Modern Guitar Repertoire

20th Century Classical Guitar Repertoire
Malcolm Arnold

Symphonies 1 to 9

says :
Relevance to Classical guitar : Malcolm Arnold wrote a guitar concerto for Julian Bream, which has many Jazz influenced passages, particularly reminiscent in parts of Django Reinhardt's work. Check out these 9 Symphonies to get a career-spanning picture of Arnold's style and concepts of music.

Symphony No.1

... 1949... ...a mood that is often mysterious and even ominous.... ... although there are interruptions from the brass and percussion, momentarily shattering the calm. ...transformation of the subject itself into a popular march, played by the piccolos. This lapse from the high seriousness of a symphony is repaired by the solemnity of the final metamorphosis of the theme...

Symphony No.2

... 1953... ... opening theme, loudly proclaimed... ... a melancholy bassoon theme, accompanied by the sustained notes of the violins.... ends with a final Allegro con brio... leading to a dance-like melody for woodwind.... The stark secondary theme returns, in substance, before the last appearance of the dance and a majestic coda.

Symphony No.3

The [passacaglia] second movement, elegiac in character, is a set of [twenty] variations based on a series of chords more than a melodic theme.

The [Haydnesque] last movement is based on three main themes and could be loosely described as a rondo." The Sibelian sub-plot of the work Arnold attributes to the telescoped structure of the first movement, and the presence of "a recurrent leitmotif" redolent of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony...

Symphony No.4

... 1960, "was also the year of the [London] Notting Hill race riots... I was appalled that such a thing could happen in this country that racial ideas have become increasingly strong in this country dismays me even more.... I have used very obvious West Indian and African percussion instruments and rhythms, in the hope, first, that its sounds well, and second, that it might help to spread the idea of racial integration.

... first subject... Lydian mode. The conflict between the Lydian mode, with its sharpened sub-dominant [fourth], and a scale which has no name, but has a sharpened sub-dominant [Lydian lower tetrachord] and a flattened leading-note [Phrygian upper tetrachord - coincidentally the combined tempered pitches of the 64th Carnatic mela, "Vachaspati"], plays an important part in the development of the movement.

The second subject is in the major (Ionian) scale, and is accompanied by a rhythmic figure in 8/8 time where the quavers are divided into 3+2+3 (1--2-123...)

"... second movement is a scherzo which is more chromatic than is usual in my music, believing, as I do, that excessive chromaticism is the most devitalizing dead-end in the music of the last sixty years. This movement is not intended to arouse emotions that are necessarily pleasant.

... the eruptive alla marcia interlude just before the end of the finale he now reveals to be "the frustration of the artist. It's meant to be completely crazy - I hope it sounds crazy."

...Malcom Arnold

Symphony No.5

... scherzo, marked Con fuoco, is one such as only Arnold could have carried off. The nagging opening gesture prefaces a series of nonchalant motifs over a walking bass-line, merging into an aggressive fugato texture, and falling away just as quickly. The trio is a telling incorporation of 1950s pop music into the symphonic argument, given substance by the constantly changing rhythm and instrumentation. The scherzo resumes its wayward course, only to be interrupted by a raucous brass outburst, driving the movement to a hectic conclusion.

...a brilliantly successful study in aspiration and failure.

Symphony No.6

... jazz influences in the opening Energico... The Lento is Arnold’s most searching take on pop idioms

Excerpted from Richard Whitehouse's sleeve notes.

Symphony No.7

...1973... .... the most extreme emotional aura of any of his works... ... Celtic traditional music suddenly strikes up - at first discreetly on harp and woodwind, then brazenly in a graphic evocation of an Irish folk-band. The main material returns to steer the movement to a seemingly tragic conclusion, but the return of the cow-bell provokes a wholly unexpected outcome - two massive unison chords and three tonic chords which end the symphony, if not in triumph, at least in a mood of hard-won defiance.

Symphony No.8

... 1978... even more unsettling in tone than its predecessor. ... ...Irish marching tune of the opening movement, a rare instance of Arnold re-using earlier material; in this case, from the score to Jack Gold's 1969 film The Reckoning.

The composer had lived in the Irish Republic since the mid-1970s, and the oddly distorted character of this music suggests a parallel between the troubled history of the Irish people, and his personal circumstances at the time - soon to collapse into a seven-year period of virtual musical silence.

Symphony No.9

... 1992, in Studio 7 at BBC Manchester, the BBC Philharmonic gave the first performance of the Symphony No.9, Opus 128, by Sir Malcolm Arnold.

Ever since Beethoven, writing a Ninth Symphony has been for a composer something akin to climbing Mount Everest - the summation of a lifetime's achievement. One of the most disturbing features of the Ninth for performers and critics alike is the amount of straightforward (or sometimes not so straightforward) repetition in the symphony, and there is also much unison writing for the instruments.

The second movement is memorable: a gentle, pastoral-like Allegretto in nine-eight time, with much of the writing in just two or three parts, and based on a haunting melancholy tune that resembles a folk- like carol.

The third movement is a noisy two-four piece marked giubiloso and not unlike many another breezy Arnold scherzo, with much prominent and tricky writing for the wind, particularly the brass, and full of characteristic Arnold clashes and dissonances within a tonal context.

... finale ... almost as long as the other three movements put together... a huge Adagio slow movement... movement is bleak and intense, spare and grief-stricken; like a gigantic funeral march it forsakes dramatic contrasts for the sake of an unbroken continuity of atmosphere: until the final bars, that is, which form a radiant resolution on to D major. Without that chord, the surrender to nihilism and despair would be total.

From the sleeve notes by 1995 Piers Burton-Page

Text abridged, and images from www.naxos.com
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Tracks

Ireland National Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Penny, conductor

Symphony No. 1, Op. 22
01. Allegro 11:58
02. Andantino 08:40
03. Vivace con fuoco 07:50

Symphony No. 2, Op. 40
04. Allegretto 06:28
05. Vivace 04:27
06. Lento 09:55
07. Allegro con brio 06:20

Symphony No. 3, Op. 63
01. Allegro-Vivace 11:11
02. Lento 12:57
03. Allegro con brio-Presto 07:10

Symphony No. 4, Op. 71
04. Allegro-Poco piu mosso-Tempo primo 13:05
05. Vivace ma non troppo 05:05
06. Andantino 11:38
07. Con fuoco-Alla marcia-Tempo primo-Maestoso-Allegro molto 07:59

Symphony No. 5, Op. 74
01. Tempestuoso 10:32
02. Andante con moto 10:54
03. Con fuoco 05:07
04. Risoluto 06:03

Symphony No. 6, Op. 95
05. Energico 08:09
06. Lento 09:19
07. Con fuoco 07:13

Symphony No. 7, Op. 113
01. Allegro energico 16:23
02. Andante con moto 13:58
03. Allegro 07:43

Symphony No. 8, Op. 124
04. Allegro 11:21
05. Andantino 07:54
06. Vivace 06:36

Symphony No. 9, Op. 128
01. Vivace 11:43
02. Allegretto 07:09
03. Giubiloso 10:10
04. Lento 08:09

Sir Malcolm Arnold in Conversation with Andrew Penny
05. Sir Malcolm Arnold in Conversation with Andrew Penny 13:30