British Works for Cello & Piano

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm having a welcome attack of the raptures over a fairly recent Chandos disc, that unless a thread has escaped me has not received any comment on the forum - what is announced as "Volume 1 of British Works for Cello and Piano", and performed by Paul and Huw Watkins (lots of possible interest here for a geneticist!).

The works are Parry's earlyish Cello Sonata in A major (1879-80; revised 1883), Delius's Cello Sonata (1916), a little piece, Hamabdil (Hebrew Melody), by Bantock (1919), and John Fould's Cello Sonata Op. 6 (1905; revised 1927). One comment - although a comment purely about my own shelves and not about the world - is that all these works were unknown to me and, as far as I know (but I'm bound to be wrong!) have not received previous recordings. I wonder what might lie in store with an eventual Volume 2?

The Parry, in my view, is an absolute masterpiece without qualification. By chance I just happen to be reading Jeremy Dibble's book, and have reached Ch 7 which, among other things, deals with the first performances of the Cello Sonata, String Quartet in G, the Piano Concerto, and then Prometheus Unbound (gosh, what a project that would be for Chandos if someone could stump up the money!) Dibble narrates Parry's initial lack of satisfaction with the Cello Sonata. After a run-through he wrote "First two movements were satisfactory (but) the last would not go at all, and was as rough as a hedgehog. Consequently I came away feeling miserable."

Parry revised the work for its publication in 1883, but seemed to remain unhappy. For after a performance in 1885 he's grumbling "...it all sprawls about and is too long and indefinite".

Not for me to make comment on Parry's own judgements - but I think he's hugely wrong! I found the whole Sonata ..... well, magnificent. The second movement is one of those things where you scarce draw breath.

Maybe enthusiasm carries me away? But imagine some bizarre scenario presents itself where you're in a leaky boat with the scores of Parry's sonata and the Opp. 38 and 99 Brahms sonatas, and one score must be used to plug the hole and enable you to reach dry land. Perhaps, for me, the two Brahms' sonatas would survive - but only just, and it would be a close thing. I consider the Parry that good, and it is astonishing that the two Brahms are regularly played and have countless recordings, whereas (I believe) this is the first recording of the Parry. (It is also interesting that the Parry sonata, whilst in the same league as Brahms, is utterly unlike Brahms in terms of either structure or musical language).

Am I out on a limb here, or do others know the work and respond to it in the same way?

I have fewer raptures with the Delius sonata. Delius is not quite my thing. Lyrical, yes. But I begin to twitch when Delius's endless melodic raptures become, yes, quite unending. In this sonata it is the cello that seems to do all the work, with the piano merely accompanying, and there's little sense of dialogue between the two instruments. After all the best chamber music is a conversation between players - but here the piano merely nods in approval at the cello.

A nice little piece by Bantock, and again I haven't previously encountered it. It derives from an entr'acte that he wrote for Arnold Bennett's play 'Judith' in 1919 (and there was I who would never guess that Bantock and Bennett once collaborated).

And after all that, I still haven't tackled the Foulds sonata.

And to end a (characteristically far too long - apologies!) post with one claim that I'm still mulling over. The excellent notes by Calum MacDonald with the Chandos release contain the claim: "The start of the era of the 'British Musical Renaissance' is conventionally held to have begun with the premiere at the Gloucester Festival in 1880 of (Parry's) dramatic cantata 'Scenes from Prometheus Unbound'". 'Conventionally'? Who says? Plausible? I don't dispute the claim, but am rather 'agnostic' about it. Should this judgment, delivered in a somewhat matter of fact way, be accepted?

[Martin Eastick]

The Parry sonata did appear a few years ago on a Dutton release played by Andrew Fuller and Michael Dussek - this was coupled with the Hurlstone sonata and two shorter Harty pieces. Although I have not listened to this for some time, it was the Parry that made most impression and this has prompted me to revisit it! I do not kn ow how the new Chandos version will compare, but I might consider this new recording if someone gives it a thumbs up against the older perfromance!

Yes, I do hope that Chandos will follow this up with further volumes - not necessarily looking more to the 20th century but perhaps looking at earlier works that have yet to be recorded. I was thinking particularly about Charles Edward Horsley's Op3 cello sonata, which dates from the early 1840's, and Sterndale Bennett's Duo Sonata is long overdue a first-rate outing in the recording studio. And there are others!.........

How about it, Chandos?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Thanks, Martin, for drawing my attention to the Dutton disc. I can't think how it slipped under my own net, for at the time of its release I was busily buying all those wonderful Dutton discs of late 19th and early 20th century British chamber music. I've now got that awful feeling I'm about to buy yet another CD, viz this Dutton one so that I can compare the two versions of Parry's splendid sonata. This, of course, is the great disadvantage of this site: you readily become aware of things that previously you didn't know you wanted!

[Richergar]

Thank you both so much for this reminder. I thought I might have that disc but I don't, but have found a very similar one on Dutton played by Joseph Spooner and with Michael Jones and Kathryn Mosley as pianists performing a sonata by Wlater Macfarren, Michael Balfe (a special favorite for opera), Rosalind Ellicott, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Roger Quilter and Bainton, and a companion disc (not really in the literal sense) on Marco Polo, with Wallfisch and York, doing Rubbra, Moeran and Ireland. The former is a bit of a curate's egg and the performances are good but a  bit generic, which is not unexpected. I recall the Wallfisch as better played but the music is not quite as much as I'd hope from those particular composers.

[eschiss1]

I have heard the Spooner disc and have the Wallfisch/York disc on Marco Polo (have had for several years now, a over a decade I think, since being accidentally sent a book and deciding I must hear Moeran's cello sonata, I think the sequence did go...- was already a Rubbra fan (but yes, don't like that work as much as I'd hoped considering that the 1950s Groves finds it the best of his chamber works to that date) - the Moeran, though, I really do enjoy. Haven't compared it with other performances, though. (Even when I had an early LP of it in front of me at a library where I was for a summer sometime around- 1992? I think?-  I listened to the (I think premiere recording of the) cello concerto, also on the LP, instead.)