Disc: 1
  1. Beginning Of Scene 1
  2. Miss Julie Is Crazy
  3. But The Count
  4. Music And Dancing Go To My Head
  5. What's That You're Cooking?
  6. By God, I'm Thirsty!
  7. Kristin! Kristin, Kristin!
  8. Are You Talking Secrets?
  9. Kristin, Is It Ready?
  10. There's A New Dance Starting
  11. You Know Why I Came Here Tonight?
  12. Midsummer Night, O, Night Of Magic
  13. Beginning Of Scene 2
  14. Kristin, Kristin...Kristin!
  15. Now You Can Kiss My Hand
  16. That Wouldn't Do Either
  17. I Have No Time For Dreams
  18. Did You Mean That?
  19. If You Must Know - It Was You!
  20. But You Can Rise, Jean
  21. Where Is She?
  22. You Can Come OUt Now
  23. I Know, I Know...

Disc: 2
  1. Beginning Of Act II
  2. Never Again!
  3. What Have You Done?
  4. I Made That All Up
  5. Scum On The Surface Of Water
  6. My Mother Got Drunk
  7. If I Only Had Enough Money
  8. Scene: Miss Julie Turns Away
  9. Has She Gone?
  10. Class Is Class, And Don't You Forget It
  11. You've Got A Nerve, After Last Night!
  12. I Knew I Was Right!
  13. I'm Ready Now, Jean
  14. What The Devil Is That?
  15. What's All This Mean
  16. We'll Start A Hotel
  17. Well, Well! So You're Going To Elope
  18. The Count's Back!
  19. I Must Be Dreaming
  20. Kiss Me! Just One Last Kiss!

Jill Gomez (soprano) - Miss Julie
Benjamin Luxon (baritone) - Jean
Della Jones (mezzo) - Kristin
John Mitchinson (tenor) - Ulrik
Philharmonia Orchestra
Vilem Tausky - conductor

William Alwyn was his own librettist for Miss Julie, an opera based on the play by August Strindberg. Miss Julie was first performed for a BBC recording in February 1977 (broadcast in July that year). This Lyrita recording boasts an extremely strong cast (there are only four characters), as well as having the Philharmonia Orchestra on top form.

Of all the works I have heard by Alwyn, this is the strongest. In depth of conception and sheer dramatic grasp, it is a remarkable achievement. The score is enormously accessible and beautifully scored. In sheer lushness of sound it brings to mind Puccini (especially when the melody blossoms to voices-in-octaves-at-full-pelt verismo: try the passage when the two lovers discuss eloping to Lugano). Influences listed by the annotator (Rodney Milnes) are Janáček (ostinati and naturally inflected word-setting), Walton, Szymanowski and even Ravel. The very ending of the work is tender, lyrical and completely romantic.

Alwyn was actually intimately involved with opera, having played the flute in opera pits as well as conducting the UK première of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri and scoring missing sections of Wolf’s Der Corregidor for that work’s British première. Alwyn first considered Miss Julie in the 1930s. In 1954 he began work on the opera in conjunction with Christopher Hassall, yet the collaboration was not a fruitful one, so Alwyn did the job himself, with a laudable emphasis on condensing the text so that everything makes its point.

There are only four characters. Benjamin Luxon, in the opening scenes, sets out his qualities as a heroic baritone, declaiming Jean’s lines to great effect and coming across as superbly authoritative, bursting with confidence. Kristin (the cook) is taken by mezzo Della Jones. Jones is quite a light mezzo (entirely fitting for this part) who finds much expression in the melodies she is given. In Act II she plays the part of the suspicious, jealous lover with real venom.

Miss Julie’s first entrance comes in the form of a thrice-repeated call of the name ‘Kristin!’. It immediately invokes a much-recontextualised call of ‘Parsifal!’ by Kundry in Act II of Wagner’s music-drama; was such referencing conscious, I wonder?. When she enters, Jill Gomez projects the coquettish flirting of Miss Julie impishly while also portraying her as a character of some maturity. Her ‘aria’ at the close of Act I Scene 1 (‘Midsummer Night, O night of magic’, CD 1 track 12) is marvellously tender, mysterious and yearning. Alwyn’s spider’s web of a string accompaniment is breathtakingly beautiful. It opens out into a Puccinian climax for Jean and Miss Julie. Vilem Tausky paces this important scene to perfection, the lovers’ disappearance unutterably tender; Kristin’s discovery of the empty stage and her spitting of the word ‘Bitch!’, moving and yet in its own way amusing.

The same Puccinian fragrance informs the orchestral prelude to scene 2, just before Jean and Miss Julie enter from the garden, Jean calling for Kristin. That fragrance reaches the heights of perfumed eroticism, nothing less, at Miss Julie’s cajoling, ‘And it’s Midsummer Night, if you want an excuse’ (alongside the stage direction, ‘She challenges him with her eyes’). Gomez floats the high line here beautifully, like some siren luring her sailor to his death, while her Salome-allusions are most striking (Act I Scene 2; track 17, ‘Would you like me to dance and shed my seven veils …’). Ulrik, the final character to enter, near the end of the first act, is sung by John Mitchinson, who does a good ‘tipsy’, and has a very strong upper register.

The powerful, post-coital Act II shows a distinct change in the relationship of Miss Julie and Jean. Everything unravels in this act, culminating in Miss Julie’s leaving to commit suicide. Alwyn cranks up the tension. On-stage, this opera must pose an Everest-like challenge to the soprano, such is the sheer amount of time she spends singing. Perhaps one of the most striking moments is the hypnotic accompaniment (slow-moving strings) to Miss Julie’s words, ‘Scum on the surface of the water – sinking, sinking – down, down, always down’.

The Philharmonia throughout plays with the utmost intensity, alertly catching the frequently shifting moods.

Each act fits snugly onto a single disc. There are two essays in the accompanying booklet to this release – excellent background to the opera from Rodney Milnes, and ‘Alwyn and Strindberg’ by Cecil Parrott. In addition, there are some reprints of Alwyn’s writings on opera in general and Miss Julie in particular, plus a detailed and useful synopsis.

The time is ripe for a re-evaluation of this opera. Interesting to note that two separate critical sources (Gramophone and the Good CD Guide) both referred to Miss Julie as ‘full-blooded’. Rightly so, though, for Alwyn in this work refuses to pull his punches. It is difficult to imagine a more focused or fervent performance than this one; now we just need to see it in one of our opera-houses! ---Colin Clarke, musicweb-international.com

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String Quartet No. 1 In D Minor 	
1 	Moderato E Grazioso 	
2 	Allegro Molto 	
3 	Adagio 	
4 	Allegro Vivace, Molto Ritmico 	
String Quartet No. 2, "Spring Waters" 	
5 	Moderato - Lento - Adagio 	
6 	Allegro Scherzando 	
7 	Adagio - Allegro Moderato - Adagio E Tranquillo - Allegro Al Fine
String Quartet No. 3 	
8 	Allegro Molto 	
9 	Adagio - Allegro - Adagio 	

10 	Novelette

Maggini Quartet:
Larraine McAslan (violin)
David Angel (violin)
Martin Outram (viola)
Michal Kaznowski (cello)

Amazingly enough, this superlative 2008 Naxos recording of William Alwyn's three string quartets by the Maggini Quartet is not the works' first recording. A Dutton disc with performances by the Rasumovsky Quartet preceded it in 2005. In the event, both discs bear excellent performances of Alwyn's superbly composed if heretofore nearly completely ignored modernist quartets. Both groups have first-class techniques and alert ensembles, but the Maggini is better at Alwyn's lean and sinewy Allegros and his latter, more aggressive style, while the Rasumovsky is better at Alwyn's long and lyrical Adagios and his earlier, smoother style. Either set of performances would certainly serve those unfamiliar with the repertoire, though the Rasumovsky's coupling of the evocative Three Winter Poems is substantially longer than the Maggini's brief, early Novelette. For the Alwyn addict, of course, nothing less than both will do, though Dutton's digital sound is warmer and deeper than Naxos' cooler, more colorful sound. ---James Leonard, AllMusic Review

Movie buffs know William Alwyn (1905–1985) as one of Britain’s most prolific and innovative film composers, with 70 feature scores to his credit. Fewer music-lovers know that he wrote a wide variety of concert works as well, many created in the romantic style of his film scores. That is regrettable, as Alwyn’s Read more

A perfectionist, Alwyn spent 33 years developing his quartet-writing technique, producing 13 quartets before the ones he finally acknowledged. In 1953, when 48 years old and at the height of his powers, Alwyn published the String Quartet No. 1 while under the spell of Czech music and the sanguine state of his life. The work is sunny and warmly romantic and includes, in the Adagio, a violin solo of startling beauty, one of Alwyn’s most ravishing creations. This quartet is the most conventional of the three, and listeners who enjoy Dvo?ák’s later quartets will feel right at home.

Alwyn was in a very different frame of mind 22 years later. The String Quartet No. 2, the most personal of the quartets, is a darker work of loss and regret. Janá?ek is felt here, but by and large this piece inhabits the austerely chromatic sound world of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht . Again the Adagio, here the final movement, carries the greatest emotional weight, as the aging composer seems to struggle with despondency and impotent rage. The two-movement Third Quartet, Alwyn’s last major work, written in his last year, begins where the Second leaves off. Here, though, the tension and darkness are eventually dispelled by a sweetly romantic second subject that would not have been out of place 31 years (or 131 years) earlier. Where the Second Quartet was anguished, this one is wistful, even, in a brief scherzando segment, bemused. Subsequent returns to consonance, in the final movement, have the effect of a sunset after a storm, and the ending is serene. The disc itself concludes with a premiere recording of Novelette , a piece from 1939 written for publication as part of a series of short quartet works by English composers. Its charm and cleverness suggest that Alwyn may have been too hasty in disowning his earlier quartet works.

There are currently three recordings of these numbered quartets, two available on CD. One, the reputedly excellent Razumovsky Quartet set on Dutton 7168, I have not heard. It apparently can only be purchased through the label’s Web site. This Maggini Quartet CD, continuing an admirable series of British string quartets for Naxos, is the other. With controlled vibrato and sharp attacks, theirs is a compellingly stark, uncompromising, physical approach, stressing the modernity of the works. Lyrical sections, as a result, stand out in bold relief. In this, the solo work of first violinist Lorraine McAslan is particularly praiseworthy, making one regret that she has since left the quartet. The pioneering Quartet of London set on Chandos—the first two quartets were recorded in the presence of the composer—is only available as a download from Chandos’s online store. In dollars and spread over two discs (9219 and 8440), they are fairly expensive, especially compared with this Naxos release. They do, however, include excellent performances of the Rhapsody for Piano Quartet and the String Trio. The London ensemble emphasizes the lyrical qualities of the works with somewhat underplayed dissonances and tempos and attacks that are more subtle and moderate than the Maggini’s. Frankly, I am glad to have both the Chandos and the Naxos, but for those seeking just one, I can recommend this Naxos release most enthusiastically. Now if someone could resurrect a few of those earlier quartets . . . ---FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames, arkivmusic.com

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