Richard Arnell - Punch and the Child - Harlequin in April - Concerto Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra - BBC Concert Orchestra, Martin Yates - Lorraine McAslan, Violin - Dutton Epoch 2009

Here is a great disc that contains two of Arnell's most important ballet scores, "Punch and the Child" (this is the first complete recording, Beecham's 1950 recording was actually not "complete" as the Gramophone review below states) and the glorious "Harlequin in April" which is a world-premiere recording. Both of these scores enjoyed success when they were premiered and the ballets remained in the repertoire for quite some time, touring the world with British ballet companies. The "Concerto Capriccioso" is Richard Arnell's second violin concerto, and is ripe with emotional impact. 

I will be adding notes about the current recording tonight (I must leave for work now) so for the time being I have pasted two different reviews below-they will be deleted late in the evening.

*Update: I just added the link, sorry everyone! That's what I get for posting whilst rushing :/  I will have to keep the reviews alone up another day, too tired to write now..

Gramophone:

This latest Dutton release of Richard Arnell's music is primarily a second instalment of the ballet scores that until recently provided much of Arnell's meagre representation on record. The accompanying note suggests that both ballets here were previously known only for their suites and are here recorded complete. In fact, the 22-minute concert version here of Punch and the Child was also recorded by Beecham in 1950. Like The Great Detective in a previous Dutton collection (11/08), it's sprightly, satirical, episodic music, and if Beecham's interpretation perhaps has a more spontaneous swagger, it's still splendidly done here.

Harlequin in April, recorded here for the first time, was Arnell's most enduring ballet in the theatre; it's a version of the Everyman theme, representing man's journey from birth to death. It's a decidedly more substantial score than Punch and the Child, with longer movements and altogether deeper intent, possessing some of the sound quality of Holst's The Planets to add to the suggestion of Prokofiev that permeates much of Arnell's finely orchestrated music.

The concluding Concerto capriccioso is really Arnell's second violin concerto, following the early one-movement work on another previous Dutton release. Though apparently never performed in Britain until this recording, it's an endearingly inventive and moving work, with sweet lyricism masking technical challenges for the soloist which include a second movement that's played solo.

These Arnell recordings provide the perfect demonstration of how CD has opened up access to neglected music with much to enjoy - especially when performed and recorded as expertly as here.

Archive:

This most welcome Dutton release, another installment in its exemplary restoration of the outstanding British composer Richard Arnell (1917–2009) to his rightful place in the 20th-century music pantheon, completes the survey of his four ballets with this premiere recording of what is the most complex and wide-ranging, both musically and symbolically, of them all, Harlequin in April of 1951. Although the scenario bases its allegorical treatment of everyman’s life-and-death cycle on figures from the commedia del’arte , this score contains some of the darkest and harrowing passages Arnell ever wrote for the dance. After a typically abrupt, bold, and busy introduction, we first hear the sad strains of “Pierrot’s Song,” which returns later in the two extended pas de deux to underline a tale of loss and defeat at the hands of the inescapable and fateful Unicorns. Even the miniature violin concertino (“Pierrot and His Violin”) is surrounded by intimations of heart-stopping regret and failure. Over all, this work has very little of the traditional spirit of April, and the elements of grotesquerie and caricature present in the puppet ballet Punch and the Child are kept to a minimum. 

The program opens with the first complete recording of Arnell’s heretofore best-known work, Punch and the Child , the 1947 ballet that was premiered in New York near the end of the composer’s American exile and later recorded in a concert version by Beecham reissued in several different formats over the years. Except perhaps for a few transitional measures, there is no discernible difference between the two recordings, though, while Beecham approaches the piece as an integral independent symphonic statement, Yates gives us a more dance-oriented, red-blooded and hence sharply delineated version that emphasizes Arnell’s inherent narrative skills and his Til Eulenspiegel -like strengths. 

As always in the past, Yates, here with the BBC Philharmonic, gives us his typically dedicated, glowing, and insightful representation of the Arnellian genius, with special emphasis on the revelation that is Harlequin in April.

Enjoy everyone

Richard_Arnell-Ballets_&_Concerto_Capriccioso-Tzadik.zip

http://www46.zippyshare.com/v/kjca0kER/file.html