Violin Sonata No.3 in C major (1940) [22:19]
Cyril SCOTT (1879-1970)
Viola Sonata (1953) [23:57]
Roger SACHEVERELL COKE (1912-1972)
Violin Sonata No.1 in D minor (1940-42) [29:07]
Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin/viola)
Matthew Rickard (piano)
rec. August 2011 (Bantock) and July 2013 (remainder), Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth
EM RECORDS EMR CD018 [75:21]
This is a perceptively selected trio of British string sonatas. All the
works were written within a thirteen year period and indeed the Bantock
and Sacheverell Coke sonatas were almost contemporaneously composed. Both
these were for the violin but the Cyril Scott sonata is for the viola.
Bantock’s last Violin Sonata is well worth getting to know. Superficially
it has less of a ‘stamp’ than the earlier two, but repeated
listening alerts one to its very particular, and personal, qualities.
These are explored with a sense of flowing rhapsody by Rupert Marshall-Luck
and Matthew Rickard. They are keen to let each phrase speak, keen too
not to hurry or become too terse with Bantock’s syntax. This fluidity
sets them quite apart from an earlier recording of the sonata, made two
decades ago, by Suzanne Stanzeleit and Gusztáv Fenyő (United
88031: review
review.
The earlier two sonatas are on Dutton).
The United team is of a more bustling disposition, vesting the music with
a greater sense of urgency and tension, generating an intensity that the
EM duo cultivates through very different means. The spacious misterioso
piano harmonies of the second movement, called ‘The Dryad’,
sound especially evocative in this reading from Marshall-Luck and Rickard.
They take what I’d term a ‘John Ireland’ tempo - he
tended to insist on properly held chords and a relaxed tempo - though
it is arguably the case that Bantock’s harmonies sound the more
unsettled, and even more complex, when taken at a tauter tempo. Strangely,
a faster tempo also sounds the more romantic. There’s a bluff giocoso
quality in the finale in which the more measured pacing conveys the jollity
of the music just a bit better, and manages to lasso that lovely lyrical
Largamente molto lento section more naturally.
Cyril Scott’s 1953 Viola Sonata sports an uneasy movement that marks
it out. The piano is sometimes portentous, at other times supportive,
but Scott invariably generates harmonically diverting material, and is
a fine storyteller, allowing the narrative of each movement to unfold
well, if not always very easily. Marshall-Luck’s lean alto-ish viola
tone communicates well and he and Rickard are nimble and knowing in the
quixotic Humoresque second movement where Scott darts between faster
and slower material. I don’t find the finale as interesting but
it’s well played by the duo.
In programming terms the disc moves from best-known to next best to least
well-known. Thus, we end with Roger Sacheverell Coke’s 1940-42 Sonata,
a full-scale four-movement work. The first movement opens quietly, and
not wholly easily, with hints of folklore soon subverted into more lyrically
equivocal writing. The striving violin and tolling piano - the piano writing
is notably important by the way (Coke was a pianist) - marks out the first
movement’s territory. The slow movement offers no true reprieve.
The initial piano chording promises a kind of resolution but it’s
rather the launch for more unresolved material, including a double-stopping
episode and lyrical reiteration. The scherzo’s drive offers a brief,
fugitive reflective passage and a ghostly hint of a baroque figure, but
by the finale the music has taken on a drained feel. This Quasi una
Fantasia movement seems to occupy a bleached, emptied-out landscape.
Not terrifying, but devoid of true tangible belief. Shostakovich’s
ways and means are very different but in some ways, emotionally speaking,
Sacheverell Coke’s sonata heads the way of late Shostakovich.
The recording at Wyastone Leys is quite airy and offers a wide stage space.
The notes are up to EM Record’s very high standards. Do try to listen
to this disc if you have an interest in ‘mid-century’ British
chamber music.
Jonathan Woolf
Bantock discography & review
index
Editor’s Note on Roger Sacheverell Coke
COKE, Roger Sacheverell (Alfreton, Derbyshire, 20.10.1912 - Pinxton, Derbyshire,
23.10.1972)
Roger Sacheverell Coke was the only son of Langton Sacheverell Coke, an
officer in the Irish Guards killed in action in the Great War when R.S.
was two. He composed compulsively throughout his life and was caught after
lights out composing under the bedclothes at Eton College where he received
his education. After he left school at the age of eighteen he heard a
record of piano music by Moiseiwitsch. This made a profound impression
on Coke who was later to strike up a personal friendship with Moiseiwitsch
who in turn was to nurture a desire in Coke to become a concert pianist.
Coke’s debut as concert pianist came in 1932 performing one of his
own works. His piano tuition was from Mabel Lander. He studied composition
with Dr Frederick Staton and later with Alan Bush.
It was composition which eventually gripped and dominated his life. There
were many performances of his works particularly in the provinces. He
lived for many years as a semi-recluse at the family mansion at Brookhill
Hall, near Alfreton. The music room at Brookhill Hall was given to him
by his mother and the estate workers in 1933. This room became, in large
part, his hermit's cell for much of the rest of his life. He was afflicted
with mild mental disorders. In the early nineteen thirties he became a
friend of Rachmaninov who exercised a considerable influence over Coke's
work. Following Rachmaninov's death Coke gave a memorial concert at the
Hall at which he performed together with his regular collaborator of those
years, Barbara Welby, a descendant of Jenny Lind and a fine amateur singer
and pianist. Brookhill became a centre for local music-making, visited
by musicians and others including Edith Sitwell. He founded the Brookhill
Symphony Orchestra in 1940. The orchestra played a number of his own works
and neglected works by other composers. These included performances of
Bruckner symphonies 4 and 6, Mahler 4 and Rachmaninov 2. He engaged in
heated correspondence in the columns of Musical Opinion contending the
virtues of Rachmaninov's symphonies. Coke gave recitals at the Wigmore
Hall. He was the soloist in the broadcast premiere of his own third piano
concerto with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra conducted by Richard
Austin in 1939. Another successful work performed before the outbreak
of the War was the Lotos Eaters. Hugo Meynell referred to the Concerto's
thick but never overloaded scoring which abounds in full warm writing
for the solo writing. Meynell remarked on the intensely and uninhibited
lyrical quality of the music and its affinity with Rachmaninov and the
romantic Russian school. His most ambitious work was the two hour opera
on Shelley's The Cenci. He created Beatrice's part with Barbara
Welby in mind. It was performed at the Scala Theatre, London.
After this he was afflicted with the mental disorder already referred
to and retired from the public gaze. He had various of his works published
at his own expense and distributed to potential performers. No performances
followed. Brookhill began to decay around Coke as he became more and more
of a hermit. He sold family possessions including fine porcelain made
on the family estate in the late eighteenth century. The decline seemed
absolute and irreversible but in 1970 a concert at Abbotsholme School,
Staffordshire marked a turning point. At the suggestion of Gordon Clark,
School Director of Music, Moura Lympany played two of Coke's Preludes
at the concert. Following the concert other concerts followed with articles
and as a result of a meeting with the flautist Christopher Hyde Smith
and his wife, Marisa Robles a commission for a trio for flute, harp and
viola was forthcoming. The BBC commissioned a string quartet. Even Brookhill
enjoyed a renaissance, with the local council refurbishing the house as
a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. However Coke's chain-smoking
(100 cigarettes a day) had fatally undermined his health and prevented
the completion of the commissions. It was while cycling into the village
to buy a packet of cigarettes that he died. He was found at the side of
the road and never regained consciousness. His scores of which there is
a considerable quantity, and many of the articles from his music room
were removed to the new local arts centre at Alfreton Hall. Extensive
collections of MS material are held by Nottingham University Library,
the Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock and Chesterfield Public Library.
Colin Mason who contributed the essay in the fifth edition of Grove, wrote:
"His music, which reflects his sympathies for Mahler, Bruckner and Rachmaninov,
is written with considerable accomplishment in a mainly pre-Debussy idiom".
While Coke's overriding affection for Rachmaninov's music has been mentioned
he also felt a special empathy for Sibelius and Bax.
To the best of my knowledge before this EM disc there were no commercial
recordings of his music. The only piece which I have heard is the Cello
Sonata No 2. This was broadcast some time ago by Alexander Baillie and
Piers Lane. The style calls to mind both Medtner and Rachmaninov. The
writing is densely romantic for much of the time although this is lightened
by a number of passages of elfin magic.
I wonder if there is anyone else who remembers performances of other pieces
by Coke or who has recordings. I hope that someone might be prepared to
share them. I for one would be delighted to hear the vocal concertos and
perhaps the Third Piano Concerto.
Opera The Cenci Op. 41 (1940-41 and 1950 three acts, libretto
by the composer after Shelley, Prelude only at RAF charity concert Jan
1941 Brookhill SO conducted by composer; Scala Theatre, London 5.11.1959
conducted by Eugene Goossens, For Richard Austin);
Symphony Symphony No. 1 (early thirties, broadcast by BBC, withdrawn);
Symphony No. 2 in G minor Op. 22 (1936-38 BBC broadcast, 32'); Symphony
No. 3 Op. 56 (1948/58, 30');
Concerto Piano Concerto No.1 (withdrawn); Piano Concerto No. 2
in E minor (1933, withdrawn, BBC broadcast and composer / Torquay Municipal
Orchestra / Ernest Goss, Pavilion, Torquay, 16.11.1933 - dedicated to
Mabel Lander "with affection and admiration." - movements: 1. Fantasie
2. Romance 3. Caprice); Vocal Concerto No. 1 for soprano and orchestra
Op. 25 (1934 words from Tennyson's The Princess, Barbara Welby
- the dedicatee / Brookhill SO / composer, Nottingham, 25.10.1942, 14');
Piano Concerto No. 3 in E flat Op. 30 (1938, Coke or Charles Lynch / Bournemouth
Municipal Orchestra / Richard Austin, BBC broadcast 3.8.1939; charity
concert for RAF Jan 1941, composer/Brookhill SO; composer / Torquay Municipal
Orchestra / Goss, Pavilion Torquay, 23.10.1941; dedicated to Charles Lynch,
movements: 1. Moderato, 2. Maestoso, 3. Quasi Variazione, 4. Finale, 30');
Poem for cello, piano and small orchestra Op. 36 (1939/41); Piano Concerto
No. 4 in C sharp minor Op. 38 (1940, 30'); Vocal Concerto No. 2 for soprano
and orchestra Op. 47 (1942, words from Barbara Welby's A Winter's Dawn,
in version with piano accomp. Barbara Weldon / composer, Pinxton, 31.5.1942,
18'); Piano Concerto No. 5 in D minor Op. 57 The Orton (1947/50);
Piano Concerto No. 6 in C minor Op. 63 (1951);
Orchestra Three Pieces for string orchestra Op. 5 (1933, BBC broadcast);
Prelude to The Cenci Op. 41 (1940); Symphonic Poem No. 1, The
Lotos Eaters Op. 45 (1941, Brookhill SO, composer, Nottingham, 1.10.1942
FP?, Brookhill SO / composer. 25.10.1942); Symphonic Poem No. 2, Elegiac
Ballade Op. 51 (1942-3); Symphonic Poem No. 3, Dorian Gray
Op. 53 (1943/50); Symphonic Poem No. 4 on a painting by Corot;
Chamber Cello Sonata No. 1 in D minor Op. 24 (1935); Cello Sonata
No. 2 in C major Op. 29 (1938, BBC broadcast, dedicated to Alan Morton);
Elegiac Trio in C minor for piano, violin and cello Op. 32 (1938-9); Sacred
Concerto in A minor for soprano, cello, piano and oboe Op. 35 (1939);
Cello Sonata No. 3 in A minor Op. 44 (1941, Alan Morton / composer, Pinxton,
27.5.1942); Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor Op. 46 (1940/42, Raymond Mosley
- dedicatee / composer, Nottingham, 31.1.1943); Clarinet Sonata in C major
Op. 48 (1942/50); Trio in G for flute, viola and piano, Ortina
Op. 59 (1948-9); Viola Sonata in C minor Op. 60 (1948/49); Violin Sonata
No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 55 (1943/50); String Quartet Op. 66; Piano Trio
No 2;
Song Elegy for a Dead Musician for contralto, violin and orchestra
Op. 16 (1934, BBC broadcast); Six Songs for soprano or tenor Op. 19 (1935,
BBC broadcast); Two Songs for soprano or tenor Op. 20 (1935); Song for
soprano or tenor Op. 31 (1939); Six Songs for soprano or tenor Op. 39
(1939 words Humbert Wolfe); Six Songs for contralto or bass Op. 40 (1939
words Humbert Wolfe); Six Songs for contralto or bass Op. 42 (1941 words
Humbert Wolfe); Eight Songs for soprano or tenor Op. 43 (1941 words from
Beaumont and Fletcher plays); Six Songs for contralto or bass Op. 49 (1942
words Oscar Wilde); Four Songs for soprano or tenor Op. 50 (1943); Rhymes
and Roundelays, fourteen songs for high voice Op. 54 (1948); Thirty Songs
for low voice Op. 58 (1948 words Burns); Six Songs for high voice Op.
67 (1954 words Emily Bronte); Six Songs Op. 70 for high voice (1956 words
Tagore); Six Songs for high voice Op. 71 (1956 words Tagore); Six Songs
for high voice Op. 72 (1957 words Walter de la Mare);
Piano Sonata No. 1 in D major Op. 12 (1935, composer, Brookhill
Hall, 1943); Variations and Fugue in D minor Op. 21 (1935); Sonata No.
2 in G Op. 26 (1936); Ballade in C major Op. 27 (1936); Fantasie (composer,
15.11.1933, Torquay Pavilion); Berceuse (1936); two Inventions and Polichinelle
(1936); Sonata No. 3 in A minor Op. 28 (1937); Twenty Four Preludes Opp.
33/34 (1938, Book 1 and 1941, Book 2, six Preludes performed by composer
at Torquay Pavilion, 23.10.1941; also by composer at Manchester Midday
Concerts; Book 2, composer, Nottingham, 31.5.1942, all dedicated to his
mother); Fifteen Variations and Finale in C minor Op. 37 (1939); Variations
in G minor on Rachmaninov's Song, A Soldier's Wife Op. 52 (1943);
Variations in B flat on Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes Op. 61
(1949); Variations in C sharp minor Op. 73 (1957-8).
Bibliography
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. II, 5th Edition, p. 367,
article by Colin Mason;
Eric Blom, Everyman's Dictionary of Music, 1975, p. 127;
Hugo Meynell: Roger Sacheverell Coke - A Derbyshire Composer and His Music,
Derbyshire Countryside, April/May 1957;
Robert Innes-Smith: Roger Sacheverell Coke (1912-1975) - obituary.
Work-List published by Coke - complete to January 1959.
Rosemary Williamson, Leverhulme Research Fellow, Nottingham University,
Handlist - University Collection - Lady Barbara Welby.
Note: The articles and worklist mentioned above can be examined at the
BMIC. Many thanks to Rosemary Williamson for her generous help in providing
her handlist and some valuable background.
Rob Barnett
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