Lord BERNERS (1883-1950)
Piano Music, Songs, Orchestral music. Recordings from the 1970s and
1940s
1 Polka (1941) Peter Dickinson, piano
(2:30)
Lieder Album: 3 songs in the German Manner (1913-18) Meriel Dickinson,
mezzo-soprano & Peter Dickinson, piano (4:23)
2 Du bist wie eine Blume
3 König Wiswamitra
4 Weihnachtslied
Fragments Psychologiques (1915) Peter Dickinson (6:35)
5 La Haine
6 Le Rire
7 Un Soupir
8 Dialogue between Tom Filuter and his Man, by Ned the Dog Stealer
(1921) Bernard Dickerson, tenor & Richard Rodney Bennett, piano
(1:17)
Three Songs (1920) (3:50) Meriel & Peter Dickinson
9 Lullaby
10 The Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward
11 The Green-Eyed Monster
12 Le Poisson d'Or (1915) Susan Bradshaw, piano
13 Red Roses and Red Noses (c.1941) Meriel & Peter
Dickinson
Trois Petites Marches Funèbres (1916) Susan Bradshaw
(6:20)
14 For a Statesman
15 For a Canary
16 For a Rich Aunt
Trois Chansons (1920) Meriel & Peter Dickinson (4:15)
17 Romance
18 L'Etoile Filante
19 La Fiancée du Timbalier
Valses Bourgeoises (1919) Susan Bradshaw & Richard Rodney
Bennett (7:30)
20 Valse Brillante
21 Valse Caprice
22 Strauss, Strauss et Straus
23 Dispute entre le Papillon et le Crapaud (c.1914) Susan Bradshaw
(1:02)
Three Songs (1921) (Three Sea-Shanties) Bernard Dickerson &
Richard Rodney Bennett (4:22)
24 The Rio Grande
25 A Long Time Ago
26 Theodore or The Pirate King
27 Come on Algernon (1944) Meriel & Peter Dickinson
(2:47)
28 Fanfare (Composed for the Musicians' Benevolent Fund)
Kneller Hall Musicians/Captain H. E. Adkins (0:18)
29 Nicholas Nickleby - Incidental Music from the Ealing Studios
Film Philharmonia Orchestra/Ernest Irving (8:49)
Introducing Nicholas & Madeline;
Kate at the Mantalinis;
Ralph Nickleby;
Miss La Creevy;
Kate & Frank;
Introducing Mr. Squeers;
The Cheeryble Brothers;
Death of Smike;
Mr. Crummles;
The Hampton Inn;
The Wedding
30 Les Sirènes - Ballet Music
Habanera - Farruca - Valse
Philharmonia Orchestra/Ernest Irving (8:52)
31 Les Sirènes - Prelude (3:36)
32 Les Sirènes - Mazurka (3:10)
33 Polka (2:25)
Lord Berners, piano
SYMPOSIUM 1278
[79:40]
AmazonUS
Symposium discs are rather basically packaged and visually may even seem
unfinished. Despite this their catalogue shows great inspiration filling
desiderata with flair and more than mere competence. Their Holbrooke and
Max Rostal CDs are well worth your attention as is the present offering.
These Berners tracks are all analogue originals with the first 28 tracks
being stereo from 1977 (they were issued, I believe, on a Unicorn LP) and
the remainder historic recordings. The rarest (and with the most friable
sound) are the three tracks played by the composer who hums along with infectious
pleasure.
The Fragments (of similar vintage and inspiration to Josef Holbrooke's
Four Futurist Dances of 1913) are splintery and dissonant perhaps
influenced by Ornstein's provocative London concerts. That 'cut glass' effect
continues with the staccato grotesquerie of Poisson d'Or - a work
highly regarded by Stravinsky (the dedicatee). The Dispute is deep
in the same dissonant 'Badlands'. The Funeral Marches are dated 1916
and if the last one is ambivalent the other two are in touch with the slaughter
of the times. They were premiered by Alfredo Casella whose own Pagine
di Guerra (1915) convey the 'sounds' of the Great War as much as Joseph
Holbrooke's Barrage (1918). The satirical Valses play with
the genre as if it were a Rubik cube divertingly and maliciously twisting
it this way and that.
The Filuter song with its unflinchingly Gallic piano part is light-hearted
- a touch of Poulenc perhaps and this line continues with the Three German
Songs from 1920 - a mix of starry romance, resentful class-war protest
(foreshadowing Alan Bush) and revue. These songs would go well in a recital
with those of Spoliansky, Britten, Hanns Eisler and Weill. Red Roses is
Berners in archly guying mood with a sly smile playing over the sincerity
and the sentimentality of the Viennese locale provided by the instrumental
and vocal line. The Trois Chansons would fit just as happily into
a sequence of mélodies as would the Lieder Album into a lieder recital.
Both are idiomatic examples of a genre and add to each valuably. The 'sea
song' had been established by various composers including Vaughan Williams,
Ireland and Stanford. Berners' was having nothing of this and his three sea
songs are wry and reek with asperity. I note that tracks 25 and 26 have been
transposed. Algernon is rather like the Polka in being closer
to music hall but Berners, you feel, is embracing, not attacking the genre.
Then the historic recordings. The fanfare from 1934 is sassy and cheeky -
gone in just over half a minute. The Nickleby music (which should
really have been separately banded) is lush and, it has to be said, rather
conventional by the side of his work from the teens of the century. In fact
some of it has the lushness typified by Korngold. It is superbly orchestrated.
The stereo competition on EMI lacks the charm of this version. Les
Sirènes is highly polished light music with greater sophistication
than normally associated with the ballet. The music crackles with allusions
to España, Caprice Péruvien, Rhapsodie
Espagnole and La Valse.
Gavin Bryars and Philip Lane add to the enterprise with excellent notes.
None of the sung texts are printed but the singing is quite clear.
My only real complaint is that if this is seen as a vacuum-sealed copy in
a shop the interested browser will have no idea what pieces are on the disc.
There are no details of the contents on front, back or sides. A little more
thought is needed next time.
To end on a high note let's thank Symposium for a fine disc, with generously
packed measure, and without a single dud performance. The disc ends as it
began with the 1941 Polka. Peter Dickinson ushers it in and the composer,
with cavalier aplomb, accents and accelerates his way through the same piece
in the last track. Was that the composer slamming down the piano-lid at the
end?
Rob Barnett
In case of difficulty order from:-
Symposium
36 Paul's Lane
Overstrand
Cromer
Norfolk NR27 0PF
phone/fax +44 (0)1263 579715
symposium@cwcom.net
www.symposium.co.uk
