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You are reading the older HTML site Positive Feedback ISSUE 10october/november 2003
British Light Overtures, Volume 3; Royal Ballet
Sinfonia/Gavin Sutherland
Another cheerful, well-balanced program in ASV�s series of British light music. These ten overtures, their variety of styles notwithstanding, all display a typically British knack for devising full yet clean orchestral textures featuring characterful, stylish woodwind writing. To my ears, the two most appealing pieces are Matthew Curtis�s Open Road (1993), leading off the program, and Montague Phillips�s Hampton Court (1954), both of which, despite a forty-year separation, recall the Edwardian pomp-and-panoply style. (Indeed, the shadow of Elgar falls conspicuously over the entire program.) The Curtis balances an occasionally Leroy Anderson-ish sound with infectious rhythms, brilliant orchestration, and a real melodic freshness. And, once past its opening, where the rhythms have a twentieth-century "kick," Hampton Court�s debts to the older style are more patent: the tutti climax is pure Elgar. Nearly on this level is Philip Lane�s Celebration Overture, whose propulsion compensates for its relatively threadbare melodic content. James Langley�s Ballyraggers is graceful, spirited, and deft, and the jiglike 6/8 lilt of John Fox�s Summer Overture is catchy. (But why do the notes describe it as "bucolic"? Just for the few seconds of violin solo?) Bruce Montgomery�s Overture to a Fairy Tale (1946) hints at Arnold Bax�s chromatics, with the clarinet introducing a memorable nobilmente melody. I was less taken with the wisps and fragments of Blyton�s Hobbit, depicting characters from Tolkien, though its lean sonority is striking in this context. Saunders�s short, splashy Comedy Overture unfortunately veers toward Muzak. And, once the novelty of hearing children�s songs in orchestral garb wears off, Quilter�s Children�s Overture rather goes on, despite the solemn Elgarian nostalgia suffusing "Over the hills and far away." Matthew Taylor�s Needles (2001), intended to conform the light-music style to 21st-century aesthetics, makes an odd closer. Its pointillistic, less melody-based orchestration, mild dissonances, and uncluttered textures fall agreeably on the ears; but the piece wanders, ending seemingly in midair. The orchestral syncopations fall badly out of sync � or, perhaps, are just badly written � about three minutes into the Langley, and the violins scramble a bit in Fox�s figurations. Otherwise, the Royal Ballet Orchestra plays with good ensemble and an attractive sheen, relayed by the engineering with definition and sufficient space. Stephen Francis Vasta
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