The novelty item on this super-budget disc is the posthumous Double Concerto for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra by Benjamin Britten, edited by Colin Matthews from material nearly completed by the 19-year-old student composer. The open piano score is close to being a final draft, with orchestration well indicated. Matthews says it is nearly 100 percent Britten. However, at that time in his artistic development, Britten himself was only about 75 percent Britten. The concerto is logical and well formed, but mostly the ideas don’t take flight. A veteran Britten-listener will find some of the composer’s future compositional fingerprints but will miss Britten’s unique artistic voice. Britten was wise to turn instead to the forward-looking Sinfonietta, which he was composing at the same time. Nevertheless, the performances here are solid and polished and certainly give the music its due.
Though his violin concerto and Kol Nidrei are well-loved standard repertoire items, the rest of Max Bruch’s catalog is not as well known as it deserves. Among the less-familiar works, the Concerto for clarinet, viola, and orchestra Op. 88 has enjoyed a few decent recordings. This current version is an arrangement of that concerto with violin replacing the clarinet. I recommend the original. Part of the charm of the music lies in the contrasting sounds of the two soloists, so I’d seek out the recording with Thea King and Nobuko Imai. The London Symphony on that Hyperion disc outclasses the Berlin Symphony, which seems uninspired and not well balanced.
The best music on the disc is the Romantic Fantasy by Arthur Benjamin. It is a deft blend of Romanticism and 1930s tonal modernism, akin to the idiom of Walton but somewhat leaner. Think of British Pastoralism with an Australian kick to the rhythms. The soloists’ playing is sparkling, but there are moments in exposed woodwind lines where the Berlin players reveal some sketchy intonation. So, in sum: The Benjamin is worth the price, the Britten is of interest to completeist fans of this composer, and the Bruch is superfluous. Sound is unexceptional.
