William Alwyn - Symphony No.4; Sinfonietta

William Alwyn:
 Symphony No. 4; Sinfonietta

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra,
 David Lloyd-Jones 

William Alwyn (1905 - 1985) led two lives: he was a composer of dramatic and colorful film scores and symphonies and he was also a fine landscape painter. That he is well known in neither does not detract from his abilities, but only lends credence to the fact that his PR was not sufficiently strong in his lifetime to make him a giant. 

Alwyn's duplicitous artistic life may explain part of the dilution of his efforts in each. His career as a painter seems more of a pastime than that of a committed artist, though his oil paintings of the British Isles are full of fine composition and technique. They speak big ideas - and so did his symphonies. While he enjoyed enormous success financially from his 200-odd film scores, his 'serious works' lack staying power, primarily because of the lack of a champion for his work. 

Symphony No. 4 is his most often performed work and it is a craggy, brassy, 'barbarically splendid' work - massive in scale but at the same time able to pull back into the elegiac sections and create some heart rending melodies. There is an element of Gustav Holst and a bit of Vaughan Williams here, but Alwyn maintains his own 'sound' despite the quotes.

The treasure of this particular recording by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of David Lloyd-Jones is the inclusion of the 'Sinfonietta for String Orchestra'. Here Alwyn steps aside from his boisterous big works and offers a work of true beauty. The movements remind this listener of Samuel Barber's infamous 'Adagio', of the 'Nimrod' variation of Elgar's 'Enigma Variations' and of the quality of pastorale in Vaughan Williams 'Flos Campi'. This is melody from the heart worn rightfully on the sleeve, and for those of us who love basking in such wonder this piece is worth the purchase of the CD. It makes one wonder just how much more is hidden in this rarely performed composer's genre!