Best British Symphonies: 1. "Choral" Symphonies

Havergal Brian - Symphony No. 1 "The Gothic" & Bernard van Dieren - "Chinese Symphony"

Not many people would have thought that one could land an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records with their very first symphony. That it is possible was shown by Havergal Brian (1876 - 1972), whose Symphony No. 1 "The Gothic" is being listed as the world longest symphony as it lasted 1 hr 39 min in a recording broadcast by the BBC in 1954. It might as well have claimed the record for the symphony requiring the largest number of musicians: at least 32 woodwind, 24 brass, two timpanist, 17 percussion players (!), two harps, celesta, organ and an enlarged string section of at least 20 first violins, 20 second violins, 16 violas, 14 cellos and 12 double basses; add two brass bands and two double choirs and you will find between 750 - 800 performers on stage. This massed array was only ever previously envisaged by Mahler in his 8. "Symphony of a Thousand", but it is doubtful whether Brian knew Mahlers music when completing his "Gothic".

Havergal Brian

Written between 1919 - 27 by a composer of a Staffordshire working class background who was largely self-taught, "The Gothic" was followed by a further 31 symphonies, most of which being a lot shorter and of smaller scale. The six movements  are split into two parts: Part 1 (movements 1 to 3) - being purely instrumental - is related to Goethe's Faust I, whereas Part 2 (movements 4 to 6) is a gigantic setting of the Te Deum. The musical language spans an equally vast stylistic range, from the polyphony of the early English renaissance to a Berlioz-ian grandeur in its choral passages, from the sounds of Brian's English contemporaries to some surreal twentieth century modernism.

Of course, a huge, monumental piece like "The Gothic" is not being performed very often. In addition to the BBC broadcast mentioned in the Guinness Book there are presently only two CD recordings available: Marco Polo's all-Czechoslovakian production under Ondrej Lenard from 1989 and Hyperion's live recording at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms in 2011 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Concert Orchestra, soloists and eight different choirs combined, all under the baton of Martyn Brabbins. An older recording from 1966 by Sir Adrian Boult with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC Testament)  is sadly out of print.

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I first came across the composer Bernard van Dieren (1887 - 1936) in Michael Kennedy's Biography of the conductor John Barbirolli, in wich he hinted at the level of popularity van Dieren's music must have had within certain musical circles of Britain's pre WW2 era. Although born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, he spent most of his life in England and is laid to rest in West Wycombe, Bucks. He can therefore safely be included in this selection of British symphonists. When I read in Kennedy's book about the challenges posed to those performers brave enough to bring van Dieren's highly polyphonic and often complicated scores to live, the urge to hear his music was ignited within me!

Bernard van Dieren

However, for many decades it had been nigh impossible to come across any recorded music by this composer, with the exception of his String Quartet No. 6 (1928) which was included in a selection of "String Quartets from the twenties" by the Utrecht String Quartet. For years I remained unable to source a recording of his most important work - the Symphony No. 1 "Chinese" op. 6 (1912 - 14) - when eventually two older radio broadcasts of the piece (conducted by Myer Fredman in 1973 and Huub Kerstens in 1983), as well as further string quartets, songs, chamber & piano music and his beautiful Elegy for 'Cello and Orchestra op. 1 (1908) appeared on a YouTube channel.

To my even greater delight I learned that Lyrita released the first commercial recording of the symphony in 2016, more than a century after it had been written, with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales under William Boughton. It was coupled with the aforementioned Elegy and with a previously unrecorded orchestral piece "Introit to Topers' Tropes" (1921).

One might expect from the "Chinese Symphony" - consisting of eight movements or rather episodes - a similar output of dramatic, emotional turn-of-century music with a touch of pathos and forbearance which we know from Mahler's "Lied von der Erde" or Zemlinsky's "Lyric Symphony", as - in case of Mahler - the same literary source had been used (Hans Bethge's German translation of the Chinese Flute, whereas Zemlinsky uses texts of Indian origin). However, the tone within the "Chinese" is predominantly tranquil, contemplational and even at times meditative. There is little polyphony in the vocal settings, yet the more in the orchestral accompaniment where the individual use of solo instruments goes well beyond Mahler or Zemlinsky and points towards Schoenberg. The extended tonality is never purely exotic and avoids any depictive 'chinoiserie' found in many contemporary works, most notably in the 3rd movement Von der Jugend in Mahler's "Lied", or in Puccini's "Turandot". Yet there are some striking similarities to the expressionism of the "Lyric Symphonie" (especially in the latter's 4th movement Sprich zu mir Geliebter), written almost a decade later.

Altogether a splendid work which fortunately has now escaped from oblivion through this great recording.

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Other great choral symphonies worth listening to should include George Dyson's "Choral Symphony" (correctly known as "Psalm CVII Symphony and Overture"; written in 1910, but only rediscovered in 2014),  Gustav Holst's "Choral Symphony" op. 41 (1923 - 24), Cyril Scott's Symphony No. 3 "The Muses" (1937), Cecil Armstrong Gibbs' Symphony No. 2 "Odysseus" (1938), Benjamin Britten's "Spring Symphony" op. 44 (1949) and Edmund Rubbra's Symphony No. 9 "Sinfonia Sacra - The Resurrection" op. 140 (1973). Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Sea Symphony" belongs here, too, but will be discussed in more detail later within this series.