Elgar The Music Makers Spirit of England Andrew Davis, Chandos

Andrew Davis conducts Elgar The Music Makers and Spirit of England Op 80 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples for Chandos, juxtaposing Elgar's private and public faces.

Elgar's The Music Makers op 69  premiered in July 1912, but had been long in gestation. Elgar knew of Arthur O'Shaughanessy's Ode when he was in his twenties, when he was isolated, scraping a living as teacher, organist and conductor of the very limited orchestra at Powick Asylum, not far from his home, with no obvious prospects. Thirty years later, his status solidly established,  might he portray himself in this piece, just as he had portrayed his friends in the Enigma Variations, incorporating references to his own music, not so much for their own sake but because, as he wrote, they expressed "my sense of the loneliness of the artist". Despite his success and acclaim, Elgar identified creativity with alienation. Artists are "dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams".  The slow orchestral introduction gives way to a more forceful section, where the chorus bursts forth  "One man with a dream, at pleasure. Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample a kingdom down."   The orchestra surges in full flow, but animato fades to più lento.  Only halfway through does the contralto (Sarah Connolly) emerge, heralded by harps. "They had no vision amazing.....no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going:" The music makers proceed towards uncharted territory with calm assurance.  Yet again, tranquility gives way to con fuoco and back to lento.  Ironically, it is the chorus, not the soloist who sing of "dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye." as if isolation is still too uncomfortable to sing about without ensemble, despite the confident crashing chords in the orchestra and raised voices.  A quiet transition to the finale, when the mood rises again, Connolly singing forcefully. "Great hail! "  The artist shall "teach us your song's new numbers; And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more."  Though the soloist fades to stillness, the chorus continues to hold the line.
Elgar's Spirit of England  op. 80 (1915-17) is so powerful that it draws you into its glorious self confidence  even though we now know where jingoistic bluster can lead.  But for a moment we are spellbound by the sheer extravagance of the piece.  Drums roll, strings surge and the BBC Symphony Chorus explode.  Andrew Staples's voice rises heroically above the wall of sound. "Spirit of England, go before us !" The orchestral writing sets a pulse which supports the chorus, where male and female voices sing alternating lines. This creates an interflow suggesting vast, turbulent forces. Staples shaped the magnificent line "We step from days/ of sour divison/ into the grandeur of our Fate", each key word meticulously articulated, the last word "Fate" ringing out like a clarion.  Staples’s enunciation was sharp, consonants crisp, much more idiomatic than the other three tenors I've heard in this piece in recent years. The English tenor style, at its best, brings out the edge in the language hinting at hidden undercurrents : what really is the unshakeable soul of "divinely suffering man"?   This does matter, since Elgar may well have seen the circumstances more acutely than did the populist poet. A male voice captures an edge of anguish and pain, while female voices express the more conventional Boadicea approach.
In contrast to the first section "The Fourth of August", the second section "To Women" is more restrained.  While the tenor line was integrated with chorus and orchestra, it now stands almost alone. Phrases like "like a flame" and "boundless night" fly upward from the line, Staples emphasizing them with flourish.  A melancholy violin passage introduces a much darker mood.   "For the Fallen" is a funeral procession but proceeds forward with relentless surge, Davis marking the throbbing undertow in the orchestra. The choral line with its clipped, almost staccato tension, evoked, perhaps gunfire.  The woodwind figure, followed by low-timbred strings, was particularly moving. "We shall remember them", sang Staples, his voice carrying above the chorus and orchestra.  "To the end, to the end, they remain".

Bohuslav Martinů - The Epic of Gilgamesh

New recording of the English version of Bohuslav Martinů's The Epic of Gilgamesh, from Supraphon, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck.  This is the world  premiere recording of the text in English. Martinů, wrote the original based on an English language translation which he disliked, for pragmatic purposes. "Nowhere would they sing my piece in Czech", he told his family in 1955.  He need not have worried.  Soon after, a Czech translation became available, which, to this date has been the standard version used in performance, with several fine recordings.  The piece is recognized as one of Martinů's key works and a part of Czech core repertoire. So what's it like hearing it in English ?

The opening erupts in the cry "Gilgamesh!" chorus alternating between soloist. group against individual.  Gilgamesh was all-powerful, but an oppressor  Martinů, who spoke good English,  was right about the clumsiness of the translation.  "To the appeal of their waiting, Goddess Aruru gave ear. She fingered out of clay......Enkidu made she, a warrior"  Jan Martiník sings the bass part. He's the only native Czech speaker in this cast, and possibly the youngest soloist. Because the text is so archaic, his (very) slight accent works well, since it emphasizes the stylized non-realism central to the work, and indeed to its origins. Yet Martiník also manages to nuance his singing with emotion. As he describes Enkidu, the wild man, finding human solace, his voice softens.  The music changes, flurries on harp suggest the flowing of water, the bringing of life to the desert from which Enkidu came.  The choral part (Prague Philharmonic Choir) is lit by searching lines in the orchestra.  The soloists don't portray individuals : the flow between choir, orchestra and individual voices progresses the piece structurally. Gilgamesh and Enkiddu end up in epic struggle, the choral lines moving back and forth until the dramatic breakthrough.           
Andrew Staples sings the tenor part, demonstrating the unique artistic qualities of the English Tenor voice type. He makes the awkward, jerky text curl and bristle with sinister tension. "When  I entered the House of the Dead, the Queen of the Underworld, she saw me, she lifted her head, she saw me...."  Although the other soloists (Lucy Crowe and Derek Welton) are good, the "personality" of the voice type hints at extra levels of meaning, making this English version worth listening to.  Enkidu lies dying, and Gilgamesh, now his friend, grieves. Welton's last lines are followed by tiny broken fragments in the orchestra. The choir comments, male and female lines crossing and combining with the fluidity of waters in a river.
The final section, the Invocation, begins with vaguely "Babylonian" rhythms. An unearthly, high pitched "O!" wails from time to time (Lucy Crowe), her cry linking the disparate segments.  Tension builds. Gilgamesh enters the Temple of Enlil searching for the dead Enkidu. The orchestra pulsates savage ostinato, developing into a tumult of windswept frenzy.  Suddenly, the sound of single bells. For a brief moment, the two interact, as if in embrace. The baritone (Welton) asks about the afterlife. The bass (Martiník)  can only say "I saw, I saw", expressed with great feeling.
The Epic of Gilgamesh has come down to us in broken fragments : we don't know the whole story and cannot understand the full cultural context.  It's enough that we can glimpse it through the archaic symbolism of Martinů's music. The quality of singing in this performance (particularly the English tenor) makes it worth hearing, though the narration (Simon Callow), while suitably theatrical overpowers the purity of the music.  Thus I'd dare say that the Czech text should remain  unchallenged.  Whether it's better than the English translation or not, I do not know, but the richness and depth of Czech language recordings is far more rewarding, in particular the recording by Belohlavek, also with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and also for Supraphon, nearly 20 years ago.  In marketing terms, some might assume you need an "international" style, but quite frankly,  the pungency of Czech is unique, and brings out the true punch in Martinů.