In a more enlightened
musical culture these two discs would
rank as ‘easy listening’. This is not
to say the type of hybrid classical
quasi-Muzak which passes for such on
many major labels; even less any connotation
of ‘crossover’, that strange term which
tends to emphasise the very divide it
seeks to bridge. On the contrary, belying
popular preconceptions about contemporary
chamber music, the listening is easy
simply because this is music that is
immediately approachable, a delight
to the ear which leaves one looking
forward to hearing it again.
The key to this is
twofold. There are lyrical and deeply
emotional pieces to be found here –
Ernest Tomlinson’s evocative Chadkirk
Idyll and Peter Crossley-Holland’s
characteristically gentle Andante
dating from 1934 for example, or
the anguished and intense Risoluto
written specially for this Welsh collection
by Jeffrey Lewis. But running like a
thread through both discs is an impish
sense of light-heartedness, wholly appropriate
to jigs and reels, and, dare I say,
as an Englishman living in Wales, to
the Welsh character too! John Veale
says of the final spoof valse in his
Triptych that it is intended
to be "fun for the players, fun
for the audience – and … even fun for
an obsessional creative agoniser to
write". That could apply to much
else on these records as well, from
the catchy Bourrée in Franz Reizenstein’s
Partita (the only work included,
I believe, that is not a première
recording – played by Ross Winters it
also appears on the BMS Dolmetsch
Legacy CD), which served as a domestic
signature tune for the Reizenstein household,
to the frenetic stop-start finale of
Philip Cowlin’s Concertino, irresistibly
conjuring up the spirit of Till Eulenspiegel.
As for Ian Parrott’s evocation of the
Vale of Rheidol narrow gauge railway,
Devil’s Bridge Jaunt, ideally
suited to its new format for bassoon
and piano, the title says it all, complete
with a bonus joke which I will not spoil
here.
Beyond all the good
humour an even more significant thread
runs through these discs. It is no mere
coincidence that both John Jeffreys
and John Veale, having embarked on prolific
and successful careers, should run into
a creative block in the late 1960s and
1970s - I know at least two other composers
who similarly felt sidelined by an antipathetic
musical establishment which was drifting
rudderless into a cultural void (thereby
incidentally creating the sterile musical
climate which ultimately helped to prompt
the foundation of the British
Music Society) – but inspiration
revived, and the catalyst was this same
thread linking the music on these discs.
To fall back on a much maligned phrase,
this trend represents a return to basics
or perhaps, more accurately, roots,
which by tapping into the rich legacy
of folk music without in any way compromising
modernity or sophistication is beginning
in its own way to erode that artificial
divide between popular and more serious
music-making that once never really
existed, something quite alien to the
market-driven concept of crossover and,
not for the first time, a situation
where artistic and political objectives
(probably irreconcilable anyway) seem
to be moving in opposite directions.
In this John Turner
has played a pivotal role by commissioning
or simply inspiring, both through his
virtuosity and in expanding the boundaries
of recorder technique, such a wealth
of new music for what in general perception
remains an essentially humble solo instrument.
That virtuosity, as always, is to be
found here in abundance – not least
in the Jeffreys Prelude and Jig
(the latter, as the sleeve note says,
a real ‘leaping dance’), in the cadenza
which lights up Edward Gregson’s ruminative
and pastoral Romance, in the
solo tour de force of Alun Hoddinott’s
Lizard Variants, and in the second
and fifth movements of Malcolm Arnold’s
Fantasy.
As well documented
of late, Sir Malcolm, the undisputed
master of musical humour (what seat
of academe ever boasted a better school
song than St. Trinian’s?) is another
to have suffered and conquered a creative
block, albeit for different and complex
personal reasons. The Fantasy
is a product of the period of recovery
alternating over five movements (during
which the soloist plays sopranino, treble,
descant and tenor instruments) between
resigned but reposed nostalgia - two
movements are marked mesto –
and infectious high spirits, especially
the cheeky scherzo second movement,
which is vintage Arnold and the ideal
encore piece for any recorderist equal
to its considerable demands.
The centrepiece of
Fantasising is the Concertino
of William Mathias, written for Carl
Dolmetsch and scored for the unusual
combination of recorder, oboe, bassoon
and harpsichord, strong on contrapuntal
and fugal interplay and, in the words
of the composer, "evoking a past
much more distant than the Renaissance",
but the major part of this disc is given
over to his teacher, Ian Parrott, whose
Fantasising on a Welsh Tune gives
the disc its title. The tune in question
is Dygan Caersws, and so the
piece neatly takes it cue from Caersws,
still a station on the line to Aberystwyth,
to trace what the composer calls "a
musical railway journey in mid-Wales",
taking in en route a succession of artistic
associations, including among others
Peter Warlock’s home at Cefn Bryntalch,
Llanbrynmair, the family home of the
pioneering Welsh woman composer, Morfydd
Llwyn Owen, and Aberystwyth itself,
where Ian was Gregynog Professor of
Music for so many years (the town being
as well the departure point for that
jaunt to Devil’s Bridge).
Portraits is
a set of variations but without the
mischievous enigma which might have
been anticipated from such a distinguished
Elgarian. Rather, with tongue still
characteristically in cheek the composer
suggests the work may show what his
"friends pictured within"
– Jack Moeran, Gerald Finzi, Leonard
James, David Cox and William Mathias
– would have done with the theme "if,
in Elgar’s immortal words, ‘they were
asses enough’", but this does not
mask a subtle and moving tribute to
the artistic impression made upon him
by each of them.
Celtic folk elements
make a substantial contribution to the
other two works in Jigs, Airs and
Reels. In the case of William Lewarne
Harris it is his sea-girt Cornish antecedents
which colour his impressive Quintet,
and there is a wonderful moment in the
fourth movement, Notre Dame des Naufragés,
when a merest snatch of Breton folk-tune
is glimpsed through the mists so fleetingly
that you wonder if your really heard
it at all or just imagined it. Robin
Walker’s chamber opera, The Bells
of Blue Island, deals with the fulfilment
of dreams on a spiritual isle across
the sea. I-Brasil sits tantalizingly
on the horizon here, and it is surely
significant in the context of the creative
trend these discs illustrate that the
youngest composer by far among those
represented should draw inspiration
from, as he puts it, "the strength
of folk-art, and its roots in primal
instinct and oneness with Nature".
The folk-art in question is that of
India and Buddhist rituals as well as
England, and it infuses these dances,
which were originally interludes between
the scenes of the opera. Framed by the
Irish folk-song She moved through
the Fair, they are all fast in tempo
yet at the same time imbued with that
feeling of stasis and peaceful repose,
which is so striking a hallmark of Robin’s
style: as in The Hymn of Jesus,
"Divine Grace is dancing"
and "ye who dance not, know not
what we are knowing…."
Performances throughout
are impeccable. If really pressed to
find cause for disappointment, I could
only regret that no opportunity presented
itself on this occasion for John Turner
to display his versatility on the contrabass
member of the recorder family. Now there
is a suggestion for Ian Parrott who
relishes the challenge of writing for
rare instruments; the great bass recorder
must be one of the very few he has yet
to tackle!
Roger Carpenter
see also review
by Hubert
Culot
see also
ENGLISH
RECORDER CONCERTOS John
GARDNER (born 1917) Petite
Suite Op.245 (2001) John
McCABE (born 1939) Domestic
Life (2000/1) Peter
LAWSON (born 1951) Song of
the Lesser Twayblade (2000) Kenneth
LEIGHTON (1929 – 1988) Concerto
Op.88 (1982)a Philip
LANE (born 1950) Suite Champêtre
(1982) Wilfrid
MELLERS (born 1914) Aubade
(1961) Robin
MILFORD (1903 – 1953) Two
Pipe Tunes (1929) Norman
KAY (1929 – 2001) Mr Pitfield’s
Pavane (2000) Stephen
DODGSON (born 1924) Concerto
Chacony (2000) 
John Turner (recorder); Keith Elcombe
(harpsichord)a; Royal Ballet
Sinfonia; Gavin Sutherland Recorded:
Sony Music Studios, London, July 2001
ASV WHITE LINE CD WHL 2143 [76:58]
[HC]
Light-hearted,
colourful and tuneful, sometimes with
more than a hint of mild irony. … Hubert
Culot
THIRTEEN
WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD
Music for recorder and
string quartet David
FORSHAW
(b.1938) Thirteen
Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1996)
Leonard BERNSTEIN
(1918 – 1990) Variations on
an Octatonic Scale (1989) Richard
ARNELL (b.1917) Quintet
"The Gambian" Op.107 (1965)
David ELLIS
(b.1933) Elegiac Variations
Op.66 (2001) Robert
SIMPSON (1921 – 1997) Variations
and Fugue (1959) Beth
WISEMAN (b.1951) Dances
on my Grave (2000) Mátyás
SEIBER (1905 – 1960) Pastorale
(1941) Philip
WOOD (b.1972) Concertino
for Recorder & String Quartet
(2000) John Turner (recorders); The
Camerata Ensemble (Richard Howard, Julian
Hanson [violins]; Tom Dunn [viola];
Jonathan Price [cello]) Recorded: ASC
Studios, Macclesfield, December 2000
and May 2001 OLYMPIA OCD 710 [60:40]
[HC][CSS]
One
of those enterprising compilations in
which John Turner’s unrivalled flair
for unearthing rarities or commissioning
new works for his instruments pays high
dividends. [Hubert Culot]
This
disc, opening in a veritable orgy of
bird-song as picturesque as anything
in Messiaen, explores many curious paths.[Colin
Scott-Sutherland]
Hat
Box: Music
for Recorder and Guitar Alan
BULLARD Hat Box Stepan
RAK Arioso ANON
Greensleeves to a Ground
Ernest TOMLINSON
Chadkirk Idyll David
ELLIS Fred's Blue Ginger
Staircase Music Van
EYK Variations on Dowland's
Comagin John
GOLLAND New World Dances:
Three Pieces from the Select Cabinet
John DUARTE
Un Petit Jazz and Un Petit
Bis Peter
HOPE Bramall
Hall Dances 
The Turner/Smith Duo: (John Turner,
recorder, Neil Smith, guitar) Recorded
at Chadkirk Chapel, Romiley and Manchester
University Dept of Music.
CAMPION CAMEO 2020 [67'81"] [CSS]
Infectious
probably describes the music best. …
Colin Scott-Sutherland
RECORDING
OF THE MONTH Celtic
Magic -
Chamber music and songs by Peter Crossley-Holland
and his circle Peter
CROSSLEY-HOLLAND (1916-2001)
The
Nightingales (1945) - Ode to Mananan
(1999) - The Weather the Cuckoo Likes;
The Piper (1945) - Two Songs (1996)
- Lullaby (1943/2001) - Trio (1940)
- Twilight it is (1944)
- John MANDUELL
(b. 1928) "C-H" Recitative and Aria
(2002) - Edmund
RUBBRA (1901-1986) Oboe Sonata
in C, Op. 100 (1958) - Julius
HARRISON (1885-1963) Philomel
(1938); I Know a Bank (1928) - John
IRELAND (1879-1962) The Holy
Boy (1919) - David
COX (1916-1997) The Magical
Island (1996) - Benjamin
BRITTEN (1913-1976) Six Metamorphoses
after Ovid, Op. 49 (1951)
Lesley-Jane Richards, soprano John Turner,
recorder - Richard Simpson, oboe - Keith
Swallow, piano - Richard Howarth, violin
- Tom Dunn, viola - Recorded
at Manchester University Department
of Music, 28th and 29th
August 2002
CAMPION CAMEO 2026 [79.26] [NH]
John
Turner's musical Midas touch pays further
dividends with a disc full of superb
British "byways" … Neil Horner
ANIMAL
HEAVEN
Edward
HARPER
(b.1941) Lights
Out (1993) 1. The Trumpet
2. The Ash Grove 3. The
Wind’s Song 4. Lights Out
Lyell CRESSWELL
(b.1944) Prayer to appease
the Spirit of the Land Kenneth
LEIGHTON (1929-1988) Animal
Heaven (1980) 1. I think
I could turn and live with
animals 2. Here they are
Sally
BEAMISH (b.1956)
Four Findrinny Songs (1998)
1. Short Heraldry 2. Grey
Seal 3. Three Horizons
4. Italia Roger
WILLIAMS (b.1943)
Oh! Mr Lear! (1998) 1. There
was an Old Man in a Tree
2. There was an Old Man of
the Isles 3. A Scottish Lullaby
and Scherzo 4. There was
an Old Man of Dundee
David JOHNSON
(b.1942) God, Man and the
Animals (1983-88)
Alison Wells soprano, John Turner recorder,
Keith Elcombe harpsichord, Jonathan
Price cello. Recorded in the Reid Concert
Hall Edinburgh 6-8 September 1999
METIER MSV CD92036 DDD [61:32] [CT]
Strong,
highly committed performances of works
that deserve to be heard and another
example of Metier’s outstanding commitment
to contemporary British music. ...
Christopher Thomas
