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Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by John France on April 23, 2008, 11:51 am 217.196.232.225
I recently reviewed Peter Racine Fricker's fine Violin Concerto recently released on Lyrita. Today, I have just finished listening to his superb Second Symphony on EMI with Sir John Pritchard conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Yet a brief look at Crotchet reveals, in addition to the above works two violin sonatas a quintet, a couple of choral miniatures and a handful of organ works.
Does anyone agree with me that this is a pathetic total for such a fine composer?
Posted by chris howell on April 24, 2008, 8:59 am, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker" 213.215.159.46
I certainly enjoyed studying his Variations op. 31 for piano in my university days, though I haven't refreshed my memory for a long while. My piano professor at Edinburgh, Colin Kingsley, knew Fricker personally, had studied several of his works with him and later, when Fricker's reputation was declining, commissioned a further piano work from him. He should have been invited to set all this music down on record - Kingsley's only record was some White sonatas on Lyrita as far as I know - but of course wasn't. He did record much (all?) of Fricker's solo piano music for BBC Scotland so maybe these performances survive somewhere.
Chris Howell
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by Jeffrey Davis on May 6, 2008, 8:16 pm, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker"
Yes, I do agree. The Second Symphony is especially good. I remember it from an old EMI LP, coupled, If I remember correctly, with Robert Simpson's eqally impressive First Symphony (my favourite of Simpson's works) (Boult). That was a good series as it was my way into Edmund Rubbra's music as his Fifth Symphony (Barbirolli) was in the same sries with a wonderful Vaughan Williams Dives and Lazarus and Oboe Concerto. there should be more Fricker. There's a kind of gritty integrity about his music.
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by John France on May 7, 2008, 9:35 am, in reply to "Re: Peter Racine Fricker" 217.196.232.225
The Fricker Second Symphony along with Orr's Symphony and Simpson's First is/was available on EMI CD
Yes, indeed I have that great CD. My favourite work on it is by Robin Orr. A terrific one movement symphony of concentrated power and eloquence. It reminds me a bit of some of the symphonies by Carlos Chavez (No 4). Robin Orr died recently at an impressively old age.
I do so agree with the others who have posted! I have been trying to do my best for Fricker on the Classical Good Music Guide Forum. I also treasure my ancient Louisville First Edition LP with Robert Whitney conducting the splendidly powerful 1st Symphony recorded(presumably) during the 1950s. I had hoped that this would be reissued on CD but the project to bring out the old Louisville recordings on First Edition Music seems to have ground to a halt(for financial reasons?). Fricker made the 'mistake' of accepting his professorship at Santa Barbara in the mid-1960s. As with Iain Hamilton, who went to Duke University, North Carolina, this removed him from the consciousness of the British musical establishment and his music was forgotten. Fricker and Hamilton are the two most scandalously neglected British composers of their generation(now that Richard Arnell has come in from the cold!). I have long yearned to hear his big choral work 'The Vision of Judgement' written for the Leeds Festival after reading about so many years ago in the Penguin Guide to Choral Music. I used to have the 3rd, 4th and 5th symphonies on reel-to-reel tape but they are unplayable now sadly! IF any company is ever bold enough to record some Fricker it will earn my deepest thanks!
Re-reading what I wrote 2-3 years ago impels me to add now that in fact I WAS able to resurrect my collection of reel-to-reel tapes and that a very substantial collection including my recordings of broadcasts of Fricker's orchestral music including all five of the symphonies, several of the concertos and, above all, "The Vision of Judgment" have now been digitised and made available via membership of the 'Unsung Composers' website.
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by Hubert Culot on May 22, 2008, 6:53 pm, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker" 81.241.114.171
I cannot but agree with all these comments about Fricker's music and its shameful neglect. Some may also remember that his Fifth Symphony (organ and orchestra) was available on a "pirate" label many years ago. It is not his best work, but still worth a hearing. On the other hand, both the Fourth Symphony and Rondeaux (organ and orchestra) are superb and cry out for recording. Who will consider such fine stuff for possible recording, I wonder. A few years ago, CPO recorded Searle's symphonies. They might thus consider Fricker's ones some day. Fricker's music may at times be uneven but the best of it is just splendid.
I also agree with everyone listed. Fricker is probably one of the 20th century's greatest composers. I've emailed Cpo & Chandos to enquire if they could record him but it seems that they think he wouldn't sell that well. The symphony#2 is the only one commercially available. It is sad in a way. As much as I like Arnell & Rubbra, I do think Fricker's music is more substantial. I've heard his 3rd & 5th symphonies & they're quite impressive.This composer should be recorded by CPO. Then again, what about William Wordsworth?
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by Peter Shott on December 11, 2008, 11:36 pm, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker" 81.154.217.31
Yes, I heartily agree with John France the total number of recorded performances of Peter Racine Fricker is "pathetic" - however the constituents of that total are gems. I first became aware of Fricker through a performance of a String Quartet (the second?) by the Amadeus within the university at York in 1967. A highly distinctive and absorbing musical language, and quite unlike anything else I'd heard. (I don't think I ever saw the Amadeus playing with such rapt concentration as on that occasion, and the music made the deepest impact on the audience privileged to hear it). I resolved there and then to hear as much Fricker as I possibly could. Alas, in the 41 years since I have never encountered it in the concert hall, and as John France says, there is precious little beyond the 2 violin sonatas and the concerto on record. How I should love to hear that quartet again! And my despondency increases when I read the two articles by David Wright and Francis Routh available on the site, and realise the full extent of Fricker's compositions. (Do concert organisers and record companies not attend to MusicWeb? Dutton Epoch are currently doing wonders for Richard Arnell - could they not take on some of Fricker's orchestral music? And the Maggini on Naxos for the [two?] quartets? And, come on Chandos, how about some of the choral music? I detain my fancies, for it begins to hurt!) What a thing it was to be a student in those days! We had the Amadeus resident for two whole years, and I recall paying 1s&6p to attend each of their fortnightly concerts. Then Janet Baker, Gerald Moore, Alfred Brendel, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and many others also dropped in. Best of all was a Britten and Pears performance of Winterreise in the newly built Lyons concert hall. Many of the 40 or so who heard it were commenting frequently in the following months that its intensity surpassed the legendary Decca recording. What an environment in which to be a student (and not, in my case, of music)! It saddens me greatly that, for obvious enough reasons, contemporary students have little conception of what they might be missing. I ended the first part of my career in 2006 when I departed from a dump of a university somewhere north of Birmingham and south of Manchester that put all its energies into designing gimmicky courses in an attempt to bump up student numbers at the expense of properly expanding the minds of students and enriching their lives. But that is another story. In the meantime, please please some Fricker! It is quite dreadful that his rich and broad legacy goes unperformed and unrecorded.
I have difficulty with the argument from Chandos and CPO that Fricker "wouldn't sell". CPO issued the Benjamin Frankel and Humphrey Searle symphonies and I cannot really imagine that these two composers are any better known than Fricker. Nor is Fricker's music as 'difficult' as that of Searle. Dutton have done a superb job on behalf of Richard Arnell and while Arnell's music is more accessible than that of Fricker he was hardly a 'household name' to most music lovers! Dutton are also recording the six symphonies of David Matthews-again, splendid works but more commercial than Fricker? It pains me that there should be such a resurgence of interest in recording the works of composers like York Bowen and other early 20th century composers while such excellent music from the mid-century goes ignored!
I agree wholeheartedly with Colin Mackie's comments on the lack of P.Racine Fricker's music on CD. The Second Symphony that is available is now a good many years old and is crying out to have a new version recorded. His amazing, award winning, first Symphony I have on an old cassette taken from the original LP recording many many moons ago. It is an outstandingly emotional and stunning work that NEEDS to be back in the repertoire. What are these companies playing at when they will happily record the likes of Bowen, Searle and Frankel (all of whom I admire) and yet won't look at Fricker on the suspiciously dubious grounds of "not selling". There are other composers of the same period that need looking at and revisiting such as Ian Hamilton, especially his Symphonic works. There is a market for this product however small so I can only plead along with everyone else for a company to do something that will restore Fricker and his work to the rightful place in the musical output. Do these companies not also realise that they have a massive untapped market in the USA where he lived and worked for nearly 30 years. Humphrey Searle and Ben Frankel did not and yet they are happy to record these composers. their excuses do not ring true.
I have tried e-mailing record companies repeatedly about recording Fricker but it seems like there's a brick wall about him. I thought CPO, Dutton, & Chandos should be the people to do it but I presume they don't think he'd sell. Has anyone else out there heard of any companies having interest in this most underappreciated composer?
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by Kevin on January 28, 2009, 9:37 am, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker" 86.14.131.130
A small crumb of comfort to find that there will be a little more Fricker (cello sonata?) in the next Lyrita double cd - can't find the reference now, but it's due out in Feb!
Re: Peter Racine Fricker
Posted by Len Mullenger on January 28, 2009, 10:03 am, in reply to "Re: Peter Racine Fricker" 217.155.206.169
Posted by Peter Shott on May 13, 2012, 12:54 pm, in reply to "Peter Racine Fricker" 86.132.67.79
Absolutely right, John. In view of the quality of the music I'd say it is not so much "pathetic" that so little (of a pretty substantial worklist) is performed or recorded, but downright scandalous. I see I left a post way back in 2008 to that effect - and not much has happened since. Apart from the fact that quite a few works by PRF's contemporaries have, thankfully, been recorded. But nothing of PRF himself.
I am especially sore at the neglect of the string quartets. I've often contacted quartets who, in my view, could do a fine job of them (e.g. the Maggini, the Edinburgh) and I always get a response along the lines of 'ah, they appear interesting', and then followed by silence. In two weeks time we've been incredibly lucky to have got the Doric playing in our lovely little Suffolk village. They don't know it yet, but after the concert I'm going to batter them with propositions about the Peter Racine Fricker quartets!
