With the recent [1988] release on disc of Brian’s seventh and 31st symphonies, it seems that the critical debate as to the value or otherwise of this composer’s music has reared its head once again. As usual, there are passionate defenders, hostile detractors and, somewhere in the middle, those who, like the reviewer in Gramophone, ultimately hoist the white flag in some bewilderment. And, as ever, it is one stylistic trait in particular which remains highest on the critical agenda: Brian’s seemingly curious predilection for jumping abruptly from one musical idea to another without apparent regard for continuity of thought. Readers will be aware of the kind of criticisms I am talking about:

‘…a self-defeating succession of gear-changes and non sequiturs’ (Hugh Ottaway)

‘…ellipsis to the point of incomprehensibility’ (Andrew Porter)

‘...breaking off in a sort of nervous exasperation’ (Desmond Shawe-Taylor)

‘...peculiarly dislocated phraseology’ (Anthony Payne)

‘…no shape, no coherence’ (Stanley Sadie)

This apparent eccentricity often constitutes a major stumbling block for even the most ardent Brian enthusiast and it consequently requires detailed consideration by those who believe him to be one of the most powerfully original composers of the twentieth century.

Naturally, MacDonald does provide several convincing explanations of the discontinuities in Brian’s music — particularly between pages 198 to 202 of volume 3. One explanation given is that Brian wants to jolt the listener into active thought about what is being heard, rather than just let it wash over him. This is true enough but, on its own, it does not constitute a valid artistic aim. As a child, I used to chop up classical sonatinas for piano into individual bars, them paste them back together in random order (the title always came out as ‘Snotiana’). The exercise, intended for fun, did teach me something about the nature of continuity and it certainly got me listening more carefully to what I played. But I must concede now (if not then!) that the works were rather better in their original order. The serious and relevant point here is that, as music is more than a mere intellectual exercise, this explanation of Brian’s discontinuities is worthless if we ultimately fail instinctively to feel their rightness.

I shall now examine various types of discontinuity in Brian’s music: firstly, the most straightforward — discontinuity for dramatic purposes. This type of treatment is already apparent in relatively early works. For example, the opening of In memoriam juxtaposes six bars of loud ceremonial introduction with quiet, intimate music which open the First scene and which consists of three ‘verses’ of increasing intensity, each of which abruptly ceases to be answered by a ‘refrain’. Ex 1 shows the first appearance of the ‘refrain’.

[Ex 1 to be added]

[Ex 2 to be added]

It is instructive to compare this passage with the very different way in which Elgar dismantles the main climax of the slow movement of his second symphony — music not a million miles removed from the spirit and technique of In memoriam. The Elgar will be seen to be far less abrupt in expression — the edges are softer. So we can already see Brian using extreme contrast as a structural basis of his music in 1911, and this gives In memoriam, despite the strong influence of Elgar, a distinctive and individual musical voice.

In memoriam is one of many funeral marches to be found in Brian’s output. The finale of Symphony No 2 is another powerful (and I think underrated) example. Again, the music proceeds by a process of dramatic contrast. The opening recitative-like figure provides a constant interruption to the development of the movement’s early stages (ex 3).

[Ex 3 to be added]

In this case, the breaking up of continuity by the insertion of recitatives serves to curb the excesses of the music’s emotional progress and thereby strengthen, rather than undermine, the overall structure. It must be remembered that the apparent Romanticism which some commentators ascribe to Brian’s music is illusory, or at most a stylistic impurity which, with the instinct of the born Classicist, he successfully excised in his later music. In this case, discontinuity is used to distance and objectify the musical drama. This procedure continually recurs in Brian’s other works, for example in Symphony No 8 where a huge climax, achieved after a long preparation, is suddenly cut off just as its romantic ardour threatens to bring the music to a grinding halt (ex 4).

[Ex 4 to be added]

However, continuity is not entirely broken up in this passage. First of all, the type of harmony used in these two bars is quite similar: all are ‘added note’ chords — the first, an E major triad with added sixth and seventh; the second, basically a dominant seventh in E but with the fifth of the triad (ie the second degree of the E major scale) flattened. The Neapolitan implication is further strengthened by the fact that the chord is presented in second inversion so that the flattened second is the root. This will inevitably tilt the music towards F (E# being the enharmonic equivalent of F), so that the appearance of the flute figure in the next bar over a dominant ninth in F is nothing like such a drastic tonal shift as it might an first appear.

Brian’s characteristic use of enormously contrasting dynamics and types of orchestration is, of course, guaranteed to impair our perception of any underlying continuity in the music but, as has already been shown, that is not to say that the continuity is not there at a deeper level if one listens attentively. Here, Robert Simpson’s advice that it is often instructive to listen to Brian’s music from the bass upwards is apposite (it is advice validated by the example just given — look at the simple stepwise movement in the bass).

If one listens to the descending scales (piano, then tuba, then piano and harp) near the beginning of Symphony No 8, and notices their inversion (i.e. ascending) a couple of bars later, it is then easy to absorb the astonishing extent to which the whole piece is built on descending/ascending scale patterns (among other things!) and to follow one level of continuity in the musical thought of the whole symphony. In this way, superficial listening is easily overcome and many of the music’s supposed ‘difficulties’ simply evaporate.

So, why the sudden changes in orchestration? One reason lies in Brian’s concern with balance. In later life be described ‘balance of form’ as his greatest concern when writing music. It goes much deeper than just the desire to contrast loud and soft, tutti and solo, but this is undoubtedly one of the manifestations of his Classicist concern for contrast of extremes (for a well-known Classical equivalent consider the opening bars of Mozart’s Jupiter symphony).

[Ex 5 to be added]

Bruckner has often been accused of writing organ music transcribed for orchestra. This is, of course, utter nonsense — Bruckner’s symphonies, like Brian’s, are brilliantly conceived in orchestral terms. However, the fact that both composers were organists is not, I feel, without significance. If a composer is an accomplished instrumentalist (the vast majority are), the instrument he plays will have an effect — perhaps not so much on the way he writes, but on the way he listens. Music, however original, is the result of the practical experience of music — there is no shame in this, Brian’s musical life began as a choirboy and continued as a church organist. His formative musical experiences were in the context of the church — although, like Bruckner, he did not pursue a career as an organist.

The second similarity is something not so much learnt as absorbed instinctively, and it concerns resonance. An organist must constantly adapt the way he plays to the particular acoustical conditions of the building in which he happens to be playing, otherwise a harmonic mush may result in a particularly resonant acoustic. This is, of course, especially the case when playing fast music or music which alternates loud and soft dynamics and it often necessitates short, unmeasured pauses in the music to give the sound time to clear. To do this requires skill and instinct because what one hears from the organ loft is unlikely to be the true sound filling the rest of the building.

Malcolm MacDonald points out that the abrupt breaks between loud and soft, common to both Bruckner and Brian are achieved by measured and unmeasured pauses respectively (vol 3, p 141) — Brian writes a ‘breath mark’ like two large inverted commas or two diagonal parallel lines. Were either procedure to be encountered in organ music, no one would give it a second thought — it is a convention one expects and, if a composer did not allow for it, the chances are that the organist would have to put it in at some point anyway. Of course, these pauses are not silent: the resonance is still clearing and the change of texture, dynamic or whatever is nothing like as abrupt as it would be if it were heard in a dry acoustic. Anyone fortunate enough to have heard a Bruckner symphony in the vast spaces of a great cathedral will know that the effect is far removed from that of a performance in, say, the Festival Hall. In fact, the Bruckner symphonies would be in their true home if they were to be played in cathedrals.

One of the most remarkable qualities of Brian’s later symphonies is the way in which they suggest enormous size and scale whilst often playing for less actual time than many a long-winded overture. The relationship between ‘real’ time and the time which music can create on its own terms is a fascinating one and the reasons why two pieces of equal length can feel vastly different in their duration deserve closer and more detailed study. Solutions concerning the relative boredom threshold of different listeners can, on the whole, be discounted because if one performs tests on unsuspecting friends and colleagues the response to the relationship between structural balance and time seems to be pretty consistent.

Viewed in purely abstract terms, the idea of attempting to balance, say, a 25 minute slow movement with a very fast one of under five minutes would seem ludicrous. Yet this is precisely what Shostakovich does in the first two movements of his Symphony No 10, with deeply impressive results, the scherzo proving the perfect foil to the epic proportions of the first movement. The reason for this is that each movement creates its own kind of momentum, to which the attentive listener will respond, irrespective of the passing of ‘real’ time, and this in turn is the result of the speed at which musical events occur (particularly changes of harmony). The fact that the first movement is cast as a single span arch, in which the material gradually unfolds, results in a compensatory slowing down in the rate of the listener’s expectations. The fact that the scherzo is much more episodic in character, moving between ideas with greater abruptness, gives the impression of great distance travelled in a far shorter time. The fundamental principle common to both movements is the control of the rate of activity.

The example of the former is taken from Symphony No 16 and it involves a contrast between a massive tutti and just the strings (without double basses). The crashing of gears is mighty indeed, but continuity of thought is nevertheless maintained by the very clear motivic connection between the two sections (Ex 6).

[exx 6 and 7 to be added]

The Adagio then unfolds into a magnificently serene passage which, as Malcolm MacDonald says, seems to contain the hidden heart of the work. For this to be the case (not forgetting that it occurs very late on in the symphony), the passage could not have been arrived at in any other way. Strong contrast of texture throws it into relief, though the deeper continuity of thought remains intact and could in no way be considered ‘non sequitur’ as Hugh Ottaway would have presumably argued — it is certainly the opposite of self-defeating.

The result, as with the example from symphony No 16, is to throw the passage into relief. Heard in terms of the music which appears just before the given example begins, the apparently inconsequential flute solo at fig 42 turns out to be a derivation of earlier material, the whole passage giving the impression not so much of ‘verses and refrains’ as ‘refrains and commentaries’ and, again, forming the still point at the heart of the Symphony. There is about this technique far more of parenthesis than non sequitur.