As part of my interest in Antony Hopkins ballet score Café des Sport I found this review in the Ballet Today journal. This well-respected magazine appears to have folded in the early nineteen-seventies. Peter Craig-Raymond gives a succinct appreciation of this ballet. Once again, it is considered good in parts. What does seem to be a consistent feature of these reviews is the superb character of the ‘Urchin’ created by Maryon Lane. Compared to a ballerina such as Margot Fonteyn or even Moira Shearer, Lane appears to have sung beneath the...
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
About this time last year, I reviewed an exciting retrospective CD called ‘Songs & Chamber Music’ by David Dubery. I was impressed by nearly every track. Since then I have heard a couple of other pieces of his music. The first, Oberon’s Delight for oboe and string quartet, was at a concert in Wilmslow celebrating counter-tenor James Bowman’s 70th birthday. This is a well-considered piece reflecting the character of Oberon as realised by...
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Percy Eastman Fletcher(1879-1932)Festal Offertorium (1926) Prelude, Interlude and Postlude, Op.27 (1910) Grand Choeur Triomphale (1910) Andante con Moto (1927?) Festival Toccata (1915) Ronald Frost (organ)The Passion of Christ(1922) The St. Ann Singers/Ronald Frost, Philip Asher (organ)DUNELM RECORDS DRD0260 I regularly play Percy Fletcher’s Parisian Sketch No. 2 ‘Bal Masque’ on the piano. It is the sort of piece that sounds impressive without really...
Friday, September 21, 2012
Many years ago I came across the music for Le Piccadilly in a friend’s piano stool. Whilst not being exactly an easy piece to get one’s fingers around, it is relatively straightforward. Soon I was enjoying playing (badly) one of the most delightful miniatures in the repertoire. It is a cabaret piece which is essentially written as a ‘rag’ and was found in the composer’s notebooks beside many other similar pieces. I understand, however, that...
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Footlights Waltz was composed in the early part of 1939 however, the original title of the piece was apparently Behind the Footlights. The first broadcast performance was given by the BBC Orchestra conducted by the composer on 9 June of the same year. The Times newspaper mentions this radio concert in its ‘broadcast’ page – alongside a reference to a commentary on the Richmond Horse Show and a reconstruction of the trial of the Glasgow...
Saturday, September 15, 2012
I recently posted about the ballet Café des Sports and suggested that it may be worthy of a revival – at least in its ‘concert’ or ‘suite’ versions. Since then I have discovered a few more references to the work in the contemporary journals. It would appear that it received rather mixed reviews – with the emphasis being on ‘why did the choreographer bother’ and some negative comparisons with his then masterpiece, Blood Wedding. However,...
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Recently, the Heritage Records label has re-released a number of British song-cycles sung by the mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson and her brother Peter as accompanist. The CD includes music by Lennox Berkeley, Gordon Crosse, Jonathan Harvey, Elisabeth Lutyens and Peter Dickinson himself. Of all the works performed, the one that immediately attracted my attention was Lutyens’ Stevie Smith Songs. Over the years, it has become an axiom that Elisabeth...
Sunday, September 9, 2012
I recently posted about Antony Hopkins’ ballet score Café des Sports. Immediately after I pressed the ‘publish’ button I found this resume of the ballet in Margaret Crosland’s 1955 book Ballet Carnival. Rather than paraphrase this text, I quote it below with full acknowledgements. It is a scenario which would still, nearly sixty years on, have the opportunity to provide a colourful dance.Maryon Lane appears to have disappeared from ballet historical scene with little trace. There does not even appear to be a biography dedicated to her. [Please...
Friday, September 7, 2012
I always consider that I am having an adventure when I first listen to a new volume of The Golden Age of Light Music. It is quite definitely an exploration in sound and mood. In the present CD, it is a contemplation of ‘Nature’s Realm’. Like most of these CDs there is a good balance between arrangements of standards from the ‘shows’ or the world of cinema and ‘original’ pieces. I admit that the later genre is of most interest to me. However, the...
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
In a recent review of Antony Hopkins’ (not the film star) music I noted that in the early 1950’s he had composed a ballet called Café des Sports. I suggested that perhaps this may deserve a revival – at least in a concert version. However, I have not heard the music nor seen the score. I simply based opinion this on the style of music he was writing at that time. Recently, I discovered a review of the ballet in the pages of the Glasgow...
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858)Studio per il pianoforte, Books 1-4 (1804/1810) Ferruccio Busoni(1866-1924) Klavierübung, Book 7: Eight Études after Cramer, BV B53 (1921) Gianluca Luisi (piano) Alessandro Deljavan (piano) & Giampaolo Stuani (piano)GRAND PIANOGP613-14 There is only one major issue with this excellent new release from Grand Piano: how to approach listening to it. The above listing does not really reveal the problem. The fact is...
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