These three separately available
double CD sets take us back to the earliest
days of Lyrita in the early 1960s. The
recordings are in mono and were made
in Richard Itter's Music Room. They
burn with all the crusading fervour
of a most unlikely project which saw
a steady stream of authoritative British
piano LPs - issued during the period
1959-67. They rubbed shoulders with
mono Lyrita recordings we now know from
their stereo editions: Bax's Sixth (Del
Mar), some of the Boult-Ireland and
Bliss's Blow Meditations (CBSO/Hugo
Rignold). There were however no parallel
stereo tapes of these piano sessions.
REAM.2105: Reizenstein
was born in Nuremberg but fled from
Hitler's regime in 1933. He came to
England to study with Vaughan Williams.
His music shows that he was no RVW epigone.
His powerful yet far from effusive style
is more akin to that of his other teacher
Hindemith … and to Rawsthorne. The Sonata
is dedicated to William Walton. The
1949 Legend is reserved with
a touch of Ravel about it. The Scherzo
Fantastique is a parade of fantasticks.
These together with the Impromptu
and Scherzo make for an entertaining
insight into Reizenstein's mercurial
creative imagination.
Since 2000 York
Bowen has begun to emerge from an
oblivion that I had thought irreversible.
Lyrita have recorded his Horn Concerto
and Chandos, Dutton, Hyperion and ClassicO
have wrought wonders. Most of his concertos
have been recorded and very soon we
will hear his grand Fourth Piano Concerto
from Hyperion and Danny Driver. It is
a remarkable thing that Richard Itter
recorded the composer even if it was
towards the end of Bowen’s life when
neglect must have seemed the end of
all things. We hear ten of the cycle
of 24 perfectly weighted Preludes. This
sequence was held in supreme esteem
by that most demanding of masters -
Sorabji. They are not however as dense
as Sorabji's profusely stratified writing.
In fact clarity is evidently Bowen's
watchword. They are fantastic, flighty
and far from academic and the final
one (tr. 6) makes a suitably grand peroration
in the manner of a Rachmaninov Etude-Tableau.
It reminds us, as does No. 7, that Bowen
might by some be counted as the English
Rachmaninov. He vies for that honour
with the still grievously unknown piano
music of Roger Sacheverell Coke. You
can hear the same melancholy accent
in Prelude No. 20 (tr.10). The Partita
is tricked out with the usual sequence
of baroque movement titles but Bowen
does not take the antique style adopted
by Benjamin in Cotillon. Each
of the five movements is suffused with
florid romantic spirit although in the
final gigue the antique weave shows
through. The little Berceuse is serenely
Gallic and imbued with peace. The Moto
Perpetuo is the third movement of
the Suite Mignonne and again
it sweepingly doffs its hat to Sergei.
The rushing gale of Toccata shows
Bowen to have been a phenomenal pianist
even at the age of 76. The listener
is left breathless - now this is something
that would transcribe well for the pianola.
REAM.2106: Tippett,
Hamilton and Wordsworth are united by
the performing advocacy of Margaret
Kitchin (1914-2008). She championed
many British composers of the 1950s
Cheltenham cadre as well as the avant-garde.
Tippett's First Sonata is often
totally characteristic in the plangent
first movement. The second is more dissonant
yet finding a lyrical heart at 4:40
onwards. Tippett strains at the keyboard’s
bounds with some very orchestral writing
in the helter-skelter collisions of
the third. The finale links to the totally
characteristic first movement with many
instantly recognisable trademarks. Its
splintery pell-mell scree is in part
perhaps inspired by Grainger.
Glasgow-born Iain
Hamilton's Piano Sonata is even
further out. His accommodation with
dissonance is more uncompromising. That
said, lyrical filaments peer out even
if they frequently become icy promontories,
ridges and beetling cut-glass cliffs.
This impressive sonata is dedicated
to Matyas Seiber. Kitchin gave the premiere
in 1952. While Tippett's music has survived
his death by a handsome margin Hamilton's
has suffered a deadening eclipse.
This is William
Wordsworth's centenary year (2008).
This CD is therefore fitting, if an
only modest doff of the hat. Kitchin
leads us through the kindly 1938 Sonata
which muses gently and seems untroubled
by dark clouds. The music is lithe,
tonal and contemplative sometimes with
a Warlockian overcast as in the second
movement. The Cheesecombe Suite was
written at the end of the Second World
War. Darkling gloom pervades both the
Prelude and the pensive overcast
tolling of the Nocturne but is
dispelled by the devil-may-care angularity
of the Scherzo. The little Fughetta
finale comes and goes in a few turbulent
moments. The Op. 41 Ballade is
dedicated to Clifford Curzon as is Wordsworth's
Piano Concerto. It's another example
of Wordsworth mining his darkest moody
inspiration. The air is heavy with tragedy
- almost Medtner yet more dissonant.
It is a brother to other dark British
ballades - those of Ireland and Rawsthorne.
All of these pieces pre-date the composer’s
move in 1961 to the Scottish Highlands.
REAM.2109: We
pass from Margaret Kitchin to Berkeley
and Benjamin from Colin Horsley and
Lamar Crowson. Berkeley's 1945
Sonata has emotional and romantic muscle
and stands a little distant from the
Gallic tendencies of his more mature
works. It rests close to the same vicinity
as Berkeley's Job, the glorious
yet neglected Cello Concerto and the
stormily passionate Nocturne for
Orchestra – the latter in the same
ball park as Barber’s Essays and all
unrecorded. While not quite as wild-eyed
as Howard Ferguson's Piano Sonata this
is still fervent music - fervently played.
The third movement Adagio is
quite powerful after the deftly light
touch of the Presto (II). The
Six Preludes of 1944 are well
known. Horsley, who also recorded the
Ireland Piano Concerto for EMI, revels
in the liquid pearlescence of No. 1.
Many of the Preludes are quirky but
full of interest - like the gawky Haydnesque
No.5 - which also has a dash or two
of Shostakovich. Then again you encounter
romantic interludes such as the masterly
Allegretto (4) and the Ireland-like
final Andante - a treasure. Much
the same can be said of the charming
little Impromptu. Both the elbows-out
1949 Scherzo and the 1955 Concert
Study have a touch of rough necromancy
about them. Further back in time are
three of the four 1940 Concert Studies.
These are from the same era as the Cello
Concerto. The Second is an obstinate
obsessive piece. The Third and Fourth
rush past in irritable Prokofievian
motley.
Lyrita did much for
Berkeley's orchestral music. As for
Benjamin they provided the
definitive version of the Symphony -
a glory of 1940s symphonism and not
to be overlooked. His piano music, in
better than usual mono, is played by
Lamar Crowson who also recorded Benjamin's
Concerto Quasi Una Fantasia for
Everest. The Pastorale, Arioso and
Finale were written during Benjamin's
1940s sojourn conducting the Vancouver
Symphony. It is dedicated to his friend
Jack Henderson and is from the
same decade as the Symphony. The music
is in a romantic-impressionistic vein
without the Prokofiev-like sweep of
the Symphony. The Arioso carries
the Rachmaninov stamp. The demanding
finale is faintly jazzy. The 1936 Scherzino
manages to both saunter and suggest
a parade of the grotesques. The eight
little Etudes Improvisées
are testy, balletic, quirky, hectic,
brilliantly Godowskian and explosive.
The halting and subtle Siciliana
brings the recital to a close.
The sound across all
three sets is vintage and somewhat crumbly
at the edges yet never less than communicatively
vital. You must also accept a noticeable
degree of analogue hiss.
Each set is housed
in a single width dual case. Duration
is in each case circa 90 minutes reflecting
the playing times of the original LPs
- one 45 minute LP per disc.
Paul Conway provides
the always thorough and thoroughly readable
notes. These are interspersed with valuable
original notes by Berkeley (a shade
technical and opaque) for his own music
and by Howells for his friend Arthur
Benjamin. Paul Conway's notes for Bowen
are fitted in with those of Jonathan
Frank and partnered with text from Eric
Wetherell for the Reizenstein.
All credit to Wyastone
Estate for carrying their working arrangement
with Lyrita through to the last degree.
These three sets appear very much against
the odds. This collaboration represents
an exemplar to the industry and a delight
for the enthusiast and adventurous listener
intent on discovery.
Rob Barnett
Special insights in pioneering recordings
from the 1960s... see Full Review
ALSO AVAILABLE
SRCD.207
William Wordsworth Symphonies Nos. 2
and 3
SRCD.2217
Michael Tippett Midsummer Marriage -
Opera in Three Acts
SRCD.226
Berkeley conducts Berkeley
SRCD.249
Lennox Berkeley Symphonies Nos. 1 &
2
SRCD.250
Lennox Berkeley Piano Concertos
SRCD.314
Arthur Benjamin Symphony
SRCD.1103
E.J. Moeran & Gordon Jacob Piano
Music - Iris Loveridge
REAM.3112 John Ireland The Piano Music
- Alan Rowlands
York Bowen (piano) 
