***** 5 Stars Musical Opinion June 2010
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. The disc is particularly valuable for including two premiere recordings – of the Alan Rawsthorne First Piano Concerto in the original 1939 version for strings and percussion and Frederic Austin’s Concertino in G minor from 1944. The Rawsthorne is better known in the later version for full orchestra, but it is particularly valuable to have this first recording of the original orchestral accompaniment. The solo part, of course, remains unchanged, as does the high technical demands Rawsthorne places upon his pianist. Mark Bebbington seemingly sails through its problems with consummate ease, brilliantly partnered by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Howard Williams.
Of equal interest is the first recording of the Frederic Austin Concertino, about which – as the composer’s grandson, Martin Lee-Browne, explains in his informative notes on the work – almost nothing is known regarding the circumstances of its composition, barring the date ‘Aug-Dec 1944′ on the manuscript, every page of which is stamped ‘Ealing Film Studios – Music Dept.’ This naturally leads one to conjecture that the work was either written for, or grew out of a score planned for, a war-time movie which was never made. Lee-Browne also suggests that the work may well have been commissioned by Ernest Irving, the music head of the Studios. Whatever the circumstances, it does not sound like ‘film music’ for it is a little under 13 minutes, and one should not imagine that this is a light-weight work; what is particularly impressive is the amount of very serious music that Austin packs into his short time-frame. In its way, this is a remarkably original and compelling score, which receives a quite brilliant performance.
Howard Ferguson’s Piano Concerto was written for the 1951 Festival of Britain; it was first performed that year with the composer as soloist, and Dame Myra Hess (a long-time champion of Ferguson’s music) gave the American premiere with the New York Philharmonic under Efrem Kurtz – but despite such illustrious performers the work failed to gain much of a foothold either in Britain or the USA. It suffers from being too well well-written for the piano and beautifully orchestrated in a language that would offend no-one other than the die-hard hater of the status quo – for Ferguson’s greatest quality was his ability to write attractive and original music in the accepted forms and what one might term the ‘mainstream’ modes of expression. Consequently, his music (of which there is, sadly, very little) has tended to be overlooked and we must be grateful for SOMM and their gifted artists for rescuing this beautiful work and for performing and recording it so well. If Ferguson’s three-movement 26′ Concerto is well worth attention, then Gerald Finzi’s Eclogue – also for piano and strings – falls into the same category. This work, around 10-11 minutes in duration is more well-known for it has received a number of excellent recordings since its posthumous premiere in 1957 (Finzi had died unexpectedly aged 55 the year before ). Like Ferguson, Finzi wrote relatively little, but it was always of high quality and naturally formed part of the English musical heritage, free from any continental influence. This beautiful piece was originally intended as the slow movement of a piano concerto, which was never completed, but it is perfectly suited to be performed separately as an individual concert item. Bebbington delivers a notably contemplative account of this haunting work and the strings of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra are very fine under Howard Williams’s most sympathetic direction.
All in all, this is a highly desirable and strongly recommended disc, with excellent booklet notes by Bruce Phillips and Lee-Browne.
