Ronald Stevenson: Piano Music, Volume Eight: Greetings to Grieg, Gardiner, and the Graingers

Christopher Guild continues his massive survey of Ronald Stevenson’s piano music with more examples of the works and influence of the Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger. This builds on Volumes Three and Volume 7 (reviewed here and here). As nearly all these pieces are premiere recordings, I am beholden to the scholarly liner notes for information largely unavailable elsewhere.

The recital opens with an arrangement of the Northern March from Grainger’s orchestral Youthful Suite. This was begun in 1898 and was finally finished in 1945. The March may have all the hallmarks of a North Country or Scottish tune but, seemingly this was a Grainger invention. Stevenson has ‘Scottified’ it by introducing a Scotch Snap in the main theme. The notes suggest that the melody may have occurred to Grainger whilst hiking. I must confess that this long number (8 minutes) often does not seem very march-like: it is thoughtful and melancholy in places.

Edvard Grieg’s Den Bergtekne (The Mountain Thrall) (1878) was devised for baritone, strings and two horns. It was a setting of a Norwegian Folk Ballad. The poem was tragic, being a story of “temptation, deception and treachery” with a man being lured a way from his home by a troll daughter. Unlike Rip Van Winkle or Tam Lin, he never returns. Stevenson replicates Grieg’s unusually austere music in his piano transcription that echoes the dark and intense mood of this original.

The Norse Elegy for Ella Nygaard (1979) was written in memory of the late wife of Percy Grainger’s doctor and friend, Kaare K. Nygaard. The notes explain that Stevenson completed this piece “on the veranda of the Grainger House, White Plains, N.Y., June 15, 1979.” The Elegy uses a cipher based on a notational representation of E-L-L-A , with the ‘L’ being transliterated to ‘A.’ There are allusions to other music: Grieg’s Piano Concerto, the Norse Dirge from Grainger’s Youthful Suite and a theme from Mozart’s Symphony No.40.  The overall impact displays a lugubrious solemnity.

The charming Love at First Sight was initially a tune by Grainger’s wife, Ella Ström (1889-1979). Grainger harmonised it for chorus, publishing this setting in 1946. Ronald Stevenson created the present piano transcription in 1975 as a gift for Ella on her 87th birthday, the following year. He also prepared a simpler arrangement heard here alongside the more expansive concert version.

Stevenson writes that the miniature Cambrian Canto is “in memory of my Welsh Gran who worked as a pit-child truck pusher in the 1860s.” He had a mixed Scots and Welsh heritage which deeply impacted on his creativity. Originally devised in 1965 for pedal harp, it is infused with Welsh musical figures. His widow Marjorie noted its kinship with the traditional air David of the White Rock (Dafydd y Garreg Wen). The adaptation heard on this disc is based on the composer’s 1981 arrangement for clarsach, which seems to transfer well to piano. It is a lovely evocation of the Welsh character and landscape. Tantalisingly, there is another Canto which recalls “memories of a childhood holiday in Wales.” I look forward to hearing this on a subsequent disc.

Eileen O’Malley’s Jig and Air (1975) was penned for an old friend from Stevenson’s Blackburn youth. The liner notes explain that he had acted as répétiteur at the local Ballet Club, where they first met. Eileen O’Malley, daughter of Ernest O’Malley (a former leader of the Hallé Orchestra), remained a lifelong friend, often driving from Blackburn to visit the Stevensons in West Linton, Peeblesshire. During one such visit he learned from her the story of Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Ní Mháille), the formidable 16th‑century Irish “pirate queen” who succeeded her father as chieftain and defended her people against Tudor encroachment. Stevenson casts this short piece in rounded binary form, its vibrant, “swashbuckling” jig yielding to a numinous air that evokes the legendary landscape of Ireland.

During 1950, Grainger provided several “rescorings” of his music for the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski. One of these was a newly inventive Country Gardens, which featured “interruptions, ‘gauche’ melodic lines elbowing their way into the texture and some wilful wrong notes blowing raspberries at the [original] Morris Dance tune…” Stevenson has provided an equally mischievous transcription – with his tongue well and truly in his cheek.

Sneaky on Sixth: Rag Blues (1987) carries the dedication “For Dr Don Gillespie’s moggy [cat]” with the ‘sixth’ referring to Sixth Avenue in New York. The liner notes tell the full story, but suffice to say, that Gillespie at that time was the Vice-President of C.F. Peters’s music publishers. Completed in a couple of hours, Stevenson uses boogie-woogie and ragtime tropes. Barry Ould (now Director of Music at Bardic Edition and an authority on Percy Grainger), Gillespie again, and American pianist Eubie Blake, were the dedicatees of Ragmaster. Strangely, the score notes that “The A flat and D major sections were written in April 1980; the C minor and C major sections were finished in February 1984.” The title says it all, but there are a few twists and turns that set it apart from Scott Joplin. The final ‘jazzy’ piece is Rigolet Rag (1973), dedicated to Stevenson’s neighbours in West Linton. It was named after their house.

The longest, and most challenging, work on this disc is Percy Grainger’s The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart which was scored for wind band, strings, and organ. Its gestation lasted for many years, beginning in 1918, and finally coming to fruition in 1948 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers

A précis of Grainger’s programme note explains that it is a meditation on the eternal struggle between individual conscience and coercive authority. Prompted by the First World War, especially the sight of unwilling young recruits drilled for killing, he reflects on how war forces people into roles that violate their deepest instincts. It is not programmatic, but an abstract “unfoldment” of emotions born from this conflict: the solitary soul resisting the overwhelming pressure of institutional power, just as the Early Christians once confronted imperial Rome.

Stevenson captures this monumental struggle in his bold and sympathetic arrangement dating from 1981-82. I have not heard the original scoring, but the present version surely complements Grainger’s vivid imagination and provides a well-structured exploration of its tensions and dualities. Christopher Guild is correct when he suggests that it is “a major contribution to solo-piano literature.”

Grainger’s Gardineriana Rhapsody was left unfinished. Formerly begun as a sketch for piano and orchestra in 1947, it was intended as a tribute to fellow composer and friend, H. Balfour Gardiner. What we have on this disc is Stevenson’s realisation of this piece for solo piano although according to the liner notes it remains “a work in progress” with potential for contributions from performers.

The Rhapsody makes use of some themes by Gardiner, including Shenandoah, Jesmond, and a "flowing melody" that Gardiner had gifted to Grainger decades earlier.

Stevenson (1984) has made a major contribution to these fragmentary sketches by adding modulatory links between sections and adapting unpianistic passages for better playability. The overall impact is of a “written-out improvisation” which blends traditional folksong idioms and grand Lisztian technical pyrotechnics. It is not my favourite work on this disc, but I am conscious that it is a considerable achievement linking composition, transcription, and performance. It remains unpublished.

This is yet another outstanding contribution to Ronald Stevenson’s discography. Christopher Guild’s brilliant and sympathetic playing fuses the music of two great composers, innovators, and larger-than-life characters. The recording is excellent and the booklet once again is a masterclass of analysis, history, and description.

Track Listing:
Percy Grainger (1882-1961) arr. Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
Youthful Suite: Northern March (1898-99, arr. 1985)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) arr. Ronald Stevenson
Den Bergtekne (1878. arr. 1990)
Ronald Stevenson
Norse Elegy for Ella Nygaard (1979)
Ella Grainger (1889-1979) arr. Ronald Stevenson
Love at First Sight (publ. 1946, arr. 1975): Simple Version; Concert Version
Ronald Stevenson
Cambrian Canto (1965, arr. 1981)
Eileen O’Malley’s Jig and Air (1975
Percy Grainger arr. Ronald Stevenson
Country Gardens (Stokowski version; 1908, 1950, arr. c.1990)
Ronald Stevenson
Sneaky on Sixth (1987)
Ragmaster (1980-84)
Rigolet Rag (1973)
Percy Grainger arr. Ronald Stevenson
The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart (1918–48, arr. 1981–82)
Gardineriana Rhapsody (1947, arr. 1984)
Christopher Guild (piano)
rec. 2 April 2023 and 1 July 2025, Wyastone Hall, Monmouthshire, UK.
Toccata Classics TOCC0787

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.