Simpson, Robert (1921-1997)

[Richard Barrett]

Have you heard Simpson's 9th String Quartet, a huge set of variations on a theme of Haydn ?
I'm not guaranteeing it will convert you but it's absolutely amazing to my ears.

No I haven't. I will give it a listen. Thanks for the recommendation.

[ahinton]

No I haven't. I will give it a listen. Thanks for the recommendation.

And if that might not do it for you, maybe give his second sring quintet a try...

[jayne lee wilson]

Musical child of Radio 3 and Gramophone, I soon became aware of Robert Simpson as a very engaging writer, producer and broadcaster - not least for his Innocent Ear, which introduced me, inter alia, to Stenhammar’s Serenade and McCabe’s Notturni ed Alba…
His books on Nielsen and Bruckner had a huge influence on my listening and the way I thought about “The Symphony” as such.

*****
As for his own music, there wasn’t much available in the 1970s apart from a true classic: Horenstein’s LSO 3rd Symphony which, even against Handley’s better-recorded version, remains the more dramatic and incisive reading. We had to wait for the late 80s before Hyperion began their cycle, with the 9th a famously G-Award winning disc.
I never loved the 9th though, rather more taken with the greater lyricism, mystery (that shadowy scherzo, ending in mid-air!), austere tragedy (adagio) and Hammerklavier-like structure of No.10 (another, grander homage to Beethoven - Simpson’s 4th also focusses on LvB, the 9th) and with yet another of his wonderful slow movements, which moves between tragedy and serenity, calmly contemplating both - one which calls the bleaker moods of Holst or VW to mind)….

I always felt the peak of his output were the Symphonies 2 - 5, with a strikingly varied, increasingly expressive intensity and inventiveness along with his characteristic classically-based ingenuity of compact symphonic structures, motivically and thematically very unified, with short motifs and figures in continuous evolution, often (Like Bartok’s 4th and 5th Quartets) building across arch forms or symmetrical structures with that “in my end is my beginning” teleology (eg Symphonies 5 and 7).
He was as much a successor to Nielsen as Holmboe was; but Simpson has pared back the basic musical ideas much further than Nielsen, and their continuous flowing evolution can make them a challenge to follow. The Hyperion notes are very useful here.

Different musical characters too: the 2nd engaging and humorous, the 3rd with a visionary appeal on both cosmic and pastoral levels, 4th as a homage to LvB (scherzo of the 9th) and then the 5th… surely one of the Great British Symphonies with its sense of space, depth and night-sky vision. For me, clearly his finest (with lovely quirky humour in its scherzo, chasing its tail between two profoundly contemplative canons. Classic Simpsonian contrasts).

No.6 seems to tread water, taking stock of past achievements, unsure of where to go next; but then 7 and 8 find new things to say, and new sounds to express them.
7 (another personal favourite, like 3 and 5) has a strikingly bleak, visionary beginning and end; develops into a profoundly tragic work, the adagio reminding me again of the Vaughn Williams 6th or Holst’s Egdon Heath, the developmental figures leading into the finale clearly descended from Nielsen, but always in Simpson’s own distinctive voice. (cf. the much warmer tranquillo in the Nielsen 5 (ii))
A remote Northern atmosphere about it too, related to the inner worlds from which Tapiola or the Lepo Sumera 3rd Symphony emerged.

The brief 11th seems a marvellous apt, concise, lighthearted signing-off. Its coda of mysterious rustlings ending a profoundly original symphonic career with, as Simpson said, “a flick of the wrist”.
His work has many of these deft, quiet, enigmatic moments, movements and passages; he was clearly aware of the need to balance all the drive and relentless energy of faster sections. Hans Keller’s phrase about “the large-scale integration of contrasts” comes to mind.

***
Easier to admire than to love?
Possibly so, perhaps because of that Nielsonian(**), very rigorous approach to continuously developing structures, whose driving motives are often quite brief, plain and simple in themselves. Yet still with a profound sense of fantasy and wonder in their textures, in their very sound. There is a deep personal connection to the Natural World in the symphonies, both evocation and invocation, from geological phenomena to birdsong to distant stars.
That sense of impersonal processes working themselves out, or the cool eye of the predator waiting to pounce, may lead some listeners to miss a certain warmth or human presence in the music. Even more than usually with such individual inspiration, one needs to submit to Simpson’s strangeness and originality on its own terms. The warring orchestral masses and oppositions almost always give way to an austere, profound if impassive contemplation.

(**)
(Viewed through the prism of memory and time, the beginning of the Nielsen 3rd could almost have been written by Simpson himself)

[ahinton]

Musical child of Radio 3 and Gramophone, I soon became aware of Robert Simpson as a very engaging writer, producer and broadcaster - not least for his Innocent Ear, which introduced me, inter alia, to Stenhammar’s Serenade and McCabe’s Notturni ed Alba…
His books on Nielsen and Bruckner had a huge influence on my listening and the way I thought about “The Symphony” as such.

*****
As for his own music, there wasn’t much available in the 1970s apart from a true classic: Horenstein’s LSO 3rd Symphony which, even against Handley’s better-recorded version, remains the more dramatic and incisive reading. We had to wait for the late 80s before Hyperion began their cycle, with the 9th a famously G-Award winning disc.
I never loved the 9th though, rather more taken with the greater lyricism, mystery (that shadowy scherzo, ending in mid-air!), austere tragedy (adagio) and Hammerklavier-like structure of No.10 (another, grander homage to Beethoven - Simpson’s 4th also focusses on LvB, the 9th) and with yet another of his wonderful slow movements, which moves between tragedy and serenity, calmly contemplating both - one which calls the bleaker moods of Holst or VW to mind)….

I always felt the peak of his output were the Symphonies 2 - 5, with a strikingly varied, increasingly expressive intensity and inventiveness along with his characteristic classically-based ingenuity of compact symphonic structures, motivically and thematically very unified, with short motifs and figures in continuous evolution, often (Like Bartok’s 4th and 5th Quartets) building across arch forms or symmetrical structures with that “in my end is my beginning” teleology (eg Symphonies 5 and 7).
He was as much a successor to Nielsen as Holmboe was; but Simpson has pared back the basic musical ideas much further than Nielsen, and their continuous flowing evolution can make them a challenge to follow. The Hyperion notes are very useful here.

Different musical characters too: the 2nd engaging and humorous, the 3rd with a visionary appeal on both cosmic and pastoral levels, 4th as a homage to LvB (scherzo of the 9th) and then the 5th… surely one of the Great British Symphonies with its sense of space, depth and night-sky vision. For me, clearly his finest (with lovely quirky humour in its scherzo, chasing its tail between two profoundly contemplative canons. Classic Simpsonian contrasts).

No.6 seems to tread water, taking stock of past achievements, unsure of where to go next; but then 7 and 8 find new things to say, and new sounds to express them.
7 (another personal favourite, like 3 and 5) has a strikingly bleak, visionary beginning and end; develops into a profoundly tragic work, the adagio reminding me again of the Vaughn Williams 6th or Holst’s Egdon Heath, the developmental figures leading into the finale clearly descended from Nielsen, but always in Simpson’s own distinctive voice. (cf. the much warmer tranquillo in the Nielsen 5 (ii))
A remote Northern atmosphere about it too, related to the inner worlds from which Tapiola or the Lepo Sumera 3rd Symphony emerged.

The brief 11th seems a marvellous apt, concise, lighthearted signing-off. Its coda of mysterious rustlings ending a profoundly original symphonic career with, as Simpson said, “a flick of the wrist”.
His work has many of these deft, quiet, enigmatic moments, movements and passages; he was clearly aware of the need to balance all the drive and relentless energy of faster sections. Hans Keller’s phrase about “the large-scale integration of contrasts” comes to mind.

***
Easier to admire than to love?
Possibly so, perhaps because of that Nielsonian(**), very rigorous approach to continuously developing structures, whose driving motives are often quite brief, plain and simple in themselves. Yet still with a profound sense of fantasy and wonder in their textures, in their very sound. There is a deep personal connection to the Natural World in the symphonies, both evocation and invocation, from geological phenomena to birdsong to distant stars.
That sense of impersonal processes working themselves out, or the cool eye of the predator waiting to pounce, may lead some listeners to miss a certain warmth or human presence in the music. Even more than usually with such individual inspiration, one needs to submit to Simpson’s strangeness and originality on its own terms. The warring orchestral masses and oppositions almost always give way to an austere, profound if impassive contemplation.

(**)
(Viewed through the prism of memory and time, the beginning of the Nielsen 3rd could almost have been written by Simpson himself)

Mon Dieu! Your irrepressible gift for getting to the heart of things and expressing the result of doing so with such thoughtfully eloquent articulacy are a large part of what make your writings such an unalloyed joy to read; thank you very much for this!

[Serial_Apologist]

Mon Dieu! Your irrepressible gift for getting to the heart of things and expressing the result of doing so with such thoughtfully eloquent articulacy are a large part of what make your writings such an unalloyed joy to read; thank you very much for this!

If jayne were to find a mainstream outlet for this talent for words of her's, I am sure she could become known as a great chronicler of our times. And I say that as much in encouragement as in envy!

[Joseph K]

Even more than usually with such individual inspiration, one needs to submit to Simpson’s strangeness and originality on its own terms.

I've often thought this about much of the best music.

And thanks for the long post - I'll have to listen to some Simpson, some time.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've often thought this about much of the best music.

And thanks for the long post - I'll have to listen to some Simpson, some time.

If I were to recommend a starting point, it would be the 3rd symphony (1962), the second of whose two movements is a thrilling build up, an accelerative drive of accumulative energy - a teaser that just manages to hold back before literally exploding at a sudden culmination point, which then expires in a mysterious close to the work. Simpson's work may sound oddly anomalous, with its triumphal Beethovenian gestures not meant as parodies but straight signifiers, seeming to suggest that nothing of stylistic importance otherwise happened between Beethoven 9 and Nielsen 2, or between Nielsen 5 and Simpson 1 (1953-ish), but we have to take cognizance of the dissonance of the times we are living through, but not be too subjective about it, but if you can overcome that conceit...

[CallMePaul]

Hyperion already issued the symphonies as a complete set.
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/d...c=D_CDS44191/7

Sadly download only, ruling it out for me. "Download only" strikes me as the modern equivalent of a deletion.

[Edgy 2]

If jayne were to find a mainstream outlet for this talent for words of her's, I am sure she could become known as a great chronicler of our times. And I say that as much in encouragement as in envy!

Mon Dieu! Your irrepressible gift for getting to the heart of things and expressing the result of doing so with such thoughtfully eloquent articulacy are a large part of what make your writings such an unalloyed joy to read; thank you very much for this!

Well said guys
We love you jayne

[Edgy 2]

If I were to recommend a starting point, it would be the 3rd symphony (1962), the second of whose two movements is a thrilling build up, an accelerative drive of accumulative energy - a teaser that just manages to hold back before literally exploding at a sudden culmination point, which then expires in a mysterious close to the work. Simpson's work may sound oddly anomalous, with its triumphal Beethovenian gestures not meant as parodies but straight signifiers, seeming to suggest that nothing of stylistic importance otherwise happened between Beethoven 9 and Nielsen 2, or between Nielsen 5 and Simpson 1 (1953-ish), but we have to take cognizance of the dissonance of the times we are living through, but not be too subjective about it, but if you can overcome that conceit...

[Richard Barrett]

I started on RS's 9th Quartet earlier on but was interrupted before the end of the first variation. It's an intriguing concept to be sure, and I look forward to spending more time with it when I have a chance but I perceive that it will need an hour's concentration so I have to be sure I'll get to the end in one stretch if I get started.

[jayne lee wilson]

If I were to recommend a starting point, it would be the 3rd symphony (1962), the second of whose two movements is a thrilling build up, an accelerative drive of accumulative energy - a teaser that just manages to hold back before literally exploding at a sudden culmination point, which then expires in a mysterious close to the work. Simpson's work may sound oddly anomalous, with its triumphal Beethovenian gestures not meant as parodies but straight signifiers, seeming to suggest that nothing of stylistic importance otherwise happened between Beethoven 9 and Nielsen 2, or between Nielsen 5 and Simpson 1 (1953-ish), but we have to take cognizance of the dissonance of the times we are living through, but not be too subjective about it, but if you can overcome that conceit...

Rarely for Simpson, he told of the inspiration for the second movement of No.3: a dawn chorus, from first light to the avian tumult at its peak; he says he loved its burgeoning "energy" (always a key term with this writer and composer). Of course, it is an unusual through-composed crescendo - quiet for most of its length; the dolce string cantilena at the start is lovely, memorable and - once again, in my end is my beginning! - returns to close the symphony on a solo clarinet as the mysterious veils return....

But if anyone wanted a symphonic entry point, I'd probably suggest No.2. A 1st movement full of classic Simpsonian atmosphere and tension (often very quiet... he really doesn't "hector or shout" all the time, it is simply that his faster musical energies are sometimes relentless as the tensions build before an extended climax, or a sudden, dramatic stasis or quietus...); then a really lovely slow movement (Simpson's adagios and andantes are as consistently beautiful as Nielsen's; No.4's is playing now...); finally a finale of infectious catchiness, the constant rhythmic invention almost falling over its own feet before an exhilarating punchy end.

I heard 2 last night. It really is great fun! (The Bournemouth SO sound is also more vivid and immediate here, compared to some of the RPO/RLPO recordings). 4's outer movements are tougher nuts; but then the finale's conclusion arrives, blazing across the room to really knock you for six - wow!
Like so many of Simpson's movements, its all about staying with it (surfing the wave, riding the bronco, etc), so the ending seems so thrillingly inevitable.

(the Lyrita 5 and 6 just arrived; will report back....pity though, that at the RFH in 1982 (for a Bruckner 7, in one of my rare-to-nonexistent encounters with famous people) Simpson told me the 1980 Groves' premiere of No.6 was "about 6 minutes too long"...yes, this is that very performance. But the LSO/AD 5th premiere should be fascinating, as there are hardly any alternatives in this rep., and it is my favourite)

[jayne lee wilson]

Robert Simpson

Symphony No.5. LSO/Andrew Davis. RFH Live 3/05/73.
Symphony No.6. LPO/Groves. RFH Live 8/04/80.
Lyrita CD 2021. First Performances of each, from (fine-sounding) BBC Tapes.

First thing to say - this 5th is sensational. Mandatory purchase even if you have the Hyperion.

You feel the tension and pent-up energy from the first bars, just as you'd hope from a live performance (Let alone the premiere) and the LSO have that explosive virtuosity and intensity famous from their Walton and Nielsen 1st Symphonies of a few years earlier with Previn. "We're loud and fast!" said their leader of the time. You'll recognise the sound straight away.
What a remarkable, remarkably original symphony the 5th is; and (Like many Simpson Symphonies) how fresh, new and genuinely modern it feels today as its scattering thematic fragments finally subside across the main idée fixe, "the chord" (***). Like smoke drifting across a city ruined by war.
I'm never surprised that Simpson's music isn't more popular. But it is scarcely believable that the 5th Symphony is hardly known, let alone played.

Second - this 6th is better than it has any right to be, given that the orchestra only had first sight of it the day before the concert!
You do pick up the tentative playing here and there, an orchestra feeling its way with very new music; but Groves keeps them on track and really brings it all home in a thrilling finale. So more than just a pendant to the revised, more assured Handley account; fascinating and absorbing in itself. The note reports Simpson's discontent with the premiere performance, but also his admiration for what the LPO did achieve in a very limited rehearsal time.

This is a fantastic record any intelligent, curious musiclover should hear.

(***)
Hovering there softly, from beginning to end, whenever the orchestral activity does down.... Simpson described "the chord" as: "the part of the mind that quietly watches you, regardless of the experiences you are having".
Extraordinary mind, extraordinary music....

[Edgy 2]

Robert Simpson

Symphony No.5. LSO/Andrew Davis. RFH Live 3/05/73.
Symphony No.6. LPO/Groves. RFH Live 8/04/80.
Lyrita CD 2021. First Performances of each, from (fine-sounding) BBC Tapes.

First thing to say - this 5th is sensational. Mandatory purchase even if you have the Hyperion.

You feel the tension and pent-up energy from the first bars, just as you'd hope from a live performance (Let alone the premiere) and the LSO have that explosive virtuosity and intensity famous from their Walton and Nielsen 1st Symphonies of a few years earlier with Previn. "We're loud and fast!" said their leader of the time. You'll recognise the sound straight away.
What a remarkable, remarkably original symphony the 5th is; and (Like many Simpson Symphonies) how fresh, new and genuinely modern it feels today as its scattering thematic fragments finally subside across the main idée fixe, "the chord" (***). Like smoke drifting across a city ruined by war.
I'm never surprised that Simpson's music isn't more popular. But it is scarcely believable that the 5th Symphony is hardly known, let alone played.

Second - this 6th is better than it has any right to be, given that the orchestra only had first sight of it the day before the concert!
You do pick up the tentative playing here and there, an orchestra feeling its way with very new music; but Groves keeps them on track and really brings it all home in a thrilling finale. So more than just a pendant to the revised, more assured Handley account; fascinating and absorbing in itself. The note reports Simpson's discontent with the premiere performance, but also his admiration for what the LPO did achieve in a very limited rehearsal time.

This is a fantastic record any intelligent, curious musiclover should hear.

(***)
Hovering there softly, from beginning to end, whenever the orchestral activity does down.... Simpson described "the chord" as: "the part of the mind that quietly watches you, regardless of the experiences you are having".
Extraordinary mind, extraordinary music....

Thanks jayne, caught up with this release now, it is indeed fantastic

[jayne lee wilson]

Robert Simpson Symphony No.7; Symphony No.11.
RLPO/Handley; CLS/Taylor. Hyperion CDs.

Two works showing Simpson at his most intensely expressive, hyper-integrated and sonically daring.
The master of the symphony in one movement (11 is in two but feels like one, such is the compelling continuity of motivic and intervallic developments..) as of the open-endings, whether hovering or asking more questions....

Of No.7, Simpson said: "is the end a picture of people not facing a fact that stares them in the face?". That C# on strings, sustained through thematic memory and fragmentation at the end of 7 is held for an astonishing time; left on its own it then suddenly ceases, leaving the listener breathless: what follows this?
(You can read the detailed notes at Hyperion here....https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/66280-B.pdf)


11 might feel more conclusive, but only insofar as it says (quietly): " so, more questions than answers.... and that's it for now!".
But its first movement is some of most tenderly lovely music Simpson ever wrote. Transfixing for me at least.

Over and again I think: how NEW this music sounds now, today! Once I would have added: "his time will come"..... but our present world probably can't accommodate such things, in its diversity, complexity and sheer cultural relativity and confusion.

***
Just begun reading this....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1479794384/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

...which is enthralling on the life, the music (nontechnically) and on the Radio 3 years from the 50s to the 70s, of how proud those producers and controllers (Glock, Cooke, Keller, Simpson himself etc) were of what it had to offer - "The Envy of the Civilised World"; of its sheer broadmindedness and openness to the new....the very (!) vigorous debates they had about that.

Copious quotes too, from press reviews of Simpson's works as they appeared from Cardus and many others. Fascinating range from hostility to impassioned enthusiasm, and a terrific read. Simpson's putdown of a Cardus review, in reply at the time, is very apt and very funny.