Benjamin DALE (1885 – 1943) Piano Sonata in
D minor (1902/1905) [47:48]
William HURLSTONE (1876 – 1906) Piano Sonata in F minor (1894)
[31:34]
Mark Bebbington (piano)
rec. 5-6 January 2006, CBSO Centre, Birmingham. DDD
SOMM SOMMCD 097 [79:30]
There was a time, and perhaps it hasn’t really passed, when Dale’s Piano
Sonata was only spoken of; one never heard it. Much the same applies to
his late orchestral work, The Flowing Tide, which was broadcast in
2002. It’s obvious why the work has seldom been heard in my lifetime – it’s
far too long for most pianists to be interested in it, and it’s written by
a minor English composer, some would say. I can remember Peter Jacobs played
it in the Wigmore Hall in the early 1980s – with a preview the night before
at the British Music Information Centre – but that’s the only time it’s come
my way in performance.
It’s a very assured work, and it comes as a shock to discover that it was
written during Dale’s student days. Dedicated to his friend York Bowen, it
was Bowen who gave the first performance of the work, and after it won the
annual Mark Hambourg Composition prize, the great man playing only the Variations
at the Queen’s Hall, it was taken up by Myra Hess, Irene Scharrer Benno Moiseiwitsch,
and others, as well as having two piano rolls made. Later Moura Lympany and
Frank Merrick played the work, but it eventually fell out of the repertoire.
So much for the history of the piece, What about the music itself? In his
excellent booklet notes, Jeremy Dibble writes that the work is “conceived
on an epic scale”, and he’s not wrong. There are two movements, a large-scale,
heroic, Allegro deciso playing for 13 and a half minutes and a Slow
Movement, Scherzo and Finale, which is a continuous set of eight variations
on an original theme – the theme and first four variations comprise the slow
movement, variations 5, 6 and 7 constitute the scherzo and the 8th
variation is an extended finale playing for about 11½ minutes. It’s certainly
conceived on an epic scale but, sad to say, it’s not an epic work. There’s
much to enjoy and admire in the piece, big climaxes, good tunes, virtuoso
writing and so on, but it’s far too long for its material. The second section
is more successful than the first: it hangs together better and is more intelligently
constructed. What is interesting is that there is a lot of Victorian salon
fancies, Rachmaninov, and the Music Hall cheekiness of Lord Berners, but as
Berners hadn’t started writing at this time, and much of Rachmaninov hadn’t
been heard in this country, it’s obvious that Dale was simply writing in the
vernacular of his time. There’s also more than a passing nod to Chopin. The
work is filled with purple passages, and Dale certainly over-eggs the pudding.
But yet, it’s compelling and well worth hearing. Whether or not you return
to it with any regularity is another matter.
Hurlstone’s Sonata is also a student work, but it’s a more manageable
piece, even though it plays for three quarters of the duration of the Dale,
and Hurlstone must have been a fine pianist at 18 to be able to play this
work. It’s got some Schumann and Brahms in it but the voice is more individual
than that of Dale.
Mark Bebbington obviously believes in these works and plays them for all they
are worth, taking the difficult writing easily in his stride. Neither is a
major piece, but they add to our knowledge of both composers – which, in the
case of Dale, is almost nothing. This is an important document and is a must
for everyone interested in English music, not to mention fabulous pianism.
Good recording and excellent notes go to make this a very appealing disk.
Bob Briggs
see also review by John
France
Fabulous pianism.