‘Unmusical’ is such an old-fashioned and discredited term to use as criticism of Donne’s verse that one hardly dares to venture it, even though some such observation cries out for release throughout a reading of the 28 stanzas of A Litany. The deliberate steps of argument, with explanatory qualifications and parentheses, almost obstinately obstruct a lyrical or rhapsodic flow. Yet that is just the style of George Lloyd’s music, and especially of his writing for voices. A strange disparity of style in text and setting makes it hard to accept the work on its own terms, yet if one simply listens to sound there may be much to enjoy. Enjoyment is clearly an aim (perhaps the primary aim) in view. Here is a composer who knows what he himself likes, and is not going to write differently because the trend of the times is against him. Besides, he probably suspects that what he likes is what the majority of the listening public likes too except that it is intimidated by modern orthodoxy into denying it. The public thus addressed is not exactly one for which music ended with Puccini’s last opera, but it is one that might be happier had Turandot been a stop along the line rather than a terminus.
That opera is certainly evoked in the first movement of this new work, and it is to be feared that the “overtones from the East” which the composer finds in Donne’s poems will be associated in the minds of most of his listeners with the Pekin of Pu-tin-Pao rather than with the mysticism of the Tao. How successful a work it is I would not care to say; but this is a premiere recording and it earns a welcome. The piece was commissioned by the Guildford Choral Society, who sang in its first performance at London’s Royal Festival Hall in March of this year, and who now sing it again on this record with confidence and apparent zest. They are certainly kept busy throughout its four substantial movements, which in the forces used (with soprano and baritone soloists) have something in common with Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony. All the singers involved must have been grateful to find that the voice-parts are written as for singers rather than vocal instrumentalists. Of the soloists a good deal is demanded but it all lies within the natural scope of the voice, without jagged intervals or excessive use of upper and lower extremities. Janice Watson and Jeremy White contribute with feeling and assurance, though the soprano part would probably benefit from a more ample volume and the baritone from a voice of finer texture. The orchestral score, rich in colour and varied in resources, is royally served by the Philharmonia, and, with the 83-year-old composer in charge, the well-recorded performance carries all the conviction proper to a man who writes as he likes, irrespective of fashion.'