I recently came across a small book entitled Homage to Sir Henry Wood. This had been published in 1944 as a ‘world symposium’ by the London Philharmonic Orchestra to commemorate the great conductor’s 75th birthday. Alas he was to die a few months after this celebration. A number of eminent musicians contributed to this volume including Ernest Ansermet, Leopold Stokowski, Alan Bush, RVW and Harriet Cohen. Bax’s tribute is particularly attractive. No commentary is required." ... A physical giant" The very first time that I saw Henry J....
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Ernest Tomlinson (b.1924) is one of the most prolific of all light music composers. He has been compositionally active since before the Second World War when he began composing as a choirboy at Manchester Cathedral. Tomlinson’s musical achievement is considerable, however relatively few of his works have appeared on CD. At present there are some 13 albums listed on Arkiv which feature his music. Most of these are one number samplers. Only the...
Friday, October 25, 2013
William HURLSTONE(1876-1906) Piano Trio in G major (1905) Miriam HYDE (1913-2005) Fantasy Trio (1933) Max D’OLLONE (1875-1959) Trio for Piano, violin and cello in A minor (1920) Dag WIREN (1905-1986) Piano Trio No. 1 Op.6 (1932)Trio Anima Mundi Rochelle Ughetti (violin) Miranda Brockman (cello) Kenji Fujimura (piano) Divine Art dda25102 This CD explores four pieces of music by a diverse group of composers, none of whom...
Monday, October 21, 2013
Sir Henry Wood has given these two splendid unattributed anecdotes about the quixotic composer Dame Ethel Smyth. It needs no commentary to understand the humour of the situation; however I have given a couple of footnotes to explain the details. ‘I think I must have played practically everything Dame Ethel Smyth has written-certainly everything that can be performed in a concert-hall. I remember her conducting one of her own works at Queen's Hall one night at a Promenade concert. She went up to my rostrum, took up my baton and surveyed its length...
Friday, October 18, 2013
MV Balmoral Cruise: Two Afternoon Classical Piano Recitals by Béla & Julia Hartmann: 29th September and 2nd October 2013.There is an ever-pressing danger that any piano recital given on board a cruise liner will descend to the lowest common denominator. I have heard well-qualified on-board pianists present the most hackneyed pieces in an obvious attempt to be popular. Without being too specific, it is fairly easy to cite the particular Chopin ‘Nocturne’, Rachmaninov ‘Prelude’ and Liszt ‘Liebstraum’ that will feature in many programmes....
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
This is one of the works that I have been waiting for. I first heard of this piece in Philip Scowcroft’s essay on ‘English Composer’s for Amateur No.1: Alec Rowley’, which is published on the website MusicWeb International. Scowcroft notes that this work ‘shows that Rowley, like many British composers, looked to the sea for inspiration. We shall see other examples elsewhere among his compositions.’ It was published by Paxton in 1933. ...
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Samuel BARBER (1910-1981) String Quartet, Op.11 (1935-36) Adam POUNDS (b.1954) String Quartet, No. 2 (2003) Dmitri SHOSTAKOVITCH(1906-1975) String Quartet No.3 (1946) The Bingham String Quartet, Stephen Bingham (violin) Anna Bradley (violin) Brenda Stewart (viola) James Halsey (cello)Cambridge Recordings CAMREC001 This CD opens with Samuel Barber’s fine String Quartet, Op.11 dating from 1935-36. This work is ‘famous’ for being the source of the pot-boiler...
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
I have recently given a listing of Guild Light Music CDs featuring the music of Eric Coates and Haydn Wood. One of the most prolific of Light Music composers was Trevor Duncan (1924-2005), born, Leonard Charles Trebilcock, later wisely changing his name to Trebilco. His most popular piece is the ‘Little Suite’ from which the ‘March’ was used as the theme tune to Dr. Finlay’s Casebook starring Andrew Cruikshank and Bill Simpson. Other works of note include ‘The Girl from Corsica’, ‘High Heels’ and ‘St Boniface Down’. My personal favourite...
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Pierre-Jean Chaffrey I recently posted about Harriet Cohen’s fine recording of Claude Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ from the Suite Bergamasque and ‘La cathédrale engloutie’ from Book 1 of the ‘Preludes’. As part of my exploration preparing that post I came across Sir Henry Wood’s orchestration of the latter. I knew that he had made many transcriptions of music for orchestra, however I had not realised Debussy was amongst them. ‘La cathédrale engloutie’,...
Thursday, October 3, 2013
David JENNINGS (b.1972) ‘Harvest Moon: A Suite for Piano’, Op.19 Goodmusic Publishing GM109 £5.00This sheet music can be purchased from Goodmusic Publishing: David Jennings PageA few months ago I reviewed the CD of the ‘complete’ piano works of David Jennings for MusicWeb International. After fearing that this may be another album ‘inspired’ by the ‘new age, pop, minimalist’ style of Ludovico Einaudi, I approached it with trepidation. I was wrong to have been alarmed. Jennings work is in a direct trajectory of British/European music of the...
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