John Blackwood McEwen - Three Border Ballads

John Blackwood McEWEN(1868-1948)

Three Border Ballads

The London Philharmonic

Alsdair Mitchell

John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948) was an important composer in the early decades of the twentieth century, but his music has not quite managed to retain more than the most tenuous toehold in the repertoire. Chandos has done him quite a service, and his very enjoyable Solway symphony is finally available in a modern recording (as are several of his more than 20 string quartets). To be honest I would certainly recommend starting with the Solway symphony; the Three Border Ballads provided here are overall enjoyable enough but, with one exception, hardly great music. The exception is the first piece, "Grey Galloway", which features some strong themes and plenty of imaginative and gorgeous details (stylistically somewhat reminiscent of early Bax, but McEwen's trio predates Bax's symphonic poems). It is definitely worth getting to know.

"The Demon Lover" is probably of primarily specialist interest; despite some nice coloration McEwen struggles to escape from the shadow of Wagner, and without any particularly memorable theme or guiding idea it ends up rather meandering. Coronach, which concludes the collection, is third-rate music, never raising above the conventional or clichéd. The London Philharmonic Orchestra seems to realize this, for the performances here are somewhat lackluster, at least compared to the performance of the Solway symphony. To be fair, it is probably not in general their fault that the music of the last two pieces comes across as perfunctory and lacking in fire and spirit, but even in the far more inspired Grey Galloway the performance seems a little tentative. The sound quality is good, however, and this release should appeal to the more adventurous, even if it cannot in any respect compete