On October 21, the musical world should have celebrated the centenary of Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006). The commemorations were rather discreet. The duty wished to shine his spotlight on this remarkable composer by questioning himself on the strange springs of posterity.
In Britain there was Edward Elgar (1857-1934). What a relief for a world power which had almost nothing, musically, to offer the world in two centuries, since Purcell (1659-1695)! Elgar’s longevity and the fact that he was still alive at the time of electric recording installed him as a figure of the first half of the 20th century.e century.
All in the cult of a hero, who should have been that of an XIXe century ending, would Great Britain have misjudged the true dimension of Ralph Vaughan Williams or Benjamin Britten? In doing so, and by extension, have such eminent creators as William Walton, Arnold Bax or Malcolm Arnold been considered negligible satellites in the galaxy?
Multiple talents
We have always had a weakness for melodic ease, the profession of Malcolm Arnold, like that of William Walton. There is, however, a big difference. Arnold contrasts nine of Walton’s two symphonies, plus concertos and ballets. During an unforgettable meeting in 2006, Neville Marriner told us that Walton had not helped his cause during his lifetime: “Willy was really very lazy. One day, I wanted to convince him to write a work for strings for the Academy. I bought him an overpriced dinner at the Ritz and had to push on the champagne for him to finally agree to orchestrate his quartet. But the bouquet is that he outsourced the job to Malcolm Arnold, just signing the sheet music, and named him Sonata for strings ! “
Malcolm Arnold was the handyman of British music. Take, symbolically, the years 1956 and 1957. In 1956, Gerard Hoffnung, tuba player but above all a famous caricaturist of musical themes, decided to organize a humorous concert at the Royal Festival Hall. Malcolm Arnold will compose the first work of the first Hoffnung Festival: the Grand, Grand Festival Overture for three vacuum cleaners, a waxing machine, four guns and orchestra, dedicated to Herbert Hoover, President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. This Hoover aspires to nothing, however: he made his fortune in the mining industry!
The following year, Malcolm Arnold would write the music for the film. The Bridge over the River Kwai by David Lean. It will remain associated with the use of Colonel Bogey March, English military march of the Great War, in a whistled version, on which Arnold had grafted a riser. This music for The Bridge over the River Kwai won Arnold an Oscar in 1958.
These two examples in which Malcolm Arnold illustrated himself in the years 1956 and 1957 are at the same time the “crimes” of which he seems to have been guilty in the eyes of the “right thinking” milieu of classical music.
By plunging into the symphonic universe of Malcolm Arnold, we are very far from the Grand, Grand Festival Overture. We dive into Britten’s century and Walton’s mastery of writing.
Ungrateful posterity
To redo the symphonic course of Malcolm Arnold, it is also to rediscover these tensions which accompany a Great Britain which is rebuilt after the war, as one perceives it well in the television series. The Crown. 1957 was the year Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned after the Suez Canal fiasco, a period of doubt for Britain as to its place in the world.
Isn’t Arnold then above all a gifted composer who sees, feels, expresses the pulse of his country and, through his talent, can touch everything? But his image is different. Because he has an innate melodic sense, a talent for combining music and humor and because he earns money by composing for film and television, he would become a second-rate composer.
The music critic David Hurwitz dares an unexpected parallel: “It is the spirit, the humor, the fact of leaving the canons that is marginalized. Basically, the same goes for Francis Poulenc. What saves Poulenc is having composed an opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites, and two great sacred works, the Gloria and the Stabat Mater. That’s what Malcolm Arnold lacks, ”he tells us.
However, in terms of style, the famous English musicologist Christopher Palmer is right to write this: “Arnold does not divide his talent as a composer on the one hand in the service of his light music and on the other hand for the benefit of so-called “serious” works. The two worlds interpenetrate. […] But whatever mode of expression Arnold chooses to adopt, the result is always an invigorating experience for the listener, due to the abundance of melodic material, the skill of making music sound beautifully beautifully. polished and a language with marked individuality. When you can say that about a composer, it automatically puts him in a separate category. “
When one seeks the reasons for a certain ingratitude of posterity, one cannot avoid the question of the absence of “the other XXe century ”in concert programs. Much will be done in the coming months and years to revalue female composers in general and African-American composers. But this will happen even as the foundations of a twentieth century culturee century, in particular its non-avant-garde second half, are in no way assimilated due to the hum of the repertoire and a planetary artistic crowd over several decades. What do we really know about Britten? Not to mention Sallinen or Rautavaara.
It is the spirit, the humor, the fact of breaking out of the guns that is marginalized. Basically, the same goes for Francis Poulenc. What saves Poulenc is having composed an opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites, and two great sacred works, the Gloria and the Stabat Mater. This is what Malcolm Arnold lacks.
To discover Malcolm Arnold
To approach Malcolm Arnold’s music pragmatically, there is an irresistible gateway: the dances. Arnold has compiled volumes of English, Scottish, Irish and Cornish dances. These short and colorful works have been recorded by Arnold himself or by Bryden Thomson, but also by Andrew Penny and the Queensland Orchestra.
This last recording was associated by Naxos with a new reissue of the symphonies in a boxed set, an initiative all the more fortunate as the Sony box set of Conifer recordings by Vernon Handley (symphonies and concertos) has become nowhere to be found. The competing version remains that of Richard Hickox and Rumon Gamba at Chandos, out of stock at the wrong time.
Chez Chandos, a perfectly conceived record couples under the direction of Rumon Gamba the overtures, of which Beckus the Dandipratt. Mervyn Cooke tells us that “during a recording session with the London Philharmonic in 1948, with time to kill, Eduard van Beinum and the orchestra recorded in sight this work by the orchestra’s trumpeter. , Malcolm Arnold ”. This facetious ” Comedy Overture Of 1943 brought Arnold to the attention of the film industry and launched his career as a composer.
Another excellent anthology by Rumon Gamba: the CD Music ballet, released in 2009. Chandos and Gamba had previously recorded Arnold’s music for the cinema. The records are fetching exorbitant prices here while they are easily accessible for listening on demand.
The availability of physical discs being the biggest problem, the music lover wishing to discover the music of Arnold is served primarily by online listening platforms, which even include anthologies that we have never seen before. true ”, like the 17 concertos published by Decca in Great Britain in 2006.
Three valuable publications were produced for the centenary: the most important is the one-act opera The Dancing Master (Resonus Classics). There is also an association of the 9e Symphony and Grand Gastronomic Concerto recorded in Latvia (Toccata) and, at Somm, a small but endearing disc for violin and piano.
Modest centenary or unworthy centenary?