Rumon Gamba – Gipps: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4, Song for Orchestra & Knight in Armour (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Rumon Gamba – Gipps: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4, Song for Orchestra & Knight in Armour (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:16 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos

The unjustly neglected and often dissident music of Ruth Gipps is with this album finding all the resonance it deserves by Rumon Gamba and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, having already championed many British composers from the twentieth century with their series devoted to British Tone Poems and Overtures from the British Isles. While, not surprisingly, there are echoes of the most popular composers of the time – Sibelius, Walton, and Vaughan Williams – the music is notable for its personal voice, confident conception, and vivid writing for the orchestra. Gipps herself actually felt her best works were those for orchestra. In a programme of contrasting impressions and emotions, Symphonies Nos 2 and 4, the former inspired by the Second World War, offer an approachable tuneful idiom. They are complemented by the lyrical, shorter Song for Orchestra and the early tone poem Knight in Armour, premiered at the last Night of the Proms in 1942.

The British composer Ruth Gipps wrote a great deal of music before her death in 1999, most of it soon forgotten because of serious gender discrimination. Even with the new attention being paid to women composers, her music is far from common, and for this reason alone this release by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is welcome. Actually, Gipps suffered for a time from dual discrimination: against women, and against any music that did not win the approval of academic modernists. Her style certainly followed that of the leading figure in British composition during much of her career, Ralph Vaughan Williams. But she put an entirely distinctive twist on it, with richly sensuous slow movements and an episodic sense of form. The Symphony No. 2, Op. 30, of 1945 is perhaps the best of the bunch: Gipps embraces her episodic tendencies in a unique single-movement structure that seems to unfold according to some unknown program. The Symphony No. 4, Op. 61, was dedicated to Arthur Bliss, another influence. Gipps had some success with the small, jaunty symphonic poem Knight in Armour, Op. 8, which was programmed by conductor Henry Wood at the Proms. The Song for Orchestra, Op. 33, here receives its recorded premiere, but none of the other pieces are exactly common. Gamba leads the orchestra in coherent performances of music that were probably unfamiliar to the players, but this music is worthy of revisitation by other ensembles that could really bring out its smoky, slow movements and its overall narrative quality.

Tracklist:

1-01. Rumon Gamba – I. Moderato (10:02)
1-02. Rumon Gamba – II. Adagio (06:47)
1-03. Rumon Gamba – III. Scherzo. Allegretto (04:17)
1-04. Rumon Gamba – IV. Finale. Andante (11:00)
1-05. Rumon Gamba – Knight in Armour, Op. 8 (10:00)
1-06. Rumon Gamba – I. Moderato (00:48)
1-07. Rumon Gamba – II. Allegro moderato (05:26)
1-08. Rumon Gamba – III. Andante (02:40)
1-09. Rumon Gamba – IV. Tempo di Marcia (03:13)
1-10. Rumon Gamba – V. Adagio (03:09)
1-11. Rumon Gamba – VI. Allegro moderato (02:13)
1-12. Rumon Gamba – VII. Moderato (01:43)
1-13. Rumon Gamba – VIII. Allegro (01:49)
1-14. Rumon Gamba – Song for Orchestra, Op. 33 (06:03)

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