Good enough for Toscanini, Ormandy and Stokowski
But why has Rubbra failed to gain traction in the concert hall? Why, for example, in an age when accessible trumps challenging, is Rubbra's Fourth Symphony virtually unknown? Why is his music so neglected when the Lark Ascending consistently tops popularity polls, and Robert Layton describes the opening bars of the Fourth Symphony as "one of the most beautiful openings... in all English music? - listen here. Yet only four of Rubbra's eleven symphonies have ever been performed at the BBC Proms; the most recent was Richard Hickox's 2001 Fourth Symphony programmed in 2001 in conjunction with the Chandos recording.
One possible explanation of this neglect is the scoring of the symphonies themselves. Although unquestionably accessible, the scoring is often dense: Robert Layton describes it as "persistently thick and without relief". This translates under the baton of a conductor who lacks empathy and experience - and there are many of those around today - to a certain opaqueness. But in the right hands the music is transcendent. For instance Rubbra was very impressed by a Stokowski performance of the Fifth Symphony, praising how Stokowski's scrupulous attention to dynamic shadings and individual orchestral parts allowed the score to be heard with perfect transparency. Norman del Mar's recordings for Lyrita engineered by Decca also show that when the score is meticulously followed and the recording engineers are at the top of their game, Rubbra's genius is revealed in all its glory.
Could the reason for Rubbra's neglect be today's audiences with their diminished attention spans? Again Robert Layton throws some light on this: "... the Rubbra symphonies do not make good "background" listening: they demand full attention". Harold Truscott expanded on this saying: "..it is not primarily an orchestral sound at all and you have to forget colour and concentrate on line development." But Layton goes on to explain that the symphonies are "...are not difficult, however, in the way that some contemporary music is, for the musical language is quite straightforward." In an exemplary erudite booklet note for his Lyrita recording of Rubbra's Second Symphony Tod Handley explains that "Perhaps the most important preparation a new listener can have is to realise that here is a composer who eschews a beguiling approach. This does not mean that he is dull or humourless, but that his integrity will not allow him cheap attractiveness".
But perhaps the real reason for the shameful neglect of Rubbra is the preconceptions of "experts" who dictate what we hear in the concert hall? Do these 'experts' wrongly assume that audiences are no longer prepared to give their full attention to music that is unfamiliar and which comes without the superficial appeal of cheap attractiveness? I suggest that this is at least a contributory factor to why the white heterosexual Rubbra is absent from our concert halls and air waves.
Support for the view that today's classical programming is too risk averse comes from someone with far more authority than me. Years ago, in response to an Overgrown Path post lamenting myopic concert planning, the baritone Stéphane Degout wrote:
Programme planners sometimes tell me that my recitals are too rarified, too intellectual, and that no one will come. But the rooms are full and the audience loves it. The tastes of audiences are often misjudged: the public are not backward children who only like what they know, and who have no appetite for the new or willingness to adapt.
Quite the contrary! I was often told my programmes “will not interest anyone” and was asked for programmes mixing opera arias and more popular pieces. But I always refused; because I believe one must first acknowledge the audience's intelligence instead of acceding to the wishes of a programme planner who has a narrow outlook and an inbuilt fear of risk.
Years ago I wrote that audiences need permission to like unfamiliar music. What is there not to like about Rubbra's music - listen here?
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