AVAILABILITY
www.symposiumrecords.co.uk
The bulk of this disc
derives from a Unicorn LP (RHS355) issued
in 1979. It’s been rounded out with
a number of historic recordings – film
and ballet scores and culminating in
some examples of Berners’ pianism in
rare recordings from c.1946. The LP
was a highly successful in evoking the
memories of a celebratory Berners concert
on the South Bank and more importantly
in spanning the broad sweep of his small
but important body of work.
He is here in all his
irresistible variety, from the delicious
opening Polka and the caustic wit of
Meriel Dickinson’s delivery of the second
of his German songs to the Chinoiserie
of the opening piano paragraphs of the
third and last of them. His tough, modernistic
streak can best be savoured in the first
of his Fragments Psychologiques settings
and the onomatopoeic laughter of the
second whilst his vocal settings range
from frivolous to nebulous to impressionistic
and his solo piano works – such as Le
Poisson d’Or - evoke Ravelian hints.
Red Roses and Red Noses, one of his
more famous pieces, has in this performance
a touching and affectionate lilt that
shows another side to Berners’ gift.
The fact that it is here immediately
followed by the 1916 Trois Petites Marches
Funèbres is not simply a juxtaposition
the composer might himself have approved
– it shows rather more the quicksilver
faces that he showed to the world; the
first of the Marches evokes the fatuous
pomp of the Statesman’s funeral, the
third the barely suppressed glee and
insouciant whistling of For A Rich Aunt,
whilst the greatest weight is reserved
for the central March, inevitably perhaps
For A Canary.
Berners always attracts
the words satiric and frivolous, adjectives
I’ve not avoided either, but confronted
by the deconstructionist aesthetic that
informs the last of the Valses Bourgeoises
(1919) it’s hard to avoid. This, marked
Strauss, Strauss et Straus waltzes
the waltz into the immediate post War
sunset. As he rather does to the Nauticalia
so beloved by the British – in the Three
Sea Shanties they are taken for a very
long walk and dropped off the end of
the pier. Come On Algernon is a song
Berners wrote for the film Champagne
Charlie (1944). I loved the song
before I ever realised who had written
it. And now that I’ve listened to it
again and the suggestive Music Hall
lyrics I can only echo the Max Miller
line – Go on, make something of that.
The historical material shows that
Berners was a first class film composer
– Nicholas Nickleby has flair, colour
and vivacity, whilst his ballet score
Les Sirènes has an especially
ebullient Waltz (shades of Strauss no
less). It’s a shame that the cues aren’t
separately tracked in the film and ballet
music. Finally whilst the privately
recorded piano pieces are somewhat bumpy
rides sonically and the playing is pretty
ropey technically we can enjoy the sound
of Berners humming his way through Les
Sirènes.
The notes are by Gavin
Bryars and Philip Lane and are full
of treasurable insight and admiring
intelligence. All the performances are
fine, the recorded sound sympathetic
and the ethos of the disc warmly but
professionally generous.
Jonathan Woolf
Lord Berners (piano) 
