Edmund Rubbra’s symphonies do not yield up their secrets easily. The idiom is unadventurous, and Rubbra’s relentlessly contrapuntal musical syntax lacks the sort of drama that we normally expect in a symphony. Add to that the somewhat klutzy orchestration–full of problems of balance–and the result needs a certain amount of special pleading. And yet, Rubbra was no mere bumbling English amateur. His musical architecture was first rate, his sense of timing acute, his melodic lines fluid and supple, and his music seldom bogs down rhythmically, no matter how dense it gets. In short, he had his own style, and you either like it or you don’t. Like Brahms, it’s very difficult music to play well, but it rewards anyone taking the time to get to know it. Richard Hickox has presided over a very good complete symphony cycle, of which this is the final volume. It contains what is perhaps Rubbra’s most easily approachable symphony, the Fifth, along with his most successfully spiritual, the Eighth, dedicated to the French theologian Teilhard de Chardin. The Ode to the Queen is typical ceremonial twaddle, and I can’t even read the opening line, “Sound forth celestial organs,” without laughing out loud. No matter. This disc represents a fine conclusion to a major cycle of symphonies by a major symphonist. [10/23/1999]
