English composer Edmund Rubbra [1901-1986] probably did not read The New York Times. At least, he did not respond to, nor was he guided by, the terms of the artistic dilemma propounded by the headline to a music review published in the early 1980s: “Beauty or the Pain of Truth?” The question is obviously loaded. But it is worth examining for what it reveals about the cultural pathology of our time. There is an implied syllogism in the title that runs something like this: truth is painful; beauty is not painful; therefore, beauty is not true.
This line of thought invites the ultimate conclusion that truth is ugly. But ugliness is the aesthetic analogue to evil. Is, then, truth evil, or evil true? Some such supposition must have inspired the proliferation of ugliness in the arts of the 20th century. Ugliness has become a norm. In music, you can hear it in the wailings and screechings of a multitude of compositions that embrace the agony of the 20th century by making listeners suffer. Why? The hackneyed answer is the “horror” through which we have lived. We must express this horror. Yet composers did not write atonal, cacophonous music after the plague wiped out nearly half of Europe. Have we suffered worse? The answer is yes. The Black Death did not produce ugly music because the people who lived through it did not lose their faith. The single clearest crisis of the 20th century is the loss of faith. Noise, and its acceptance as music, is the product of the resulting spiritual confusion and, in its turn, becomes the further cause of its spread, as noise permeates the atmosphere, disorienting everyone.
Edmund Rubbra did not lose faith. In fact, he found the faith in 1948 when he converted to Roman Catholicism. And he wrote some of the most beautiful, euphonious music of the 20th century. He composed over one hundred sixty works, the main body of which includes 11 symphonies, 4 string quartets and 4 Masses (the Missa In Honorem Sancti Dominici, Op.66, owes its origin “purely to an inner compulsion to express my beliefs in music,” said Rubbra).
Though writing in a conservative, lyrical vein, Rubbra is not an English pastoralist of what has been derisively called the “cow pat” school of composition: yet another portrayal of bucolic bliss. However, he is so strongly grounded in the English polyphonic tradition that some critics have been tempted to call his symphonies “motets for orchestra.” In his book, Counterpoint, Rubbra wrote that the whole of Western music has grown out of melody and, in particular, the interaction of independent melodic lines. Rubbra said that he felt “closest to the English tradition in my orientation to line expressive in itself.” Thus, his music features long-lined melodies that unfold organically and that carry the full weight of the musical argument. This kind of compositional approach could only work with a composer possessed of a major melodic gift. This Rubbra had. He created melodies that “speak.” Since everything grows from the emerging melodic lines, his works have great coherence and are easy to follow even at their most contrapuntally complex.
Those who have studied Rubbra’s music almost unanimously remark upon its religious impulse, sometimes comparing him in this respect to Anton Bruckner. What is clear is that Rubbra’s reach is for something that is not simply musical, but through music to the sublime. Unlike another great composer, Leos Janacek, whose music almost fights its way into heaven with a shout, Rubbra is at first meditative, ruminative; then rhapsodic, achingly lyrical; and, finally, exultant, ecstatic, entering heaven in a vision, being lifted into it rather than having to take it by storm. His long, ascending melodic lines weave into enormous, contrapuntal cradles of innocence and beauty, of nobility and grace.
For these reasons, Rubbra has been ignored as a reactionary. One critic sniffed: “There are symphonists working in England for whom nothing has happened since Brahms.” The accusation should have been put more clearly: Rubbra wrote beautiful music. Guilty as charged.
For transgressing the artistic ethos of ugliness, he was rewarded with obscurity. That obscurity has been slowly dissipating as more and more of his music is made available on recordings. The latest entry is a Conifer Classics CD (75605-512252) that includes the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op.103, and the world premiere recording of the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, Op.75. Both works are moving and beautifully lyrical. The Viola Concerto is especially tender, a major addition to the limited repertory for this instrument. One can only regret that Conifer did not choose one of the still unrecorded concertos to accompany it since there is already a fine recording of the Violin Concerto on Unicorn-Kanchana. Nonetheless, these are beautiful performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra guided by the sure hand of Vernon Handley, whose personal acquaintance with Rubbra no doubt deepened his grasp of these works. Both soloists, Tasmin Little, violin, and Rivka Golani, viola, play with the passion and tenderness these pieces deserve.
For those wishing to explore further, eight of Rubbra’s 11 symphonies are now recorded. There is little in modern music to match their grandeur. Most are available on super-expensive Lyrita CDs at over $20 each. For those reluctant to pay that price, however, one of his noblest works, the Symphony No. 5, is available on a mid-price Chandos CD. Listen to the Sibelian climax in the third movement marked Grave, or the ecstatic brass resounding in the final Allegro Vivo, to gain some appreciation of Rubbra’s symphonic stature. The work is ably performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, but one can imagine what a major orchestra would do with this magnificent work.
The composer Herbert Howell’s reaction to Rubbra’s music could be fairly replicated by anyone today who is willing to listen: “Now and again there comes a work with the power to make one fall in love with music all over again. In such a mood I found myself when listening to your (Third) Symphony.” Simply extend that sentiment to cover any of a substantial number of Rubbra’s works, including those on this superb Conifer release and, amidst whatever pain, you will see the beauty of Rubbra’s truth.