This
is not a new disc. The performances are a good thirty years
old now and have appeared before on ABC Classics in the mid-nineties
under a different catalogue number. ABC has also released
the slow movement of the C sharp minor in a compilation disc
- Eternity. The Timeless Music of Australia’s Composers on
ABC Classics 476 160-7. It may be that ABC has given this
renewed coverage because of Hyde’s recent death – she died
in 2005. The booklet naturally enough still reflects her
then still very much living status but it would be good to
think that ABC could commission a proper essay on Hyde’s
life and career. The present one is perfunctory to the point
of irrelevance.
Hyde’s
two piano concertos were written in London where the Australian
composer was studying at the Royal College of Music. They’re
youthful works, written in her early twenties - exciting,
romantic, spilling over with Rachmaninovian fervour. She
presumably played at the premieres and after, and she plays
them on disc forty years after they were written with undiminished
passion and enjoyment.
The
earlier of the two dates from 1933. Opening with ripe piano
athleticism and in frank romantic tradition it has a few
will o’the wisp moments along the way. Hyde’s slow movements,
perhaps reflecting her keen early twenties, are non-sentimental,
somewhat unsettled and actively questing and dynamic. Though
the E flat minor is marked Lento it’s not at all becalmed;
rather it mines from Rachmaninovian, Tchaikovskian and Lisztian
fields.
The
second concerto followed two years later. Fluently written
and once more attractively orchestrated it would be hard
to claim this, or its sister concerto, exhibited any really
startling melodic distinction. But it’s very well laid out
for both solo instrument and orchestra and does start with
some arresting angular brass calls and answeringly lissom
string writing. Once more the piano pitches in early, and
again the communing spirit is Rachmaninov. The slow movement
contrasts tranquilo sections with the Russian composer’s
heft. The finale is terpsichorean with a striding figure
of delightfully pomposo intent. The piano scampers
with heroism and dexterity.
There’s
a pendant in the form of the VW inflected 1943 Village
Fair, complete with some rustic band evocations.
The
performances naturally carry the authoritative imprimatur
of the composer. Sound quality is still highly impressive
and the performances are genial and affectionate. Now we
need a good set of notes.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review by Rob Barnett
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Miriam Hyde
(piano) 
