British Chamber Music

[albion]

Some interesting imminent releases -



EM RECORDS EMRCD005

NORMAN O'NEILL Chamber Works for Strings and Piano

STRING QUARTET IN C MAJOR
PIANO TRIO IN ONE MOVEMENT OP.32
PIANO QUINTET IN E MINOR
THEME AND VARIATIONS FOR PIANO TRIO ON THE POPULAR SONG 'POLLY OLIVER'

THE BRIDGE QUARTET (Colin Twigg, Catherine Schofield, violins; Michael Schofield, viola; Lucy Wilding, cello)/ Michael Dussek, piano



EM RECORDS EMRCD006

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872–1958) - SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN A MINOR
GUSTAV HOLST (1874–1934) - FIVE PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO
SIR HENRY WALFORD DAVIES (1869–1941) - SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN E-FLAT MAJOR

Rupert Marshall-Luck, Violin/ Matthew Rickard, Piano



NAXOS 8572761

Edgar BAINTON (1880-1956) - Sonata for Viola and Piano
Theodore HOLLAND (1878-1947) - Suite in D for Viola and Piano
York BOWEN (1884-1961) - Piece for Viola
Granville BANTOCK (1868-1946) - Viola Sonata in F major, Colleen

Sarah-Jane Bradley, viola / Christian Wilson, piano

[Jimfin]

Oh lovely! Particularly good to see some O'Neill, a very rarely heard composer.

[Alan Howe]

What sort of idiom did O'Neill write in?

[albion]

The idiom? Nothing that would frighten the horses. With his chief preoccupation writing for the popular theatre, O'Neill was very much a melodist first and foremost, but in the refined fashion of Roger Quilter. You can hear some of his orchestral works in the archive - the Overtures, In Autumn, Op.8 (1901) and In Springtime, Op.21 (1905-6) are roughly contemporary with the music on this new chamber disc.

A bit more information on the repertoire -

Theme and Variations for Piano Trio on the Popular Song Polly Oliver, Op.1 (1895)
Piano Quintet in E minor, Op.10 (1902-03)
Piano Trio in F, Op.32 (1909)

the 'String Quartet in C' is an amalgamation of -

Two Movements for String Quartet and the
Scherzo, Op.52 (1909)

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, John. Pity: I thought he might frighten the horses a little more than that...

[Jimfin]

No, I imagine the horses will be fine. There are a couple of bits of incidental music of his on a Dutton CD "British Composers Conduct", a genre which he wrote extensively in, and it's all very sweet and pretty. I've always been a bit interested in him as a member of the 'Frankfurt Gang', with Grainger, Scott, Quilter and Balfour Gardiner, and he managed to get included in Michael Trend's survey of the English musical renaissance 'The Music Makers'. He is also yet another composer who managed to die in 1934, along with Elgar, Delius and Holst.

[Alan Howe]

I now have the Naxos collection of viola & piano works by Bainton, Holland, Bowen and Bantock. Thoroughly enjoying the Bantock - although I think it's rather too rhapsodic for its own good. Still, gorgeous it certainly is. And at Naxos' price who's complaining?