Dulcie HOLLAND (1913-2000)
Sonata for cello and piano (1993) [14.48]
Gary Williams (cello); Max Olding (piano)
rec. Grevillea Studios, Brisbane, 12 December 1994
Fairy penguins (1994)
Dulcie Holland (piano) [1.24]
rec. Studio 301 [not further identified], 2 September 1995
Robert ALLWORTH (b.1943)
Lute Concerto (1988) [17.44]
Susan Jones (lute); Nuove Musiche Baroque Ensemble/Adrian Hooper
rec. Chatsworth Studio, ABC, November 1998
Colin BRUMBY (b.1933)
O sacred head sore wounded (1992)
Lawrence Bartlett (organ) [1.53]
rec. St Michael’s, Vaucluse, 25 June 1997
Eric GROSS (b.1926)
Thanksgiving (1986)
Ray Lemond (piano) [3.00]
rec. 26 May 1992 [no location given]
Derek STRAHAN (b.1935)
Eden in Atlantis (1995) [24.36]
Liza Rintel (soprano); Michael Scott (flute and alto flute); David Miller (piano)
rec. Opera Centre, Surrey Hills, Sydney, 15 November 1996
JADE JADCD-1074 [63.25]
This album brings together some vary disparate works from a wide variety
of sources by Australian composers, the only common denominator appearing
to be that the pieces were all written in the ten years between 1986 and
1995 by composers born before the end of the Second World War.
The international reputation of Dulcie Holland, the most senior
of these figures, seems to rest almost entirely on her achievements as
a pedagogue and the author of a series of textbooks on music for children.
But her Cello Sonata reveals a whole new side to her art. She
studied under John Ireland among others, and his influence is clearly
discernible alongside the flavours of Hindemith and Shostakovich that
colour the music. This is hardly a work of outstanding originality, but
it has plenty of life and is superbly played by the two musicians with
a couple of tuning issues by Gary Williams barely noticeable. The recording
is a bit airless, with not much resonance around the players and the piano
sounding rather hard in consequence, but quite tolerable.
Robert Allworth is the sound engineer responsible for quite a few
of these recordings, and he is also the composer featured in the second
work on this disc. His Lute Concerto is not at all the neo-classical
pastiche that one might have expected, but a sultry and refined work which
exploits the timbres of period instruments in a thoroughly modern way.
The slow movement, marked con morbidezza, finds the lute plucking
out what sounds suspiciously like a twelve-tone row over a background
of recorder, harp, baroque violin, viola da gamba and violone that produces
a most peculiar mix of sensibilities but has at the same time an odd fascination.
The movement is headed by a quotation from Shakespeare: “The autumn of
life is here, with sad faded flowers. Once they were beautiful in the
rain.” This is by far the longest movement, and most of the finale is
taken up by an accompanied lute cadenza which recalls material from the
earlier movements but ends rather inconsequentially.
There then follow three short instrumental pieces. Colin Brumby’s
O sacred head sore wounded is a straightforward chorale prelude
for organ on the well-known Lutheran hymn also employed by Bach. It is
followed after far too short a pause by Eric Goss’s Thanksgiving,
almost light music in feel with mildly bluesy overtones – like the sort
of music one might encounter is an upmarket hotel bar which employs a
pianist to accompany the guests’ conversation. Indeed it may have been
intended for exactly that milieu, since we are informed that it was written
to celebrate the fortieth wedding anniversary of two relatives of the
composer. Dulcie Holland returns, playing the piano herself in
a very much more constricted acoustic, in a depiction of Fairy penguins
in a sort of cakewalk that sounds like Billy Mayerl.
After that it comes as somewhat of a shock to be plunged into the final
item on the disc, an extended vocal piece by Derek Strahan. I have
recently reviewed a whole raft of recordings of this composer for this
site (review),
and there discussed at some length his proposed cycle of operas based
on the Atlantis myth. This chamber piece develops material intended for
the first part of that cycle, but it does not have the immediate appeal
of the Atlantis Variations which I discussed in my earlier review.
The recording is taken from a live performance, with the vocal soloist
at times somewhat distanced; but this does not excuse her almost impenetrable
diction. The words, by the composer himself (they are thankfully included
in the booklet), are not great poetry; but the sometimes shrill and uncomfortable
manner in which they are set do the text little justice even were the
words as delivered by the singer ever comprehensible. The accompaniment
suggests that the instrumental parts have been reduced from a full orchestral
score, and at times one has a sense of the forces straining to contain
the music and one longs for the sound of a large romantic orchestra. Flute
and piano do the best they can. As a sample of the whole work, it is not
very enticing; but one would welcome the chance to hear more of the score
with more substantial forces since there are some very striking passages
here.
This is a very mixed collection indeed, but the three main works on the
disc all in their different ways repay the listener.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
This is a very mixed collection indeed, but the three main works on the
disc all in their different ways repay the listener.
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