Born in 1923, Arthur Butterworth
received his musical training at the Royal Manchester College
of Music after army service in the Second World War. Amongst
other orchestral positions he played the trumpet in the Hallé Orchestra
under Barbirolli and here, like Malcolm Arnold before him,
he became totally immersed in orchestral sound and was able
to acquire a formidable orchestral technique. His major influences
were Sibelius, Bax and Elgar. His First Symphony was premiered
at the 1957 Cheltenham Festival of Modern British Music by
Barbirolli and subsequently received many performances in
the UK before being consigned to the scrap heap by the anti-tonal
musical establishment of the time. In an article on The
Younger Generation (of English Composers) in the Musical
Times (March 1960) Butterworth, amongst others, was invited
to give a brief insight into his musical career and most
important compositions. He stated that “my main purpose is
not to be concerned with musical fashionable techniques for
their own sake; mathematical or pseudo-scientific music holds
no interest for me for it is my belief that music should
be the direct outcome of personal experiences and is of no
value whatsoever if it is contrived and merely calculated
note-spinning”. He goes on to say that “it is concerned primarily
with the contemplation of the unchallenging omnipotence of
nature in all its diverse moods …..” He subsequently left
the Hallé to take up the position of conductor of the Huddersfield
Philharmonic Society and taught in the music department of
Huddersfield Polytechnic, subsequently University, until
1993. I would be interested to hear what he thought of the
musical goings-on of Steinitz’s emerging Huddersfield Contemporary
Music Festival!
Butterworth’s musical philosophy comes across strongly on this disc of chamber
music, sympathetically realised by the Terroni Piano Trio with Morgan Goff (viola).
Interestingly, these are all late works by a composer more used to writing symphonies,
large-scale choral and orchestral works and compositions for brass band. The
Piano Trio no. 1 (1983) was written at the behest of Sir John Manduell and is
the first work that Butterworth had composed in this genre at the tender age
of 60 – although it certainly doesn’t show! It is a wonderfully constructed,
pensive, cool and restrained work. The overall impression is dark, introverted
and mysterious. I felt that the ‘vigoroso’ of the first movement was not really
conveyed in either the music or the performance; imagine what it would mean in
Shostakovich’s hands! However, The Terroni Piano Trio captures the seamless,
lyrical and elegant writing for the instruments most beautifully.
I was also impressed by the Viola Sonata (1993), which followed hard on the heels
of the fine viola concerto of 1992. Goff’s playing is excellent and his rapport
with Terroni is most impressive, especially in the scherzo. Yet again, the passion
of the opening movement (marked ‘Appassionato’) is not really conveyed
in either the writing or the performance – although this surely just represents
the understated writing of the composer rather than a defect in the playing.
The disc finishes with the Piano Trio no. 2 (2005), which is given a sympathetic
but, again, slightly restrained performance. Altogether, this disc offers useful
insights into the music of Arthur Butterworth in what is a valuable contribution
to modern British chamber music. I was delighted to come across such tuneful
and tonal works from a contemporary composer, and such accomplished and suave
playing from The Terroni Piano Trio.
Em Marshall
see also reviews by Herbert
Culot and Rob
Barnett
and Arthur
Butterworth writes ...
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The Terroni Piano Trio (John
Trusler, violin; Fiona Murphy, cello; Raphael Terroni, piano); Morgan Goff (viola)a 
