of Ben Goldscheider. The work was unveiled in Swansea and then in Cardiff in January 2024 and the present recording was made, under studio conditions, a couple of days before those concerts; the Cardiff performance was reviewed for Seen and Heard by my colleague, Paul Corfield Godfrey. Not long afterwards, Colin Clarke was in conversation for Seen and Heard with Higgins & Goldscheider ahead of the concerto’s London premiere in February 2024.
The concerto is in three movements and I was well prepared for listening to it by reading the excellent booklet note by Gillian Moore. She explains, in particular, how the concerto references the horn as “the ancient instrument of the forest; the hunting horn, the Waldhorn”; one presumes that Higgins is harking back to the Forest of Dean. The three movements have titles, which Gillian Moore explains thus: “The first movement ‘Understory’ is about the forest floor and the vegetation and animal life which lies low on the ground; the second, ‘Overstorey’ takes us to the heights of the forest canopy and the title of the third, ‘Mycelium Rondo’ makes a nod both to the traditional rondo finale of many a horn concerto from the past, but also to the Mycelium, a miraculous, teeming fungal network which connects trees in the forest, allowing them to communicate and to support each other – the so-called Wood Wide Web”.
I think Higgins has composed a concerto of rare imagination. ‘Understorey’ begins in dark mystery – surely a debt to the opening of Das Rheingold; there are fascinating colours and textures in the orchestral score, not least through the discerning use of percussion. The solo part is evocatively imagined – I love the occasions when the solo part combines with the quartet of orchestral horns. In the middle of the movement there’s a quicker section which is full of wit and invention – at times the writing for the woodwinds is highly suggestive of laughter. At the close of the movement Higgins takes us back to the mysterious soundworld of the opening but this time with the solo horn as an active participant or commentator. In ‘Overstorey’, the textures are generally lighter; the solo horn writing particularly explores the cantabile potential of the instrument. Eventually, the music achieves an ardent climax, crowned by the orchestral horns. After this, and for the remainder of the movement, the soloist carols at length against a hushed background provided by the strings and woodwind. ‘Overstorey’ is a most imaginative piece of writing. The finale is mainly about high energy and high spirits; the soloist is required to display significant amounts of nimble virtuosity. The music hurtles towards a massive chordal climax (4:40), which is underpinned by the percussion section drumming at full tilt. Thereafter, the soloist leads the ensemble in a merry and very vigorous dance to the conclusion of the work. Gavin Higgins’ Horn Concerto is an exciting and very resourceful composition which I’m sure will have other horn virtuosi licking their lips at the prospect of playing it, though this superb performance by Ben Goldscheider has set the bar very high. The work is also richly imagined for the orchestra and the BBCNOW under Jaime Martin plays a very full part in the success of this premiere recording.
Goldscheider also gives us the chance to hear Fanfare, Air and Flourishes for solo horn, which is a suite of three short pieces which Higgins composed during the Covid pandemic. All three are, in their different ways, highly imaginative explorations of various aspects of horn technique and of the instrument’s capabilities. Because only a solo instrument is involved, you don’t get the orchestral textures which were such a wonderful aspect of the concerto. Nonetheless, these three pieces, which in total play for 7:24, are full of interest. As Gillian Moore tells us, there is a link with The Faerie Bride because Higgins was working on ‘Flourishes’ at the same time and incorporated material from it to mark the passing of the seasons in The Faerie Bride.
This pair of CDs was of particular interest to me because I attended the Three Choirs Festival concert in Gloucester Cathedral which included the present performance of The Faerie Bride; I reviewed the event for Seen and Heard. I made a conscious decision not to revisit my review until I’d finished listening to this recording because I wanted to come fresh to the performance. The concert in question was recorded for future transmission on BBC Radio 3 but, though I looked for it in the schedules, I missed hearing it on the radio. Though it can be dangerous to rely on memory, I feel pretty sure that this recording allowed me to hear even more of the orchestral tapestry than was possible in the resonant acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral.
I looked out the programme for the Three Choirs concert and found a programme note by the composer in which he refers to The Faerie Bride as “a cantata for two singers and orchestra”. I noted, however, that in the booklet Gillian Moore refers to it as “an oratorio for orchestra plus Baritone…Mezzo soprano…and a small chorus”. I may be reading into her description something which she did not intend but I wonder if it’s significant that she references the orchestra first since the orchestral contribution to this score is hugely significant.
The Faerie Bride has a libretto by Francesca Simon, who has collaborated with Gavin Higgins before. The story is inspired by the Welsh legend of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach. The Lady in question (always referred to simply as ‘Woman’) has fairy powers The cantata, which plays without a break, is divided into a Prologue followed by two Parts. Part One is ‘The Lake’. Here, the Man discovers the Woman and woos her. Eventually she agrees to marry him, but with the caveat that should he ever strike her ‘three blows’ she will return to the lake. The aforementioned blows turn out to be psychological rather than physical. In Part Two an indeterminate number of years passes during which the couple have prospered and sons have been born. There are four sub-sections, each one covering an event in one of the four seasons of the year. Over the course of those years and seasons the Man offends the Woman on three occasions by challenging her other-worldly, and to him inexplicable, attitude to village events: a wedding, a christening, and the death of a child. After the third such occurrence (the third blow) she returns to the lake from whence she came, taking with her not only the couple’s sons but also the wealth they have accumulated in the form of livestock. So, the Man loses everything. In the short Epilogue he laments his fate and the loss of his bride; we are left with the indication that he will return to the lake every day in the vain hope that she might reappear to him.
In a note printed in the 2023 Three Choirs programme Higgins wrote this: “The Faerie Bride is about compromise and respect in relationships, suspicion and fear of the outsider, and the societal pressures to conform in insular communities, something this faerie refuses to do”. His reference to the outsider prompts me to mention the chorus. During their marriage the Woman is never accepted by the Villagers (the chorus) who make their disapproval clear on three separate occasions. I believe that at the work’s premiere at the 2022 Aldeburgh Festival (given by the present soloists, orchestra and conductor) the words now sung by the chorus were delivered by the soloists. Higgins’ revision of the score, allocating these words to a chorus is wholly beneficial, I’m sure, since it makes dramatic sense if the Villagers’ hostility to the Woman, as an outsider, is voiced by a different group of singers rather than by the two soloists. In this performance, the members of the Three Choirs Festival Chorus are admirably incisive and vituperative. I recall from attending the concert that only a sub-section of the full Festival Chorus was on duty for this assignment. In my review of the performance I attended, I expressed regret that the chorus was not given more to sing. I still feel it’s a pity that the choir’s contribution to proceedings is limited to just a few minutes in total, though now that I’ve had the chance to listen to the work and to study the libretto in more detail, I accept that it’s hard to see that the Villagers could have been involved more.
As it is, the story is largely related through the two soloists. I recall that I was impressed by Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Roderick Williams at the live performance. Hearing them now on disc just reinforces that admiration. Gavin Higgins gives them highly expressive music to sing and both of them deliver it marvellously. Roderick Williams is a very familiar name and anyone who has heard him will need no reminder from me as to the eloquence and care for the vocal line with which he always sings as well as the wonderful clarity of his diction. If you haven’t heard Marta Fontanals-Simmons before I can assure you that she matches Williams for excellence of singing, expression and diction. Here, we have two soloists completely engaged in the music and in the story they are relating.
Under the expert leadership of Martyn Brabbins, the contribution of the BBCNOW is no less distinguished than that of the singers. As in the Horn Concerto, Gavin Higgins displays an acute ear for instrumental textures and colour. The orchestra is used with great imagination and skill to provide a richly evocative background when the soloists are singing and to advance the story when the singers get a (short) break. The Faerie Bride plays for 47 minutes and I think it’s a compelling experience. I’m delighted that through this very fine recording I’ve been able to renew my acquaintance with it and to deepen my appreciation of this highly imaginative score. Francesca Simon’s libretto is expertly devised; it is poetic yet it enables the story to be told in a direct way that the listener can easily follow.
All three pieces were recorded in different venues and by different engineering teams. The results are first class in all cases. In particular, the BBC engineers who recorded The Faerie Bride have achieved clarity and detail in the tricky and resonant acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral. Even when listening through headphones I could detect virtually no extraneous noises to betray that this is a live performance: we must have been very well behaved that evening in the cathedral!
As I said, I deliberately didn’t read my review of The Faerie Bride until I’d finished my listening; nor did I seek out my colleagues’ pieces about the Horn Concerto. However, before listening to any of these performances I made sure I read the booklet essay by Gillian Moore and I’d strongly recommend everyone else to do the same. Not only does Ms Moore give an excellent introduction to each work, clearly signposting all the important things for which to listen out, but in addition she writes about the pieces in a way that made me keen to hear the music. There’s just one disappointment with the documentation: though Lyrita print the libretto for The Faerie Bride they fail to include an English translation of the several passages which Ms Fontanals-Simmons sings in Welsh. Since most of these are significant portions, that’s a serious flaw.
These are excellent recordings of three highly imaginative scores by Gavin Higgins. I hope Lyrita will give us more. Could they, I wonder, entice the Tredegar Town Band and the BBCNOW into the studio to record the Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra?
John Quinn
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