THE HOUNDS OF SPRING: English Dances and
Preludes (1905-35)
Paul CORDER (1879-1942) Nine Preludes (1904)
William HURLSTONE (1876-1906)
Capriccio in B minor
Ernest FARRAR (1885-1918) Valse
Caprice; Shadow Dance
J B McEWEN (1868-1948) Three
Preludes
Frederick DELIUS (1862-1934) Dance
for Harpsichord; Three Preludes
Armstrong GIBBS (1889-1960) Four
Preludes
Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983)
Phantasy (1917)
Alan Cuckston (piano)
rec Leeds, April 1990
SWINSTY FEW 118CDr
[65.53]
Alan Cuckston's Swinsty company has been around for many years. At first
they produced exclusively cassettes. Some of the tracks on this warmly recorded
CD were first issued in that medium. Swinsty CDs are now being issued making
most of the back catalogue available and adding new or unissued tracks. This
disc presents four sets of Preludes by British composers: Corder, McEwen,
Delius and Armstrong Gibbs. The brief notes are by the pianist who throughout
contributes sensitive performances without glossy virtuosity. The Preludes
are interspersed with various genre pieces by other Britons though Delius
is only British in the most pedestrian of senses. McEwen (a Scot) would have
jibbed at his Three Preludes being collected under the title 'English
Dances and Preludes' however the cap fits well enough if not to perfection.
The greatest mystery here is Paul Corder so a few words of introduction
are in order. Here is what a dictionary entry might look like (if anyone
can add to this please contact me):-
CORDER, Paul Walford [London, 14.12.1879 - London,
6.8.1942]
Paul Corder F.R.A.M., was the son of leading music teacher Frederick
Corder. In the early years of the century was regarded as one of his father's
leading students in the same company as York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Joseph
Holbrooke and Arnold Bax, all at London's Royal Academy of Music. The son
studied with the father and later (from 1907) joined the staff of the Academy
as Professor of Composition and Harmony. He was much influenced by the artistic
movement associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. His many orchestral works remain
unpublished and unknown. He wrote a number of keyboard pieces that achieved
both publication and some modest public attention. He was a close friend
of Arnold Bax who dedicated the song Aspiration (1909) and his Fourth
Symphony (1931) to him. They spent holidays in each other's company in Cornwall.
It is interesting to note that, in the early 1900s, Corder had written a
piece for orchestra entitled Morar. Morar was the area which Bax resorted
to in the winter months in the 1930s for composition and orchestration of
his symphonies. Professor of Composition at the Tobias Matthay School.
Recreations: cabinet making. He lived for many years at White Cottage, Netley
Heath, West Horsley, Surrey.
Opera: Rapunzel and Grettir the Strong (one
act), both in manuscript;
Ballet: several including The Dryad, a pantomime
ballet;
Choral: A Song of Battle for chorus and orchestra;
A Song of the Ford for male voice chorus and orchestra;
Vocal: Four Sea Songs for baritone and orchestra
(Hell's Pavement; The Turn of the Tide; The Emigrant;
Captain Stratton's Fancy); The Moonslave, a terpsichorean fantasy;
A Song of the Bottle; Spanish Waters;
Orchestra: Two Sketches: Sunset and Sunrise;
Tone Poem, Pelleas and Melisande; Overture, Cyrano de Bergerac;
Gaelic Fantasy, Morar (also for two pianos; 1908, RAM Patron's
Fund concert); Dross, a music drama without words (Anglo-French Music);
Preludes to Acts I and II, Rapunzel (Proms, 14 Sept 1915); Violin
Concerto; Five Orchestral Tone Pictures: Along the Seashore: 1. The
Ebbing Tide; 2. The Sea Cavern; 3. Seagull's Rock; 4. The
still hour of dusk; 5. The Call of the Sea;
Chamber: String Quartet; Fountains for viola and
piano;
Piano: Transmutations of an Original Theme; Nine
Preludes (RAM Patron's Fund concert, Aeolian Hall, 6.12.1904); Three
Studies; Passacaglia; Romantic Study; Heroic Elegy;
Spanish Waters; An Autumn Memory; various.
See additional note below
The Nine Preludes run the range from assertively Rachmaninovian romance with
every grand gesture in place (Nos. 1, 7 and 9) through Griegian regret (No.
2), Macdowell sentimentality (No. 3), Tchaikovskian charm - more Glazunov
in fact (Nos. 4 and 8), noble sorrow (No. 5) and haunted grandeur (No. 6).
McEwen's Pre-Raphaelite visions of naiads, seraphs and fairies are adept
and moving essays in the sort of impressionism that you find in William Baines
and in his own music for violin and piano as recently recorded on Chandos.
After McEwen the Delius Dance seems positively uncomplicated.
The Three Preludes rustle and shimmer impressionistically without
undue elaboration.
Switching from the Royal Academy's devotion to Tchaikovsky and Liszt,
Hurlstone in his Capriccio fits neatly and extremely competently
into the Brahmsian style (Piano Concerto No 2). Farrar has a Chandos
orchestral CD devoted to his music. His Valse Caprice and Shadow
Dance are high octane salon 'fuel' leaning into Macdowell. They have
no sense of the 'danger' you find in, say, Baines or Ireland though, in all
fairness, the rising Brahmsian lines at the end of Shadow Dance transcend
the merely comfortable. The confidently affluent pictorialism of
Howells' Phantasy brings a rewarding disc to a close.
Armstrong Gibbs' Four Preludes explore Griegian themes and
treatment (No.1), alongside a warmly liquid introspection (No. 2) and a rapid
bell-clear Gallicism in Flares (now there's a Whistler title for you - this
could easily have been by Baines). Flares might well have been heard
by Malcolm Arnold before he wrote his Concerto For Two Pianos - Three Hands.
The great counter-melody of grand span in The Hounds of Spring is
treasurable and well justifies the cost of the disc. The composer of these
preludes stands high above the company; a firm case for reappraisal of Armstrong
Gibbs whose music can also be heard on FEW123CDr Lakeland Pictures and
In the High Alps.
Rob Barnett
Graham Parlett has written to say that:
"Someone I knew who died last year (Jessica Morton) knew the Corders when
she was very young and told me the distressing news that Paul's sister, Dolly,
with whom Paul lived, was so distraught when he died that she destroyed his
musical manuscripts. I've certainly made occasional attempts to trace some
of the orchestral pieces but without success, and I fear it may be true,
which means that only the few published works survive. Paul and Dolly moved
in 1921 to Looe Island, Cornwall, which they had bought from the proceeds
of the sale of Frederick Corder's collection of first editions. In 1932 they
moved to White Cottage, Netley Heath, Surrey. After his death in 1942, Dolly
moved in 1957 to Littlecot, Jefferies Rd. W. Horsley, Surrey, and she celebrated
her 90th birthday on 30 June 1968 (but I'm not sure when she died). Paul
was, as you point out, into furniture making, and last year I inherited from
Jessica Morton a table and bookcase which he had made. I also have colour
photos of Olga Antonietti (the 'Fiammetta' of Farewell, my Youth), which
Paul had taken in about 1909, and one of Arnold Bax taken at about the same
time (reproduced in monochrome as the frontispiece of Lewis Formean's edition
of Farewell my Youth.
I am very grateful to Graham for this additional information.
Price per CD inclusive of p&p within UK is £11.00
Price per CD inclusive of p&p outside UK: please enquire
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Phone/Fax: +44 (0) 1757 638238
email:
alancuckston@email.com
Swinsty Records
Turnham Hall
Cliffe
Selby
N Yorks YO8 6ED
United Kingdom
