Bernard Stevens

* Violin Concerto, op. 4
* Symphony No. 2, op. 35

Ernst Kovacic (violin)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Downes
Meridian CDE84174 Total time: 63:24

Summary for the Busy Executive: Yet another wonderful British composer on
a small label.

I would not have heard of Bernard Stevens, had not a fellow list member
raved about this recording several years ago. Unfortunately, I thought he
meant the film composer Leigh Stevens (not a favorite), and I held off.
After a few months, it dawned on me that there could be more than one
composing Stevens, and fortunately I found this recording at Berkshire
Record Outlet. Even more fortunate, it's still in print, should Berkshire
be out. Spend the effort to find it, particularly if you like the Walton
wing of 20th-century British music.

Bernard Stevens made his first big splash as a composer while serving
in World War II. His first symphony ("A Symphony of Liberation") won a
newspaper competition. He created a sensation by taking his bows in his
uniform. Stevens's place in British cultural life for many years was marked
by his sympathy for Communism, although, as did many others (particularly
after the suppression of Hungary) he broke with the Soviet cadre after
the war. His social thinking later on probably fell under the heading of
liberal humanist. Most people who knew his name thought of him primarily as
a teacher. He had a noteworthy academic career. He never really pushed his
compositions, and no conductor with a major career took him up. To some
artistic personalities, this situation approaches the ideal: one free from
the charge of careerism and hype, and the adherents picked up binding more
strongly to the composer as a personal discovery. Certainly, that's how I
looked at his music, at least initially, until I realized that without at
least some push on the composer's part, I never would have heard his work
at all. Stevens seems to have had a small output, but everything I've
heard, at least, has been extremely beautiful and free of cliche. The idiom
shares general features with a composer like Alwyn, although Stevens
usually trades in clearer and more memorable ideas.

Stevens acknowledged in his early violin concerto the influence of Bloch,
who by the way wrote one of the great violin concerti. Stevens's first
movement in particular - while having little idiomatically in common with
Bloch - nevertheless strives to hit the epic note. It moves in a grand
symphonic sweep (similar in feel to the Moeran symphony), and indeed the
line between symphony and concerto blurs a bit. Various composers,
including Eisler, Alan Bush, and Rubbra, acclaimed it as a masterpiece and
the equal of the Walton and Britten concerti. As far as the first movement
goes, I think they have a strong case, but there are still two more
movements to go.  To me there's a notable falling-off after the opening
paragraph of the second-movement adagio. The third movement comes out of
the second without a break, and it seems as if Stevens spends too much time
worrying over the transition between the two, rather than working each as
well as possible. It reminds me a bit of the Sibelius concerto, where the
first movement to me has always overpowered the last two. I don't mean by
any stretch of rhetoric that either concerto is dreck, but they do seem to
me unbalanced to the point of fragmentation - that the last two movements
impress one as belonging to some different work.

The second symphony belongs to the Sixties. It comes from Stevens's brief
application of dodecaphonic serialism. It is yet another indication of the
strong attraction Schoenberg and Webern in particular held for even tonal
composers. When one works in a chromatic, rather than diatonic, idiom to
begin with, it's not unusual to want to work with basic materials which
incorporate all twelve tones. We see this also in Britten, Walton, Arnold,
and Alwyn, to name just four British composers. However, I doubt that if
I hadn't said something about Stevens, a new listener would have known.
It certainly sounds little like Schoenberg or Berg and a lot like Stevens
always sounds. Stevens does this by first choosing his row cannily. It's a
row you can hum, for it emphasizes thirds and fourths, rather than seconds
and tritones. Also, Stevens has such a melodic gift, that the pieces he
breaks from the row are memorable as well. Second, Stevens's vertical
sounds come across as modern functional harmony, as opposed to a harmonic
fog.  Finally, and most important, I believe, Stevens takes care to respect
the phrasing of song and dance. Not for him the rhythmic pea soup of
post-Wagnerian noodling around. Phrases lead somewhere. One can follow
the arc of phrases, because they hit traditional points and adhere to
traditional shapes. One can tell where the serial equivalents of "cadences"
are. In short, the symphony shares the sound worlds of the Vaughan Williams
fourth and the Walton first. Serialism helps (but does not ensure)
Stevens's symphony to sound exceptionally coherent.

Those who proclaim the goodness or badness of a work solely on the basis
of its structural method miss the point. For example, Bach's prelude "We
always honor the ten commandments" is constructed largely from numerology.
The time signature is 6/4 (6+4 = 10), the theme consists of ten notes, ten
measures comprise the first period, the first vertical interval is a tenth,
and so on. Very few people would claim the wonderfulness of the piece due
to this somewhat kinky structural concern, although the piece could very
well gain a lagniappe of luster and the listener a great deal of insight
into the composer's craft once the method came to the attention. Bach isn't
a great composer because he writes fugues, but because he writes great
fugues (as well as great pieces which aren't fugues). I don't believe
this proposition any less true of any other piece or composer. The work
comes first and justifies (or not) the method, not the other way around.
Therefore, we must answer the question of how Stevens's symphony acts on
us without recourse to the jargon or to the polemics of serialism.

The symphony follows a traditional four-movement scheme (Andante, Scherzo,
Adagio, and a presto Finale). The first movement is a bit unusual, for
instead of sonata-allegro we get something like a passacaglia, where all
the paragraphs take roughly the same amount of time. If we think of the
finale of the Brahms fourth, the movement becomes less out-of-the-way.
Stevens adheres to the traditional rhetorical strategy of passacaglias -
increasing tension with each paragraph. The movement begins in quiet
brooding, builds to a final climax, and then, all passion spent, quickly
fades.

The scherzo rages like an angry wasp. The trio surprises a bit, with traces
of a pawky Prokofiev sardonicism. In a general way, the Adagio unfolds
like the Barber Adagio for Strings, with a series of upward yearnings and
fallbacks - my favorite movement of the symphony. The finale - a rondo
structure - follows without a pause. Its "theme" is generally a very quick,
highly contrapuntal version of the Adagio's basic idea. Beautifully lyric
"episodes" break in. Ideas from earlier movements reappear, usually from
the Andante and the Adagio. The symphony goes out in a glory of percussion
and brass.

Kovacic is a tremendous violinist, assuming the role of hero with graceful
strength. Downes and the BBC Philharmonic turn in performances that at
least have the measure of both scores. In short, they make a strong case
for Stevens. If you like the "hard" Vaughan Williams and Walton, I believe
after hearing this CD you will want to acquire all the Stevens you can get
your hands on. That's certainly how these readings affected me. On the
other hand, I feel these stand among the best works of the century, and I'd
love to hear what a sympathetic conductor of a major orchestra - like Simon
Rattle or Michael Tilson Thomas, for example - would make of them.

The sound is fine, though not spectacular.

Steve Schwartz