The composer Doreen Carwithen, vigorous in her music as well as warmly lyrical, has hidden her light for over 40 years, selflessly devoting herself instead to the music of her husband, William Alwyn. Since he died in 1985, Doreen Carwithen (a.k.a. Mary Alwyn) has worked hard for the William Alwyn Foundation and William Alwyn Archive, which she founded, but it is good now to have her emerging in her own right as a positive and strongly communicative figure, writing music which relates more to that of Walton than of her husband.
Not that these colourful and brilliantly orchestrated works lack individuality, just that from time to time one detects Waltonian fingerprints in the jazzy syncopations, brassy fanfares and stirring melodies. Carwithen was an outstanding student at the Royal Academy of Music in the early war years, studying with Alwyn and winning all the Academy composition prizes. ODTTA, suggested by John Masefield’s novel of that name, was her first full orchestral work to be performed, premiered in 1947, a flamboyant piece full of striking ideas, with Waltonian echoes spiced with one or two of Stravinsky and even of the pastoral Vaughan Williams. I mention those echoes to give an idea of the flavour, not to suggest that this is just a derivative piece, for here, as in all four works, the expression is positive and purposeful, reflecting one who knows precisely what she wants to do.
She learnt her trade practically over the following years as a film composer, producing some 30 scores. So when in 1962 she was asked to write a piece for a royal visit to Framlingham College in Suffolk, near where she and her husband had their home, she used melodies from music she had written for a film about East Anglia. The wonder of this delightful, unpretentious little Suffolk Suite is that though this is music written for schoolchildren to play, you would hardly guess that from the richness of the scoring. The Bishop Rock Overture, premiered at the CBSO Proms in 1952, opens as a craggy sea-picture, vividly evocative, lashed by vigorous syncopations. The main theme is later transformed to show the sea in gentle but menacing mood, with the cor anglais especially evocative.
By far the longest work is the Concerto for piano and strings of 1948, which, despite a bald opening in bare octaves, belies any expectation of a limited work, with strong, virtuoso piano writing set against richly textured strings. Here, too, the argument is always inventive, with themes colourfully transformed, easily sustaining its length, with the first movement alone lasting 12 minutes and the other two just over eight minutes each. The deeply melancholy slow movement is dominated by a solo violin, in parallel with the piano, accompanied by muted strings. But then the finale, in places rather like that of the Ireland Piano Concerto, contrasts chattering, sharply rhythmic passages with warmly lyrical sections. Howard Shelley as soloist responds strongly to the purposefulness of the writing, as do Hickox and the LSO in the works here, powerful and convincing advocates.'