Ian VENABLES (b. 1955)
Complete Works for Piano Solo
Caprice, Op. 35 (2001) [8:37]
The Stourhead Follies: Four Romantic Impressions, Op. 4 (1984) [18:52]
Three Short Pieces, Op. 5 (1986) [6:11]
Impromptu: The Nightingale and The Rose, Op. 8 (1996) [8:23]
Portrait of Janis, Op. 9 (2000) [6:21]
Sonata: In Memoriam DSCH, Op. 1 (1975) [21:44]
Graham J. Lloyd (piano)
rec. 23-24 October 2012, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouthshire.
NAXOS 8.573156 [70:10]
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
Highly accomplished piano music by Ian Venables, which is rewarding and
consistently enjoyable.
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
Music that is accessible, subtle and emotionally eloquent.
Previous review: John
France
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