AVAILABILITY
£10.95 from your local retailer or directly
from
Dunelm Records, 2 Park Close, Glossop,
Derbyshire SK13 7RQ
Telephone & Fax: 01457 855313
Web site: www.dunelm-records.co.uk
As a follow up to Diane
Porteous’s earlier
Dunelm CD featuring works by Schumann,
Matthew Taylor and Sibelius she presents
here a most rewarding recital disc of
little known works for the instrument.
The Cello Suite by Richard
Drakeford is an early piece written
while the composer was studying at Oxford
in the late 1950s. Resident in the town
at that time was the brilliant Rohan
de Saram, later to become cellist with
the Arditti Quartet. Drakeford’s work
is serious in tone and explores the
whole range of the cello in a virtuoso
fashion. The musical language might
best be equated with Alan Rawsthorne,
a composer who was certainly in vogue
at the time. The work abounds in expressive
energy and would not be out of place
alongside more well known pieces for
solo cello like the Britten Suites or
the superb series of works by Vainberg.
The performance captures well the changing
moods and often intense character of
the piece.
In John R. Williamson’s
Cello Sonata No. 2, Diane Porteous is
joined by pianist Kathryn Page. Few
modern works for cello and piano of
more recent vintage than those by Shostakovich
and Prokofiev are regularly played.
This is unfortunate as the medium is
rich in expressive potential. This second
sonata by Williamson (he has withdrawn
the first sonata) is a major addition
to the repertoire. The first movement
presents lyrical ideas of a modal nature
that sound like unconscious distant
relatives of those in Rubbra’s 2nd Violin
Sonata. Williamson underpins them with
dissonant harmonies that lend the whole
movement a quality of regret. The dark
mood is continued in the theme and variations
that follows. The theme is again modal
and the variations flow one into the
other; indeed the movement seems to
progress more through organic development
than as a conventional variation set.
Variation 5 is particularly fine – fancifully
perhaps, it seems to evoke, for this
listener, memories of Housman settings
by Butterworth or Graham Peel. The scherzo
finds Williamson quoting from the scherzo
of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. It is impossible
to know what psychological need this
fulfils for the composer but for the
listener it serves to emphasise a lineage
to early 20th century British
masters and to a certain emotional similarity
with works such as Elgar’s concerto.
The quality of lament in the slow movement
of the Rubbra work mentioned earlier
might provide comparison here. Surely
the sense of tragic loss inherent in
some of Housman’s poetry is pertinent
to Williamson, more especially since
the composer has set many of the poet’s
works. The finale finds the composer
attempting a grand summing up which
feels somewhat ironic. Material from
the previous movements intrudes towards
the end, both providing cohesion but
also returning the work to its dark
emotional core. Williamson thus concludes
a work that poses many emotional questions
within a tightly organised compositional
plan. Throughout the sonata the two
instruments are presented as equals
in a continual imitative interplay with
little technical grandstanding. The
performers capture the logic and mood
climate of the work well. They make
a good case for the piece’s inclusion
in the repertoire of all cello/piano
duos.
The Sonata by
Vagn Holmboe, dating from 1969,
features the rich-toned cello of Diane
Porteous alone once more. The four movements
make up a substantial work for the instrument.
The fugare 2nd movement is
particularly exciting with kaleidoscopic
changes of mood. The eerie harmonics
of the 3rd movement make
for a meditative experience whilst the
finale jostles rhythms against one another
in a most pleasing way.
This recording is worth
exploring for its little known repertoire
and committed performances. The Williamson
is something of a find and should now
gain more recognition.
David Hackbridge
Johnson
see also review
by Ian Milnes
Diane Porteous (cello); Kathryn Page (piano) 