Havergal BRIAN (1876-1972)
Symphonies Nos. 6, 28†, 29† and 31
New Russia State Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Walker
† WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING
Listen to Track 2:
BRIAN: Symphony No. 28 – I. Moderato
Havergal Brian’s extraordinary late creativity is almost unparalleled in musical history. Between the completion of Symphony No. 6 in 1948 and the end of his compositional life two decades later he wrote 26 symphonies. No. 6 marks a crucial point in his adoption of more concise forms and economy of expression in its single-movement span, a process taken even further in the brief but free polyphonic fantasia of No. 31. In Symphonies Nos. 28 and 29 Brian turned to the classical four-movement model but one which is wholly and idiosyncratically re-imagined. The intensity and even savagery of No. 28 is balanced by No. 29, Brian’s most lyrical late work.