Romantic accretions have clung to the memory of William
Wallace. His precocious wanderings from Waterford, Scandal in Sydney
(£2,000 debt – bad enough now but this was 1838 - and a deserted wife
and child), voyage to Santiago and wanderings to New Orleans, New York,
return to London and premature death near Paris in 1865. The Wallace
Apocrypha would fill a fair sized volume and would doubtless include
tales of his military action against the Maoris. If there was something
of the Romantic flâneur about Wallace his paradoxical energy
resulted in a sheaf of compositions, few of which have survived him,
but which include most famously Maritana. He also wrote most
gracefully for the piano, at which instrument, as with the violin, he
was adept (his virtuoso braggadocio included giving a concerto on both
instruments in the same concert). But these Celtic Fantasies take their
expected place in the mid century salon style though several are spiced
rather more taxingly for the concert hall and a tough technique. Fantasies,
theatrical Introductions, crypto-operatic paraphrases, Concert Impromptus,
contractions and medleys of popular tunes with modulatory linking passages
were the province of Wallace’s charming pieces. To this end he employed
a veritable battery of pianistic effects including copious broken octave
passages, mini cadenzas, variational form, transcriptive passages and
a range of flourishes, roulades and decorative elements to flesh out
the essentially simple melodies.
The Minstrel Boy has a Grand Fantasie introduction,
swirling with Romantic curlicues before the tune is simply and charmingly
stated balanced by the lighthearted brio of the associated Rory O’More.
The Bard’s Legacy explores some felicitous harmonies in the salon mode
with sensitive filigree treble traceries and pert left hand "fill
in" accompaniment. A Beethovenian gravity announces Coolun – followed
by delicacy and winsomeness; St Patrick’s Day is pleasingly cocksure.
Contrastive variety was a Wallace trademark in these pieces and so the
insistent, decorative charm of The Meeting of the Waters is immediately
contrasted with the rollicking Eveleen’s Bower. The Melodie Irlandaise
is a barcarolle, which muses alluringly full of gorgeous melody. He
subjects The Keel Row to considerable variation but presents Ye Banks
and Braes with touching simplicity albeit one strong on left hand scales
and arpeggios. His grandiloquence appears again in the oratorical introduction
to Charlie is My Darling – a series of, as it were, cavalier technical
devices pushing the piece toward absurdity; Beethovenian fractiousness,
broken octaves, decorative runs. His extensive, circumlocutory and teasing
introductions – a sort of classical salon forerunner of Errol Garner
– reappear in My Love is like a Red, Red Rose. The pattern is thus set
for many of these pieces; theatrical and expectant introductions, pregnant
with flourishes followed by the tune itself which may be then subjected
to increasingly complex technical mutation or variation, a modulated
linking few bars and a generally more relaxed and athletic piece to
cleanse the air. So it is with Kate Kearny and Tow, Row, Row – which
last piece is life affirming and vibrant. Robin Adair, an Impromptu
de Concert was written for Arabella Goddard who was first the pupil
and later the wife of J W Davison, music critic of the Times. It’s touching
to think that Goddard, a RPS Gold Medallist in 1871 and who was once
described as being addicted to Sterndale Bennett’s Concertos – is that
possible? – survived until 1922. This is certainly a testing teaser
– a glittering piece to stretch the technique. Goddard, who customarily
played without music, probably enjoyed the challenge.
To all these challenges and more the talented Rosemary
Tuck is fully equipped. She relishes the demands, is stylistically apt
and full of colour, vivacity and lyricism. How appropriate that in a
pleasing acoustic in the Large Room at City Hall one of Waterford’s
most quixotic, far travelled, and talented sons has come home at last.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review by Raymond
Walker
