Dicky Bird Hop
Paul Guinery (piano)
rec. 20-21 March 2019, St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford
EM RECORDS EMRCD064 [78:31]
The whole is more than the sum of the parts. How many times have we heard this expression used, not always correctly? In the case of Paul Guinery’s new disc of “Light Music Classics” for piano, it is correct, as Guinery gives us a dozen and a half short works for piano from the mid-twentieth century. Almost all of these pieces are noteworthy in one way or another, but taken as whole they form a conceptual piano bench of pieces one might have found in a mid-to-late century home.
Two things are significant about Paul Guinery’s choice of program here. The first is that the majority of the pieces were not originally written for the piano, being arrangements of songs from stage shows, incidental music, ballet, film music,
et al. The second is that Guinery plays each piece with such sympathy as to make them, with one or two exceptions, seem as if they were originally written for the piano. He starts with musical comedy composer Jack Strachey’s
Theatreland, as Guinery points out, a perfect curtain raiser. Strachey’s
In Party Mood, written for the BBC, is even more charming-Gershwin
would have approved. The eponymous Dicky Bird Hop was written by
Russell Gourley as a song for Gracie Fields, and the long-lived Geoffrey
Wright’s Transatlantic was originally sung by Michael Wilding and Gabrielle Brune in the 1938 version of the Gate Review. It is a lovely portrait of Manhattan at dusk. Mention should also be made of the haunting
Centenarian’s Waltz from Sandy Wilson’s Valmouth-a musical tribute to Ronald Firbank.
Noel Coward immediately comes to mind when thinking of the British theatre in the last century. One of his later works was the ballet London Morning, with orchestration by Gordon Jacob. Guinery plays three excerpts from this score, all of them vintage Coward, with a slight edge of satire running throughout. They make one wish for the whole ballet to be recorded. Equally famous is Eric Coates, who was not especially interested in writing for the piano, but who was prevailed upon to write the Three Lyric Pieces of 1930. Guinery here gives us a world premiere of the third piece, a
Valse, which, as the pianist points out, is more substantial than one might expect. A third famous name, and one definitely associated with the piano, is that of Billy Mayerl, known for his brilliant and sophisticated works. However, the piece here, Jill All Alone, is something different, a portrait of Mayerl’s wife that is sad and harmonically cloudy, but as always with Mayerl, totally sincere.
Guinery also provides another compositional trio, albeit a slightly more serious one. Geoffrey Toye is best remembered for his 1934 ballet The Haunted Ballroom, from which weave the well-known
Waltz - this was always a slightly macabre piece, and this element
is well-brought out by Guinery. Benjamin Dale’s Prunella derives from incidental music written for a production in the famous Ruhleben prisoner of war camp and Guinery brings out all the wistfulness of this piece. The three excerpts from Madeline Dring’s Colour Suite forms one of this disc’s highlights-by turns amusing, sad, and jolly, and with a nod to Bach.
The name Richard Addinsell immediately evokes the field of film music, but he wrote in a variety of other forms, including incidental music. From 1950 we have his highly successful music to Jean Anouilh’s Ring Around the Moon,
specifically the wonderful Invitation Waltz, which may remind
Addinsell fans of his later score for the film The Greengage Summer (1962); it certainly is up to the composer’s usual standard. From Addinsell to Hubert Bath is not a big jump and here we have the latter’s famous Cornish Rhapsody, arranged for solo piano. I’ve never been especially fond of the Cornish Rhapsody and Guinery seems to feel the same way - he is less involved here than with the rest of the pieces on the program. Very different is his performance of Bax’s own arrangement of
Oliver’s Sleepless Night from the 1948 film Oliver Twist, where Oliver is represented by the solo piano and the harsh world around him by the orchestra, as director David Lean described it. Thanks to both Bax and Guinery we hardly miss the orchestra. This brings us to the grand finale, Addinsell’s still ubiquitous Warsaw Concerto is the one piece where I really missed the orchestra. Guinery gives it a full-blooded performance, but it needs both piano and orchestra to give it the full 1940’s “concerto movie” quality.
Paul Guinery, in addition to his musical activities [review], is an author [review], radio personality, and occasional newsreader. His love for the varied piano music of seventy years ago is so obvious as to need no amplification, and his pianistic style easily accommodates the wide range of music contained on this program. In addition, Guinery provides two set of comprehensive notes
- one with composer biographies and one detailing the individual pieces of music. Although recorded in St. John the Evangelist Church in Oxford the sonic ambiance completely evokes that mid-twentieth century home we mentioned earlier. This is a release that will find a wide audience and hopefully introduce many listeners to a new aspect of the piano repertoire.
William Kreindler
Previous review: John France
Contents
Jack STRACHEY (1894–1972) Theatreland (March) (1940) [2:54]
Geoffrey TOYE (1889–1942) The Haunted Ballroom (arr. Reginald King (1904-91)) (1934) [5:48]
Ronald GOURLEY (1896–1957) The Dicky Bird Hop (arr. Fred Hartley (1905-80)) (1926) [2:41]
Benjamin DALE (1885–1943) Prunella (Intermezzo) (1916) [3:54]
Noël COWARD (1899–1973) from London Morning (1959), Mazurka [2:51]; Pas De Deux [2:53]; Hornpipe [1:24]
Richard ADDINSELL (1904–1977) Invitation Waltz (1950) [3:32]
Jack STRACHEY In Party Mood (Bonne Compagnie) (1944) [3:06]
Edwin York BOWEN (1884–1961) Three Serious Dances,
Op 51, No 2, Poco lento (1919) [3:32]
Haydn WOOD (1882–1959) Lovelorn (Intermezzo) (1926) [4:01]
Vivian ELLIS (1903–1996) Alpine Pastures (1951) [2:44]
Sandy WILSON (1924–2014) ‘The Centenarians’ Waltz (1958) [3:08]
Hubert BATH (1883–1945) Cornish Rhapsody (1944) [6:34]
Billy MAYERL (1902–1959) Jill all Alone (1955) [4:17]
Madeleine DRING (1923–1977) From Colour Suite: Five Rhythmic Studies (1963), ‘Pink Minor’ [2:00]; ‘Blue Air’ [3:03]; ‘Brown Study’ [1:45]
Eric COATES (1886–1957) from Three Lyric Pieces, (1930),
No 3 Valse (World Première Recording) [2:03]
Sir Arnold BAX (1883–1953) Oliver’s Sleepless Night (1948) [3:04]
Geoffrey WRIGHT (1912–2010) Transatlantic Lullaby (arr. Billy MAYERL) (1940) [3:21]
Richard ADDINSELL Warsaw Concerto (1941) [9:46]
