Rawsthorne

Orchestral Works

John Turner, recorder
Conrad Marshall, flute
Rebecca Goldberg, horn
David Lloyd-Jones, conductor

Naxos 8 553567
64 minutes: DDD
1996

Track Listing:

4. Concertante Pastorale for Flute, Horn, and Strings (10:01)
       world premiere recording

5. Light Music for Strings (based on Catalan tunes)     (3:58)

Suite for recorder and String Orchestra (orch. John McCabe)
       world premiere recording

6. Sarabande: Maestoso 7. Fantasia: Andante con moto 8. Air: Andante grazioso 9. Jig: Allegro	(1:29) (2:28) (1:27) (1:09)

10. Elegaic Rhapsody for String Orchestra                   (10:14)
       world premiere recording

Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra

11. Rondo: Allegro moderato 12. Lullaby: Allegretto 13. Jig: Presto	(5:09) (2:41) (3:33)

Review Excerpt

The most substantial offering here - the resourceful and magnificently crafted Concerto for String Orchestra - dates from 1949, and David Lloyd-Jones and his admirably prepared group give a performance which, in its emotional scope and keen vigour, outshines Sir Adrian Boult's (now deleted) 1966 radio recording with the BBC SO. Not only does Lloyd-Jones achieve a more thrusting urgency in the outer movements, he also locates an extra sense of slumbering tragedy in the lento e mesto. He gives a sparkling account of the immensely engaging Divertimento.the rumbustious concluding 'Jig' (track 13) is as good a place as any to sample the spick-and-span response of the Northern Chamber Orchestra. The concertante pastorale, written for the Hampton Court Orangery Concerts (where it was first heard in 1951), is an atmospheric. Beautifully wrought 10-minute essay for solo flute, horn and strings. It's succeeded by the perky Light Music for Strings, composed in 1938 for the Worker's Music Association and based on Catalan folk-tunes. The there's John McCabe's expert orchestration of the miniature Suite for recorder and strings, the second of whose four linked movements is a reworking of a ballad from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. But the most exciting discovery has to be the 1963-4 Elegiac Rhapsody, a deeply felt threnody for string orchestra written in memory of Rawsthorne's friend, the poet Louis MacNeice. Nor only does it pack a wealth of first-rate invention and incident into its 10-minute duration, it attains a pitch of anguished expression possibly unrivalled in this figure's entire output. Excellently annotated by John Belcher and cleanly engineered.

Classical Good CD Guide 2001.