Wednesday 4 August 2010

John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych.

STOP PRESS: AND WHAT A GREAT PERFORMANCE LAST NIGHT AT THE 'PROMS'! ASHLEY WASS PLAYED IT SO WELL, ACCOMPANIED BY THE BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, CONDUCTED BY DONALD RUNNICLES!!! THE RVW & ELGAR WERE GREAT TOO...
It is almost impossible to make sensible and coherent comments about the Dynamic Triptych. This work is so impressive and perhaps even ‘over the top’ that the normal canons of criticism seem to be distinctly lacking.
It is pointless to try to play ‘spot the influence’ – I could name a dozen composers who could fit this bill. Just for fun let’s mention Messaien, Gershwin, Bartok and Lenny Bernstein [not necessarily chronologically viable!]. But anyone who has listened to a lot of music will be able to produce their own list. And who is to say that anyone is wrong – or right? But understand this- it is not a composite work- it is not a string of other composer’s pearls. This is a big work; it is a confusion of styles that somehow seems to be totally satisfying and unified. It is one of those compositions that is stylistically ambiguous –yet works brilliantly. One cannot help feeling that there are very few composers who could have successfully brought this off. We find jazz in this work; there is exoticism, big tunes, even strange slippy-slidy harmonies that must have been quite unique when first heard in Edinburgh in 1931- yet it works and works well.

It is hardly necessary to analyse this work. But it is worth noting that fundamentally this piece is a piano concerto by another name. I suppose ‘Dynamic’ simply means that is moves and ‘Triptych’ means that it is in three parts.
The first movement is a toccata which sounds finger-defyingly complex. The ‘slow movement is perhaps the most romantic – yet even here the composer experiments with his trademark quartertones in the string department. Yet this is sheer poetry. No-one could dislike this music – no-one could fail to respond to this goose-bump giving movement. And listen out for the gorgeous clusters on the piano in the final pages.
The last movement – which is quite short - is rip-roaring. Jazz plays its part here, if not actually ‘big band style’ – we are in the world of the ‘big finish’ piano concerto. Yet even here Foulds is not content to use ‘stock’ piano figurations – we hear wild music, we are aware of cross rhythms and changes of metre, clusters and complex chords. Nonetheless this and the rest of the work is, on the bottom line totally romantic. This is big music. This is unique. This is essential.

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