William Walton; Lennox Berkeley; Malcolm Arnold - Guitar Concertos (Craig Ogden)

Information

Composer: William Walton; Lennox Berkeley; Malcolm Arnold

• (01-05) Walton - Five Bagatelles for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra
• (06)       Arnold - Serenade for Guitar and Strings, Op. 50
• (07-09) Berkeley - Guitar Concerto, Op. 88
• (10-12) Arnold - Guitar Concerto, Op. 67

Craig Ogden, guitar
Northern Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor

Date: 2001
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%209963

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Review

A strong recital of English guitar concertos

All the works in this delightful collection of English guitar concertos were inspired by Julian Bream‚ with Craig Ogden proving a formidable successor‚ matching in sensitivity and flair Bream’s own vintage recordings. What is so enjoyable is having the Arnold and Lennox Berkeley guitar concertos – arguably the two finest in the genre by British composers – supplemented so strongly by Patrick Russ’s new adaptation of the Walton Bagatelles. Walton‚ never averse himself to adapting good material‚ turned those solo guitar pieces into his last orchestral work‚ Varii capricci‚ brilliantly translating solo guitar writing into an orchestral score‚ as he had already done for the song­cycle‚ Anon in Love.

Such a precedent gave Russ the bright idea of re­introducing the guitar in a mixture of the two. With problems of balance in mind‚ the solo guitar and orchestra often alternate rather than playing together‚ and when the orchestra plays in support of the guitar part‚ the scoring is usually of the lightest‚ with bursts of sharp commentary drawn from Varii capricci. The interesting thing is that with the fast outer movements slightly expanded – both more substantial than the three ‘interlude’ movements in the middle – and with very Waltonian orchestral fireworks peppering the score‚ the result feels like a full­scale concerto‚ not just a lightweight suite as both the solo Bagatelles and Varii Capricci do. It makes a valuable addition to the limited range of guitar concertos‚ at least as characterful as the fine works of Arnold and Berkeley.

Even among Arnold’s many striking concertos this guitar work stands out. It is memorable from first to last with its haunting popular tune for a second subject in the first movement‚ an extended slow movement much darker‚ designed as homage to Django Reinhardt‚ and a finale with a neo­Classical flavour. Ogden’s excellent liner­note pointfully highlights the rapport between Arnold and Bream‚ with their ‘shared love of jazz and late nights’‚ and that is borne out both in the concerto and in the charming little Serenade for guitar and strings which Arnold wrote as something of a trial run.

The Lennox Berkeley Concerto was one of his last works‚ relaxed and lyrical in the first movement‚ starting with a haunting duet for two horns pianissimo‚ leading to a mysterious slow movement and a finale which provocatively starts with rapid strumming like that at the equivalent point in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. The speeds adopted by Ogden and Richard Hickox with the Northern Sinfonia are marginally faster than those on Bream’s recording with Gardiner and the Monteverdi Orchestra‚ adding to tension and purposefulness. The full‚ warm recording manages the tricky balance between guitar and orch­estra undistractingly well.

-- Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Feb02/English_Guitar_concertos.htm
https://www.amazon.com/English-Guitar-Concertos-Craig-Ogden/dp/B00005TNXV

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William Walton (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola and Violin Concertos, and the First Symphony, which has had more than twenty recordings. Walton was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the twenty-first century, and almost all his works had been released on CD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walton

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Lennox Berkeley (12 May 1903 – 26 December 1989) was an English composer. Born in Oxford, England, he went to Paris to study music with Nadia Boulanger in 1927. Berkeley also studied with Maurice Ravel, often cited as a key influence in his technical development as a composer. Berkeley's earlier music is broadly tonal, influenced by the neoclassical music of Stravinsky. However, from the mid-1950s, he started including tone rows and aspects of serial technique in his compositions. From 1946 to 1968, Berkeley taught at the Royal Academy of Music. His pupils included Richard Rodney Bennett and John Tavener.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Berkeley

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Malcolm Arnold (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. He was ranked with Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain. His output of works features music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Arnold

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Craig Ogden is an Australian classical guitarist whose albums have topped the UK classical charts. Ogden began playing guitar at the age of seven, and graduated in music from the University of Western Australia. In 1990 he became UK-based, and has a Professional Performance Diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where in 2004 he received a Fellowship. Together with his wife, British singer Claire Bradshaw, Ogden founded the Dean & Chadlington Summer Music Festival in 2007. Ogden is currently Principal Lecturer in Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ogden
http://www.craigogden.com/

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