In the past year I have suffered the loss of two irreplaceable friends: Vladimir Nabokov and Benjamin Britten. I never met either, and I am sure neither ever heard of me, but both have given me immense pleasure by imparting to me the richness and complexity of the best that was in them--something that one gets all too seldom from one's intimates and even blood kin.
I first met Britten in the mid-forties in a listening booth by way of the first (long out-of-print now) recording of the "Serenade" for tenor, horn, and strings, the soloists being Peter Pears and Dennis Brain. I did not know what to expect. A friend had recently heard the New York Philharmonic do the Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from' 'Peter Grimes'' and had pronounced them "strange!" Me, I was swept off my feet--or seat. The impact of the music was immediate and cataclysmic and I had never heard English poetry set with such sensitivity to its meaning. The work remains a touchstone to me to this day.
The later Britten became more "difficult" but I doubt that those daunted by it--or even by the music of the "Grimes" era--can find the "Simpie Symphony" anything but delicious. Completed when the composer had just turned twenty-one, the score contains the mysterious note, "by E.B. Britten (arranged B.B.)" This is a clue to the origins of the work: it consists largely of transcriptions of piano pieces and songs composed when Britten was around eight or nine and still known as Edward Benjamin (these include material from the ninth piano sonata, among other things.) Despite the disparity of its thematic beginnings, it is more symphony than suite. The alliterative titles of the four movements--" Boisterous Bourree," "Playful Pizzicato," "Sentimental Saraband," and "Frolicsome Finale" --should indicate, however, that Britten is strenuously avoiding competition with the likes of Brahms and Bruckner. However, the Saraband displays considerable depth of feeling. On the other hand, the Pizzicato is a pingpong game, ideal for demonstrating stereo effects.
Speaking of Brahms and Bruckner, one is inclined to think of Paul Hindemith-when one thinks of him at all these days!--as just such a ponderous, lumpy, Germanic composer. But, though he was rarely given to pirouetting and tippytoeing, he actually had his lighter moods, exemplified by the Five Pieces. Hindemith had a silly notion that music ought to be written for the use and delight of those who make it (his term was Gebrauchsmusik or "useful music"), and the present work was actually designed to be used and enjoyed by advanced students. Leastknown of the works on this disc, it has still attracted a number of recorded performances over the years.
As for Ottorino Respighi, most people think of him in terms of those rhetorical orchestral display pieces about the wonders of Roma--the musical equivalents of Mussolini speeches, someone said recently. But Respighi was nowhere happier than in his delicate orchestral evocations of the Renaissance and Baroque past, such as "The Birds" and the three suites of old songs and dances. The third, for strings only, is my personal favorite, probably because the sounds are irresistible. One movement is based on lute pieces by Besard, another on a guitar passacaglia by Lodovico Roncalli; the other authors are anonymous. (Do I have a dim memory of someone's saying that the "anonymous" pieces may have been forged by Respighi?)
The English Chamber Orchestra, a rather flexible aggregate of virtuoso musicians, hove onto the scene in the early '60s to establish itself as one of the best in the business. About conductor Asensio I can tell you nothing save that he has made a number of records with the group in the last three or four years.
