Overtures From The British Isles Vol 3

Havergal Brian: The Tinker’s Wedding; Geoffrey Bush Yorick; Alan Rawsthorne Street Corner; Daniel Jones Comedy Overture*; Frank Bridge Rebus; Robin Orr The Prospect of Whitby*; Richard Arnell The New Age Benjamin Britten Overture to ‘Paul Bunyan’; Alan Bush Resolution*; Clifton Parker Overture to ‘The Glass Slipper’; Eric Fenby: Rossini on Ilkla Moor
*Première Recording

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Rumon Gamba
Chandos CHAN 20351
Chandos.net

Rumon Gamba unearths forgotten treasures from wartime Britain in a disc that questions why concert halls have ignored such vivid music.

As the sun bathes Whitby's famous Abbey in golden light on this album's striking cover photograph, Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra illuminate repertoire that has spent far too long in the shadows. This third volume of Overtures from the British Isles continues the conductor's admirable mission to resurrect rarely heard works, delivering three world première recordings alongside pieces that deserve far wider currency.

All the overtures were composed within an eleven-year span from 1938 to 1949, against the backdrop of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. The concentration of creative energy within such turbulent times lends the collection unexpected coherence, though the musical styles prove refreshingly eclectic.

Havergal Brian's The Tinker's Wedding opens proceedings with characteristic rhythmic vigour, its seven minutes packed with a number of ideas. Geoffrey Bush's Yorick follows, though Lewis Foreman's excellent liner notes reveal this is no Shakespearean memorial, despite the quotation from Hamlet Act V Scene 1. Rather, it pays tribute to the comedian Tommy Handley, who died on 9 January 1949, a touching reminder of how art responds to contemporary loss in unexpected ways.

Alan Bush's Resolution features a prominent piano part that adds textural interest, originally conceived for brass band before being reimagined as an orchestral overture in 1944.

Britten's Overture to Paul Bunyan allows you to hear nascent ideas that would later bloom in The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, while Robin Orr's Prospect of Whitby demonstrates yet another composer's voice.

The contrasts between the composers' individual styles prove consistently engaging, and one is left puzzling over why concert programmers have so comprehensively neglected this repertoire. The BBC Philharmonic brass section clearly relishes its opportunities to shine, and Gamba draws committed, enthusiastic performances throughout.

The disc concludes with Eric Fenby's gloriously absurd Rossini on Ilkla Moor, whose backstory rivals anything on the programme. Spotting a poster in Scarborough announcing the work's première, Fenby glanced at his watch: 11.30am, Wednesday. By 3am Sunday morning he had composed the overture and copied all the parts single-handedly, rehearsed it at 10am, and conducted the packed première performance that evening. The resulting jeu d'esprit marries Yorkshire's unofficial anthem with Rossinian sparkle, a fitting end to a disc that champions the eccentric, the overlooked, and the unjustly forgotten.