Recordings of Reginald Smith Brindle’s non-guitar works

During his lifetime Reginald Smith Brindle was a prominent British composer. Many of his works were broadcast on BBC radio and performed in major British concert venues. For example, his twenty-minute Creation Epic for orchestra was performed in the 1964 BBC Proms.

He was equally well-known known as a teacher and critic, and headed the music department at the University of Surrey. He wrote several short but useful books on music (I recommend Serial Composition (1966) in particular, especially for those unfamiliar with/unsure about serial compositional technique). In addition, his critical writings could be found in many musical journals.

Since his death in 2003 Brindle’s works (which were never really popular and mostly written in a ‘difficult’ style) have become even more obscure. Guitarists will still be familiar with his name because of Brindle’s association with Julian Bream. El Polifemo de Oro, one of the first twelve-tone works for guitar, has stayed in the repertoire since Bream recorded it in the 1960s. However, Brindle’s other solo guitar works (and there are many of them!) have had much less attention, despite being, for the most part, good music.

For now, or at least for the sake this post, I’m more interested in Brindle’s non-guitar music. Brindle was a guitarist, though it wasn’t his first instrument. He began his musical life as a church organist and taught and wrote for the instrument for most of his life. It is strange, then, that for none of his organ works do we have an extant recording. (There was a 1970 recording of Three Improvisation for organ but it appears to be long out of print, perhaps even lost. I did manage to find a copy the score, however. It claims to be the first ever truly serial composition for organ.)

Nor do we have any recordings of his orchestral music. Perhaps this is just a matter of economics: Brindle, a relatively obscure composer of ‘avant-garde’ music, is not likely to get an expensive and unprofitable orchestral recording.

Brindle wrote melodic lines well; his melodies are almost harmonic clusters stretched out over the page. His lyricism, at its best, sometimes reminds me of Luigi Dallapiccolla, a truly wonderful composer under whom he studied. From what I can tell, he also wrote idiomatically for various instruments — a rare skill — taking uncommon care in studying the instruments for which he composed.

Here are the handful of recordings I’ve been able to find of Brindle’s non-guitar music. Some are better quality than others:

Auriga (for percussion ensemble). One of many Brindle wrote inspired by things cosmic. Recording by the Central Michigan University Percussion Ensemble:

Andromeda M31 (solo flute). The use of multiphonics is strikingly effective. (And the album cover is also, well, striking — surely a contender for one of the worst of all time.) Recording by Claudio Ferrarini: