Cor!
Manuel de FALLA (1876-1946 ) Ritual Fire Dance and Pantomime;
R VALENTINE Sonata no. 10 in C: Andante - Allegro - Andante - Vivace;
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992) Vocalise; Michael BERKELEY
(b.1948) Snake; Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937) Piano Concerto
in G, 2nd movement; Astor PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Tango 1960;
Edmund RUBBRA (1901-1986) Duo Op 156; Alessandro LUCCHETTI
(b.1958) Rock Song no 3; Eugène BOZZA (1905-1991)
Divertissement Op 39; Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963) Sonata: Langsam
- Allegro - Moderato - Scherzo - Moderato - Allegro; Camille SAINT-SAËNS
(1835-1921) The Swan; Antonio PASCULLI (1842-1924) Amelia
Fantasy; David GORDON (b.1976) Bebop Tango
Alison Teale (cor anglais), Elizabeth Burley (piano)
rec. July 2010, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth. DDD
OBOE CLASSICS CC2023 [76:27]
All-cor anglais recitals
are not common; never mind ones that are this generous. In fact I cannot
think of any others. I recall Rubbra’s sombre Duo for cor anglais and
piano. It was on Etcetera
ETC1074 but had to share the disc with various sonatas for the dominant
member of its double reed family, the oboe. It’s no wonder that Peter Bree
included the Rubbra on that disc – he was, after all the dedicatee.
Now along comes this concert which mixes longer and shorter works in the
hands of the GSMD professor and musically eloquent player Alison Teale and pianist, RCM
professor Elizabeth
Burley. It’s not quite the frills and fritillaries anthology I had
expected. For a start there’s some gloriously woody staccato in the
Ritual Fire Dance as well as great control of dynamics not to mention
the seductively carolled Pantomime. The latter is a gift to any
legato-capable instrument and Teale caresses each moment to loving effect.
The Valentine is all clean-limbed and dignified baroquerie. The Messiaen
Vocalise was written for voice and piano and dates from 1935. It’s
sultry Debussian stuff and by no means as adventurous or as potentially
forbidding as the rest of this composer’s output. Burley is magnificent in
treading that vital line between velvet murmur and keyboard percussive.
The extremely demanding, virtuosic and lyrical Snake by Berkeley
was inspired by the D H Lawrence poem. It’s an unaccompanied Britten-like
work yet human and yielding. Its punishing demands on the lungs are apparent
in the intakes of breath. The Ravel movement has been very effectively
extracted from the concerto. It is interesting to hear the principal roles
swapped here between the two players. The Piazzolla is dextrously and
alluringly despatched. The darkly occluded Rubbra piece is a late work –
suffused with drama and the slow blossom of song. Its nocturnal clouds and
shafts of light recall the same composer’s Soliloquy for cello and
orchestra. The sometimes coruscating dissonant heroics of the Luchetti
precede the short and rather Gallic Bozza Divertissement.
The six-movement Hindemith sonata was written in the USA in 1941.
It was flanked in time by the trumpet sonata and the horn sonata. A plangent
and cloud-hung piece, the cor anglais intensifies rather than merely voices
the mood. There’s humour as well as you will hear from tracks 17 and 19. The
Saint-Saëns is kept in motion rather than dawdled over. The Pasculli is an
adaptation of the aria from Verdi’s Un ballo in Maschera – at first
the last word in theatrical drama but then melancholy before a final jaunty
Weber-like flurry.
Gordon’s Bebop tango jazzily smooches and races. It’s been adapted by
the composer from a track on his CD Angel feet.
It would be good to hear Teale in some out-of-the-way concertos. How about
Anthony Burgess’s Cor Anglais concerto? Sounds like a Dutton project to me.
The insert notes that she has already performed numerous concertos for Radio
3 and has taken the shared principal role in Copland’s Quiet City with
Alison Balsam.
The 16-page full colour insert unfolds to reveal a large image of a cor
anglais. I am none too sure about the choice of poster as against booklet
but as a poster of an intrinsically beautiful musical instrument it
certainly works.
Alison Teale proves herself a virtuoso of the cor anglais in terms of
both excitement and poetry. This disc should win new friends and future
champions for the instrument.
Rob Barnett
A virtuoso of the instrument – excitement and poetry.