Bainton; Clifford String Quartets
Diverting finds from two émigrés and a showcase for the ‘other’ Butterworth
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Hubert Clifford, Edgar (Leslie) Bainton
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Epoch
Magazine Review Date: 7/2006
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 54
Mastering:
Stereo
Catalogue Number: CDLX7163
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
String Quartet |
Edgar (Leslie) Bainton, Composer
Edgar (Leslie) Bainton, Composer Locrian Ensemble |
Composer or Director: Arthur Butterworth
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Epoch
Magazine Review Date: 7/2006
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDLX7164
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Piano Trio No 1 |
Arthur Butterworth, Composer
Arthur Butterworth, Composer Terroni Piano Trio |
Sonata for Viola and Piano |
Arthur Butterworth, Composer
Arthur Butterworth, Composer Morgan Goff, Viola Raphael Terroni, Piano |
Piano Trio No 2 |
Arthur Butterworth, Composer
Arthur Butterworth, Composer Terroni Piano Trio |
Author: Andrew Achenbach
Listening ‘blind’ to Bainton’s 1915 A major Quartet, I was struck by its distinctly continental flavour, so it came as less of a surprise to discover that the work was in fact composed while Bainton was interned in the Ruhleben civilian camp near Berlin. It’s a most engaging discovery, beautifully imagined for the medium (Bainton’s translucent textures in the ravishing slow movement remind me of Howells’s precocious chamber music from this same period) and full of lovely ideas. The toothsome finale was added for the work’s 1920 revision. Clifford’s 1935 quartet is less immediately striking but still displays enviable fluency and assurance. Both composers are impeccably served by the Locrian Ensemble.
The epic, craggy and windswept First Symphony of 1957 by the Mancunian Arthur Butterworth (b1923) impressed me when I welcomed Douglas Bostock’s world premiere recording on Classico (10/99) – there are four other symphonies and plenty more besides still awaiting exposure on disc. Similarly, I find myself favourably disposed towards the three chamber offerings presented here. Commissioned by the 1983 Cheltenham Festival to celebrate Butterworth’s 60th birthday, the First Piano Trio is a satisfyingly meaty, honestly felt creation in three linked movements with echoes of Sibelius’s incidental music to The Tempest (more specifically ‘The Oak Tree’) and Sixth Symphony in the second and third movements respectively. Its taut and vigorous successor was written over the summer of 2004 and finds the octogenarian composer firing on all cylinders.
The Viola Sonata dates from the early 1980s but was not heard until 1993, though in the booklet Butterworth tells us that he had been obliged to jettison an earlier attempt in 1949 when he took up full-time duties as a trumpeter first with the Scottish National Orchestra and then Barbirolli’s Hallé. It’s yet another heart-warming, well made work in which the composer acknowledges a debt to Bax’s marvellous essay in the medium. Eminently accomplished and convincing performances from the Terroni Trio and viola player Morgan Goff. Exemplary presentation, too. A job well done.
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