How long will excuses need to be made for the greatness of Malcolm Arnold as a symphonist? Apparently exactly as long as he insists on being bitterly banal and hopelessly vulgar, along with wonderfully lyrical and brilliantly colored and inexorably driven and powerfully argued. Is this a good thing? Perhaps it is not, but it is nevertheless a great thing. As his Symphony No. 6, completed in the summer of 1967, shows, Arnold was as great a symphonist as Tippet or Walton, but he was a harder, tougher, and sharper composer ...
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How long will excuses need to be made for the greatness of Malcolm Arnold as a symphonist? Apparently exactly as long as he insists on being bitterly banal and hopelessly vulgar, along with wonderfully lyrical and brilliantly colored and inexorably driven and powerfully argued. Is this a good thing? Perhaps it is not, but it is nevertheless a great thing. As his Symphony No. 6, completed in the summer of 1967, shows, Arnold was as great a symphonist as Tippet or Walton, but he was a harder, tougher, and sharper composer than them. And such a cornball: the Sixth has pages of solemn and profound thought juxtaposed against page after page after page of vulgar banality.And, amazingly enough, Vernon Handley is such a serious and conscientious conductor and the Royal Philharmonic performs Arnold's Sixth with such gusto and virtuosity that it all works. And it works not just in the symphony, but in every other work on the disc, as well: the Chico Marx meets Spike Mulligan of Arnold's Fantasy on a Theme of...
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