Madeleine DRING
(1923–1977)
Three Piece Suite [11:50]
Willametta SPENCER
(b 1932)
Adagio and Rondo (1960) [8:10]
Barbara HARBACH
Daystream Dances (1995) [6:50]
Zhanna KOLODUB
(b 1930)
Concertino for oboe and piano (1994)
[9:34]
Rhian SAMUEL (b
1944)
Traquair music – Sonata for oboe (1988)
[7:33]
Vivian FINE (b
1913)
Sonatina (1939) [5:53]
Roselyne MASSET–LECOCQ
(b 1950)
L’Oiseaux des Galaxies (1977) [1:33]
Libby LARSEN (b
1950)
Kathleen, As She Was (1988) [5:11]
Dulcie HOLLAND
(b 1939)
The Fallen Leaf (1970) [3:32]
Diane KEECH (b
1945)
Scherzo Rondoso [2:30]
Unlike the majority
of the composers on this interesting
recital, Madeleine Dring is well enough
known these days, and her light and
attractive style, especially in her
songs, has captivated many. The Three
Piece Suite is full of good things
and an easy-going lyricism is abundant
in all three movements, the middle,
slow, one is particularly heart warming
and meltingly lovely. There’s a tinge
of Poulenc and Lord Berners in the outer,
fast, pieces which, when passed through
Dring’s mind go to make a most attractive
composition.
Recipient of a Fulbright
Scholarship in 1953, Willametta Spencer
is a noted organist and musicologist
as well as a composer. Adagio and
Rondo is neo–classical in feel,
the Adagio not too dark, and the Rondo
nicely balances it combining an Hindemithian
angularity, in its main theme, with
a slight Parisian accent.
Barbara Harbach’s Daystream
Dances are two fresh and light pieces,
tinged with a little hint of jazz, and
full of the typical Harbach open air
quality; they are tuneful and very pleasant.
Neither has the depth of Harbach’s bigger
chamber works but the second piece –
Reeling Dusk – shows a more serious
intent. Russian Zhanna Kolodub’s Concertino
for oboe and strings is heard here
in an arrangement for piano made by
the composer. It doesn’t show any Russianness
in its writing. Beginning and ending
in a pastoral mood –although at the
end the music is more "knowing",
more mature, because of what has happened
in the middle – it contains a section
of more animated and angular music.
The composer never looses sight of how
to communicate with her audience and
this is a most satisfactory work – I
would love to hear it with strings,
and to hear some more music by Kolodub.
Rhian Samuel’s work
is called Sonata for oboe on
the rear inlay and the back page of
the booklet, but the notes talk about
a piece called Traquair music,
so I have listed her work under both
titles for I am not sure which is correct.
Perhaps both, for this is a Sonata in
layout and form. The three movements
have sufficient variety to keep the
interest of the listener, never an easy
thing to do in a work for a solo instrument
which cannot supply its own harmony.
It’s an easily approachable work – unlike
some of the pieces of Samuel’s I have
heard – and this performance is most
persuasive.
Vivian Fine’s neo-classical
Sonatina is a lovely piece, but
far too short – who wouldn’t want a
bit more of this delicious music? The
outer movements are full of interesting
chatter and the slow movement has more
depth to it than one would suspect from
such a small work. As soon as I saw
a reference to birds in the title of
French composers Roselyne Masset–Lecocq’s
L’Oiseaux des Galaxies my heart
sank. Birds and French composers, for
me, means hours of tedium. But this
is a sparkling little piece and at one
and an half minutes there’s no worry
that the lethargy supplied by an evening
of a catalogue of birds could happen.
Nice miniature this, and a very pleasant
surprise.
For Libby Larsen’s
Kathleen, As She Was the pianist
moves to harpsichord which gives the
recital a welcome change of timbre,
yet, with the use of this most delicate
of keyboard instruments, we get the
most serious of works. Despite the short
timespan there’s much in this composition
– not least a terse argument, based
on an idea filled with grace notes.
Dulcie Holland and
Diane Keech both supply light-textured
encore pieces.
This is a most interesting
and fascinating collection of very programmable
works for the
oboe and it should
be of interest to all players of the
instrument and all who have an interest
in it, and, as befits the best kind
of programming, this CD has a well balanced
mixture of the not so well known and
the much less well known, with a winner
from Madeleine Dring. .
The recording is a
bit boxy and there’s some inconsistency
in volume – the Solo Sonata of
Rhian Samuel is perfectly placed but
it is louder than what precedes and
succeeds it, because the solo instrument
is too close to the microphone. That
said, Cynthia Green Libby is a fine
player and a most winning advocate for
this music, some of which she commissioned,
and this disk has much musical interest
to offer.
Bob Briggs
Cynthia Green Libby (oboe), Peter Collins
(piano) 
