James MacMillan - Symphony No. 4; Viola Concerto (Martyn Brabbins; Lawrence Power)

Information

Composer: James MacMillan

1. Symphony No. 4
2. Viola Concerto: 1. ♩ = c69
3. Viola Concerto: 2. ♪ = c72-76
4. Viola Concerto: 3. Allegro: ♩ = c126-132

Lawrence Power, viola

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Martyn Brabbins, conductor

Date: 2020

Label: Hyperion

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68317

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Review

Onyx’s 2016 release of James MacMillan’s Symphony No 4 featured this large-scale single-movement work alongside the composer’s Violin Concerto. Here the symphony is paired with another concerto, this time for viola.

They make for a good match. The concerto must still have been fresh in MacMillan’s mind when he started work on the symphony as both share similar material, yet in other respects they are quite different. The concerto is direct and immediately accessible while on first listening the symphony seems dense, complex and impenetrable. MacMillan’s use of the solo viola’s plangent tone and lyrical qualities in the concerto evokes the trademark ‘keening’ effects of earlier works such as The Confession of Isobel Gowdie and Tuireadh. Here it is applied more sparingly, however, in a less mannered way, and often in combination with other elements. During the slow second movement these sighing, singing lines combine to create expressive moments of almost unbearable intensity. In contrast, the first and last movements emphasise the viola’s gritty rhythmic character – MacMillan winding up an agitated clock-like perpetuum mobile to propel the music forwards. Both the solo viola’s effervescent and introspective qualities are brought vividly to the surface in a subtly graded and nuanced performance by Lawrence Power.

By comparison, MacMillan’s Symphony No 4 at times resembles a supercharged concerto for orchestra, with each instrument given its moment to shine (including solo viola). The pulse-like opening in certain respects recalls Rautavaara’s Fifth (another symphony constructed in a single timespan), although we have to wait until the end for MacMillan’s crashing chords, which seem to signal the work’s gasping death pangs rather than a coming-into-being of nature’s elemental forces. In between these two powerful bookending moments the listener is taken on an eclectic journey that draws on everything from Renaissance polyphony to Mahler, Shostakovich and Andriessen. The transitions are smoother on this recording under Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Philharmonic, the overall pacing steadier than on the Onyx release. Renaissance elements are heard in the form of quotations from the 16th-century Scottish composer Robert Carver’s 10-voice Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, transplanted Tippett-like to multiple strings, employed here not so much as a binding element but more as a stylistic pivot to guide the music in different directions – links in a stylistic chain that yields a rich and multilayered work.

-- Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Jun/MacMillan_sy4_CDA68317.htm

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/orchestral/james-macmillan-symphony-no-4-viola-concerto/

https://www.classicalsource.com/cd/macmillan-symphony-no-4-viola-concerto/

https://www.thestrad.com/reviews/lawrence-power-macmillan/10988.article

https://www.allmusic.com/album/macmillan-symphony-no-4-viola-concerto-mw0003369387

https://artsfuse.org/203477/classical-cd-reviews-james-macmillans-viola-concerto-magnus-lindbergs-accused-and-richard-rodney-bennett-orchestral-works/

https://www.amazon.com/Macmillan-Symphony-No-4-Viola-Concerto/dp/B085K6WGCY

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James MacMillan (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor. He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken. MacMillan came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish SO's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the Proms in 1990. Further successes have included his second opera The Sacrifice and the St John Passion. MacMillan's music is infused with the spiritual and the political. His Roman Catholic faith has inspired many of his sacred works.

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

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Martyn Brabbins (born 13 August 1959) is a British conductor. He studied composition at Goldsmiths, University of London, and conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. Between 1994 and 2005, Brabbins was Associate Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He made a significant mark through recordings not in standard repertory and as one of the main conductors involved in Hyperion's extensive Romantic Piano Concerto series. Brabbins has conducted commercial recordings of music for such labels as Warner, Chandos, Hyperion, NMC, Nimbus, and Deutsche Grammophon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyn_Brabbins

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Lawrence Power (born 1977) is a British violist. Power studied with Mark Knight at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and with Karen Tuttle at the Juilliard School. He won 1st prize at the Primrose Competition in 1999. Since his London solo debut with The Philharmonia, he has performed in the UK and abroad, appearing as soloist with many leading orchestras. Power also has a prominent career as a chamber musician, as violist in the Nash Ensemble and the Leopold String Trio. He plays an instrument by Antonio Brensi of Bologna from c.1610. Most of his recordings are published by Hyperion Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Power

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