London Choral Sinfonia
Michael Waldron conductor
Orchid Classics ORC100362
It would be hard to overstate the pleasure that this revelatory disc has afforded, and unfamiliarity with the works in question should hinder no-one from obtaining a copy with alacrity. The sound is gloriously immediate, the presentation attractive, and the booklet packed with commentaries and texts.
The earliest works are two brief but highly accomplished part-songs to words by Ernest Dowson, written at the age of seventeen during Arnold’s time at the RCM. They display a notably Delian influence, although the first text, Spleen, is better known now in John Ireland’s solo setting.
The Organ Concerto, designed for Denis Vaughan and the new instrument at the Royal Festival Hall, is here played with aplomb on the magnificent 1963 Walker instrument at St John the Evangelist, Islington. Arnold’s scoring adds three trumpets (including two high Bach instruments) to the timpani and strings employed in Poulenc’s concerto.
There is a further nod to this composer in the sentimental second movement, while the finale features a neo-Baroque fugue decorated by the strings. The lyrical but more sombre double concerto for two violins is modelled on Bach’s, and was commissioned by Menuhin for himself and his pupil, Albert Lysy.
Four psalm-settings comprise a Stravinskian Laudate Dominum commissioned for St Matthew’s, Northampton (the Symphony of Psalms hovers over this score); two unaccompanied pieces, originally for boys’ voices; and a more overt celebration, to paraphrased words of Psalm 148, by John Clare.
The charming John Clare cantata, for SATB and piano duet, is not actually the world première recording claimed for it, since the work was issued by Stewart Orr in 2006 on a Clare-themed CD (SOSS 384), with soloists rather than choir. However, this is undoubtedly the first widely available commercial issue, and the finest account committed to disc.
Towards the end of the disc, we have a miniature hymn-anthem, This Christmas Night, just waiting for King’s, Cambridge to find it; and then another modestly titled Christmas hymn, The Pilgrim Caravan, from Arnold’s nativity masque, Song of Simeon. Rather evocative of Malcolm Williamson, with fine words by the underrated Christopher Hassall, this is an absolute knockout.
Where has such a tremendously thrilling piece been hiding? With its sturdy, fanfare-laden accompaniment (here with Zimbelstern too, and why not?) and soaring descants over a tune as stirring as Howells’ Michael, or Naylor’s Coe Fen, it should be in the repertoire of every great school choir, and every choral foundation.
The organ also reinforces the most familiar and exhilarating work on the disc, the Sousa-esque march of The Padstow Lifeboat. In this riotous arrangement for the same forces as Arnold’s organ concerto, the out-of-tune foghorn on the lifeboat station blasts its uproarious obbligato with unfettered gusto amid the foam and flying spray, like a tanked-up Ivor the Engine sabotaging the village choir.
Absolutely marvellous. Is volume 2 on the way?
Review by Andrew Plant