Earlier this year I
reviewed
a couple of discs devoted to the music of Ian Venables. I’ve also
heard and enjoyed some of his music in concert (
review
~~
review).
However, to date most of my experience of his output has been confined
to his songs, although his String Quartet was included on the Signum Classics
disc,
At Midnight. This Naxos disc, therefore, presented a welcome
opportunity to expand my knowledge of his works. That said, most if not
all of the Venables songs that I’ve heard have involved piano accompaniment
so from that listening I’ve learnt that Ian Venables writes well
for the piano.
His full output of solo piano pieces fits neatly onto one CD and covers
a period of some twenty-six years. Some composers might have worked up
to a full-blown sonata through a series of shorter pieces but with Ian
Venables the reverse is true: his Piano Sonata constitutes his Op 1 and
it’s the earliest piece in Graham Lloyd’s recital. As the
title implies, it was written as a tribute to Dmitri Shostakovich following
his death. We learn from Ian Flint’s very useful notes that the
Soviet master was an important influence on Venables, at least at that
time in his career. At some stage - I know not when - Venables studied
with John Joubert; is it a coincidence, I wonder, that Shostakovich is
a composer that Joubert also much admired and whose influence can be heard,
for example, in Joubert’s Second String Quartet, Op 91, which was
composed two years after the Venables sonata?
The Piano Sonata, which was composed when Venables was twenty, is cast
in three movements and it’s an impressive composition. The DSCH
motif that figured in a number of Shostakovich’s own works is used,
very effectively, by Venables. Indeed, it informs the broad chordal motif
that we hear right at the start of the work. The first movement includes
a good deal of thoughtful music in slow or moderate tempi though from
time to time a short propulsive
allegro passage is interposed.
The DSCH motif hovers fairly consistently, though often only in the background;
however, the motif is in no way a straitjacket but rather a springboard
for Venables’ own invention as, for instance, in the two-part writing
between 5:17 and 6:37. The motif can also be discerned in the very short
central movement, an
Allegro scherzando. This is a very effective
homage to Shostakovich’s sardonic scherzo style and the music is
pithy and dexterous. Finally comes a movement marked
Molto adagio ed
espressivo. Proceeding from a desolate opening, the textures are often
spare and I sense a mood of resignation. Venables allows the music to
take its time in building. At 3:17 a three-voice fugue, again spare in
texture at first, paves the way for more powerful music and eventually
the emotional climax of the movement - and, surely, of the whole work
- is achieved before the frosty desolation of the opening returns. The
DSCH motif has the last word. You won’t find the searing intensity
or fist-shaking that characterised so much of the Soviet master’s
output; rather, the influence of his music has been absorbed, digested
and then a suitable covering of English restraint has been added for good
measure. This is, as I said, an impressive work and so far as I can judge
- the piece was new to me - Graham Lloyd’s performance is equally
impressive.
If I say that the remaining music on the disc is, for the most part, lighter
in tone than the sonata I don’t mean to imply that it lacks depth.
Indeed, I was struck by the fact that the
Caprice, Op. 35 is not
as light hearted as its title might suggest. True, it opens and closes
with music that displays a lightness of touch and of spirit. However,
there’s an extended central section (3:10 - 6:11) which is more
serious in tone and that serious music is revisited briefly before the
end. However, don’t let me give the impression that because there’s
a serious side to the
Caprice it’s not an attractive work;
such is most certainly not the case.
The Stourhead Follies also contains very attractive music. This
is a set of four pieces inspired by a visit that Venables paid in 1984
to Stourhead House and Gardens in Wiltshire. This is an eighteenth-century
country house now owned by The National Trust and it’s worth taking
a look at the
Stourhead
website and especially the garden section because there you’ll
see some images which give a flavour of what inspired Venables. As the
subtitle indicates, the musical language is essentially Romantic. Ian
Flint quite rightly points out the influence of Ravel and Rachmaninov
in the first piece,
Temple to Apollo and I detect Rachmaninov in
the second piece also. This is
Palladio’s Bridge and it’s
pensive and Romantic in character. It has a short central climax from
which it retreats, bridge-like, to the pensive mood with which the piece
began. Three of the four pieces are in slow or moderate tempi so it’s
good to have a sprightly short third movement,
Pantheon. This is
rhythmically vigorous but this vigour doesn’t preclude delicacy.
Perhaps the most remarkable music is contained in the concluding piece,
The Grotto. Here the mood is almost consistently one of meditative
stillness. Since I’ve never been to Stourhead I haven’t seen
the view which inspired this piece but I wonder if a water garden is somewhere
in the landscape since that is suggested to me by the music. Once again
I hear echoes of Ravel - I hope I’m right in that - and also, perhaps
of Fauré. This is wonderfully atmospheric music and it’s
performed with great sensitivity by Graham Lloyd.
The rest of the disc includes a highly programmatic piece,
The Nightingale
and The Rose, which is after the story by Oscar Wilde.
Portrait
of Janis is a gently affectionate recollection of friendships while
the
Three Short Pieces are delightful miniatures for children.
Of these I particularly enjoyed the second,
Dance of the Teddy Bears
with its affectionate nod to
The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
There’s some highly accomplished music here and it’s all rewarding
and consistently enjoyable. Those who warm to expressive, tonal, accessible
and communicative music will find much to enjoy with this disc. It’s
hard to imagine that the music could have received better advocacy than
Graham Lloyd’s and he’s been sympathetically recorded in the
Wyastone Concert Hall. One final thought. In the notes we read that Ian
Venables described his
Caprice, Op. 35 as his “final essay
for the piano”. Having enjoyed what I’ve heard on this disc
I hope he might reconsider that stance.
John Quinn
And another review ...
I first tried to write about the works of English composer Ian Venables
more than a decade ago during the early years of MusicWeb International
(
review).
Since then other reviewers have written with greater acuity but similar
enthusiasm about Venables’ music.
My regard for his music has not faded with hearing this CD. My judgements
and generalisations and above all my welcome for this life-benefiting
music are confirmed.
The 2001
Caprice - written for Phillip Dyson - belongs squarely
and with high distinction among the finer works of British piano music.
Its world is tonal, melancholy and pastoral with a lineage traceable back
to Finzi, Gurney and Howells. From sixteen years before the
Caprice
come the four
Stourhead Follies. They were written after a visit
to Stourhead House and Gardens in Wiltshire. The music is gentle but not
insipid, confident without any hint of braggadoccio. It is shot through
with bell sounds both assertive and in their final decay into silence.
There's a vigorous folk-dance quality to the third of these four "Romantic
Impressions". Strangely enough Venables in this work had me thinking of
Mompou's meditative piano solos and of Rodrigo at his most becalmed.
The
Three Short Pieces comprise a sprightly folksy
Caprice,
an expectedly innocent and slightly drowsy
Dance of the Teddy Bears
and a mistily somnolent
Folk-Tune that reminded me of the similarly
slow-pulsed
Folk-Tune by Eugene Goossens.
The Nightingale and the Rose is based on the heartbreaking Wilde
story of the same name. It began life as music for a children's ballet.
Venables has a gift for such understated yet emotional material and this
is reflected with fidelity in this
Impromptu.
Portrait of Janis is a further emotionally eloquent piece, this
time written in 2000 and premiered in California. The music inhabits,
in part, the same world as the instrumental lines in RVW's song
Bredon
Hill. I see that amongst the funders for this fine disc are the RVW and
John Ireland trusts.
The final entry is also both the oldest (1976) and the longest. It is
his Op. 1 sonata
In Memoriam DSCH. This is a three movement piece
in which two ten minute
Molto adagios frame a sly yet happily spiky
Allegro scherzando. The outer movements radiate a movingly poignant
and almost reverential dignity. The latter captures the spirit of a very
slowly yet freely paced funeral march. Given its subject and its date
it is no surprise that the Sonata stands out in this company - not typical
Venables but part of his development and touching and potent in its own
right.
Graham J Lloyd is a great advocate for this subtle, accessible and emotionally
eloquent music.
The sound is unobtrusively supportive. The notes by Ian Flint get the
message across without resort to undue technicality while providing those
biographical linkages we all like to have at hand.
Rob Barnett
Previous review:
John
France
