What a catholic world
we live in! ‘Catholic’ in the sense
conjured by that PC word ‘inclusive’.
There is room for a very wide variety
of styles of ‘serious’ music. Not so
many years ago the chances of this type
of repertoire being recorded were slim.
Now the world of recorded music is much
more diverse and accommodating.
Katharine Parker’s
is a voice light and even sentimental
from 1920s and 1930s Australia. She
is obdurately indifferent to the second
Viennese school. Her style is loosely
linked with the lighter fare of Arthur
Benjamin, Dulcie Holland, Miriam Hyde
and Frank Hutchens; the repertoire satisfyingly
explored by labels such as Tall Poppies,
ABC and ArtWorks.
Katharine "Kitty" Parker
was a product of rural Tasmania in the
Longford area. She studied in Melbourne
and later with Percy Grainger for whom
she had a life-long admiration. She
was accepted as his pupil in London.
Her presence in the Grainger circle
put her in contact with Goossens, Scott,
Quilter and Balfour Gardiner. Grainger
praised her piano solo Down Longford
Way and encouraged her to orchestrate
the piece. She stumbled over this task
and Grainger then himself made an orchestration
(let’s hear it please). Most of her
music dates from before 1930; a watershed
year for her. It was at this time that
her marriage to Hubert Eisdell, the
English lyric tenor, ended. After many
years in England and touring through
Europe, she returned to Australia in
1947. She continued to take pupils and
corresponded with Grainger. After her
death, her son Michael Eisdell deposited
her compositions at the Grainger Museum
in Melbourne and at the ABC music library
in Sydney. In fact her compositions
in total only amount to about one hour
of music, most of it recorded on this
disc; the equivalent of one slender
volume.
A Water Colour is
a lightly bejewelled sketch in the gentler
pastoral manner of Ireland and Quilter.
Nocturne reflects some of the
Chopin heritage associated with the
form however it is by no means a somnolent
piece. The Four Musical Sketches
are gentle genre pieces: a downy
One Summer Day, a more passionate
Patchwork of Shadows and an undulatingly
rambling Red Admiral (no fast
flight here). Finally comes her signature
piece: Down Longford Way. No
wonder Grainger loved the piece. At
its heart is a melody heavy with sentiment
with an affinity to Grainger’s own Colonial
Song. Arc-en-Ciel has a distinct
Gallic tinge - a grand salon waltz with
storm in its contours and with Ravel
in the wings. Brushing up the leaves
doffs its hat to ragtime and could have
been popular in the 1920s although it
never made it with a publisher.
The Six Songs are
settings of Chinese poetry which at
their best recall Rachmaninov’s romances
and Gurney’s songs - or at least the
serenading ones (e.g. All Night Under
the Moon). These are fragile and
sentimental stems inhabiting a ‘willow
pattern’ world without overdoing the
Chinoiserie. They inhabit much the same
world as the rather soft-focus Chinese
settings by Granville Bantock and John
Alden Carpenter. The Three Japanese
Love-Songs are endearing sentimental
little poems and the fine Little
Dwarf Tree injects some liveliness
into an otherwise winsome - or even
twee - landscape. The waltz song I
don’t care goes with a warm swing
and would still work well in concert
if suitably orchestrated. I rather think
this is the sort of song that Lord Berners
lampooned in his own songs collected
on Symposium.
Ian Munro’s note is
substantial and studded with factual
detail rather than flowery generalisation.
The note amounts to an extended encyclopaedia
entry. The words for all the songs are
given in the booklet.
Jane Edwards and Ian
Munro treat these fragile blooms with
respect. Neither are at all arch. Ms
Edwards sings the songs with drama (Désirée)
or tender sensitivity finding some iron
in her voice at the more dramatic declamatory
moments. She is nicely balanced in relation
to the piano. Mr Munro handles the piano
solos as if they were by Mayerl or Ireland.
Rob Barnett
Jane Edwards (soprano); Ian Munro (piano) 
