Boyce: Symphonies Op.2 - AAM, Christopher Hogwood

William Boyce
Symphonies Op.2
Christopher Hogwood, The Academy of Ancient Music
L'Oiseau-Lyre 436 761-2

I think I might have borrowed a couple of the scans from somewhere but unfortunately I forgot from where and who.

The Boyce Eight Symphonys (as he himself spelt the title) are one of the treasures of English eighteenth-century music, cheerful, unassuming and confident, full of good tunes, and typically English in the heterodoxy of their style—their quirky lines, their refusal to follow the regular procedures, their mixture of baroque and classical features, with their fugues declining to remain fugal, their very un-French French overtures: all this is part of their particular charm. These pieces started life as overtures, to stage works or to odes, and Boyce later collected them for publication as concert pieces. Some years ago, Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert made an excellent recording which I thought unlikely to be surpassed; but I'm not sure that this new one isn't even better. It is certainly different, in several ways.

Christopher Hogwood gives a great deal of attention to the textural depth of the music, and you hear a good deal more of inner detail; Pinnock rather favours a breezier approach, with more concentration on the melodic line and the momentum. And while Pinnock's performances have a lot of energy and spontaneity, Hogwood's are a good deal more thoughtful and more attentive to detail. He shapes the cadences with considerable care, for example in the first movement of No. 2 or the Gavotte of No. 5. The inspiriting first movement of No. 4 receives a particularly delightful performance, rich and solid, with a happy sense of the music's logic; and Hogwood catches the eccentric character of the music well, for example in the curious M'oderaio movement at the middle of No. 7 or in the odd little Vivace at the centre of No. 3. Vivace in these pieces signifies a slowish movement, but I fancy Hogwood overdoes it slightly in the middle movement of No. 4, which is surely a bit heavy-footed. All the fugal movements go well, done with vitality and a feeling for their logic.

If you already have the Pinnock version, you may safely remain content; if not, however, the new one should certainly be considered, for, at a very modest sacrifice of freshness, you do have readings that go just a shade deeper, with no want of spirit.

SS, Gramophon.net