John McCabe

[eschiss1]

died on February 13th, aged 75.
I think he contributed very very well as a pianist (and based on the little I myself have heard, as a composer too).

[Alan Howe]

Let's concentrate on his work as a pianist here since his music lies well outside our remit. Did he do anything for neglected music?

[eschiss1]

He played the piano part in Hans Gál's clarinet sonata on BBC (1990)... can probably find more (let's see- BBC broadcast of a John Field nocturne, too... - actually, he recorded some sonatas by Pinto etc. for BBC also; we had those in the download section at one point... (late Classical/early Romantic- neglected, but not quite in our temporal orbit- still, to push him out _quite_ entirely because his areas of musical interest miss our window in that regard, seems nitpicking...) Still, I won't doubt that he seems to have been rather better known (if CADENSA is any guide at all) for his performances of Bax (the violin sonatas, e.g.), Fricker, Carl Nielsen (an LP recording of Nielsen's piano music, among other things), Ireland, Lees, etc. on the one hand, and Eccles, Haydn, Clementi, the mid-to-late Classicals, on the other, than for anyone unsung & Romantic that I can tell.

[Alan Howe]

That's rather what I thought...

[eschiss1]

I wonder if some of that Bax has been commercially released - that Erich Gruenberg/John McCabe performance of one of the violin sonatas sounds like something to hear (the first sonata, even in its 1940s revision, seems a very Romantic work to me. I don't know the 2nd sonata or piano quartet, also recorded by him, so well, likewise Ireland's piano trios. (I'm guessing his LPs of Nielsen's piano music may have been one of the earlier such things available outside Denmark, but I may be mistaken- ah, let's see. Released 1975 or so on Ace of Diamonds; also on Pye, some works in 1969 according to discography. (Ah, he did record the Gál commercially, on a Continuum CD in 1991. He also recorded Stanford's clarinet and 2nd cello sonatas for ASV and Continuum- perhaps no longer unsung (now...))

[eschiss1]

Oh, of course the Bax has been released. The violin sonatas 1&2 disc on Chandos (Gruenberg/McCabe) was maybe among my first exposures to his chamber music, back in college... I'd forgotten...