A native of Victoria, Hubert Clifford (1904-59) initially studied chemistry at the University of Melbourne before switching to music and travelling to England to study at the Royal College of Music under Vaughan Williams. There followed two spells at the BBC, culminating in his appointment to the post of Head of Light Music Programmes in 1953. Begun in January 1938, his large-scale Symphony 1940 was completed in August of that year, and although the BBC broadcast the work's four movements separately as part of their wartime 'Special Music' initiative, it was not until January 26, 1945, that the Corporation finally aired a brand new recording of the score in its entirety for a special Australia Day programme (under the baton of Clarence Raybould). Unperformed since 1950, Clifford's Symphony 1940 lacks nothing in ambition, the epic scale and rhythmic verve of its outer movements owing not a little to the example of Walton's First, if without that masterpiece's searing symphonic thrust and unforgettable melodic profile. At its best, as in the closing four minutes or so of the ruminative slow movement, Clifford's inspiration attains a moving dignity, its tangy harmonic sound world reminiscent of Bliss, but elsewhere, even after a number of hearings, I still find myself longing for sharper ideas and a less foursquare treatment of them.
Altogether more impressive to my mind is the Second Symphony (1938-9) of Edgar Bainton (1880-1956). A Stanford-pupil and long-time Principal of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conservatory, Bainton emigrated to Australia in 1934 to take up the post of Director of the New South Wales State Conservatory in Sydney. It was during a holiday to the Lake District the previous year that Bainton had first sketched out ideas for what was to become his Second Symphony, and the work was finally premiered in Sydney on September 11, 1941. It is cast in a single movement, whose 12 sections none the less fall into a readily discernible symphonic scheme, and the luminous refinement of Bainton's orchestral palette (not to mention the strong feeling for nature conveyed in the Andante molto tranquillo introduction in particular) put me in mind of the first two symphonies of Roussel as well as the maritime canvases of Bainton's near-namesake, Philip Sainton (another figure so eloquently championed by Chandos in recent years). Certainly, it's an imposing and powerfully communicative utterance that whets my appetite for more by this composer; indeed, annotator Lewis Foreman tantalizingly mentions a choral symphony after Swinburne entitled Before Sunrise as well as a Concerto-Fantasia for piano and orchestra (both published within the handsome Carnegie Trust Edition and both of which I am now eager to hear).
Sandwiched between the two symphonies comes the 1931 Serenade by Tasmanian John Gough (1903-51). Like his good friend Hubert Clifford (for whose wedding he wrote this attractive miniature for small orchestra), Gough came to London to further his musical career, rising through the BBC ranks to become an acclaimed features producer before his untimely death.
Suffice to say, Vernon Handley and the BBC Philharmonic perform all three works as to the manner born, while Chandos's sound is invitingly ripe and glowing to match. A most enjoyable concert of some enticingly off-the-beaten-track repertoire.'