I know, I play an awful lot of Bruckner on WWFM on Tuesday afternoons. It’s a way for me to regroup as I come down off the adrenaline rush of hosting the live noon concerts, which are unscripted and basically improvised from a sheaf of papers handed to me, which I do my best to assimilate in advance.
I also know I have been going on an awful lot about Richard Arnell, the neglected English master, in connection with the centenary of his birth, which was last Friday. (Yesterday I played his String Quintet No. 3.)
So, in the interest of mixing it up, today I will offer something a little different: Arnell’s Bruckner-inflected Symphony No. 3. Arnell’s wartime symphony bears other diverse influences – some Sibelius here, a dash of Nielsen there; perhaps even some Shostakovich – but try listening to it with Bruckner in mind, especially the earlier movements.
The six-movement piece was composed in the United States, where Arnell found himself stranded while visiting the World’s Fair in 1939, his return home cut off by the outbreak of the Second World War. His mother would be killed in the Blitz in 1942. Arnell dedicated his symphony “to the political courage of the British people.”
It certainly achieves an ambitious scale, running to over an hour in length. And don’t get me wrong: despite the multiplicity of influences – there’s even a kind of barn dance that recalls American symphonic music of the era – it is English, and most certainly Arnell, to the core. I think you’ll agree, it works up a good head of steam and achieves passages of genuine nobility. Judge for yourself; I’ll be playing it around 2:00.
First, today’s Noontime Concert will be made up of performances by the New York Chamber Ensemble, drawn from this summer’s Cape May Music Festival. We’ll hear selections from two programs. The first will include music by Philippe Hersant (“Héliades” for flute and strings), Johan Kvandal (from his Hardanger fiddle quintet) and Felix Mendelssohn (his String Quartet No. 2 in B-flat major). Then saxophonist Eddie Barbash will join the group for riffs on a variety of old favorites by Cole Porter, Ruben Fuentes, Manuel Ponce, Vincenzo Bellini, Harry Warren, and the ever-prolific Anonymous. Next year’s Cape May Music Festival will run from May 27 to June 14. Further developments, as they become available, will be posted at the festival’s website, capemaymac.org.
I hope you’ll join me today, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, for chamber music, an epic symphony and more, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
