In 1922 there was a short correspondence with the editor of the Daily Mail. It is largely self explanatory, however, a few annotations are useful as not all the composers and artists are well-known. Marie Pauline Hall (1884-1956) was an English violinist. The interesting thing about this short exchange was that the three works mentioned by Hall have disappeared into obscurity. However, John Ireland’s list of composers and their sonatas are mostly available on CD. There are some four versions of John Ireland’s First Violin Sonata and...
Friday, February 28, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
William MATHIAS (1934-1992) An Admonition to Rulers, Op. 43 (1969) Neil COX (b. 1955) O Maria, vernans rosa (2007/08) Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983) Antiphon (1976) Edmund RUBBRA (1901-1986) That Virgin's Child Most Meek, Op. 114, No. 2 (1967) Kenneth LEIGHTON (1929-1988) Awake my glory Op. 79 (1979) Arnold BAX(1883-1953) This Worldes joie (1924) Neil COX Magnificat in G (1993) Charles Hubert Hastings PARRY (1848 - 1918) At the round earth's imagined...
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Claude Debussy wrote his first set of Images in 1905 with the second set following in 1907. Set 1 included ‘Reflets dans l’eau’, ‘Hommage à Rameau’ and ‘Mouvement’ whilst Set 2 consisted of ‘Cloche à travers les feuilles’, ‘Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut’ and ‘Poissons d’or’. Irene Scharrer recorded Debussy’s ‘Reflet dans l’eau’ and ‘Poissons d’Or’ on 4 March 1924 for the 12” HMV Black Label D914 priced 6/6d (33p). I gave a brief...
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
On 19th April 1943 Harriet Cohen recorded three works by Frederic Chopin for Columbia – the Nocturne in F major, Op.15, No.1 and Studies No.1 in F major and No.2 in A flat major of the Trois Nouvelles Études. They were released in February 1946 on the 78rpm disc DX1231. In her book Music’s Handmaid (London, Faber & Faber 1936) Harriet Cohen has given a comprehensive study of this Nocturne. This is largely aimed at students and performers with...
Sunday, February 16, 2014
It is surprising that there does not seem to be a commercial recording of Hamilton Harty’s fine setting of Moira O’Neill’s poem ‘Sea Wrack’ currently available. A full analysis of this song will have to wait for another day, however I have recently discovered a number of versions of this song on YouTube. The first is by the contralto Muriel Brunskill(1899-1980) and the second is sung by Russell Malcolm with the masterly piano accompaniment played by himself. This film is a beautiful, professional production that shows just what can be done by a...
Thursday, February 13, 2014
One of my favourite pieces of British light music is George French’s Hey Presto! Fast moving, optimistic and quite simply impressive, this piece fairly shifts along from the very first bar to the last: it epitomises the genre. I do not know what the composer had in mind with the title – I guess that the words can be defined as ‘announcing the successful completion of a trick, or to suggest that something has been done so easily that it seems to be...
Monday, February 10, 2014
In 1974 the only orchestral work by Herbert Howells available on LP was his Concerto for string orchestra. It had been issued on the EMI label (ASD 3020) and featured the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The other work on this disc was Sir Arthur Bliss’s rare Music for Strings.The following year four short pieces were released on Lyrita SRCS 69: it was a superb, if somewhat tantalising LP. This included the heart-achingly beautiful Elegy for viola, string quartet and string orchestra, Merry-Eye for small orchestra and...
Friday, February 7, 2014
I was recently given the ‘The Complete Electric and Selected Acoustic Recordings’ of Irene Scharrer as a Christmas present. Much could be written about this stunning release from Appian Publications & Recordings Ltd., however it was one piece that immediately caught my ear - Cyril Scott’s ‘Danse nègre’Irene Scharrer was born in London on 2 February 1888. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay. Her debut as a concert pianist...
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
In recent years there has been a gentle revival of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s operas that do not have librettos by W.S. Gilbert. In May 1999 the BBC Music Magazine issued The Rose of Persia as its disc of the month. The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Edinburgh released an LP of The Chieftain and The Contrabandista in 1986. It was re-released on CD in 1999. The Emerald Isle appeared in 1982 and was re-issued on CD in 2003. In 2000 the Prince...
Saturday, February 1, 2014
At the time of writing this post (February 2014) there are some 22 CDs listed in the Arkiv catalogue featuring the music of Ronald Binge. There are also about 22 individual works listed. Unfortunately only one disc is currently dedicated to the composer –Marco Polo 8.223515 - which was released 20 years ago. There are 10 CDs featuring the ubiquitous ‘Elizabethan Serenade’, which is justifiably the composer’s best known, if not necessarily...
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