Catherine Wilmers cello
Jill Morton piano
DIVINE ART DDX 21134
Whilst listening to the middle movement, a set of variations in the 1899 Cello Sonata by Amy Horrocks (d.1919) I found myself asking, why don’t we know this music? The whirlwind finale is also captivating as is its romantic and lyrical second subject. Although, certainly of its time, it is such a fine work. It quite rightly comes first on this well-filled disc (81 minutes) and it is the longest work included.
There are nine other composers represented, some of which will be new to you, like Peggy Spencer Palmer with her unrelated but well contrasted Three Pieces, but I must turn to the ones which particularly captured my imagination.
Ethel Barns was fortunate in that she had the support of her husband, and the first of her three pieces recorded her L’Escarolette (Swing Song) was well known. The second, Idylle was also highly regarded. The third, Capricieuse, has only recently been discovered. In fairness this is salon music, but none the worse for that.
Elizabeth Poston (d.1987) was a Francophile and Wilmers and Morton offer us three pieces based on French melodies. First is the popular 16th Century Mignone allons voir si la rose. Poston has about 300 works to her name, and the more one hears her music, the more one is delighted and pleased. Gradually, as from a chrysalis, she emerges.
There are some very short pieces here like the otherwise unknown Alice Verne Bredt’s heartfelt Wiegenlied, but it is Susan Spain-Dunk’s Winter Song of 1936 which, being ’strong and powerful’ as the liner notes remark, stands out. She was much lauded in her day, and even conducted her own orchestral works at the London Proms. Look out for her music elsewhere.
The performers are photographed along with Sarah Rodgers, presumably taken at the recording session for her Mountain Airs. This Suite of four movements recalls a different time of day in the Sierre Navada mountains, beginning with the excitement of ‘Alba’. For myself, I cannot quite see how the musical material for movement 2 Apoteosis allows us to feel the ‘noon-day heat’, or of the next movement Crepsucolo, dusk. The finale Fiesta certainly summons up an Iberian feeling, the music having been inspired by the High Alpujarra.
There are moments when I do not especially like Wilmers’ tone quality, and the recording might appear a little ‘boxy’ at times, but she is ideally supported by Morton, and these are committed performances, so go and search for this enterprising and very enjoyable disc.
Review by Gary Higginson