Arne: Eight Overtures - The Academy of Ancient Music, Hogwood

Thomas Augustine Arne
Eight Overtures
The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
L'Oiseau-Lyre 475 9117

The Eight Overtures of Thomas Arne do not quite possess the energy, the freshness or the technical solidity of the better-known Eight Symphonys of his rival, William Boyce, but they do have much charm of their own. The first movements are mostly in some degree French-overturish, but with a very English relaxing of the Gallic formality; but Arne writes too some very dutiful fugues (a remarkably genial one in No. 1, one on an abnormally lengthy subject in No. 2, a double one in No. 6), and there are some appealing slow movements and attractive dances. It is the slow movements above all, I think, that bear the strongest witness to Arne's unique gifts. His music is uneven, but any dullish or routine movement is apt to be followed by one that takes your breath away with its charm or originality—try for example the graceful Andante e piano of No. 1, wistful, graceful, quirkily English in the shape of its lines, or the plaintive little D minor Andante e piano of No. 5. Some of the overtures, originally written for theatre or semitheatrical works, have a more grandiose manner: the last, from The Judgment of Paris, in particular, but also the cne from Comus, No. 7, with its ringing trumpets. Another, No. 4, has concertante parts for two horns.

All this music is played in a very spirited fashion by the Academy, under Christopher Hogwood whose understanding of, and sympathy for, the music are unrivalled (this was, I believe, their first recording). Standards of precision in the playing of period instruments have of course risen in the 20 years since this recording was made (the sound of the oboes is the sharpest reminder of that), but the particular spirit of these pieces is most happily caught and there is much that is very delightful and unmistakably the music of an eccentric Englishman.

SS, Gramophone Magazine