As promised in my recent post about Arnold Bax’s great Violin Concerto is a baker’s dozen of MY favourite examples of the genre. Some are old favourites such as the Elgar, the Moeran and the Walton, however many I have discovered only recently with the release of much material from the Lyrita archives and the sterling efforts of Dutton Epoch. I have put them roughly chronologically, as I could not settle on my personal ratings for these excellent works. However, I find that I could not live without any of them now. Furthermore, there are over a...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Of all the major compositions of William Alwyn, I have personally found the Violin Concerto the least satisfying. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, it is a long work lasting nearly forty minutes, yet there is a seeming imbalance between movements – the first being as long as the second and third combined. Secondly, I believe that the ‘finale’ is less effective than the preceding movements and never quite fulfils their challenge. Finally, I guess that there could be a suggestion that the ‘cinema’ is never too far away from this music: it...
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Fred (or Fritz as he was called by his brothers and sisters) was noted for enjoying lurid stories, or Penny Dreadfuls. [1] Of course, his parents refused to allow the young lad to read them. However he managed to find a way of perusing them that his parents would not find out about. He used to hide his books and magazines in the bed and read them when he was meant to be asleep. We have all done this of course. However, Delius went a stage further. In order not to be caught, he rigged up an 'ingenious contraption of strings and pulleys," by means...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Arnold Bax is well represented in the CD catalogues – even if a little unevenly. For example, all British music enthusiasts must be delighted (and amazed) that there are four cycles of the complete symphonies currently available – on CD or MP3. (For the record those are by Chandos with Handley and Thomson, Lyrita and Naxos). The most popular work is Tintagel with more than thirty recordings currently available. This is closely followed by the magical...
Sunday, May 22, 2011
I can still remember listening to William Alwyn’s Miss Julie on the Radio 3 which was broadcast back in July 16 1977. I am less sure what I thought about the work – although I do recall that some of the music appealed to me. I guess that the plot somehow passed me by: opera has never been my strong point. I even recorded the broadcast on my old cassette recorder and I still have the tapes! However, I have never listened to the work since: the Lyrita release on CD somehow never ‘appeared’ in my collection. Miss Julie was composed between 1973 and...
Friday, May 20, 2011
Arnold Bax’s relatively late Legend-Sonata for cello and piano was written in 1943. I guess that when I first heard this piece I imagined it to be something along the lines of The Tale the Pine Trees Knew – an exploration of some Celtic derring-do. However, this is a relaxed work in comparison to much that Bax wrote in the first thirty years of the twentieth century. The composer may have had his own personal reasons for describing this work as a ‘Legend’ however this piece is totally successful as purely absolute music. Pirie suggests that this...
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Gavin BRYARS (1943- )After Handel’s Vesper (1995) [11:47]Ramble on Cortona (2010) [12:34]Piano Concerto (The Solway Canal) (2010) [28:21]Ralph van Raat (piano)Cappella Amsterdam; Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic/Otto TauskNAXOS 8.572570 I will put my cards on the table. This is the first time that I have heard any music by the composer Gavin Bryars. It could be argued that this will preclude me from making any criticism of this CD either positive...
Monday, May 16, 2011
I have always had a soft spot for Eric Coates ‘television’ music. I am not sure that I can remember them being played in their original capacity, but I have long enjoyed hearing them on record and CD. As Naxos point out in their sleeve notes to their recording of this present tune, Coates was the ideal man to produce these important ‘trademark’ pieces. In fact, in the late forties and fifties he was regarded as ‘king of light music.’ In 1946 Coates had written a piece for the BBC called simply T.V. March. This coincided with the resumption of television...
Saturday, May 14, 2011
I was glancing at Geoffrey Self’s fine biography of Eric Coates the other day. Looking at the index revealed a fair few works that were inspired by London. Some of them are exceptionally well-known, but a few are rarities. One or two of them may be about the Capital or might refer to another part of the country:-From Meadow to Mayfair Suite: In the Country, A Song by the Way and Evening in TownLondon Everyday Suite (later became the famous...
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Ernest John MOERAN (1894-1950)Complete Solo Folksong Arrangements: Six Folksongs from Norfolk; The North Sea Ground; High Germany; The Sailor and Young Nancy; The Little Milkmaid; The Jolly Carter; Parson and Clerk; Gaol Song; Six Suffolk Folksongs; Songs (7) from County Kerry Adrian Thompson (tenor); Marcus Farnsworth (baritone); John Talbot (piano) Members of the Weybridge Male Voice Choir/Christine Best Full contents list at end review BRITISH...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
I was looking over the Irish Sea the other day from North Wales, and could clearly see the Isle of Man. It is a place that I love, but have not been as often as I would like to. I did think about the works that the Yorkshire-born Haydn Wood wrote whilst living and working on that great Isle.When I got back home to London, I listened to the four works that have been recorded. Each of them is a worthy tone-poem, that in spite of using local ‘folk tines’...
Sunday, May 8, 2011
A short piece written as a part of Parry’s Summary of the History and Development of Mediaeval and Modern European Music. It was written before the explosion of English art –song which was in many ways led by Parry himself – with Stanford and Vaughan Williams. The names of Hatton and Clay have been long forgotten. ‘In this country song-writing reached, in the past generation, a pitch of degradation which is probably without inartistic parallel in all musical history. Mercantile considerations and the shallowness of average drawing-room taste produced...
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
I recently reviewed Adam Pounds new CD ‘Resurrection’ on these pages. The composer has told me that it has been has been well received and that he is now planning a new recording of smaller – scale works which is planned for release next year. He has given me notice of two important concerts in June that will feature his music. On the 11th (7.30pm), he will be conducting the Academy of Great St. Mary’s at the University Church, Cambridge in a performance of the Enigma Variations by Elgar and the programme will also include the first performance...
Monday, May 2, 2011
I discovered this piece of piano music in the Oxfam bookshop in Worcester. If I am honest, it was the deliciously ‘camp’ –in a ‘Carry On’ sense – cover that caught my eye. I guess it would just not be possible to publish something like this in our more politically correct, sensitive days. Stanley Wilson is a minor composer who seemed most at home with song writing. There are settings of John Masefield and A.E. Housman in the catalogues. I was unable...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
