Ronald STEVENSON (1928-2015)
Piano Music - Volume Two
Three Scots Fairy Tales (1967) [3:15]
A Carlyle Suite (1995) [20:18]
Rory Dall Morison’s Harp Book (1978) [17:04]
Three Scottish Ballads (1973) [9:48]
Frank MERRICK (1886-1981)
Hebridean Seascape (c.1935) transcr. Ronald Stevenson, 1986 [13:05]
Savourna STEVENSON
Lament for a Blind Harper, transcr. Ronald Stevenson, 1986 [3:01]
Christopher Guild (piano)
rec. Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0388 [66:37]
The second volume of Toccata’s series devoted to Ronald Stevenson’s piano music investigates folklore and lightly varnished pedagogic pieces. That said, the disc opens with the thirteen-minute span of Hebridean Seascape, Stevenson’s arrangement of the central movement – called just Seascape – from Frank Merrick’s Piano Concerto No.2, composed around 1935. It was the long-lived Merrick – born in 1886, he died in 1981 – who suggested that Stevenson undertake the arrangement for solo piano and Stevenson premiered his work at the Purcell Room in London in the centenary year of Merrick’s birth. Merrick enshrined a Skye fisherwoman’s chant in the movement, hence Stevenson’s modification of the movement name, and there are stirring melodies, both heartfelt and turbulent, to engross the ear throughout. The rolled chords and swell as well as the songful cries incarnate Stevenson’s excellent transcription; it’s useful to listen to the original version, which can found on the LP Merrick made of this work. It’s been uploaded to YouTube as well.
A Carlyle Suite was commissioned to celebrate the bicentenary of Thomas Carlyle’s birth in 1995. It’s a slightly strange piece in five movements. An Aubade is followed by a Souvenir de Salon in which Jane Carlyle listens to Chopin (there are some droll exchanges here) and then comes a theme – the theme is by Frederick the Great – and six variations. Each variation reflects a ‘study in historical styles’ where a French Overture is followed by Rococo Romantic, Impressionist, Expressionist and a Busoni-inspired New Classicism. These brief montage pictures last no more than two minutes. A brief Scherzo is followed by an equally brief Serenade - the latter revisiting the opening Aubade but now in the minor.
The brisk Three Scots Fairy Tales of 1967 are taut pieces of pedagogy introducing jig rhythms, impressionist hues and trace elements of Bartók’s influence. The larger span of Rory Dall Morison’s Harp Book comes from just over a decade later. This is a delightful set of eight pieces that embraces the quietly reflective as much as the harp-like bardic. Of sterner stuff is the set of Three Scottish Ballads from 1973. ‘Lord Randal’ is gruff and powerful but has a very vocalised line, with an appropriately grim dénouement. Taut compression is again the name of the game for ‘The Downie Dens O‘Yarrow’ whilst the final piece, ‘Newhaven Fishwife’s Cry’, dedicated to Stevenson’s wife, offers more light-hearted and affirmative qualities after the unrelieved menace of the two earlier settings. This set contains unquestionably the best music in the disc. Before it ends however there is Stevenson’s transcription of his harpist daughter Savourna’s Lament for a Blind Harper, a tender and beautiful envoi recast for the left-hand alone.
Christopher Guild is the expert exponent and his booklet notes show a particularly perceptive awareness of Stevenson’s writing and influences. With a well-judged concert hall acoustic this is another fine addition to the ever-expanding Stevenson discography.
Jonathan Woolf
Previous review:
Stuart Sillitoe
