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“Frank Bridge, teacher of Benjamin Britten….Yes, that was all he was known as for decades : but as a composer he moved far more forward than his basically inhibited, almost prissy student (for all I love his music) ever dared.
The third volume in Mark Bebbington’s deft, elegant and probing exploration of Bridge’s music for piano is so revealing, redolent of how much Bridge was au fait with what was going on in Europe (no wonder the closeted English establishment were so suspicious of him ).
We hear in on this warmly recorded release Bridge’s teetering on the verge of Schoenbergian and Bergian atonality, right from the opening of Sunset from the Three Poems.
Later we find links with the French school and Chopin, Rachmaninov and even Scriabin.
And the final track, Gargoyle, would fool anyone in a quiz question.”
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post, July 2011
5***** Review August BBC Music Magazine
“This concluding instalment in Mark Bebbington’s exemplary survey of Frank Bridge’s solo piano music lacks a single big unifying work, like the Sonata or the Dramatic Fantasia in the previous two volumes. But it spans the whole length of his keyboard-writing career from early light-music miniatures, such as the charming pensee fugitive and Scherzettino written while he was still a student of Stanford at the Royal College of Music, to the radical late works from the 1920s. In these especially – as also in the Three Improvisations for the left hand, written in 1918 for Douglas Fox, who had lost his right hand on the battlefields of Flanders – we can appreciate Bridge’s restless, questing imagination and his assimilation of continental influences. His last piece, Gargoyle, may remind us of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, just as the simmering toccata Hidden Fires recalls Scriabin’s Vers la flamme , and it’s clear throughout that Bridge was absorbing Debussy, yet the results are wholly personal.
Bebbington brings out the opalescent harmonies and wayward phrases of these pieces to perfection, and deftly characterises the various songsters in The Hedgerow. Perhaps the expressive high-points of the disc are the desolate Winter Pastoral of 1925 and the enigmatic A Dedication of the following year; Bridge at his most mystical and inward, very difficult to bring off, but performed here with rapt attentiveness and beauty of tone that reveals the expressive impact of these works. the recording is beautifully balanced, matching the sensitivity and sympathy of Bebbington’s playing. What a series this has been. Despite the real excellence of competing cycles from Peter Jacobs (Continuum) and Ashley Wass (Naxos), this is ultimately the one to have.
Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine August 2011
Performance 5*****
Recording 5*****
Andrew Clements *** Guardian, June 2011
“There are no substantial pieces in the third volume of Mark Bebbington’s survey of Frank Bridge’s piano music – the longest piece included ( the first of the Three Improvisations for Left Hand) lasts just six minutes, and the average length is much nearer three. Yet even within such a collection of miniatures and occasional pieces, which ranges right across Bridge’s composing career, there is still enough to show what a remarkable and , in the context of early -20th-century British music, unique figure he was. The shifting impressionist harmonies of Sunset, the first of Three Poems could have come from a solo by Bill Evans, for instance, while the expressionist Gargoyle, composed in 1928 but rejected at the time by Bridge’s publisher and only published half a century later, is as harmonically freewheeling as anything he ever wrote. Bebbington plays these and other radical pieces, such as the mysterious Dedication, with the same poise and clarity he brings to the more obviously Edwardian salon music here.”
“Mark Bebbington’s advocacy of neglected British piano music, notably in a series of John Ireland CDs, has been universally praised, so his choice of Ireland’s London Pieces to kick-start the Hagley Music Festival came as no surprise.”
Birmingham Post, 13 May 2011
Read rest of Birmingham post review »
LONDON RECITAL ROUNDUP
St. John’s, Smith Square recital, 2nd December, 2010
View Classical Source review »
Wigmore Hall 29th September, 2010
“The unique selling point of Mark Bebbington’s recital – in which he also dealt magisterially with sonatas by Haydn and Schubert – was a newly-discovered Rhapsody by John Ireland, and though this 1906 work, with its startling pre-echoes of Debussy and Ravel, is no masterpiece, it was a fascinating musicological trouvaille.”
Michael Church, International Piano Magazine Nov/Dec 2010
Read the Independent’s 4**** review from October 1st Independent’s 4**** Review
“The always-enterprising SOMM label has placed much faith in the highly gifted young pianist Mark Bebbington, whose discography on that label seems to grow by the month. One of the most interesting of his recent releases on Somm has been four British works for piano and orchestra, which in repertoire terms go together extremely well… Mark Bebbington seemingly sails through its problems with consummate ease, brilliantly partnered by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Howard Williams…
All in all, this is a highly desirable and strongly recommended disc.”
Read more… »
5***** Musical Opinion, June 2010
View first review », View second review »
Fanfare Magazine, March 2010
Birmingham Post, January 2010
View CD review » (PDF 1MB)
Muso October/November 2009
Classica Magazine, October 2009
View CD review » (PDF 1MB)
CFM Magazine October 2009
View magazine article Meeting the artists as they record – Mark Bebbington, Pianist » (PDF 3MB)
BBC Music Magazine September 2009
View magazine article Bax In Birmingham » (PDF 2MB)
Gramophone September 2009
“…that fine British pianist and enthusiast for British music, Mark Bebbington, performed the solo part in Bax’s Piano Concertino. The piano part is full of strenuously triumphant melodies in the proper Lisztian manner and Bebbington played the grand moments with an appropriate swagger, whilst cherishing the rare moments of delicacy…”
International Piano July/August 2009
View magazine article Settling the Score » (PDF, 5MB)
Musical Opinion July/August 2009
View magazine article Restoring Bax’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra of 1939 » (PDF 3MB)
Classic FM, July 8th 2009
The Orchestra of the Swan based in Stratford are the conjurors of the orchestral world. They’ve just premiered a piece written nearly seventy years ago by Arnold Bax. Conductor David Curtis and Pianist Mark Bebbington explain the trick. Listen to this Classic FM podcast…
Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph, July 8th 2009
“…Bebbington gave a poised account of the demanding virtuoso solo part…..the sweep of the music recalls, among others, Strauss and Sibelius.”
Rian Evans, Guardian, July 6th 2009
Bax’s big-boned piano work well worth the 70-year wait
“Despite its title, this is a big-boned, full-length, virtuoso piano concerto. Soloist Mark Bebbington had great command, not only of the muscular demands of the virtuoso writing, but also of the complex harmonic directions…”
Birmingham Post, 8th July 2009
“…there was excitement in the air as Mark Bebbington sat down to play the Concertino for Piano and Orchestra by Sir Arnold Bax, not least because of the presence of a film crew recording the event….Bebbington displayed tremendous virtuosity and deft fingerwork throughout…the Concertino is full of very fine music and the forthcoming CD of it should gain it a much wider audience.”
Musicweb, 7th July 2009
“Soprano Patricia Rozario and pianist Mark Bebbington, their collaboration rewarding, natural and easy, responded with an intelligence and empathy which informed all their performances…Bebbington’s accompaniments were always deft and thoughtfully characterised.”
Birmingham Post 4****, July 2008
“…the beautifully controlled pianism of Mark Bebbington….equally absorbing, Rozario and Bebbington both nuancing the words and musical pacing with great sensitivity.”
Birmingham Post 4****, October 2007
“….Mark Bebbington, intellektuell-introvertierter “Novize” bei den Husumer Raritaten, nahm sich mit Noblesse der “Neapolitanischen Rhapsodie” des Italieners Castelnuovo-Tedescos an und gab der Suite Leichtigkeit und wirbelndes Feuer. Massiver sein Zugang zu Elgars komplexer Symphonie No. 1:die mit Hochstschwierigkeiten gespickte Klaviertranskription Karg-Elerts nutzte der britische Virtuose zu Strukturierung, Klangballungen und Dramatik.”
International Piano Rarities Festival, Husum, Germany, Schleswiger Nachrichten, August 2007
“…..a stunning performance.”
Birmingham Post, May 2007 5*****, Bromsgrove Festival
“….there are fewer artists poised to make a bigger international impact than the pianist Mark Bebbington.”
Classicalsource, December 2006
“…performances which were simply astounding edifices of cumulative power delivered with phenomenal drive and weight… ” *****
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post, 12 July 2006 (Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage – Italie, Warwick Festival, 7 July 2006)
“ … few [pianists] have sought out finer expressive shadings that make this ‘Fantasia quasi Sonata’ among the most resourceful as well as immediate works of Liszt’s maturity. … as cohesive and satisfying an account as one is likely to hear…”
Richard Whitehouse, www.classicalsource.com July 2006 (Recital, Wigmore Hall, London, 23 June 2006)
“Between the symphonies came the autumnal last Piano Concerto, no.27 in B-flat major, with soloist Mark Bebbington having the measure of the music’s enigmatic simplicity (so difficult to convey), his perfectly-weighted pianism always acutely aware of his orchestral collaborators in an authentically chamber-music manner.”
Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post, 24 April 2006 (London Mozart Players, Douglas Boyd, Bromsgrove Festival, 22 April 2006)
“A recital from Mark Bebbington is about more than “just” awesome technique. He brings a finely judged sense of effect and timing, with a command of body-language which serves his desire for communication with the utmost integrity: a flourish at the end of spectacular passage-work, a hunched pause as the music broods, these and many other images intensify the effect of his readings.”
The Birmingham Post, 13 August 2005 (Recital, Three Choirs Festival, Worcester, 11 August 2005)
“… an Andante [Schubert's Sonata in Bb D960] whose distilling of expressive clarity out of tonal ambiguity proved both limpidly and movingly achieved. … The premiere of Tom Ingoldsby’s Second Sonata proved a delight; its six minutes a succession of capricious variants on the sprightly opening gesture – given with a scrupulous attendance to phrasing and continuity.”
Richard Whitehouse, www.classicalsource.com (Recital, St John’s Smith Square, London, 1 June 2005)
“A perfectly poised and reflective account of Schubert’s B flat major Sonata … where Bebbington’s sensitivity to the harmonic current was acute, not to mention his ability at sustaining the momentum and line of this long work. Bebbington … can turn inward to explore a worthy moment or a phrase, as he did again and again in this Sonata’s daring transitional sections, and elsewhere explode with a surge of extrovert energy and brilliance onto his instrument, as in the final Beethovenian Allegro.”
Manus Carey, Musical Opinion, July-August 2005
“It would be hard to imagine better performances than Bebbington’s of these. Phenomenally proficient, he proved his mettle in the recital’s first half with his vital, crisp handling of Debussy Preludes. Krystian Zimerman, with Uchida the doyen of Debussy interpreters, would have patted him on the back for such spot-on-the-mark readings…”
Roderic Dunnett The Independent, 11 February 2005 (Recital, Huntingdon Hall, Worcester, 8 February 2005)
“… the World Premiere, no less, of Cecil Coles’ Piano Concerto, a two movement work written in 1905 when the composer was 17. … It is a powerful and somewhat original score in structural terms, the two movements lasting about 35 minutes, with a genuine virtuoso part which was brilliantly and sensitively played by the fearless Mark Bebbington.”
Robert Matthew-Walker Musical Opinion November/December 2004 (Cecil Coles Piano Concerto, Docklands Sinfonietta, 16 October 2004)
“The piano part is very demanding, but Mark Bebbington, a very accomplished pianist, gave a virtuoso performance and he also entered into the spirit of the music very much in the way Alan Bush would have approved.”
Robert Matthew-Walker Musical Opinion November/December 2004 (Alan Bush Variations, Nocturne and Finale on an Old Sea-Song, St John’s Smith Square, 13 September 2003)
“this series … amply confirms Bebbington as among the most perceptive British pianists of his generation”
www.classicalsource.com September 2004 (British Piano Sonata 2, St John’s Smith Square, London, 23 September 2004)
“A connoisseur’s programme … quite out of the ordinary, not merely in choice of music but in accomplishment of performance. Karg-Elert’s monumental transcription of Elgar’s First Symphony … demands a comprehensive virtuoso technique as well as a clear musical intelligence, qualities Mark Bebbington possesses in full. This was a tremendous performance … ”
Musical Opinion November/December 2004
“Taken overall, an absorbing and wide-ranging evening – drawn together by the technical command and interpretative insight invested in every piece.”
