Maurice Ravel, Lennox Berkeley & Adam Pounds: Orchestral Works

The three composers whose works appear on this album are interconnected: Ravel was a mentor to Lennox Berkeley, and Berkeley to Pounds. Le Tombeau de Couperin marks Ravel’s movement towards neoclassicism, its forms and style a re-invention of ones from the French baroque. Originally written for solo piano, the movements of the suite were dedicated to friends whom Ravel had lost in the First World War. In 1919 he orchestrated four of the six movements (the version performed here). Berkeley met Ravel a number of times in the 1920s, working as an interpreter and tour-guide whilst Ravel was in London. Ravel advised him to study with Nadia Boulanger, which he did, between 1926 and 1932. Commissioned by Sir Arthur Bliss for the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1942, the Divertimento initially received a mixed reception, but has since found many supporters (including Pounds). The critic Peter Dickinson felt it showed an ‘instinctive and unimpassioned creativeness associated with the French aesthetic, but by no means restricted to it’. Adam Pounds studied privately with Berkeley in London during the late 1970s, and in his own music has perpetuated the firm commitment of the two earlier composers to clarity and accessibility in everything they wrote. His Third Symphony was written in 2021 and is a response to the national lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pounds states that the piece captures the ‘sadness, humour, determination and defiance’ which everyone faced at this time – not least musicians. Scored for relatively modest orchestral forces, the work is dedicated to Sinfonia of London and John Wilson who here give the work its world première recording.

Reviews

Gramophone Magazine March 2024

“The finale [of the Pounds] projects a mood of hard-won defiance, and the symphony as a whole is certainly worth experiencing – especially in a performance as scrupulously prepared and committed as this one.

Sunday Times 11th February 2024

“The three composers share a dedication to clarity in their writing, and find their perfect interpreters in Wilson and the Sinfonia of London, who luxuriate in Ravel’s wondrous Le Tombeau de Couperin and make a persuasive case for Pounds’s third symphony in this world premiere recording. – 4 out of 5 stars

The Guardian 3rd February 2024

“Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin – played with impeccable virtuosity and a sense of weightless clarity, follows on from the ensemble’s recent release of the complete ballet Daphnis et Chloé, by the same composer. Lennox Berkeley’s Divertimento (1943) is an elegant, many-faceted work, with French accents, worthy of a place in the mainstream.

The Arts Desk 10th February 2024

“The repertoire is chosen carefully, but is all clearly stuff Wilson loves, and the crafting of the releases, from preliminary scholarly research to the performances and engineering in the studio, shows artistry and musicianship of the first rank.