Clifford CRAWLEY (1929-2016)
Moods and Miniatures
iPieces for piano (2010) [13:11]
Ten a Penny Pieces for clarinet and piano (1984) [18:02]
Toccatas for piano (1978) [4:57]
Kalamalka for piano duet (1989) [9:26]
Twelve Preludes for piano (1988) [12:57]
Pieces-of-eight for flute, clarinet and piano (1989) [15:26]
Maureen Volk (piano)
Christine Carter (clarinet)
Michelle Cheramy (flute)
Beverly Diamond (piano duet)
Rec. 2017, Sainte-Irénée, Quebec
CENTREDISCS CMCCD28621 [73:59]
Clifford Crawley had a lifelong passion for music education as well as composition. Born in Dagenham, he held teaching posts at primary and secondary level in Devon and Essex in addition to involvement in teacher training as Head of Music for the Britsh College of Education. After moving to Canada, he taught at Queen's University and brought his experience to bear on music initiatives in the classroom. He had studied with Lennox Berkeley and Humphrey Searle amongst others and his compositions include 160 songs for children, a Stabat Mater, smaller instrumental
works and stage works including Barnardo Boy from 1980 which numbers a brass band and a rock group amongst its forces. His music is described as contemporary, while accessible and eclectic and the notes tell us that he considered originality to often be the result of looking at the familiar in a different way.
Pianist Maureen Volk opens with the longest pieces on the disc, the three iPieces which Crawley wrote for her in 2010. The titles are especially apt in the first and third numbers; iOpener has a sense of surprise and fanfare in its declamatory first bars and iDears (originally iDeas) has a recurring motif interpersed with new ideas, now an improvisatory slow waltz, now a tango and then there's just time for a few brief, reflective bars before it reaches its clangourous end. The second piece, iDeal is a beautiful, langourous slow waltz with gentle hints of impressionism.
Although Crawley's clarinet and piano set Ten a penny pieces is dated 1984 it contains works dating back to the 1950s when Crawley, still in England, was a member of a chamber ensemble called Dalbec. These are very attractive pieces; after an upbeat Prelude there is a Cavatina whose simple two verse melody is broken into short phrases. Capriccietto is a jaunty dance and is followed by an altogether more exotic dance, the Arabian influenced Tango with its more lyrical heart. Continuing the dance thread is Pezzatrenna (patchwork), a gallumphing waltz and Polka, employing quintuple time to limping, comic effect (I am reminded of Peter Schikele's comment about his wonderful creation P.D.Q. Bach – His dance music suggests that one of his legs was shorter than the other...). An achingly reflective Intermezzo is followed by a Waltz reminiscent of a fairground or trapeze artist at a circus and the delicious Foxtrot has echoes of Walton's Popular song. The set ends with a Theme and Variations that fits a waltz, scherzo, solemn interlude, gigue and fanfare finale into less than three minutes.
Composed in 1978 the five short Toccatas are the most harmonically acerbic pieces on the disc though they are still mostly tonal. They each have clear characteristics; repeated chord motifs in the second, gigue-like for the fourth and pealing bells in the fifth. They make impressive use of the keyboard and Crawley's strong sense of space and texture is apparent. This also goes for his four-hand suite Kalamalka, written for the Rosdal Duo; it describes the life and landscape of the British Columbian
Lake named for an Okanagan First Nation Chief. The lake's chemical composition produces interesting colour effects on the surface and Crawley tries to convey this in the suite. From the slowly awakening dawn to its wildlife, boat rides and violent storms this is a colourfully captured vision. Maureen Volk is joined in this atmospheric performance by the composer's wife Beverly Diamond who also wrote the booklet notes.
There are some lovely moments amongst the twelve evocative Preludes of 1988 whether it is the sad tune accompanied by a flickering ostinato of the second to the 8 bar Veloce (No.11) that seems a more intense depiction of the bells in the final Toccata. Music redolent of a funfair or circus pops up again and again on this CD and sure enough the third Prelude's stately dance is suddenly interrupted by a riotous if awfully brief capering dance. I was reminded of Prokofiev in the bouncy Alla marcia and there is a folk-like element to the melancholy tune of the eighth Prelude. The two against three rising figures of the seventh rise up the keyboard before coming to an abrupt end and the contrapuntal layers of the ninth similarly rise up, seemingly exploring all reaches of the keyboard. The set ends in carnival mood, a big top ending if ever there was.
My favourite set on this engaging disc must be the Pieces-of-eight, written for flute, clarinet and piano. The work's title is apt for the second number All at sea, stylistically something of a passepied with its inimitable version of What shall we do with the drunken Sailor. There are lyrical solos for flute (No 3) and clarinet (No 7) and the wonderfully titled Panjadrum, describing an important or self-important personage and one can imagine this somewhat pompous character strolling about town in this humorous Promenade. The fifth movement lamentation Jeremiad, is not entirely mournful and like all the movements here makes glorious use of the interplay between the solo instruments. Comic humour returns in the rocky road to Dublin, not entirely unlike follow the yellow brick road, which mimics the jauntiness and lyricism of folk-music wonderfully in its short duration while Roulade bringing the set to a close is a dizzying scherzo, rhythms meeting and diverging with abandon.
The playing here is packed with virtuosity, colour, imagination and great communication and Maureen Volk and her colleagues make this a wonderful tribute to an undeservedly unfamiliar composer.
Rob Challinor
