Frederick Paul Naftel – Orchestral, Chamber and Instrumental Works (Album Review)

Everytime a classical music piece graces upon our platform, it’s like as if we’re hit with another wonder to decode and busk in. Meet the composer Frederick Paul Naftel, with his newest release titled ‘Frederick Paul Naftel – Orchestral, Chamber and Instrumental Works’.

He was born in Manchester in 1956, and set his artistry in stone by being an eclectic composer drawing inspiration from a myriad of sources such as landscapes, nature, as well as historical events. His compositions span various styles and formats, creating distinct moods and atmospheres.

His repertoire also includes Concerti for Orchestra, Symphonies, chamber music, and vocal works. Notable works include the Double Concerto for Bass Tuba and Contrabass Tuba, the Bass Clarinet Concerto, Aubade Pastorale, and the Sanctus for female voices, strings, and piano.

In terms of recognition, he earned an award from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 2020 and was runner-up in the King Lear Arts Competition. He is currently working on this Third Symphony, which is dedicated to Sir James MacMillan, and future orchestral works. Naftel’s music has been praised and lauded for its eccentricity, individuality and distinctive voice in contemporary music.

The release this review will centre upon, ‘Orchestral, Chamber and Instrumental Works‘ marks as a showcase of his evidently eclectic compositional style. It houses 4 legacy recordings: Pascal’s Victim for Tuba Quartet, Song of Songs, Villancico for Guitar and Small Orchestra, and Aubade Pastorale for String Orchestra as well as 3 premiere recordings: Aphoristic Impressions, Naftel’s String Quartet No. 2, and The Folksong Suite for String Orchestra and Timpani, all of which will be expanded upon throughout the sequence of this review.

The music is accessible here for your listening comfort:

Pascal’s Victim for Tuba Quartet

It was composed for the North West-based Tubalaté, featuring three movements based on the Gregorian Chant Victamae Paschali. It starts off immensively pensive, before building up to a stable motif that’s marked with slight mystery and distrust. It is expectedly fragmented, but it also evokes the feel of a chaotic situation that envelopes you in- with slight chromatic notes sandwiched in it. The second movement reminds me of the midsection of the composition ‘Dance of the Knights’ by Prokofiev, with the slight mellowed-down motif apparent as opposed to the first one. It features gently shifting harmonies and peaks with a crescendo, before returning to its mellowness. The third motif amps up the motif of alertness, not straying from the compositional intent of paying homage to the chant. I think this movement itself is quite fascinating.

Aphoristic Impressions

It was composed in 2023 for the American pianist Haley Myles. It intends to capture the essence of various landscapes through five short piano pieces. These pieces intend to evoke images of the underwater church at Dunwich, Suffolk, the eruption of an Icelandic geyser, the indigenous wildlife of the Australian outback and Uluru/Ayers Rock, a peaceful night-time portrait of a Japanese garden, and Whirlpool Rapids Gorge on the Niagara River.

Approaching Bell: It gives off a very slight atonal feel, while still commanding presence with its compositional techniques. This segment is incredibly jarring, but also intensive and ‘pulls you in’, in a certain way, expecting more through the flow of motivic variation. It has a suspense-like filter to its approach, as the notes only get louder before going through a sequence of recurrent notes in various reiterations.

Mini Magma: Expanding upon the thematic feel of jarringness, matching the ferocity of eruption and magma, the notes of this piece hit you right at once going up in multiple transpositions. It is short, but it delivers its message and imagery effectively well.

Roo Awakening: This track, although in intent, is meant to mirror the indigenous wildlife of the Australian outback, reminds me of the superposition imminent within quantum mechanics. However, I see a similarity between the motor flexibilities of wildlife being expressed through sonic motifs and the fluidity of quantum mechanics- just as this track takes you through a journey of different melodic themes to what I interpret as the steadfastness and jumpiness of wildlife. It also reminds me of Stockhausen’s compositions.

Japanese Gardens: Immediately I can sense the scale it is played in- it is evidently Japanese and pentatonic, but bears compositional similarities to certain Indonesian and Ethiopian scales. It has a sense of serenity to it, but also a depth that is quite hard to translate into words- existential, almost, before it erupts into a wonderful flow of notes descending and ascending almost in a polyphonic fashion. I find this recording to be more complex than actually described.

Whirlpool Rapids: The initial dual-note motif helps to bring a sense of urgency to this track, with the occasional spars of notes to accent it in the beginning. It is intense, but also fluid, just like the gorge it intended to represent. It’s chromatic, but also stark in its delivery, and the juxtaposition makes it intensely delectable to listen to.

String Quartet No. 2

This piece was composed during the initial Coronavirus pandemic, reflecting the era’s tumultuous nature. It is a single movement but divided into 5 sections with an epilogue. From the first section itself, you can feel the inherent oscillation between tranquil static passages and furious, violent sections marked by intervals of a major 7th chord and a minor 2nd chord.

It starts off tranquil, almost, but goes choppy and intense with the drone of a string in the background, aiding the feel of anxiety and discomfort throughout the duration of the piece, reflecting the intersecting worlds of unsavoury emotion and bursts of solitudinal bliss in the midst of global consciousness ripping itself by its own shreds. The Allegro feroce is indeed, ferocious, but also overwhelming.

The Adagio Sostenuto that follows afterwards presents a solitary aftermath to the chaos of the previous movement, without sacrificing the underlying drone mechanism employed by the strings. It is a very airy composition that also makes you contemplate between each movement. It then transitions to the Prest Furioso, a return to the steadfast motif that characterises this piece. Each pizzicato helps to create an effect of pure shock and boldness, all while a series of cyclical notes color the timbre of the piece. The epilogue in return, closes out the track with a distinctly distant compositional feel with strings that feel airy and worn out, reflecting the state of society after having gone through such a terrible pandemic.

Song of Songs: Rhapsody for String Orchestra and Harp

This piece was intended to be an ethnic-flavoured rhapsody based on Hebraic chants and original material, featuring melodies like ‘Yigdal‘ and ‘Hatikvah‘. It begins with a very hijaz-esque melody through the strings, creating a source of mystery but also invitation as it goes on, with the harp sequence accenting its main melodic presence. The harp’s lone pieces give the track a feel of tangible sparkle, before going back to join the main stringed melody. This piece goes through a couple reiterations of the theme, almost like a delayed call-and-response, oscillating between motifs that are more surreptitious and serene. I have to say, there are a lot of similarities to my ear with the composition Valse Sentimentale by Tchaikovsky.

Aubade Pastorale for Strings

This piece is a short tone poem depicting a hazy day in the English countryside, using original themes inspired by the English Pastoral School, particularly Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is stated here, that ‘The association of music with landscape is essentially a Romantic phenomenon, a departure from the Classical conception of music as an abstract language concerned in a general way with the expression of feeling but with no particular relation to the external world.’ within the context of the music of English Pastoral. Likewise, I think this track thematical relates to the voices apparent within this movement- reflective, contemplative, impressive, all while transporting you into a world that is quite vivid and moving all at the same time.

This is all achieved by the wonderful segments of each stringed segment, some lending credence to the depth of the track while some sections play the motif of wonder and longingness- making you feel like you’re staring straight into the haze, eyeing your fate.

The Folksong Suite for String Orchestra and Timpani 

This piece draws on six English and Scottish folksongs, including John Peel, Early One Morning, Ca’
the Yowes, Loch Lomond, Dashing Away With The Smoothing Iron, and Lincolnshire Poacher. It is very vibrant, as with the tone and intent of most folksongs within that genre. It is separated into three movements, Rondo, Lament, and Country Dance.

Rondo: I find the structuring of this track quite unique, owing its dynamicism to the timpani section within the entire duration of the segment. It’s almost like a silent framework, giving it slight bass but also structuring each part with its intensity. The strings, once again, present a stellar soundscape.

Lament: This movement begins with a bit more seriousness than the other ones, making a scintillating piece out of the ups and downs that the notes go through within the sections of the strings. It has the most ‘unpredictability’ within all of the movements, changing its emotional tone pretty drastically throughout the track. It reaches a loud singularity at some point of the track, making sure to take you, as the listener, along on the emotional highs and lows of the track.

Country Dance: It finishes with a piece full of flair and velour, coming in strong with motifs that ooze pride as well as strong, deep-rooted culture. You don’t have to know much of the traditions of English and Scottish music to feel this particular song, it presents itself to you with so much gusto from the mixture of different types of modes of playing throughout the strings and the wonderful oversight of the timpani for structure and depth.

Villancico for Guitar and Small Orchestra 

This track aims to bridge the music of the Spanish Renaissance and Joaquin Rodrigo in a charming and lyrical Rondo form. It makes itself apparent within the first few notes of the Spanish guitar, and the oboe and the flute follow suit, expanding upon its motif. The flow of the track definitely follows suit with the rondo format, and I have to commend the attention to detail, especially with the snaps in the background. This track is quite beautiful if I must say so myself. It has a sentimental and romantic (not in terms of the musical movement) quality to it.

All in all, this album was a wonderful delight to listen to. It contained a large number of compositional influences and structural styles, leading credence to Frederick Paul Naftel’s repertoire for being an extremely eclectic and competent composer. Each track really played itself out as a wonderfully expressive attempt at trying to expand thematic motifs into full, engaging pieces and I think as a composer, he did it quite well. I also have to commend the great selection of people chosen to play these pieces as they truly helped to bring all of these compositions to life, being sensitive to every coda.

SCORE/Outstanding:  Orchestral, Chamber and Instrumental Works by Frederick Paul Naftel is a wonderfully engaging album that seeks to take the art of transforming an idea, scenery or motif into a full bodied piece of classical music very seriously. It oscillates between many different motifs, voicings and even scales to keep anyone seated and does not leave any space for inferiority. A work well done.

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