William Vincent WALLACE (1812-1865)
Chopinesque : Polonaise de Wilna (pub. 1868) [4.20]
* Nocturne mélodique (1847) [6.33]
La sympathie (1844) [3.36]
Le zephyr (1848) [4.56]
Souvenir de Cracovie (1864) [3.33]
Woodland murmurs (1844) [2.29]
Le chant des oiseaux (1852) [4.20]
Valse brillante (1848) [5.26]
Au bord de la mer (1849) [6.04]
Varsovie (1852) [4.45]
Nocturne Op.20/1 (1852) [1.52]
Souvenir de Naples (1854) [4.39]
La brunette (1853) [5.24]
Innocence (1850) [1.49]
Victoire (1862) [2.31]
La grace (1850) [3.28]
Grande Fantaisie La Cracovienne (1842) [13.34]+
Rosemary Tuck (piano); *Richard Bonynge (piano);
+ Tait Chamber Orchestra/Richard Bonynge
rec. Forde Abbey, Chard, Somerset, *6 March 2011 and 17-18 October 2011: +St
Paul’s, Knightsbridge, London, 24 November 2011
NAXOS 8.572776 [79.20]
The Irish composer William Vincent Wallace is not be confused with the Scottish
composer William Wallace, who is credited with writing the first British symphonic
poems including one - even more confusingly - entitled Sir William Wallace.
I used the word ‘credited’ with caution: many of the ‘concert
overtures’ of earlier British composers such as Corder, Macfarren, Elgar
and even Sterndale Bennett are symphonic poems in all but name.
The Irish Wallace, with whose music we are concerned here, is remembered nowadays
for writing the opera Maritana. This gained a major reputation in the
nineteenth century as part of the so-called ‘English Ring’ which
also comprised The Bohemian Girl by the Irishman Balfe and the Irish
subject The Lily of Killarney by the Austrian Benedict. By the way,
when are we going to get a complete recording of The Lily of Killarney,
probably the best of these three scores?
Wallace also wrote a great deal of piano music, mainly for himself to play
on his many concert tours. This is the third CD from Naxos to contain selections
from his massive output. This has been subtitled Chopinesque, presumably
because many of the forms employed are those familiar from the music of Chopin.
It has to be said that Wallace even at his best cannot begin to rival Chopin
on top form. The earlier Naxos CDs by Rosemary Tuck concentrated on his Celtic
Fantasies and his Operatic
Fantasies and Paraphrases, and the works on those discs were to a
considerable extend redeemed by their often imaginative treatment of melodies
by other hands. There are also two Cala CDs by Tuck (review
review)
which gives us more of his folksong arrangements and a considerable number
of other original compositions. This is therefore the fifth CD of piano music
by Wallace from Tuck. Where the composer is thrown back on his own inspiration
it is a bit thinner on the ground than in her previous compilations. There
is nothing here that is meretricious or cheap, but nothing that is an outstanding
masterpiece either.
To do him justice, Wallace would never have pretended to be a great composer,
at any rate in these piano pieces. He was principally concerned to provide
original music for his recitals, and in that he succeeds admirably. There
is one piece which could feasibly be regarded as pretty well as good as Chopin,
even if not Chopin firing on all cylinders: the ‘valse brillante de
salon’ entitled La Brunette which apparently was also published
in America as Lotus leaf - such confusion cannot have helped his music
to get itself established. This has a really good swinging waltz tune of considerable
character. Otherwise some fairly standard material is put through its virtuoso
paces, and Rosemary Tuck does it all proud. Richard Bonynge takes over as
pianist for the polonaise De Wilna, but this is a rather different
piece only published after the composer’s death and apparently intended
as a sketch for an unfinished (or unpublished) opera.
Here we also get, for the first time, an orchestral piece by Wallace in the
form of the ‘grande fantaisie’ La Cracovienne. Actually
what we get is a reconstruction of the score; it was originally written for
piano and orchestra, but was only published in a piano solo version and presumably
the original is lost. Jeremy Silver provides a suitably period accompaniment
for the piano, with some nice woodwind touches which actually sound uncannily
like Wallace’s decorous scoring in his operas. This is fun piece that
might well attract pianists anxious to expand their concerto repertoire, and
Bonynge conducts with sympathy and flexibility. One should note that Tuck
has already recorded this piece in its piano solo version on one of her Cala
collections.
An interesting sidelight on a Victorian composer, then, but hardly essential
material for the general listener. On the other hand, those who have enjoyed
Tuck’s previous exploration of this repertory will adore it. The recording
is nicely balanced, the performances are enjoyable, the notes by Peter Jaggard
are detailed and informative. The disc certainly gives full measure.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Those who have enjoyed Tuck’s previous Wallace explorations will adore
these enjoyable performances.
see also review by Raymond
Walker