I can recommend this disc as an enjoyable musical experience, extremely well played and cleanly recorded
Listening to this disc, the second in Naxos's cycle of the symphonies, of Charles Stanford made me pity the lot of those composers who, hard working and not unsuccessful in their lifetimes, failed to find a position, however lowly, in the musical pantheon. Although Stanford's name lives on through much of his excellent and oft-performed church music, the two symphonies on this disc, both extremely well crafted and enjoyable works, seem to have started their decent into oblivion almost as soon as the ink dried on the page.
Richard Whitehouse's informative liner note tells us that the Second Symphony, composed in 1880, was performed a handful of times in the early 1880s and then not heard again until the 1990s. The fifth, inspired by Milton's L'Allegro ed il Penseroso was composed in 1894 and was, by all accounts, similarly neglected, only being published in
1923.
I have nothing but admiration for Naxos in setting out to record these works with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and David Lloyd-Jones, who perform the work with total commitment, evoking a feeling of joy at their discoverys. However, despite enjoying this disc, I did find myself asking how quickly I'll reach for it off the shelf to have another listen.
The painful fact remains that while these works are excellently composed they are not terribly original. There's a temptation to treat the task of reviewing them as a kind of 'spot the influence' competition, so broad and defining are the influences of other composers: Brahms (the Second Symphony was first heard in a concert which also featured Joachim playing that composer's Violin Concerto), Mendelssohn, Schubert and Dvořák to name but the most obvious.
These influences are particularly strong in the faster movements, It's verging on understatement when Whitehouse identifies the opening of the Second Symphony's as 'very Brahmsian', it certainly sounds as though Stanford was familiar with that composer's First Symphony. Brahms is probably the greatest influence in the Second Symphony's opening movement, while the fifth (extremely anachronistically) has whole stretches of Mendelssohn, even if it shows some imagination in reaction to Milton's poem. The only tiny hint that Stanford had ever heard a note of Wagner comes in the middle section of the fifth's Allegretto grazioso. It's not the dissonance of Tristan though that has pierced Stanford's musical consciousness, but dances of the guilds from the final act of Meistersinger.
I think I probably enjoyed the slow movements most, in both works substantial structures of around ten minutes. The Andante molto tranquillo of the fifth is especially well turned, leading to a genuinely touching (if still Brahmsian) climax and populated by some lovely, yearning melodies and deft touches of orchestration. The Lento espressivo of the Second Symphony has some of the same qualities but remains more Mendelssohnian that Brahmsian in its expressive range, and it is Mendelssohn's spirit which seems to be the main influence in that work's Scherzo.
The most ambitious movement on the disc is, without doubt, the Allegro Molto finale of the Fifth Symphony; its theme, which seems to evoke some sort of strange, ancient pageantry is developed over a twelve minute span (including briefly from 0'55 in a guise that sounds distinctly like Schubert's 'Unfinished') before its eventual triumphant statement in the brass. The niggling fact remains here and everywhere on the disc that however hard Stanford tries, this music never quite achieves the effect that the composer strives for.
I can recommend this disc as an enjoyable musical experience, extremely well played and cleanly recorded. It is also fascinating to hear how another musical personality, known now mainly for a small tranche of his output, applied his craft in different genres. However, those looking for forgotten masterpieces can't quite give up their search yet.
