MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
AmazonUK AmazonUS


Richard Rodney BENNETT (b. 1936)
Complete works for piano and orchestra
Piano Concerto (1968) [25:00]
Dream Dancing (1986) [15:35]
Reflections on a Theme of William Walton (1985) [16:25]
Party Piece (1971) [8:44]
Martin Jones (piano)
RTE National Symphony Orchestra/David Angus
rec. National Concert Hall, Dublin, 2008?
METRONOME METCD1071 [65:33]
Experience Classicsonline


Metronome has been around since 1992. Its furrow has been shaped and directed under the imaginative hand of Tim Smithies. Their stable of recordings includes contemporary classical, early music and a measure drawn from the standard classical repertoire. The most attractive portion of their work lies in the championing of living composers. This includes music by William Mathias, Piers Hellawell, Adrian Williams, Harrison Birtwistle, Salvatore Sciarrino and, as here, Richard Rodney Bennett. Quietly and confidently they have been recording Bennett’s music for piano and this is the third volume although the fourth disc.
 

The Piano Concerto, of which this is the second recording, was a 1968 Feeney commission from the CBSO. It was premiered in September that year by the unsung but superb Hugo Rignold whose reputation rests securely on his Lyrita CBSO recording of the Bliss Music for Strings and Blow Meditations. Stephen Bishop (now Kovacevich) was the soloist threading his way through the lapidary tendrils of this work. The Concerto is a work emblematic of Bennett in its luxuriant delicate-dissonant profusion and of the metropolitan 1960s compositional style. The original recording of the Bennett is on Lyrita (see review) but it is not suited to a disc-by-disc comparison as the couplings are quite different and in the case of the Lyrita less generous in timing. The Lyrita is bound to retain a special historic authority and is extremely well recorded; as is this Metronome version. 

Dream Dancing dates from 1986. It is a work from his New York years and is scored for an orchestra of thirteen players. The London Sinfonietta commissioned it for RRB's fiftieth birthday. It is in two movements which resonate with the glint of the harpsichord amid an essentially Ravel-like impressionistic web. 

The Walton Reflections are from 1985 and again from New York. The Reflections are dedicated to Walton's memory and use the 12 tone theme from the finale of Walton's much deprecated Second Symphony. It is for 11 strings and piano and was commissioned by the Guildhall Ensemble. It is dedicated to Walton's memory. He had died in 1983. It is dignified and at times redolent of Rawsthorne. 

The little Party Piece is a lighter effusion for piano and orchestra. It's in his most approachable idiom. There are dashes of Copland in more demonstrative mode as well as an infusion of bluesy Gershwin at others. It was commissioned and premiered by that ferment of musical activity the Farnham Festival to which orchestras - often youth ensembles - gravitated in and around Surrey. It's a fun piece which now we can all enjoy. 

This seventieth birthday offering for Bennett includes his completed published music for piano and orchestra and is a sequel to two other Metronome volumes. There's MET CD 1068/69 a 2CD set of volumes 1 and 2 of the solo piano music (Martin Jones) and MET CD 1070: piano duos and duets (Martin Jones and Richard McMahon). Regrettably neither has been submitted for review as far as I can see although we really should be covering them. 

I see that in addition to the quietly effective Holst Foundation this disc has had funding from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts. A single swallow but this gives me a grain of renewed faith in QUANGOs and government support for the arts in England. Well done! More please.
 
Rob Barnett 

Richard Rodney Bennett - Complete Works for Solo Piano on Metronome
CD 1: Noctuary; Impromptu (Haydn); Tango; 3 Romantic Pieces; Impromptu; Excursions; Memento (Dutilleux); Eustace & Hilda
CD 2: Sonata; Fantasie; Studies; Scena 1; Diversions; Week of Birthdays; Seven Days of the Week; Taking a Line for a Walk; Partridge Pie
Special Price 2 CDs for the price of 1 MET CD 1068/1069


 

 
 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.