I was not quite sure what to make of this music when I first read (or tried to read) the liner notes before listening to the CD. However, after hearing an insipid and monotonous piano piece by Ludovico Einaudi on Classic FM, I realised Eric Craven is a composer who has imagination, a principled compositional technique and last but not least, a sense of continual development denied to the Italian. This is a worthy recording that is not quite as formidable as it may first appear. Who is Eric Craven? Alas, neither the liner notes nor the Internet...
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
I first came across Malcolm Arnold at grammar school. Mr Mclean, the music teacher, let us hear a recording of the fantastic ‘Tam O’Shanter’ Overture. Shortly afterwards, I discovered the delicious English Danceson a Decca Eclipse LP, Festival of English Music Volume 1. Not many years later, I heard this version of the Scottish Dances played by the LPO with composer conducting. As a Scot myself, though long exiled ‘furth of the border,’ these...
Monday, September 22, 2014
Most of the recordings of music by Frederic Curzon (1899-1973) listed in the Arkiv CD Catalogue are released on the Guild Light Music Series. The major exception to this is the fine retrospective of the composer’s music issued on 1991 on Marco Polo 8.223425. There are one or two other pieces scattered on the EMI and the Hyperion labels. The most popular work is Boulevardierwith four recordings, which in many ways is the composer’s signature tune. Nearly as popular is the endearing Dance of the Ostracised Imp. His most significant surviving works...
Friday, September 19, 2014
I recently reviewed Philip Sawyers’s two Violin Sonatas released on Nimbus Alliance (NI6240). My conclusion was that in these days, when so much ‘art’ music has jumped onto the ‘pop’ or ‘minimalist’ bandwagon it is good to come across a composer whose music has emotion, challenge and structure. His musical style has embraced some ‘honest, down-to-earth serial music that delights in a subtle balance between dissonance and consonance, controlled...
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
I have always had a soft spot for the antics of Mr Punch and his ‘friends’ since first seeing a performance of this classic seaside entertainment at the great Lancashire seaside of Fleetwood in 1969. (In fact, walking along the seafront there the other day, I noticed that he is still going strong-on Fridays during the summer). It is fortunate that the ‘plot’ of this burlesque has not been watered-down by the politically correct elite. Punchinello...
Sunday, September 14, 2014
This is one of my favourite pieces by Ernest Tomlinson in spite of the fact that I am not normally a fan of a potpourri of melodies being strung together. Certainly, Tomlinson has made quite a collection of tunes in this work. I guess, if I am honest, that there were a fair few that I did not get – my excuse is that I went to Scottish schools and majored on Scottish songs. However, there will be few people from any corner of the British Isles who...
Thursday, September 11, 2014
One of my favourite films is the 1954 Ealing Comedy The Maggie. This film owes its inspiration to the Para Handy stories written by the Scottish author Neil Munro. These tales were originally published in the Glasgow Evening News under the pseudonym of Hugh Foulis and concerned themselves with the adventures of the crew of one of the Clyde’s once ubiquitous ‘puffers’ the Vital Spark. These vessels were used to transport coal and other essential...
Monday, September 8, 2014
Walford Davies’ Holiday Tunes which had impressed Henry Wood was a suite in some seven movements. It was written to “express the joyous feelings often associated with holidays, but not necessarily restricted to them.” In short this was a meditation on the ‘holiday spirit.’ It is worth quoting the Musical Times reviewer in full on this work:-'The opening allegro energico starts with a violin solo announcing the principal theme which, since it is headed...
Friday, September 5, 2014
In the 1970s, I bought the entire collection of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphonies with Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. These had been released on the iconic Decca Eclipse label. The only problem was that Decca had not issued the final Symphony, No. 9. A short time later I bought the 1969 recording with the same conductor and orchestra: it was coupled with the rarely heard ‘Fantasia on Old 104th’ (HMV ASD2581). ...
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
On 3 November 1952 Moura Lympany recorded the ubiquitous ‘Claire de Lune’ from Claude Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque (1890). It was released on HMV C4203 coupled with Isaac Albeniz’s well known Tango in D major arranged by Leopold Godowsky. An advert for the record appeared in the January 1953 edition of The Gramophonemagazine alongside new releases such as Kirsten Flagstad and Gerald Moore performing Schubert’s ‘Frühlingsglaube’ and ‘Im Abendrot’ and...
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