Holst – Perfect Fool, Ballet; The Golden Goose; The Morning of the Year: BBC National Orchestra of Wales Joyful Company of Singers/Richard Hickox
Chandos
Bach/Stokowsky – Bach Transcriptions Two (with music by Palestrina, Byrd, Clarke): Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Jose Serebrier
Naxos
THE sudden, tragic death of Richard Hickox in Swansea last year will be terribly felt. His pioneering contribution to British music and British musical life cannot be estimated. He had leading responsibilities in musical life in Australia, Wales and Italy. It’s impossible briefly to give a survey of his career, but mention would have to be made of a few landmarks. He founded the City of London Sinfonia and the Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra, he was director of music at the Endellion Music Festival for six years; and he was organist and master of music at the parliamentary church, St Margaret’s, Westminster. In addition, he was director of the London Symphony Chorus and Bradford Festival Choral Society and, among other responsibilities, was director of the Northern Sinfonia.
His contribution to British music is understandably associated with his premier performances of works by Peter Maxwell Davies. A glance at the catalogues will give you some idea of his recorded legacy, particularly associated with the Chandos company. At the time of his death, Hickox intended to record the music of Gustav Holst and this disc will give us a glimpse of what we have missed. But we should be grateful.
This is a lovely CD. Holst’s ballet music for his hilarious parody of the great opera composers, The Perfect Fool, comes up true gold here and fair rollicks along. The opera is seldom staged and more is the pity, as Holst’s digs at Wagner and Verdi are great fun and bang on target.
The Golden Goose is based on a Grimm Brothers’ story and The Morning of the Year was an early BBC commission to celebrate the awakening year at springtime. Both are choral ballets and full of charm and invention; the spring thing seems slightly dated, but deftly avoids whimsy. In stereo, this music is usefully effective.
Leopold Stokowsky, virtuoso conductor, celebrity serial ladies’ man and hypnotic poseur, was also a dab hand at colourful orchestration. His Bach arrangements for full band (featured in Walt Disney’s Fantasia) are calculated to give today’s politically correct purists purple fits. The Bournemouth Symphony under Serebrier positively shimmers through these scores. You either love this sort of thing or you don’t. But if you do, then here it is played with commitment and decorum. Not only do we get the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Eon Fester Burg and Sachet Auf, but a good sample of other Bach pieces as well. These are all pretty neat and dispatched with some charm.
I thought the Jeremy Clarke selection (“Trumpet Voluntary” as it used to be called) was a bit camp, but the disc ends with the resounding Bach Fugue in C Minor, given the full Stokowsky works. This arrangement has something of Wagner’s Parsifal about it. It would be a fine joke in felicitous bad taste to leave it on Roger Orrington’s telephone answering machine.
Robert Giddings
