The three works on this release are connected by chains on teaching and influence, beginning with
Ravel
's quietly elegiac
Le tombeau de Couperin
. Composer
Lennox Berkeley
asked to study with
; he was turned down and referred to
Nadia Boulanger
, but he was strongly influenced by
nonetheless, as is apparent in the delightfully deceptive lightness of the
Divertimento, Op. 18
(1943), heard here, which was dedicated to
Boulanger
.
Berkeley
, in turn, was the teacher, in the late '70s, of
Adam Pounds
, who was born in 1954. In later life,
Pounds
has composed a group of numbered symphonies; the
Symphony No. 3
, which here receives its recorded premiere, was composed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
explicitly designates the Elegy third movement as an "hommage to
Anton Bruckner
," and its long melodic lines are indubitably Brucknerian, but the stamp of the tradition embodied by this album is also apparent, and the fascinating effect is one of
Bruckner
's language being shrunk down to neoclassic dimensions (the symphony, as a whole, is just over half an hour long). The work is a highlight here and deserves wider performance. However, conductor
John Wilson
and the
Sinfonia of London
are ideal in this music in general, with a refined string sound that is kept under perfect control. Those who love neoclassic music will find some unique manifestations of it here in ideal performances. ~ James Manheim