Malcolm Arnold Festival

[Andrew Slater]

I don't know whether this has been mentioned here before (a search didn't throw anything up).

It's in Northampton from Fri 21st to Sun 23rd October. All nine symphonies will be played by various amateur (I think) orchestras over the weekend, together with other pieces by Arnold and others. In addition to the orchestral concerts there will be short chamber recitals and talks (not much info at the moment on these on the website.) I was amazed to find that the cost of a weekend pass for all concerts except the final one is £12, so I have signed myself up. There seems to be reasonably-priced accommodation available in the locality. The final concert costs a bit more.

[salymap]

Thanks for that Andrew. I suppose they won't be broadcast then?

[Andrew Slater]

I haven't seen anything on the website re. broadcasting. As none of the orchestras appear to be professional, it's unlikely that R3 would wish to broadcast any of the concerts.

[Suffolkcoastal]

R3 and Arnold symphonies don't seem to go well together these days as R3 now seems to tend to regard Arnold as more of a light music composer. None of Arnold's symphonies have been broadcast to date on R3 this year. The Arnold symphonic cycle is a very fine one, amongst the best produced in this country IMO.

[Dave2002]

Maybe this would be a reasonable way to spend the weekend. Worth thinking about.

I should get out my Arnold CDs first though, and give them a spin. Perhaps a bit intense though, and without
some of the chamber music or concertos to lighten things up.

[Andrew Slater]

Did anyone else here go?

Any thoughts?

I'm still dazed from last night's 9th.

[Petrushka]

Did anyone else here go?

Any thoughts?

I'm still dazed from last night's 9th.

Arnold's 9th is, in my view, a total masterpiece and its neglect among our professional orchestras is a real mystery. I would echo suffolkcoastal's assessment of the whole cycle. I didn't go, alas, but am glad that Northampton do Arnold proud. I am sure that his time will come.

[Andrew Slater]

Opinion seems to be divided as to the quality of the 9th, and some even say that it shouldn't be played at all.

All I can say is that in the performance on Sunday (Worthing Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Gibbons), it 'hit home' (particularly the fourth movement), and not just with me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Opinion seems to be divided as to the quality of the 9th, and some even say that it shouldn't be played at all.

DO they?! What fools! With the Seventh, it is one of the most powerful in this fine cycle of Symphonies.

[BBMmk2]

For me though, I cant get to grips with this canon of symphonies at all. Dont know why?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

They are "difficult", Bbm, but not in the usual sense that Music is often so described. "Difficult" because they sound "accessible": good tunes, rich harmony, exciting rhythms etc. But, for me, there was always a sense of "otherness" about them, too. The glorious Fifth Symphony, for example, with its "schmaltzy" Slow Movement; the Finale just seems to peeter out anti-climactically after the "victorious" return of the second movement theme. The Scherzo seems at first hearings merely boisterous although with some "ill-judged" heavy-handedness. And the First Movement also seemed an almost rhapsodic run through the motions of "Sonata Form", with its almost simple-minded "Second Subject". For years, I dismissed it as a pleasant-enough, but not quite satisfactorily coherent attempt at a Symphony by a decent tune-smith and film composer.

But, it "stuck", niggling on the retina of my memory, and when I heard the devastating Seventh Symphony, it occured to me that my patronizing attitude to the Fifth needed a brisk scrubbing over. I think that the "secret" of these works is in those "shadows": the passing moments of disquiet and disruption that first struck me as incompetence. Obviously the melody of the Second Movement is "scmaltzy": exaggeratedly so. It is like someone exaggerating their sorrow, making a public joke of it, in order to cover very deep feelings of loss or even betrayal. Heard in this way, the anticlimax of the Finale makes perfect, powerful sense, as do the beligerent moments of the Scherzo and the "twee" biits of the First Movement. The "accessibility" is a "front" to disguise very disturbing passions and psychological states - and, with repeated hearings, I think to reveal them, too.



... or, of course, perhaps you just don't like them!


Here endeth today's lesson: Best Wishes!

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem for me with most of Arnold's music that I have heard, not just the symphonies (that I have heard), is that the different moods and idioms contained cheek-by-jowl within it, seem bereft of oxygen, not really establishing themselves to be inhabited, and somehow cancel each other out. At times it reminds me of Honegger; but, taking the kind of triumphal build up in Honegger's 5th symphony, this would be the kind of mood Arnold would capture well for the screen, but lose without assistance from cinematic action. As for instance in the central movement of No 6 - the idiom, made up of piling bitonal chord on bitonal chord, also a feature in Honnegger 5 Movt 1, seems depleted. The great French-Swiss composer's final movement procession into an optimistic future seems assured, drawing us inexorably in, and its sudden mysterious snuffing is heartfelt, both in relation to our identification with what has brought us to this point, and in its own right as symphonic logic. I'm afraid the Arnold Ninth Symphony came across for me on the one occasion I just about managed to stay its duration as brutality without depth, and, lacking the pictorial representation where Arnold scores and was rightly awarded in every sense, unyelding in any way with which I could have emotionally identified. If anyone saw the TV documentary on Arnold a few years ago, what came across was a man inscrutably hidden behind several masks, and a brutal way of breaking through using music as maybe his only way, ("drink, anyone?").

[EdgeleyRob]

Arnold's 9th is, in my view, a total masterpiece and its neglect among our professional orchestras is a real mystery. I would echo suffolkcoastal's assessment of the whole cycle. I didn't go, alas, but am glad that Northampton do Arnold proud. I am sure that his time will come.

Agreed , I wouldn't be without any of these works.His time must surely come.

[BBMmk2]

I probably not very keen on his music, or some. I do rather like his brass quintet and his Symphony for brass ensemble but not his Fantasy for brass band though!

[Suffolkcoastal]

I thonk that Arnold's symphonies are a translation into musical terms of a very tortured mind, a mirror of a man afflicted with debilitating mental health problems throughout much of his life. Some of the symphonies are indeed brutal even frightening, the 7th in particular, but with the possible exception of the 1st symphony, Arnold is always in control of exactly what he wants to say. The brutality, sarcasm, poignant lyricism are all laid open, perhaps this is too much for some listeners. But if you are able to respond to Arnold's musical language, then what a powerful and emotional experience his symphonies are.