TWENTIETH CENTURY PIANO DUETS
Works by Alan Rawsthorne, Lennox Berkeley, John Joubert,
Kenneth Leighton and Peter Melville Smith.
Helen and Harvey
Davies
ASC CS
CD13
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Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 8PT. 01625 423605
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Rawsthorne's short suite for piano duet The Creel is comparatively
familiar and has already been recorded on several occasions. Berkeley's
Sonatina for Piano Duet (1954) is also fairly well known and is featured
on the BMS's first CD - again a delightful short piece full of charm and
spontaneity, it is superbly crafted as most Berkeley pieces are. Kenneth
Leighton's Sonata for Piano Duet (1984/5) is also well known to members since
it was recorded some years ago by the composer and was - and still is - available
on a BMS cassette. This is a quite substantial piece of music that has still
to receive its due. It is a really fine piece and a minor masterpiece by
a distinguished composer who rarely wrote an indifferent note of music and
whose stature has still to be fully appreciated. He wrote a good deal of
music of which a large amount is virtually unheard, let alone recorded. Leighton
is a significant composer and any new recording of his music is to be warmly
and heartily welcomed. John Joubert's Divertimento is an early work written
during Joubert's student time with the late Howard Ferguson at the RCM. It
is a very enjoyable work full of tunes and energy that should definitely
be better known. This highly rewarding and entertaining recital ends with
yet another set of variations on a theme of Paganini (guess which?) by Peter
Melville Smith whose name and music are new to me. This short piece is full
of imagination and its theme and eight variations are dispatched in less
than five minutes! It provides for a lively conclusion to this most enjoyable
release.
The Davies Duo (mother and son) play with communicative enjoyment of the
music and are very well served by a very fine recorded sound.
A pity though that the playing time is a bit of the short side and that
Hoddinott's sonata written for the Davies Duo who premiered it in December
1999 could not have been included. Anyway this is a most enjoyable and welcome
release which I heartily recommend. I hope that a forthcoming release might
be devoted to music by Welsh composers, including this time Hoddinott's sonata.
Reviewer
Hubert Culot
