Jonathan Aasgaard cello
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
John Wilson conductor 

CHANDOS CHSA5266

Slowly the admirable Chandos project to record the complete orchestral works of this composer proceeds. Postwar, the Concerto for Orchestra genre took off, with over a dozen British examples alone. One common characteristic is that they sometimes prioritise virtuosity – of composer and performer – over meaningful musical content.

Unlike his ravishing tone-poem of the same name, the opening Aubade of Bennett’s 1973 work is a rigorous compositional exercise based on a twelve-note theme. Here are the familiar tropes: the flutter-tongue flute, the jabbing brass, the string glissandi, the ticking percussion, the distant chime. The middle movement alternates somewhat anonymous slow and fast music, while the cd indexing proves invaluable in delineating the very brief variations of the finale. It all gives an orchestra a comprehensive workout, but does it offer much beyond a virtuoso exercise in pattern-forming? It’s sufficiently vivid and colourful to keep my ear constantly tickled – but not much more. Perhaps offering 22 minutes of slightly cerebral entertainment is enough?

The cello concerto Sonnets to Orpheus (Epigraphs from Rilke) opens with a figure of some melodic appeal before plunging into a world alternately embattled and uneasily lyrical. A spectral scherzo – jerky and fractured – leads into a nocturnal slow movement where ticking harp and lamenting woodwind lend the music a haunting and disturbed air. The apparent jauntiness of the fourth movement initially jarred; but it evolves into a more ambitious and complex piece which is then succeeded by a fifth of mysterious beauty and regret, which achieves a real emotional peak before the music finally comes full circle. 

The booklet makes very high claims for this concerto; I am not yet convinced that the material is quite memorable enough to resonate in the imagination – I am not sure what is really at stake – but I may yet find more in it with time.

Based an a Scottish folksong and written for schools orchestras I had expected to find myself calling the 1990 Diversions ‘tuneful/approachable’ etc. In the event I fear I found much of it rather plodding and meandering – except for the genuinely eloquent and elegiac penultimate variation. (Interestingly it seems the composer also had his doubts about the work). Was Bennett ultimately just too fluent for his own good, able to efficiently turn out ‘product’ even when he really had nothing much to say? 

Clearly however these performers believe in the music and give it their all, while the sound is well up to house standards. One for the RRB specialist perhaps – I wonder what Vol 6 will bring.

Review by Kevin Mandry