Percy Grainger - Transcriptions for Wind Orchestra

Percy GRAINGER (1882-1961)

Transcriptions for Wind Orchestra

Ivan Hovorun (piano)

Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra

Clark Rundell.    

rec. 1-2 April 2007, Studio 7 New Broadcasting House, Manchester. DDD

Angelus ad Virginem (1942)

by Anonymous (thirteenth century)

Ballade No. 17 (1937) 

by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377)

La Bernardina (1943) 

Canzone in three parts 

by Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455-1521)

Prelude in the Dorian Mode (1941) 

Tiènto del Segundo Tono 

by Antonio de Cabezón (c. 1510-1566)

The Four Note Pavan (1940) 

No. 13 from Consort Music to the Viols in 4, 5 and 6 parts 

by Alfonso Ferrabosco II (c. 1575-1628)

Five-Part Fantasy No. 15 (1937-41)

A Five Tone-Strand Fantasy for Viols 

by John Jenkins (1592-1678)

March (1946)

March, BWV Anh. 122 

from Clavierbüchlein II for Anna Magdalena Bach (1725) 

by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

See what His love can do (1937)

'Seht, was die Liebe tut', aria for tenor 

from Cantata, BWV 85 Ich bin ein guter Hirt (1725) 

by Johann Sebastian Bach

O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde groß (1936-42)

Chorale prelude, BWV 622 

from Das Orgelbüchlein (1713-15) 

by Johann Sebastian Bach 

Hungarian Fantasy (1959)

Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien, S 123, R 458 (1849-52) 

by Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Chorale No. 2 (1942) 

from Trois Chorals (1890) 

by César Franck (1822-1890)

Tuscan Serenade (1937) 

'Sérénade toscane', Op. 3 No. 2 (?1878) 

by Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Folk-Tune (1942) 

No. 1 from Two Ballades, Op. 38 (1924) 

by Sir Eugene Goossens (1893-1962)

Down Longford Way (1935)

No. 2 from Four Musical Sketches (1928) 

by Katharine Parker (1886-1971)

Review:

 Here is a major batch of premiere recordings of arrangements made by Grainger in the 1930s and 1940s. It falls into two segments: gems from the Baroque and earlier eras and a miscellany of genre pieces from the romantic era and the twentieth century.

 

Grainger was something of a dab-hand when it came to arrangements and transcriptions. He was a practical musician as well as a fanciful one with his multiple arrangements of his own music allowing for a wider range of performing opportunities as well as being evidence of a certain idealism. The fourteen transcriptions featured here offer proof-generous both of his craft and of the breadth of his access to source material.

 

The Angelus is marked liltingly and it melts a typical Graingerian cheerfulness and Gabrieli-like nobility into this melody by an as yet unidentified composer. The Machaut Ballade No. 17 is redolent of some serenely circling angelic host. There is a foot-tapping quality to La Bernardina. The Cabezon Prelude again moves in a stately liquefaction redolent of Hovhaness. For the first time in the Ferrabosco-based Pavan I felt the heavy hand of nineteenth century technique of the type we have heard in sluggish glucose-heavy Bach orchestrations. This is blown away by Jenkins' Fantasy No. 15 which has more of the familiar Grainger about it. The 1946 March is an unnerving creature having transformed a piece from the Clavierbüchlein into bouncy bombast. An undulantly winding and smooth arrangement of See what his love can do provides balm for the soul; not to mention a hint of Sheep may safely graze. O mensch bewein has some Finzian trills and a stately and moving tread.

 

A major mood gear-change comes with the 17 minute Hungarian Fantasy arranged by Grainger at the age of 77. It is for wind-band with piano solo - here glitteringly despatched by Ivan Hovorun.  It is fascinating to hear but I did not feel that there was any compulsion that it should exist in a windband arrangement and in any event the piano is firmly and glitteringly centre-stage. Franck's Second Chorale with its recollections of the famous Symphony is most tastefully arranged in a way that declares openly its organ origins. Until reading Barry Peter Ould's note I had not realised that Grainger revered Fauré quite so much. Oddly enough I thought more often of Elgar in the Fauré piece – at least at first. Interesting that Grainger irradiated his own genetic material so skilfully into the Goossens Folk-Tune (originally for solo piano) and at the same time not quite escape echoes of Holst's Moorside Suite. We end with an arrangement of that little sentimental treasure Down Longford Way by Katharine Parker (1886-1971). Parker's exercise in nostalgia and rose-tints is lent a surprisingly stirring grandeur.

 

Nothing here outstays its welcome. Playing times are short and to the succinct point.

 

Not essential Grainger perhaps but some stunningly inventive work and most superbly performed and recorded.

 

Rob Barnett (Music Web)