|
The BBC Singers gave
the first performance* of this suite of nine unaccompanied pieces
on October 30th 1939. I admired the choir's manipulation of the
material, as it was directed by Leslie Woodgate. The male singers
still sound a bit etiolated through over-refinement; such slight
stroking sometimes fails to make us feel the chordal nerve of swiftly-changing
harmonic passages. The choir's verve was happy, its pointing (as
in 'fa-la's) often pretty, and its spirit, at the best, truly evocative.
The first impression about the music is that it stands
in a clear succession, finely following an ancient convention with
a revived sensitiveness; the twentieth century mating with the sixteenth
(Breton, Munday, Sidney, and the like poets). This composer subtly
individualises certain procedures of modality and harmonic strangeness
which few besides Warlock have satisfactorily bent to their use.
The modal convention has sometimes weakened Moeran's art; here its
use is almost entirely congenial; his fresh air can disperse the
mists that enrap some of his brethren when they `go modal'. That
is the considerable achievement of a rich imagination. In harmonic
suggestiveness he is at his best, finding appropriate inflections
for the subtlety of a vocal caress. Now and again he over-subtilizes,
I think, as in 'weep you no more' (No. 7). To match in music the
curious blend of simplicity in subject and exquisite fragility of
poetic expression is an almost impossible task for any musician.
The moment he forsakes the shore of period-style, as we know it
in ayre or madrigal, he braves an ocean of harmonic currents which
may carry him to ports he seeks not - or even to over-emotional
shipwreck. Moeran navigates with high wisdom; the seamanship is
as admirable as the ship is beautiful.
W.R.A. (1)
Musical Times November 1939.
* Note: The reviewer is probably referring to the
first broadcast performance - see below
1 - W.R. Andersen.
"The first performance of Moeran's Choral
Suite 'Phyllida and Corydon' will be gien by Kennedy Schott's A
Capella Choir at Aeolian Hall on October 24th 1939" - (footnote
in M/T July 1939)
|
