Peter Crossley-Holland, John Ireland & Eugene Goossens

Album review

Beyond fans of the BBC Third Programme, most listeners will not have heard of Peter Crossley-Holland, and even then his name will likely be more familiar as an ethnomusicologist than as composer. This 2009 Dutton disc by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Martin Yates aims to correct that imbalance by including Crossley-Holland's Symphony in D along with short, light works by Eugene Goossens and John Ireland. As it turns out, Crossley-Holland is an extremely conservative composer whose Symphony, written between 1988 and 1994, could have been written half a century earlier. All four movements bear descriptive subtitles such as "Vision and Offering," clearly revealing the work's sacred inspirations, and all four movements could easily have been written by Vaughan Williams in the '30s. Or, rather, they could have been written by Vaughan Williams had he been a less adventurous, committed, and gifted composer. Crossley-Holland's Symphony, though well-composed and effectively orchestrated, lacks drive and cogency. Each movement rolls forward without going anywhere in particular, and the finale, though much the longest movement, seems even longer than it is. Like the remaining pieces on this disc, the symphony receives a reading from Yates and his Scotch orchestra that is more than a run-through if less than an actual performance. If you love English music of the '30s and wish there were more of it, this disc may be for you. Dutton's sound is big, cool, clear, and just a tad distant.

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