- Audio CD (Sep 7 2004)
- SPARS Code: DDD
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Hyperion UK
- ASIN: B0002JEJQU
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simpson at his best,
By
This review is from: Sym 11/Vars On A Theme By Carl (Audio CD)
Critics who slam Simpson for being dull and pedantic are, to my mind, not only unnecessarily spiteful but also just plain wrong.There is no doubt that at his worst he is didactic, cerebral to the point of aridity, and even boring. You get the feeling his friends should have told him lighten-up Bob, enough of the palindromes and canons already. He can be like a child who does not know how to play. On the other hand his music can take your breath away with its excitement and beauty, its vitality and grandeur, its cosmic scale and other-worldliness. Knowing where to start with Simpson seems to me to be the key. My first work of his was the old vinyl disc of the third symphony conducted by Horenstein. Both as a performance and for the work itself, I could not have chosen a worse spot. Its bombast and rhetoric seem to claim import it just does not achieve. The later performance by Handley is better but still does not rescue the work in my opinion. No, I would advise anybody wanting to sample Simpson to start with symphony 4 or this current disc. It contains the composer at his best. The symphony starts with an autumnal andante, one of his simpler and more emotional creations, and switches gear for the allegro vivace finale. It is one of Simpson's shorter symphonies and none the worse for that. Variations on a theme by Nielsen dates from 1983 and pays homage to one of his main influences (Beethoven and Bruckner being the others). In his hands variation form can tend to turn into an exercise in cleverness, but here he avoids that trap. Maybe it is the essential innocence of Neilsen's theme (from incidental music to the play Ebbe Skamulsen) that inspires Simpson to temper burgeoning cuteness. Anyway, it works, and Matthew Taylor's performance does it, and the symphony, justice. Recording is A1. If this work turns you on to Simpson you may want to try the couplings of symphonies 2 and 4, or 1 and 8 next. Symphonies 6 and 7 are not bad but for all the hyperbole the British music press attached to 9 when it emerged, it strikes me as somewhat pompous and 3 and 10 are irretrievably dry. 5 is more on a par with 6 and 7. The string quartets are also worth investigating although there, too, Simpson's good and bad qualities are both in evidence. I would sum him up by saying he is definitely a worthwhile composer, and an individual voice who, at his best, touches greatness.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply moving,
By Alwa - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sym 11/Vars On A Theme By Carl (Audio CD)
I have waited for at least 2 years to hear this recording of Robert Simpson's last symphony. Suffice it to say that I was not disappointed! It will take many hearings for me to adequately assimilate this work and to be able to judge it in relation to Simpson's other symphonies but my first impressions are of a work that is deeply moving, especially the first movement, perhaps more introspective and intimate than most of Simpson's works. It seems that Simpson's art might have been entering a new phase of greater rarification and sensitivity when his career was so brutally cut short by a debilitating stroke. It seems so characteristic of Simpson's total lack of pretension (and does nothing to minimize the profundity of the work) that his final symphonic utterance should end with such a simple gesture, as Simpson puts it, "with a flick of the wrist". If you are moved and/or fascinated by Simpson's music (and not everyone is) then this will not disappoint you and will perhaps be mandatory listening leading to a greater perspective on this great man and his art.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A highly structured, beautifully wrought work of art,
By Daniel R. Greenfield "Dan" - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: Sym 11/Vars On A Theme By Carl (Audio CD)
In plain and simple terms, Robert Simpson's last symphony is one of his very best. Strikingly it bears little resemblance to his others. As one other reviewer has noted, there are traces of Shostakovich in the first movement, but traces only. This is a very mature, highly structured work. It possesses the same austerity of many other Simpson symphonies, but is milder in tone; almost stoic, not given to the outbursts of earlier works. But mixed in with this milder structure there are the beautiful hammering staccato pulses in the strings that occur in the middle of the first movement, and then return to mesmerize the listener in the gradual build-up of the second movement. The ending is ironic: you would expect Robert Simpson to go out raging against the dying of the light, but no; he goes out as the magician: a sudden puff of smoke, and he is gone, with only silence left behind. The Nielson Variations are old-style Simpson, though still quite good. One final note: The UK music establishment will one day realize what a truly great composer Simpson was; the sooner the better.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extraordinary Last Symphony,
By Paul Cook - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sym 11/Vars On A Theme By Carl (Audio CD)
I have long been a fan of Robert Simpson, especially his symphonies. I see them ranking up there with the great symphonists (including Shostakovich) of the 20th century. Oddly, this work has clear echoes (perhaps as a kind of homage) to Shostakovich, particularly in the first movement which has near-quotes from Shostakovich's 8th Symphony (my favorite). The piece that accompanies this work is a homage to Carl Neilsen (also another personal favorite). This disc is a pure delight and is ALL Robert Simpson despite the quotes and nods. Get this disc if you are new to Simpson. Then track down his 5th and 6th. I love this man's work.
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