The first four tracks
of this CD comprise unpublished Gurney
pieces in their premiere recordings.
These colourfully titled mood-poems,
together with the two Nocturnes, are
from the period 1908-1909 written while
Gurney was articled as a pupil to Sir
Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral.
They are pleasingly derivative works
none the worse for their plain debt
to Chopin, Schumann and Grieg. Most
memorable is the Sehnsucht with
its Hispanic skirl, delicacy and sense
of romantic separation. More impressive
still are the fully mature ten preludes
(listed as nine but the ninth is played
in two versions). They show a great
advance in style and profundity with
a dreamy Gallic ‘voiles’ tendency in
the first two and a Beethovenian ‘rage
over a lost penny’ in the third. There
is a touch of Macdowell sentimentality
in the fourth. Reminiscences of the
song Hawk and Buckle resound
in the bluffly active Fifth. The Seventh
inhabits the same tonal world as the
song All Night Under The Moon
and Severn Meadows.
Ferguson's Sonata
is one of the only twenty published
works written during the period 1928
to 1958. It was first played by Myra
Hess at the National Gallery Concerts
in 1940. With Hess, Ferguson jointly
organised that iconic series. While
I seriously wonder if there is enough
fire in the fist-shaking defiant first
movement, Bebbington uses his pearly
touch and quietly beseeching tone to
masterly effect in the lento -
most beautifully done. In the finale
there is some strenuous, bell-like and
violently inimical writing - suggestive
of thunderstorms and shivering cold.
Finally comes the angular
Five Bagatelles first recorded
by Myra Hess. They are dedicated to
the south African composer Arnold Van
Wyk. These are subtle works, of Debussian
suggestiveness and sardonic wit. Bebbington
sets up a very nice rhythmic pulse for
the finale bagatelle. We all know that
Finzi and Ferguson were close friends
but if you know the Finzi Bagatelles
(clarinet and piano) please don't expect
Ferguson's to be in the same ingratiating
style - they are not. These lean more
towards Bartok than to Finzi.
Both Ferguson and Gurney
retreated from the creation of music
long before their deaths. Gurney's long
mental decline resulted in an end to
his production by the mid-1920s while
Ferguson famously ceased writing in
1958. He was to live another forty years
in a Sibelian silence.
This disc, like Bebbington’s
fascinating Castelnuovo-Tedesco collection,
is in SOMM's ‘New Horizons’ series.
It has been financially supported by
the Elmley Foundation and by the Ivor
Gurney Society.
The notes by Lewis
Foreman are lucid and wide-ranging.
Bebbington's touch
is velvety smooth; making light of the
task of drawing the percussive sting
from the piano. Lovely playing indeed.
Rob Barnett
Mark Bebbington (piano) 