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| last updated 1 February 2010
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DVD/ CD offer
£16.95
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This DVD features artist that brought music to the people during and after World War 2. Dame Myra Hess plays Beethoven [View] and Mozart [View] in a National Gallery devoid of pictures. Instruments of the Orchestra [View] and Steps of the Ballet [View] were two educational films made by the Crown Film Unit to help schools meet the requirements of R.A. Butler's 1944 Education Act which put music into the curriculum for the first time. Benjamin Britten wrote his Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra for Instruments fo the Orchestra performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent. Arthur Benjamin was commissioned to write the score for Steps of the Ballet which unlike its orchestral colleague has become a forgotten film. Robert Helpmann explains the staging of a ballet with choreography by Andree Howard and lead roles by Gerd Larsson and Alexander Grant. Finally Dennis Brain explains the French horn and the performs Beethoven's Horn Sonata with Denis Matthews [View]. Contains an audio extra. Holst - The Perfect Fool ballet music played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. Recorded in the Kingsway Hall, London in March 1946.
Black and white 76 minutes DVD PAL video.
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1PD35 The World of Dennis Brain
Dennis Brain (1921-1957) plays in:
- Tchaikovsky - Symphony No 5 - II Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza [Listen]
Dennis Brain (horn), National Symphony Orchestra conductor Sidney Beer
The second movement of the 5th Symphony is classic Tchaikovsky with colourful orchestration and a memorable main theme introduced by a solo horn. Next the oboe (Leon Goossens) is heard and a new melody enters and builds up to a powerful climax but the movement's orchestral tones descend until the clarinets (Reginald Kell and Bernard Walton) are left alone to close close the movement. In this war time performance Dennis Brain is playing with the National Symphony Orchestra in Decca's first full frequency range recording, although still using noisy 78 rpm discs as the carrier for the new sound.
- Mozart - Cosi fan Tutte - Per pieta ben mio [Listen]
Joan Cross (soprano), Dennis Brain (horn), Philharmonia Orchestra conductor Lawrance Collingwood
Dennis Brain displays grace and delicacy in accompanying soprano Joan Cross (1900 - 1993) in Fiordiligi's aria 'Per pieta' in Act II of Cosi Fan Tutte. Joan Cross had been a successful leading soprano at London's Saddlers Wells Theatre, a company she had directed during the war years. The last ten years of her singing career she was associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten starting with "Peter Grimes" in 1945.
- Beethoven - Horn Sonata in F major Op.17 [Listen]
Dennis Brain (horn) Dennis Matthews (piano)
Beethoven wrote this sonata in 1800 for Giovanni Punto (1746-1803) a virtuoso horn player who had moved to Vienna that year after resigning from a conducting post in Paris. The performance on this disc is the sound track from a film made by Ken Cameron (available on Yesterday's Britain DVD Classical Music in the Forties) as a pilot for the "We Make Music" films that were to feature most of the instruments of the orchestra demonstrated by leading exponents.
- Edward Williams - Open House [Listen]
Natalie James (oboe), Bernard Walton (clarinet), Dennis Brain (horn), Cecil James (bassoon)
Edward Williams used a wind quartet for the British Transport Films short "Open House" which toured stately homes that could be reached from London by Green Line Coach. For this compact disc I have edited the original music session takes into a continuous piece. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II Edward Williams joined Denham Studios music department and from 1948 wrote many scores for British documentary films. In more recent times Williams has been associated with the BBC Natural History unit , most notably the Life on Earth series.
- Dukas - Villanelle[Listen]
Dennis Brain (horn), Gerald Moore (piano)
Dukas wrote much music but being a perfectionist destroyed most of it. The Villanelle is one of the few works that survived. It is a portrait of a country girl. The music cleverly woven out of a simple theme.
- Benjamin Britten - Serenade for tenor, horn and strings [Listen]
Peter Pears (tenor), Dennis Brain (horn), strings of the New Symphony Orchestra of London, conductor Sir Eugene Goossens
Six vocal nocturnes are framed by two gentle and beguiling horn solos. The six nocturnes are Pastoral (Cotton), Nocturne (Tennyson), Elegy (Blake), Dirge (Anon., 15th century), Hymn (Ben Jonson) and Sonnet (Keates). This performance is the second of two recorded by Dennis Brain for Decca. The other performance featured the composer and Peter Pears (1910-1986). On this occasion Britten was indisposed so Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) step in.
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