Twentieth Century British Piano Music
Peter Jacobs piano
HERITAGE HTGCD 127
This is just the sort of release that the Heritage label was set up to discover. In his booklet notes Peter Jacobs writes that it is a recording of a recital he gave in 1979 of pieces by composers associated in some way with Havergal Brian. The curiosity is that when the tape re-emerged all of the music was preserved except for the Brian works. Nevertheless, we are left with a fascinating combination of composers, and with a disc which, at sixty-seven minutes, is a perfect length.
It also acts as a tribute to Jacobs who has been a teacher, examiner and a great supporter of British music. His astonishing technique and ability to learn so much new music, and often at some speed, made him the go-to pianist by many of the contemporary composers. In all he has recorded 25 CDs.
Interestingly, the piano pieces by the composers represented here are, on the whole, not found elsewhere. Bantock, who knew Brian, is represented by Two Excerpts from his huge Oratorio Omar Khayam, fascinating in its piano reduction- but orchestral in scope. From Malcolm MacDonald – whose two volumes analysing the 32 Symphonies of Brian are of vital interest, we hear his powerfully impressionist Waste of Seas using, one feels, every note on the piano. Harold Truscott, whose complex Piano Sonatas were also championed by Jacobs, is represented by, surprisingly perhaps, two Preludes and Fugues.
One’s main attention however will be drawn to the longest work, at twenty minutes, Robert Simpson’s Variations and Finale on a theme of Haydn. Some of you will know that the composer’s vast 9th Quartet is also based on a movement from a Haydn quartet, and in both works the theme is palindromic. In Simpson’s compositional ‘tour de force’ all of the variations are also palindromic, whilst the finale offers the listener a virtuosic display of brilliance and fireworks. It was composed at the hight of the composer’s powers in the late 1970s.
Other composers represented are Walter Allum (d.1986) with a Nocturne and a brief Prelude No. 24, both rather too much echt-Chopin , William J. Fenney (d.1957) with his Romantic and often ecstatic three movement suite ‘In Early Spring’ and Ronald Stevenson, with a calming transcription of The Queen’s Dollour by Purcell.
The tapes have clearly been well preserved and are excellently brought to life, although with a slightly restricted tone quality and spacing. Jacobs himself has supplied the really handy booklet notes.
Review by Gary Higginson