ABSTRACT
Of the works performed at the 1976 Havergal Brian Centenary concerts at the Alexandra Palace, few others seemed to provoke as much controversy as Symphony No. 30. This astonishing product of Brian’s extreme old age has been commented on and debated – sometimes quite vehemently – in the pages of the Newsletter. However, I decided to withhold my personal judgement until an opportunity presented itself of studying the full score, since I knew that there had been a number of accidents during the Alexandra Palace performance, and that the acoustic of that hall often played tricks upon the hearer. Upon obtaining a copy of the score – very kindly loaned by the indefatigable Graham Hatton −1 realized that what came over the radio of the first performance of the work was indeed only a partial account of what was in the score. The “Ally Pally” acoustic did its usual job of submerging much of the detail of the first movement under a general mud of excessive reverberation, and in the second movement things went badly awry with the orchestra. 2 Whole sections of instruments missed their entries, the strings crept in nervously at one point hopelessly out of place, and the only section free from accident was the percussion (and please do not accuse me of nepotism!). The powerful coda began uncertainly and the ultimate dénoument seemed to fail to make its true impact. I do not intend to discuss the reasons for these mishaps as I never see the point of such post-mortems, but I think I have made it clear that the Alexandra Palace performance did not present a completely true picture of the work. I think it fruitless to argue for and against this piece solely on the grounds of the performance, and feel the symphony will only make its full impact in an accurate professional performance in a more sympathetic acoustic.
