Malcolm Arnold - Symphonies Nos.5 & 6

Malcolm ARNOLD (1921-2006)

Symphony No. 5 Op.74 (1961) 

Symphony No. 6 Op.95 (1968)

London Symphony Orchestra

Richard Hickox

Recorded February 6-7, 1995

Arnold's Fifth is one of his most accessible and rewarding works. The inspiration for the work was the early deaths of several of Arnold's friends and colleagues: Dennis Brain, Frederick Thurston, David Paltenghi and Gerard Hoffnung.

They are all remembered in the first movement and Hoffnung's spirit pops up in the third and fourth. The Chandos recording is richly resonant and reinforces the impression that in Hickox's hands the Andante has an added degree of acceptance in its elegiac close, while the last two movements are colourfully expansive.

The Sixth Symphony is nothing like as comfortable as the Fifth, with a bleak unease in the unrelenting energy of the first movement, which becomes even more discomfiting in the desolate start to the Lento. This leads to a forlorn suggestion of a funeral march, which then ironically quickens in pace but is suddenly cut down; the drum strokes become menacingly powerful and the despairing mood of the movement's opening returns. Hickox handles this quite superbly and grips the listener in the music's pessimism, which then lifts completely with the energetic syncopated trumpet theme of the rondo finale. Although later there are moments of ambiguity, and dissonant reminders of the earlier music, these are eclipsed by the thrilling life-asserting coda.

Gramophone