Album insights
The oldest surviving music for a keyboard instrument is an English fragment of two sheets known as the Robertsbridge Codex (1325). Elizabethan virginalists such as John Bull, William Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons created the first significant body of music for keyboard instruments. John Broadwood, an Englishman, invented the modern piano and patented its "soul," the forte pedal in 1783. However, England's influence and achievements in piano music were not always significant. Isolated figures like Sterndale Bennett and Pinto emerged occasionally, but no significant, coherent collection of piano music was created after the sixteenth century until the threshold of the twentieth century.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Britain's young musical talents drew their first influences from sources like Brahms and Wagner. The bloom of Impressionism, which had flourished beyond the English Channel, was swiftly and enthusiastically imported into British culture in the prewar years. This fusion of French fragrance and German taste gave birth to a new, distinctly British style in the early twentieth century, which can truly be termed a "school."
The current recital does not claim to offer a balanced overview of English piano music. Many composers have been omitted, particularly John Ireland, Arnold Bax, and Cyril Scott, not to mention numerous later composers. The collection is intended as a personal "album," where the listener can browse at will, pausing on one piece only to move on to another.
Alan Rawsthorne represented an original and powerful voice in British music around the mid-twentieth century. The Bagatelles, four short pieces built cleverly on a ten-note theme, were composed in 1938 for my teacher Gordon Green. I received instructions from him as a teenager and remember how, upon listening to the final piece, tears filled his eyes, moved by the restrained emotion that reminded him of his affectionate friendship with the composer, shortly before the latter's demise.
Stephen Reynolds, a composer and pianist, performed in concerts and radio broadcasts across Europe and the USA. Currently a faculty member at his alma mater, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where both Rawsthorne and I studied, he gathered inspiration from the soundscapes of two of his favorite composers to create his works. The pieces inspired by Delius are of special significance since the composer had only written a few works for piano.
The two brief compositions by Stephen Hough are "enigmatic" in their use of musical notes to represent the letters of certain words, specifically the names of two individuals. The first Valse quotes Mendelssohn and Grieg, while the second showcases intentional "Chinoiserie." My initials, "E" and "H," are intricately woven into both pieces, yet I won't divulge more!
Edward Elgar composed very little piano music, providing a sense of improvisation and the germination of ideas that would later blossom into fully orchestrated works. "In Smyrna" was inspired by a Mediterranean cruise taken by the composer in 1905, displaying the unmistakable characteristics of Elgar's style even in a fragment, showcasing how even a snippet can encapsulate the essence of a great composer.
Granville Bantock, a conductor and educator, also composed a remarkable array of works reflecting his fascination with the East and Celtic cultures. The tenor Robert White introduced me to this wistful song during a session of exploring vocal repertoire in his New York apartment after indulging in bowls of delicious pasta.
The three pieces by York Bowen reveal different facets of the composer's style: "Reverie d'Amour" braves a shyly lush lyricism that tastefully edges towards decadence, while "Serious Dance" showcases harmonic deviations within a melancholic waltz—an homage to Bowen's specialty. "The Way to Polden" presents a more subdued emotional journey with spicier harmonies. Chilton Polden, a small English village in Somerset, is possibly the referenced location in the title.
As a committed pacifist, Frank Bridge was deeply affected by the First World War, leading to a transformation in his pastoral style towards a more serious, prickly, and strikingly personal form of expression. Although the two miniatures presented here hail from the postwar years, reminiscent of his earlier style, their delicacy sets them apart from mere salon pieces, evoking a lost world of innocence and peace. Bridge arranged "Heart's Ease" for violin and piano as well.
Kenneth Leighton had a distinguished career as a composer, pianist, and eventually held the Reid Chair of Music at the University of Edinburgh. His "Six Study-Variations" from 1969 stand as a significant and unjustly neglected example of the finest English piano music. The work showcases rhythmic innovation, ranging from the pointillism of the second and fourth etudes to the lively, jazz-inflected syncopations of the fiercely virtuosic final etude. The center of the composition is the densely chromatic third etude, culminating in a rebelliously intense climax of controlled harmonic tension.