Francis Routh has so far composed five sets of
pieces for piano sharing the subtitle of Scenes for Piano.
The ones recorded here brilliantly demonstrate the composer’s
breadth of vision and varied approach to piano writing. Bretagne
– Scenes for Piano IV Op.68 is the most readily accessible
of the two on this disc. It is a substantial suite of impressionistic
sketches of great beauty and communicative strength. Routh, however,
sees to it that the music, for all its freedom, is tightly knit.
He conceived his work as a theme and variations. The sheer variety
and imagination of the music, nevertheless, strikes by its evocative
and poetical power. Most movements are fairly concise, but the
emotional heart of the piece is the beautiful fifth movement Sillon
de Talbert, à la tombée du jour, a large-scale
Nocturne in all but the name. Bretagne ends with
the urban jollity of Jour de Fête Celte à Lorient.
Angels of Albion – Scenes for Piano III
Op.64 is a much more serious and emotionally more complex
work. Each of its five movements bears a literary superscription
(William Blake in Prelude, Aubade and To the Evening
Star; Victor Hugo in Night Music and Siegfried Sassoon
in Berceuse) which is, in one way or another, reflected
in the music. The march-like rhythms in Prelude echo Blake’s
words ("Right through the gates of wrath / I urge my way").
Aubade is a light-aired Scherzo ("The sun...Ascends
the sky"). To the Evening Star is a song-like movement
evoking the serenity and peace of evening. A short-lived climax
("...light/ Thy bright torch of love") reminding us
of latent violence is followed by an ethereal coda ("...thy
radiant crown/ Put on"). Night Piece is a long menacing
Nocturne of a rather troubled and tormented nature (Hugo’s "the
red and sombre contest"). The final and most developed movement
Berceuse alludes to Sassoon’s wartime poem Everyone
Sang in which the poet refers to an event that took place
at Christmas 1914 when the opposing soldiers met in no-man’s-land
to sing carols before resuming their fighting. This complex movement
falls into three inter-linked sections, opening with peaceful
singing, going through a martial and war-like central section
reworking the march-like material of the Prelude. It culminates
in a brief forceful climax based on the Aubade’s music,
and dies away slowly using the ‘singing’ material with which it
began. Most of the music of Angels of Albion, in
fact another theme and variations, is based on thematic material
stated in the first bars, intricately worked-out in a remarkably
resourceful manner.
In total contrast, the short Elegy
is simpler, though by no means easy or minimalist. It is a transcription
for piano of a movement from the Serenade for String Trio
Op. 24 of 1972, completed in 1986 and first performed
by Jeffrey Jacob. The music, conceived as an in memoriam
inspired by the death of the composer’s son, is deeply moving
in its simplicity.
The very title of Celebration Op.45
is partly misleading, for this substantial piece in three contrasting
sections is a compact sonata in one movement. The music has a
remarkable freshness of inspiration and the outer sections bounce
along in joyous playfulness. One cannot but agree with David Wright
when he writes in his excellent and illuminating notes that "a
feeling of exhilaration underlies the whole composition process".
Celebration Op.45 is a superb virtuoso showpiece
in its outer sections whereas emotion is not absent from the central
cantabile section.
Francis Routh’s music is often intricately and
painstakingly worked-out; but, no matter how complex it may sometimes
be, it always communicates directly and the composer’s strong
intellectual grip on his material never obscures or obliterates
the great expressive power of the music, which is its most endearing
quality.
Both performers have a long association with
Routh’s music and these carefully prepared, immaculate, committed
readings pay a well-deserved tribute to a most distinguished composer
whose music is regrettably too rarely heard. I hope that the remaining
Scenes (and more of Routh’s music) will soon be recorded.
I cannot but warmly recommend this most welcome and rewarding
release.
Hubert Culot
see also review
by David Wright
You
may read the booklet notes here
Redcliffe
Recordings
Francis
Routh Biography by David Wright
Lora Dimitrova (piano)a;
Jeffrey Jacob (piano)b