A classic train thriller that never quite arrives - saved by Benjamin Frankel’s stylish score.

The other night I watched Sleeping Car to Trieste, (1948) a so-called comedy thriller. Espionage thrillers set on continental trains have long been a reliable cinematic device, thins of Night Train to Munich, The Lady Vanishes and Murder on the Orient Express.

The story turns on the theft of a Paris diplomat’s diary containing politically sensitive information; the thief is swiftly double‑crossed, and both men head for the Trieste express, where - conveniently for the narrative - a police chief is among the passengers. More would give the game away…

One contemporary reviewer considered that although the opening promises momentum, the film spends an inordinate amount of time sketching its mixed assortment of passengers, and the action stalls until well past the halfway mark. I enjoyed the interaction of the passengers.

Jean Kent and Albert Lieven make competent villains, Alan Wheatley neatly suggests the treacherous accomplice, with Finlay Currie and Paul Dupuis all adding interest. A highlight for me was David Tomlinson portraying the typical Englishman abroad. Bonar Colleano playing an American soldier on furlough provides a breath of fresh air.

Benjamin Frankel (1906–73) was a London‑born composer who moved fluently between jazz, film, and the concert hall. His more than a hundred feature and documentary film and scores show a sharp ear for character, while his later concert works - eight symphonies, five quartets, and the Holocaust‑memorial Violin Concerto - pursue a cool, disciplined tonal‑serial idiom that remains distinctive.

Frankel’s score for Sleeping Car to Trieste is a compact, stylish fragment of late‑1940s British film music: taut, economical, and quietly sophisticated. Only two cues have survived on record, although the entire film is available on YouTube. “Sleeping Car Train” and “Waltz,” both recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra under Muir Mathieson show Frankel’s early studio craft at its most disciplined.

The train cue is brisk, rhythmically alert, and lightly suspenseful, built from crisp orchestral gestures that propel the narrative without drawing attention to themselves. The Waltz, a brief and faintly ironic salon piece, is elegant and cool, harmonically lean, its transparency suggesting social poise stretched over underlying tension. It is very much in keeping with the film’s espionage atmosphere.

Within Frankel’s broader output, these miniatures sit squarely in his 1940s idiom: concise dramatic writing with a slightly noirish harmonic edge, professional and unsentimental. They are modest but classy demonstrations of his ability to create atmosphere with minimal means-the train cue’s clipped propulsion suiting the thriller setting, the waltz showing his knack for understated character music. Not essential Frankel, but a neat illustration of British studio discipline at its most controlled.

Listen to the Opening Credits, here, and the Waltz, here, from Sleeping Car to Trieste played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Both cues also appear on the British Film Music Vol. 3 compilation (Pearl GEM 0141).

Mentor and Muse: Songs by Vaughan Williams and the women around him.

It is worth stating from the outset that Kitty Whately has a genuinely compelling voice. Her rich, warm mezzo-soprano, combined with her dramatic focus and well‑shaped phrasing, gives her singing a distinctive character. Naturally, William Vann brings his huge talent to bear on each song, providing her with finely judged support throughout.

This new Albion recording reflects several years of collaboration between these two musicians, during which they became increasingly drawn to Vaughan Williams’s wider musical circle, particularly the women composers and poets who shaped his milieu. The album acknowledges RVW’s role as a mentor to Grace Williams and Elizabeth Maconchy, while also highlighting the poetry of his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams and relation Fredegond Shove, revealing a network of creative relationships that inform the programme and clearly engage the performers.

The recital opens with an “old favourite” – The Sky above the Roof. It was composed for Mabel Dearmer in 1908 and sets her translation of Verlaine’s Le ciel est pardessus le toit. RVW initially resisted the project but finally relented. The story goes that one day he went up to his study, saw the mess it was in, and wrote the song rather than tidy up. The poem contrasts a serene, sun‑drenched rooftop world with a quieter undercurrent of reflection and regret. Critics often note the technical refinement Vaughan Williams gained from his studies with Maurice Ravel in Paris: it is clearly reflected in this expressive setting.

Simon Heffer’s remark in his 2000 study of the composer describes “…Fredegond Shove, [as] a wholly un-exceptional poet…”  This is a good example of how certain kinds of literary achievement have been undervalued. Her gifts are quiet, and that quietness has often been mistaken for shallowness. Her poems belong to a small, modest strand of early twentieth‑century English verse - spiritual, diffident in style, and limited in scope. It is a mix that seldom draws much notice.

Fredegond Maitland (later Shove) was the daughter of Adeline’s elder sister, Florence. She and her sister Ermengard served as bridesmaids at their aunt’s wedding to Vaughan Williams in 1897. In the years before the First World War, Fredegond spent periods living with Ralph and Adeline in London while studying at Newnham College, Cambridge, a proximity that informed her early intellectual and poetic development.

A.E.F Dickinson has noted that the Four Poems of Fredegond Shove (1925) brings together four settings of poems from her published collection Dreams and Journeys (1918). There is no attempt by RVW to create a song cycle.

Motion and Stillness is not as well-known as the last two songs in the group, but its intensity is unmistakable. It ponders the enduring land and sea set against vanishing clouds and ships - a world caught between calm stability and fading hope. It is a fine fusion of words and music.

Four Nights traces the speaker’s thoughts across the four seasons, moving from spring’s heavenly visions to summer’s unrest, autumn’s fierce turbulence, and finally winter’s deep, angel‑guarded stillness where the soul lies in an enchanted quiet. RVW uses a variety of modal scales and a complex accompaniment that never lacks interest.

The most spartan of this group is The New Ghost where the progress of the song “alternates between recitative and chant espressif.” The mystical poem depicts a soul leaving its body and meeting Christ in a bright, spring‑like vision; their silent embrace marks the ghost’s peace as he follows the Lord into the heavenly realm.

The Water Mill is the best known of these four songs. Shove’s poem offers a kindly, detailed portrait of an old mill and the family who run it, evoking the steady rhythms and quiet human dramas of rural life where toil, nature, and domestic routine flow together in a single unhurried day. Vaughan Williams has provided an onomatopoeic, Schubertian vocal line and accompaniment echoing the mill lade. One critic has suggested that "though only an English poet would so carefully note that the Miller's tabby was 'as lean as a healthy cat can be.'"

Like many listeners of a certain age, I first encountered Elizabeth Maconchy’s music through her remarkable portrait of a river, the overture Proud Thames, issued on Lyrita Records (SRCS 57). Since then, a number of her compositions have been recorded, though much still awaits exploration by performers and record companies. Even so, the existing catalogue is substantial enough to allow an educated assessment of her achievement.

In recent years, two discs of songs by Maconchy and her mentor and teacher RVW have appeared on Resonaus Classics: reviewed here, and here. Inevitably, there is some overlap between the track listings compiled by James Geer (tenor) and Ronald Woodley (piano) and the seven songs recorded on this new album.

The first song is In a Fountain Court (1929) by the Symbolist poet Arthur Symons. This poem evokes a languid June afternoon where nature’s drowsy peace becomes a setting of expectancy, the speaker waiting for the beloved to arrive. Maconchy has not eschewed modal scales and harmonies in this gentle song.

Impetuous Heart, Be Still (1924) is the earliest Maconchy piece on this disc. It sets a star‑lit yearning verse by W.B. Yeats from his play The Countess Kathleen. An impressively confident piece for a composer still in her teens.

The intensely beautiful The Woodspurge was penned in 1930. The liner notes explain that it was originally a piano solo, written the previous year. Rossetti’s poem captures a moment of weariness in which grief reduces everything to one simple, almost accidental observation: the woodspurge’s three‑cupped flower, the single fact that remains when all else is drained away.

The Exequy (1956) sets a handful of lines from Henry King’s long elegy Exequy on His Wife, written as the Bishop of Chichester mourned his young spouse. It is not easy to absorb: the musical realisation is often astringent, though at moments unexpectedly exquisite. Its tolling accompaniment offers a discreet nod to Ravel’s Le Gibet from Gaspard de la Nuit.

Two songs follow, taken from Four Shakespeare Songs. Nos. 1, 2 and 4 date from 1965, while No. 3 was completed earlier, in 1956. The first, Come Away, Death (from Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4), is intense and marked by rapid shifts of dynamic. The final song, King Stephen (from Othello, Act II, Scene 3) is a will‑o’-the‑wisp miniature, its toccata‑like accompaniment sharpening the Bard’s wry admonition against pride.

The last of Elizabeth Maconchy’s songs recorded here is Ophelia’s Song (from Hamlet Act IV Scene 5) (1926). This is a delicate lament in which a grief‑stricken young woman describes her true love’s death with childlike simplicity and haunting tenderness.

Grace Williams is one of the quadrumvirate of composers who dominated Welsh music in the twentieth century. The other three were Alun Hoddinott, William Mathias, and Daniel Jones. Williams was born in the coastal town of Barry in South Wales. She studied at the Royal College of Music under the auspices of ‘Uncle Ralph.’ Contemporaries included Imogen Holst and Elizabeth Maconchy.

The song cycle for contralto and piano, Billows of the Sea, was commissioned by the Guild for Promotion of Welsh Music for the 1969 Swansea Festival. The English texts chosen centred around themes of the ocean, seafaring, and parting.

The booklet quotes Kenneth Loveland, for The Times, who recalled that Grace Williams lived by the sea and “that her sea on this occasion is a demanding and angry one, tearing lovers apart…or claiming them as its prey…”

The opening song, to a text by Walter Scott, recounts how the noble Rosabelle, ignoring ominous warnings and portents, crosses the stormy Firth of Forth to visit her mother. She perishes at sea as supernatural fires blaze over Roslin Chapel in a prophetic tribute to her doomed lineage. It is a dramatic, non-strophic song that is operatic in scope. Tennyson’s Sweet and Low was originally part of Williams’s three Songs of Sleep, dating from 1959. It is an intense lullaby where the poet is expressing a mother’s hope that the West Wind will bring the child’s absent father safely home, as she lulls her baby to sleep. The anonymous Galloway ballad The Lowlands of Holland nearest approaches folk song, with a strophic form. Here, a young woman mourns the loss of her drowned lover, refusing all comfort or future suitors. The music well reflects the tragedy. Black-Eyed Susan is the most approachable stylistically, yet there is suppressed tragedy throughout. In this “scena” a young woman finds her sailor lover aboard the fleet, and the pair exchange vows of fidelity before duty forces “Sweet William” to depart and Susan to watch his ship sail away. Almost certainly they never saw each other again. A scene repeated so often in history.

One other number by Grace Williams is included. The gloomy, but perfectly judged setting of the anonymous ballad collected by Walter Scott, The Lament of the Border Widow (1952). Here a woman laments the murder of her beloved knight, burying him with her own hands and vowing never to love again.

For me, the highlight on this disc is Kitty Whately’s response to RVW’s Four Last Songs (1954-58). According to Michael Kennedy's Catalogue of Works, this was not his last work. It seems that The First Nowell was to follow. To be sure these were devised over a four-year period, with the last being completed shortly before the composer’s death on 26 August 1958. They are all settings of poems by his wife Ursula. I think that the listener will be struck by the valedictory mood of these songs, as if both partners knew that time together was short and precious.

The first song shows Procris in her last moments after being struck by an arrow from her husband, Cephalus. Around her, spring is beginning to wake, and its gentle new life makes her fading hope and stillness feel even more tragic. The second, Tired, creates a quiet, tender closeness in which sleep becomes a refuge, its soft firelit imagery suggesting love expressed through stillness and memory rather than passion. Hands, Eyes and Hearts distils love into touch, vision, and inner stillness, each offering a wordless pledge. The final number requires the listener to recall that Menelaus, King of Sparta, had his wife Helen taken by Paris to his native Troy. It is all in the Iliad. This is the most dramatic song of the set. Menelaus comes home not to remembered earthly beauty but to a dwelling of timeless welcome, where wind, sea and lamplight settle into a quiet vision of rest and renewal.

I have mentioned the stunning performances at the beginning of this review. This is complemented with an excellent recording, most helpful programme notes and complete texts for all the songs. For details of Kitty Whately’s and William Vann’s resumes see their respective webpages.

In sum, this Albion release offers a vividly drawn portrait of Vaughan Williams’s creative circle, with the performers bringing great sensitivity to the songs of Grace Williams, Elizabeth Maconchy and RVW himself.

Track Listing:
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Sky Above the Roof (Mabel Dearmer) (1908)
Four poems by Fredegond Shove (1925): Motion and Stillness; Four Nights; The New Ghost; The Water Mill.
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994)
In Fountain Court (Arthur Symons) (1929); Impetuous Heart, Be Still (W.B. Yeats) (1924); The Woodspurge (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) (1930); The Exequy (Henry King) (1956); Come Away, Death (William Shakespeare) (1965); King Stephen (William Shakespeare) (1965); Ophelia’s Song (William Shakespeare) (1926)
Grace Williams (1906-1977)
Billows of the Sea (1969): Rosabelle (Walter Scott); Sweet and Low (Alfred, Lord Tennyson); The Lowlands of Holland (Trad.); Black-Eyed Susan (John Gay)
The Lament of the Border Widow (Anon. collected Walter Scott) (1952)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Four Last Songs (Ursula Vaughan Williams) (1954-58): Procris; Tired; Hands, Eyes and Hearts; Menelaus.
Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano); William Vann (piano)
rec. July and October 2025 St. George’s Headstone, London.
Albion Records ALBCD 069

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Six Studies in English Folk Song (1926)

The Six Studies in English Folk Song were written a century ago in 1926. The previous year, Ralph Vaughan Williams had completed a number of important works including the enigmatic Suite for solo viola, small wordless chorus, and small orchestra Flos Campi, the oratorio Sancta Civitas and the Concerto in D minor (Concerto Accademico) for violin and orchestra. He had also made a major contribution to the hymnbook Songs of Praise with many new and edited tunes. The present year was less hectic, with only one other piece listed in the catalogue: the masque On Christmas Night.

Vaughan Williams had long been a collector of folk song and had used the results in a number of works, either literally or by allusion. Important compositions inspired by these folk songs included the three (the third was discarded) Norfolk Rhapsodies (1906), the ballad-opera Hugh the Drover (1924) and Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934) as well as many arrangements for choir and solo singers.

Six Studies in English Folk Song, although not being exact transcriptions of any song have been identified with particular tunes. (Kennedy, Michael, A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford, OUP, 1996))

1.      Adagio (Lovely on the Water: The Springtime of the Year)

2.      Andante sostenuto (Spurn Point)

3.      Larghetto (Van Dieman's Land)

4.      Lento (She Borrowed Some of her Mother's Gold)

5.      Andante tranquillo (The Lady and the Dragoon)

6.      Allegro vivace (As I walked over London Bridge)

All the tunes were collected ‘in the field’ by the composer. Each is presented in a relatively simple manner and is then freely treated and ornamented by the soloists. The mood of the complete set is reflective with only the concluding allegro vivace being more outgoing. The impact of these studies is heightened by their conciseness and brevity.

The Six Studies were dedicated to the cellist May Mukle (1880-1963) who gave the first performance at the Scala Theatre, London on 4 June 1926 during the English Folk Dance Society Festival. She was accompanied on the piano by her sister, Anne.

There are a number of versions of the Six Studies in the R.V.W. catalogue including for solo violin, viola and clarinet. In 1957 Arnold Foster (1896/8-1963) made an attractive arrangement for cello and small orchestra.

Listen to Vaughan Williams’s Six Studies in English Folk Song on YouTube, here. The performers are Denise Djokic (cello), David Jalbert (piano).

With thanks to the English Music Festival where this was first published.

From Ursula, with Love: Unreleased Recordings of Vaughan Williams's Music.

This CD collects a number of historic Vaughan Williams recordings curated by his widow, Ursula. These were entrusted to Stephen Connock, then Chairman of The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society in 1996. The advertising blurb states that fourteen of the album’s seventeen tracks have never been released commercially before. The recordings were transcribed by Pete Reynolds of Reynolds Mastering and finalised for this album by Ronald Grames.

The concert opens with music that is among the loveliest Ralph Vaughan Williams ever wrote. In fact, he himself thought it was some of the finest he had produced. Yet, it remains little known even to enthusiasts of the composer. The film The Flemish Farm (1943) is a quiet, patriotic wartime drama about Belgian servicemen who flee to Britain after the 1940 German invasion and embark on a secret mission back to Belgium to reclaim their unit's buried flag.

The film has faded into obscurity, but RVW was impressed by the score and drew on it to make a Suite (1945). There are seven movements in all, lasting just under half an hour. The entire suite has been recorded before, on the Chandos and Marco Polo labels. On this album, the BBC Scottish Orchestra under Graham Treacher play just three movements. The first, Dawn in the Old Barn: The Passing of Lovers, is in the composer’s full blown pastoral manner, a delight. Much more sombre is The Dead Man’s Kit, which is lean and desolate, nodding towards the Symphony No.6. The final movement on this disc is In the Café, which the liner notes suggest is composed in a “popular musical idiom.” It is fun, even if conceived in less than happy circumstances. The listener may wish to enjoy this short suite simply as absolute music, divorced from the film’s plot. It could make a successful concert filler and go on to become popular.

There are currently eight recordings of Vaughan Williams’s Phantasy Quintet in the catalogues. I first heard it played by the Music Group of London on the EMI recording issued in 1974 (HQS 1327). There, it was coupled with the Sonata in A minor for violin and piano, as well as the Six Studies in English Folk Song for Cello and Piano. It has remained in my collection ever since. The Phantasy was a W.W. Cobbett commission completed in 1912. It was responding to Cobbett’s desire to revive the historic, single-movement English Elizabethan "fancy," which generated many chamber works by British composers both well-known and now largely forgotten.

Vaughan Williams’s Phantasy Quintet (1912) is a warm, reflective chamber piece that moves in one continuous sweep rather than separate movements, unified by a central theme - although the tracks on this CD are divided into four "sections." The mood shifts naturally between calm and wistful passages, from the deeply felt Alla Sarabanda to playful moments in the Burlesca, all influenced by RVW’s predilection for flowing melodies and folk-coloured harmonies. The Aeolian Quartet, with Kenneth Essex as second viola give an engaging performance that highlights both the Phantasy’s lyrical gentleness and its more spirited moments with unfussy assurance.

Even though some critics find Hodie structurally diffuse and uneven, calling it “overlong” and “one of RVW’s least compelling large choral works,” I love it. Ever since first hearing it on the BBC on Christmas Eve 1972, it has remained one of my seasonal fixtures. This very recording is the source of the extract heard on this disc. The Oxen, a wonderfully evocative Christmas poem by the agnostic Thomas Hardy, is beautifully served here: baritone John Carol Case and the Philomusica of London, under Donald Cashmore, give a suitably sensitive performance.

Vaughan Williams wrote precious little for the organ, despite having been a professional church organist in his younger days. The most significant example is the rarely heard Prelude and Fugue in C minor, dating from 1930; most of the other works associated with him are arrangements by other hands.

It is not certain what instrument the legendary George Thalben Ball used when recording RVW’s Three Preludes Founded on Welsh Hymn Tunes. Nevertheless, it is assumed that he played them on the Temple Church’s 1924 Harrison & Harrison organ, originally from Glen Tanar Castle, Aberdeenshire. Recorded back in 1961, Thalben Ball gives a convincing account of these three pieces.

There is a sense of the improvisatory about the first Prelude, Bryn Calfaria. The popular Rhosymedre is sincere, presenting the gorgeous melody twice in slightly different arrangements; it is small wonder that it is subtitled “Lovely.” Hyfrydol forms a powerful and celebratory finale, built on the well‑loved hymn tune composed by R. H. Prichard.

There are seven versions of the String Quartet (No. 2) in A minor ('For Jean on her Birthday') in the discography maintained by Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Trustee Jonathan Pearson. Some of these have been released in various editions. The earliest, dating from 1973 features the Music Group of London on the EMI Classics label (EMI HQS 1292). This is the edition I got to know the work by and is still my “go-to” disc.

For listeners who suppose that this quartet evokes cows and gates, the truth is quite different. In the sleeve notes for the above-mentioned record, Michael Kennedy advocates that listeners who regard this quartet as “serene” and “small” show “a grave misunderstanding of its true significance and nature.” He goes on to suggest that the first three movements are “permeated by the restless, troubled mood” of the Symphony No.6 in E minor. The first movement is tense, the Romance: Largo is “bleak, comfortless” and the Scherzo is “bitter.” The resolution of the Quartet comes in the final Epilogue which is calm and heart-easing. The present liner notes are correct in stating that “This second-string quartet is vital to a thorough understanding of Vaughan Williams’s deeply felt reaction to the Second World War, feelings which would find their ultimate expression in the Sixth Symphony of 1947.”

The Aeolian Quartet sympathise with the various moods of this piece and give a commanding performance, articulating the quartet’s troubled inner landscape with conviction and allowing its concluding calm to feel genuinely won.

Vaughan Williams’s contribution to the Charterhouse Masque performed in 1950 grew out of his association with the school he had attended between 1887 and 1890. Over the years he had returned several times as an honoured guest. Invited to write new material for the Masque, he agreed on the condition that Carmen Carthusianum, the school song, should be included so that performers and audience could join in a shared act of music-making. The resulting Solemn Music, first performed on 12 July 1950, wove together strands of Charterhouse’s musical heritage: fragments of the Carmen, onetime school master Edward Rendall’s 1911 Prologue tune, and his grave De Profundis, originally used to depict the expulsion of the monks in 1535-36. Vaughan Williams worked these elements into a final scene designed for the ceremonial entrance of all participants, culminating in a stirring, brilliantly orchestrated finale that sets the Carmen Carthusianum to William Horsley’s nineteenth‑century melody.

In this recording from Charterhouse, the School Choir and Orchestra are conducted by William Llewellyn.

Stephen Connock’s outstanding liner notes provide essential context for the listener. Because these recordings were made over an eleven-year span between 1961 and 1972, minor sonic allowances naturally must be made - though surprisingly few. Whatever slight limitations exist in the audio quality are overwhelmingly redeemed by the superb performances.

Ultimately, From Ursula, with Love stands as a deeply touching and essential release that honours Ursula Vaughan Williams’s personal legacy towards her husband. By preserving these rare, previously unreleased archival treasures, Albion Records has given listeners an invaluable gift - making this release a must-have for any Vaughan Williams devotee.

Track Listing:
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Three extracts from Suite: The Story of a Flemish Farm (1943/1945): Dawn in the Old Barn; The Dead Man’s Kit; In the Café
BBC Scottish Orchestra/Graham Treacher
rec. 15 April 1965
Phantasy Quintet (1912)
Aeolian Quartet (Sydney Humphreys (violin), Raymond Keenlyside (violin), Margaret Major (viola) Derek Simpson (cello) with Kenneth Essex (second viola)
rec. 15 April 1965
Extract from Hodie (This Day)- A Christmas Cantata (1953-54): ‘The Oxen’
John Carol Case (baritone)
Philomusica of London/Donald Cashmore
rec. 16 December 1972
Three Organ Preludes founded on Welsh Hymn-Tunes (1920):
Bryn Calfaria; Rhosymedre; Hyfrydol
George Thalben-Ball (organ)
rec. 8 December 1961
String Quartet (No. 2) in A minor. For Jean on her Birthday (1944)
Aeolian Quartet: Sydney Humphreys (violin), Raymond Keenlyside (violin), Margaret Major (viola) Derek Simpson (cello)
rec. 20 October 1966
Solemn Music for the Masque of Charterhouse (Final Scene) (1950): Solemn Music; Finale
Chorus and Orchestra of Charterhouse School/William Llewellyn
rec. March 1972

John F. Porte’s “Gustav Holst” (Musical Courier, 1923): An Annotated Reprint: Part 2

The second part of John F. Porte’s essay on Gustav Holst considers the music in more detail. A few notes are appended at the end of the essay.

THE COMPOSITIONS OF HOLST INCLUDE OPERAS of which there are four; orchestral music, military band music, choral works, concertos, songs, and part-songs.

Of his four operas, the first three are early works, being The Revoke in one act, op. 1; Sita, in three acts, op. 23, and Savitri [op.25].

Of these the last named, revived this year at Covent Garden, and first heard a few years ago at a London theater, is worth attention. [2] Savitri brought symbolism into stage presentation with a simple precision and an extraordinary economy of means that had no equivalent in modern British music. The score has only recently been published, and the work is described as an “episode from the Mahabharata” the word “opera” is not mentioned. [3]

The cast numbers but three - Satyavan, a woodman; Savitri, his wife, and Death. The orchestra consists of two string quartets, a contra-bass, two flutes, and a cor anglais. Orchestra, conductor, and female chorus are to be invisible to the audience. The character of this article is not suitable for analytical and technical details, so I will not detain the reader on this account, but the foregoing particulars of Savitri may help to show the independence and originality of Holst, even in his early music. Few composers could afford to be daring enough to risk their imagination on the exotic material of an Indian epic without passing into commonplace, imitation Orientalism; still less could they invest it with that hallmark of genius, universality.

The Perfect Fool.

The Perfect Fool, Holst’s latest opera, is a sharp contrast to Savitri. It was produced on May 14 of the present year before a brilliant audience at the season opening night of the British National Opera Company at Covent Garden Opera House, London. Eugéne Goossens conducted. A vein of parody is a feature of the opera, the libretto being the composer’s own. The fairy story is certainly satirically reminiscent of well-known operas, and one begins to wonder exactly where the perfect fool may be found. Mr. Holst tells us that he had no intention of parodying Parsifal, but I confess to seeing this opera, and others, in a rather humorous vein after The Perfect Fool. Of both Savitri and The Perfect Fool, sharply contrasted as they are, I must admit their failure to a good stage music. Although appealing to musicians all over the world, I doubt their success with the public that requires brilliant stage-play operas. [4]

The Orchestral Works

Among Holst’s early orchestral works, we see a Walt Whitman Overture, op. 7, but this remains in MS. Passing over the Cotswolds Symphony, op. 8, a tribute to the historic hills overlooking the composer’s birthplace, and other early works that may not detain us here, we come to the Beni Mora suite for orchestra, composed in 1911. It is a record of impressions of Arab music heard in Algeria. Holst managed to avoid anything that savors of conventional expression of the East in terms of music (that was Holst the man again) and produced a result as near to realism founded on definite reminiscences as is possible without approaching too near the shoal on which may be seen the wrecks of many musical ideas. Before approaching the most important of Holst’s orchestral works, we see the lovely St. Paul’s Suite for strings, a memoir of his teaching association with a London Girls’ School of that title.

The Planets is a suite of seven contrasted movements expressing the character of the mythical associations of their titles, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Produced, with the exception of Venus and Neptune, by the Royal Philharmonic Society, London, on February 27, 1919, it is the work that made Holst. All through we see the undoubted work of a man big enough to make his ideas go. The contrasts between the movements are remarkable. For instance, in Mars, the bringer of War, brutal force is terribly realistic, while in Jupiter, the bringer of Jollity, there are glorious open-air tunes that are musical tonics.

When The Planets was announced, somebody asked Holst what sort of suite it was; was it for small orchestra? “Well,” came the characteristic answer, “there are six tympani in the first movement.”

Another interesting orchestral work by Holst is his Japanese Suite, but it does not reach the high-water mark of The Planets. The latest music from his pen is announced as a Fugal Overture and a Fugal Concerto for flute, oboe, and strings, mostly written during the composer’s voyage home from America this summer. [5] It will be interesting to hear Holst’s fugues, but a touch of the unconventional appears in the combination of the concerto.

Choral Music.

Holst has written choral music, some of which is already becoming permanently established. The Mystic Trumpeter op. 18, for soprano solo and orchestra, is the best known of his earlier examples. Next come the fine Hymns from the Rig Verda; The Cloud Messenger, an ode for chorus and orchestra; Two Psalms for chorus, strings and organ, which are regarded as important enough for festival performance, and a Dirge for Two Veterans, an unconventional part-song for male voices and brass. England possessing so many choral societies, these works have had welcome hearings, but the high-water mark is reached in the Hymn of Jesus, for two choruses and semi-chorus, orchestra, pianoforte and organ, op. 37, one of the most beautiful religious works in contemporary music. Here we meet Holst, the big man, and happily this work is becoming fairly frequently performed in both cathedrals and concert halls, although it is not of a conventional trend. It was inspired by the Elizabethan composer, Thomas Weelkes. [6]

Holst has written a fair number of songs and part-songs, the latter being in preponderance and containing the important Six Choral Folk Songs, op. 36, in which the composer, with his love of English folk tunes, is seen at his best. An interesting feature in Holst’s list of compositions is the two suites for military band, he being one of the first important composers to write original music for the organization that provides musical entertainment for democracy.

No important pianoforte music is noticed among Holst’s works at present, and when asked if he had written anything for this instrument, he replied, “Only a few potboilers.” [7]

What is it that is giving Holst the reputation of being one of the few living British composers of serious music that can draw the musical public in his own land? I think we may discover the reason in that direct-to-the-point character of all his best work, and to his natural preference to English folk tunes. He has been described as a Milton of music, because of the clear decisiveness of his creations. The music of Holst is plainly meant for the world at large, not merely for cultured people. It speaks out with melodies that are English to the core, and which have a minimum of academic aloofness. The technical skill is there as a very flexible means to an end. I think Holst will mean serious music for anyone, and in giving this he will break the biggest convention’ of all. No one can misunderstand a composer who speaks out big things in plain language.

Notes
[1] In 1924, Holst composed his final opera, At the Boars Head. Porte does not mention in his text that there were also two children’s operas/operettas written at the turn of the century: The Idea (ca.1896) and The Youth’s Choice (1902).

[2] Savitri was first performed privately on 5 December 1916, at the London School of Opera under the conductor Hermann Grunebaum. The premiere public performance was on 23 June 1921, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. The work was conducted by Arthur Bliss.

[3] A Thematic Catalogue of Gustav Holst’s Music prepared by Imogen Holst refers to it as an “Opera di camera in one act.”

[4] To be sure, Holst’s opera The Perfect Fool has not been a notable success, with few revivals. The opera’s libretto is awkward and satirical in a way that audiences find puzzling. However, the Suite of Ballet Music assembled in 1918 remains popular.

[5] Holst returned from the New York on 21 June 1923, arriving at Plymouth aboard the Belgenland. The 1923 American visit ran from mid‑April to mid‑June 1923, centred on a University of Michigan residency in Ann Arbor, where he lectured, rehearsed student ensembles, conducted his own works, and completed the Fugal Concerto. The surviving published sources give partial but reliable outlines of the dates and activities, though no fully itemised “programme” survives.

[6] There is no mention in any authoritative source of Thomas Weelkes being an influence on The Hymn of Jesus. Holst’s Elizabethan interests tended to centre on Byrd and Tallis, and even then, they influenced his modal thinking rather than this specific work. Michael Short writes: “According to Richard Capell, (Monthly Musical Record February 1927 p.38-9) Holst stated that The Hymn of Jesus had been written under the influence of Weelkes’ madrigals published in Fellowes’s edition of 1916, but little evidence of this can be heard in the music. ‘Introduction to The Hymn of Jesus’. (Short, Michael (1990). Gustav Holst: The Man and His Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press).

[7] At the time of writing there were no serious piano pieces. The next few years would see a handful of pieces including the Toccata (1924), A Piece for Yvonne (1924), Chrissemas Day in the Morning (1926), 2 Folk Song Fragments: 2 Northumbrian Folk Tunes (1927) and 2 Pieces: Nocturne and Jig (1930-32).

Concluded

John F. Porte’s “Gustav Holst” (Musical Courier, 1923): An Annotated Reprint Part 1

John F. Porte was an early‑20th‑century British musical author best known for his accessible studies of composers and his advocacy for melodious, broadly appealing music. He wrote popular monographs on figures such as Grieg and Tchaikovsky, aiming to introduce general readers to their lives, styles, and aesthetic ideals. Porte’s books often blended biography with clear, enthusiastic commentary, reflecting his belief that music should communicate directly and emotionally. Though not a scholar in the modern academic sense, he played a notable role in shaping public musical taste, helping a wide readership engage with major Romantic composers and their works. This account of Holst was published Musical Courier on 11 October 1923. This was written some twelve years before the composer’s death. Several important works would be written in this period, including Egdon Heath (1927), the Hammersmith: Prelude and Scherzo (1930) and the Brook Green Suite (1933)

The Musical Courier was a famous weekly music magazine published in New York City from 1880 until 1962. It was one of the most widely read music journals in the United States, covering classical performance, industry trade news, and instrument manufacturing.

In this essay, Holst emerges as a modest, hard‑working composer‑teacher whose originality, folk‑inflected directness and independence from academic convention underpin his rise to fame. Porte sketches his personality, teaching at Morley and St Paul’s, his unconventional operas, major orchestral works - especially The Planets - and choral achievements, portraying a modern British composer speaking “big things in plain language.”

A few notes are appended at the end of the essay.

THE RISE TO FAME OF GUSTAV HOLST gives us a human life story of a great composer happening in our midst. For he is here today, this intensely human man, teaching young people music, correcting their exercises at a school situated in a poor part of London, and yet creating music of his own that is now being everywhere acknowledged as undoubtedly the work of an important man.

Holst was born September 21, 1874, at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and, like Elgar, is an Englishman of the West country, the Cotswold Hills supplying a similar historical background for his birthplace as did the Malvern Hills for his predecessor, For some years Holst generally appeared in print as Gustav von Holst, but the Great War made the misguiding foreign appearance of his name disconcerting, and by Deed Poll he abbreviated it to Gustav Holst. His 18th century forbears were Swedish.

Academic Background.

Holst studied under Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles V. Stanford, a decidedly academic grounding for this leader of modern freedom in music. One can see very little indeed of Stanford's teaching in Holst’s compositions, and his remark to a student that “Charlie,” as Stanford was called by his pupils, [1] likes him, but does not like his music, is not surprising. At Frankfort he met Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott, and others. The spread chords in the pianoforte music of the former he humorously terms “Frankfort harmonies.” [2]

The career of Holst is, as I have indicated, an intensely human story. In his earlier days he played in seaside orchestras, and he has always been hard at work teaching, not in learned academies, but down where grit and the call of art struggle with life existence. His unflagging, almost heroic work in the musical classes at Morley College, situated in Waterloo Road, a squalid quarter of Southeast London, [3] should become historical. I have picked up the current issue of a great London daily newspaper and notice a two-column headline, “Rush to Hear Holst.” The notice refers to a Queens Hall Promenade concert at which Holst conducted four movements of his Planets orchestral suite. [4] The critic remarks that Gustav Holst has created something of a record, for he is a serious British composer who draws the public. Not even Sir Edward Elgar, at the height of his popularity, drew a more numerous or enthusiastic audience.

This same day I saw a poster announcing the autumn reopening of Morley College in the squalid Waterloo Road; Holst will still conduct the music classes there. That is Holst the man.

Another scene of Holst’s activities as a teacher is at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, Brook Green, London, and his St. Paul’s Suite for Strings is a personal memento of his work there.

His Personality.

The personality of Holst is unassuming, unconventional, and affable. As a champion of modern music, he will convince you with his straight to the point remarks, which are extremely characteristic of the man. A friend of mine discussing modern music with Holst ventured to ask him if he thought the moderns were sincere. Holst turned around in a flash. “Sincere? Of course they are sincere!” He then agreed that modern composers have no landmarks to guide them, but are making their own route.

For academic routine he has little to say. “After a few years of study a man may become a Mus. Doc., with any inspiration he may have had knocked out of him.” Music to Holst must natural expression, not confined in a straitjacket of rules and regulations. He discourages composing at the piano, but one of his students at Constantinople, [5] where he conducted the musical selection of the Y. M. C. A, educational scheme for British troops, tried a little effort on the instrument, but hesitated over the suitability of a modulation. “Well, for goodness’ sake, modulate,” Holst told the student, “Don’t play about.”

The appearance of the man does not suggest the bold and big character of much of his music. His expression is almost cherubic, especially when he beams at you through his glasses, but in one way the music is synonymous with its creator. It speaks straight out with a modest assurance that few can fail to understand, and with it there goes a certain quiet pride and dignity that commands interest. This is certainly an expression of the character of Holst, if it does not suggest that rather short, thick set, fair man with a high forehead and glasses, to be seen proceeding hurriedly, but firmly along the Waterloo Road, London. I saw him quite recently at a Queens Hall Promenade Concert listening to some contemporary British music. He stood with that half-puzzled, half-shy expression of his, looking like a learned librarian disturbed among his books. Nearby stood a man who ought to have been a famous composer, for he smoked Russian cigarettes, had long hair, loose clothes, and a wild artistic expression!

Notes

[1] It is unlikely that anyone referred to Sir Charles Villiers Stanford as “Charlie” to his face.

[2] The Frankfurt Group comprised of Balfour Gardiner, Norman O’Neill, Cyril Scott, Roger Quilter and Percy Grainger, then young composers who studied with the German composer and music teacher Iwan Knorr during the 1890s. United by friendship and a rebellious, anti‑establishment streak, they resisted English musical nationalism and favoured Delius’s harmonic sensuality over Beethovenian architecture.

[3] In the early 1920s Morley College operated out of the Royal Victoria Hall (the Old Vic) at 131-137 Waterloo Road, London. In 1924 it moved to new premises at 61 Westminster Bridge Road, where it remains to this day. It is certainly not “squalid” in 2026. The area around the Old Vic has vibrant restaurants, pubs, and cafes.

[4] The “Rush to Hear Holst” was the headline of a column in the Daily Express (4 September 1923, p.10) where it was noted that at a performance of The Planets, Gustav Holst had “created something of a record: he is a serious composer who “draws.” This occurred during the Promenade Concert on 28 August 1923, where The New Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood played four movements of the work: Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter.

[5] Holst was in Constantinople at the end of the First World War because he had been appointed a Y.M.C.A. musical organiser for British troops in the Eastern Mediterranean, teaching music and directing soldier ensembles in Salonika and later Constantinople. His letters describe giving concerts for demobilising forces and organising musical life amid difficult conditions.

To be continued...

Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum 2025

Hong Kong born pianist Chiyan Wong gets this selection from Husum 2025 off to a great start with Naji Hakim’s Variations on “Auprès de ma blonde” (2013). This is based on an old French song dating from the 18th century. The premise of this ballad refers to a woman complaining to the birds about her imprisoned husband. After what seems an unpromising start, the piece develops into twelve minutes of pure virtuosity. Hakim is a Franco-Lebanese composer who is currently visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His compositions include works for organ, orchestra, and voice.

Wong then presents two attractive vignettes by Gustave Samazeuilh: the Prelude and the Française taken from the Suite in G published around 1911. Its six ‘antique’ movements are no Baroque pastiche but a modern re‑imagining of the form, akin to Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin or Warlock’s Capriol.

Frank Bridge’s Valse capricieuse from Three Sketches (1906) is one of his loveliest numbers, though the first and second, April and Rosemary, are better known. The Valse is melancholy, more at home in an Edwardian drawing room, yet full of musical and technical interest. Aline Piboule brings her magic to it, illuminating its gentle sadness and subtle technical sparkle. Of exceptional interest is Guy Ropartz’s substantial Nocturne No.1 (1911) with its balance between a severe opening and a lyrical middle section crowned by an “imposing” lead up to the quiet coda. Ropartz provides a fusion of Post-Romanticism and Impressionism in these pages. Certainly, anyone expecting Chopin or Field-like figurations will be disappointed.

The French composer Cécile Chaminade is often written off as simply a writer of ‘salon music,’ but her best work shows a technical assurance and emotional range that far exceed that lazy label. She is well represented on this disc. Roland Pöntinen plays the “elaborated” version of Les Sylvains, op.60 (1892) whose lovely melody and rich accompaniment are offset by contrasting material full of broken chords, arpeggios, and glissandi. The title refers to “fauns,” lending it an elusive, delicate mood. Mark Viner offers Chaminade’s L’Ondine, op.101 (1900), and Pêcheurs de nuit from the Poème provençal, op.127 (1908). The former is hardly a companion to Ravel’s eponymous creation, yet the liner notes suggest that the “delicate passages which frame the piece” portray the water‑nymph Ondine, while the “louder sections concern the sea‑god Poseidon.” Pêcheurs de nuit opens with an uneasily calm atmosphere before moving into a stormy middle section.

Franz Liszt’s Hymne à Sainte Cécile de Charles Gounod, S.491(1865) transcribes an instrumental piece originally scored for solo violin, harp, organ, and orchestra. It is unlikely Liszt’s transcription was ever heard with any frequency until Leslie Howard’s monumental complete recordings of the piano music. I am not a fan of Gounod, but in this work, Liszt deployed all the tricks of his trade to create a vast structure, given a most convincing account by Mark Viner.

Daniel Grimwood plays Adolf Henselt’s lovely transcription of a long-forgotten Romance (No. 1) by a certain Comte Wielhorsky. It is a well-balanced realization that fuses the original accompaniment and the vocal line into a delightful whole. His other contributions to this disc are two of Carl Baermann Jr.’s Études, op. 4 (1877), specifically No. 2 in A minor and No. 12 in C‑sharp minor. This final Étude is especially ambitious with propelling figurations that are both dramatic and charged with suppressed urgency.

American composer Amy Beach’s A Hermit Thrush at Eve, op. 92 no. 1 (pub. 1922), is played by Saskia Giorgini, and distils accurately notated birdsong into glowing, impressionistic piano writing, creating a contemplative miniature of striking poetic delicacy.

Two short pieces by the Polish pianist-composer Ignaz Paderewski are given by Illia Ovcharenko. Chant d’amour, the second movement from his Album de Mai, op. 10 (pub.1884), contrasts a folksong-like opening with an animated middle section. In Cracovienne fantastique from Humoresques de concert, op. 14 Cahier II, (1887-88), Paderewski uses triplets, octaves, chromatic runs, and neat figurations to create a spirited reimagining of the regional folk style.

The final number in this recital is also my favourite. Ronald Stevenson made countless arrangements and transcriptions of a wide range of “found” music, including popular songs. Ivor Novello wrote his well‑loved “We’ll Gather Lilacs in the Spring” for the stage show Perchance to Dream. Here, Stevenson gives this cherished tune the full cocktail‑piano treatment. Kenneth Hamilton dispatches it with panache.

Peter Grove’s liner notes, in both German and English, are helpful, offering valuable background on these rarely encountered composers and their music. One minor erratum: the liner notes state Frank Bridge was born in 1897 rather than 1879. And surely the recording dates are wrong. The rear cover states 16-21August, 2025, but the actual concert prospectus shows that it was 16-23 August that year!

This latest volume from Husum once again demonstrates why the festival remains indispensable for anyone drawn to the byways of the piano repertoire. The performances are consistently distinguished, the programming imaginative, and the recorded sound remarkably vivid for live conditions. Together they offer a compelling reminder that the piano’s literature extends far beyond the familiar canon, rewarding curiosity with discovery at every turn.

Track Listing:
Naji Hakim (b.1955)
Variations on “Auprès de ma blonde” (2013)
Gustave Samazeuilh (1877-1967)
From Suite in G (pub. C.1911): Prelude; Française
Chiyan Wong (piano)

Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
From Three Sketches: Valse capricieuse (1906)
Guy Ropartz (1864-1955)
Nocturne No.1 (1911)
Aline Piboule (piano)

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Les Sylvains, op.60 (1892)
Roland Pöntinen (piano)

Cécile Chaminade
L’Ondine, op.101 (1900)
From Poème provençal, op.127 (1908): Pêcheurs de nuit

Franz Liszt (1811-86)
Hymne à Sainte Cécile de Charles Gounod, S.491 (1865)
Mark Viner (piano)

Adolf Henselt (1814-89)
Romance du Comte Wielhorsky No.1 (?)
Carl Baermann jr. (1839-1913)
From Etudes, op.4 (1877): No.2 in A minor; No.12 in C-sharp minor
Daniel Grimwood (piano)

Amy Beach (1867-1944)
A Hermit Thrush at Eve, op.92, no.1 (pub.1922)
Saskia Giorgini (piano)

Ignaz Paderewski (1860-1941)
From Album de Mai, op.10 (pub.1884): No.2 Chant d’amour
From Humoresques de concert, op.14, Cahier II, (1887-88) No.6 Cracovienne fantastique
Illia Ovcharenko (piano)

Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
“We’ll Gather Lilacs” Ivor Novello (1893-1951) (1980)
Kenneth Hamilton (piano)
rec. 16-23 August 2025, Schloss Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Danacord DACOCD 1019
With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.

Frederic Curzon: Simonetta (1933)

Simonetta, the sophisticated and gently wistful lady suggested by Curzon’s Serenade, feels like a refined echo of inter‑war London society - someone who might drift through tea‑shops, hotel salons, and Palm Court afternoons with unforced grace. Yet her name inevitably summons a more famous muse: Simonetta Vespucci, the radiant Florentine beauty immortalised by Botticelli. Curzon’s Simonetta blends these two ideas - the modern salon figure touched by the same idealised elegance that made Vespucci a symbol of timeless charm.

The miniature Simonetta belongs to that small cluster of early Frederic Curzon (1899-1973) works in which his innate lyricism is allowed to unfold without self‑conscious ambition. Written in 1933, it reflects a young composer still absorbing the atmosphere of London’s light‑music world - the cinemas, variety houses, and suburban concert venues where he encountered Alfredo Campoli, the work’s dedicatee. Although Curzon never forged the warm, collegial bond he enjoyed with Pasquale Troise, of "Troise and His Mandoliers/Banjoliers/Novelty Orchestra" fame, Campoli’s presence on the Shepherd’s Bush Pavilion/New Victoria circuit would have been unmistakable: a violinist of patrician refinement, already admired for the sweetness and poise of his tone. The Serenade’s dedication, then, feels less like a personal tribute and more like an aesthetic salute.

Its melodic profile - gently sighing phrases, lightly brushed harmonic turns, and a rhythmic pace that never hurries - mirrors the kind of cultivated charm Campoli brought to his own salon‑style repertoire. Curzon’s scoring is modest, as though he wanted the music to breathe the same air as those inter‑war tea‑rooms and hotel lounges where elegance was measured not in grandeur but in grace.

There is a faintly nostalgic undertow to the main theme: a wistfulness that suggests Curzon was already aware of the disappearing world around him. The interlude that follows, with its dainty interplay of strings and winds, recalls the idiom of a Palm Court Trio — that quintessentially British sound of polite refinement, poised between classical decorum and popular accessibility. Yet Curzon avoids pastiche. What he offers instead is a kind of affectionate distillation: a memory of a musical culture still alive in 1933 but already beginning to fade.

In this light, Simonetta becomes more than a charming miniature. It is a snapshot of Curzon’s early sensibility, shaped by the venues, performers, and social rituals of his London milieu. Its simplicity is deliberate, its gentility sincere, and its enduring appeal lies in the way it quietly evokes a vanished world without ever lapsing into sentimentality.

Listen to Frederic Curzon’s Simonetta played by Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adrian Leaper on YouTube, here.

Fusions: Piano Music of Nikolai Kapustin, George Gershwin and Earl Wild

In 55 years of listening to classical music, this is the first time I have consciously heard anything by the Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin. And I am gob smacked. First things first. Kapustin definitively proves that classical composers do not have to be fusty, incomprehensible, or even well behaved. The biographers point out that by the time he began to attend the Moscow Conservatory, he could play a fugue with textbook precision and a bebop chorus with nightclub swagger, and he never saw any contradiction between the two. Despite his early training in the three B’s – Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, he spent evenings listening to the Voice of America Jazz Hour, absorbing the swing of Oscar Peterson and the colourful imagination of Duke Ellington. He produced a masterly fusion of classical forms with the prevailing jazz idioms of his day. Much of this technique came from his years performing with the Oleg Lundstrem Big Band, touring widely and absorbing jazz from within an ensemble setting. Later, believing that composition was his true vocation, he used jazz not as a style to imitate but as a language to compose with. The result is a body of work spanning 161 opus numbers, including twenty piano sonatas, six concertos, a set of twenty‑four Preludes and Fugues that nod to Bach with tongue-in-cheek humour, and countless études, variations and suites that feel like high‑octane games for the fingers.

The recital opens with Kapustin’s Piano Sonata No.2 dating from 1989. This was the time when Gorbachev's decision to loosen the Soviet hegemony on the countries of Eastern Europe created an independent, democratic momentum that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November of that year, and the rapid disintegration of Communist rule throughout the region.

The Sonata is a brilliant fusion of classical forms with syncopated jazz idioms. Cast in four movements, it opens with an Allegro molto that blends bebop inflections and motoric rhythms within a traditional sonata structure. The Scherzo is equally driving in mood. This is followed by a deeply contemplative meditation that echoes jazz harmonies and a laid-back "cocktail bar” atmosphere. The finale is a toccata-like Perpetuum mobile, with energetic cross-rhythms that brings the work to a thrilling, virtuosic close. It is important to note that Kapustin was not an improviser: despite his music often sounding like spontaneous invention, every note is written down with meticulous care.

Kapustin’s Eight Concert Études op.40 (1984) were not conceived as a set, but a collection from which the concert pianist could select. Nikolay Medvedev has chosen to play five of them. The bright opening Prelude evokes Carnival time in Rio de Janeiro. It is suggested that the second Étude, may acknowledge Kapustin’s home country rather than the jazz salons, engaging the pianist with dense double-note figurations. Étude No.6 (Pastorale) has a jaunty, ragtime, Joplin-esqe rhythm to it. There is a more reflective mood in the seventh number, with its gentle promenading stride. Finally, No.8 is relentlessly toccata-like in its flurry of notes and “unstoppable energy.” Medvedev’s performance is nothing short of dazzling.        

The final offering from Nikolai Kapustin is his Variations for piano, op.41. This was completed in 1984. It is a difficult piece to categorise. The booklet notes suggest reminiscences of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps, however, the composer made clear to Yana Tyulkova (Conversations with Nikolai Kapustin, 2019), that when he was writing them, he was not thinking of Stravinsky at all. Other critics suggest that Kapustin had the initial bassoon passage of the Rite in mind, perhaps subconsciously. Regardless of its inspiration, the variations unfold with breathtaking speed, nodding to be-bop, Count Basie and Erroll Garner. One interesting byway here is a Rachmaninovian interlude of pure romanticism. Medvedev's interpretation makes this an ideal entry point to Kapustin's music, and it is easily my favourite work on the disc.

George Gershwin was rumoured to have planned a suite of twenty-four piano preludes titled The Melting Pot. As it turned out, he was to produce seven such preludes in manuscript, of which five were performed at a New York recital on 4 December 1926, where Gershwin accompanied the contralto Marguerite d’Alvarez. Three were selected for publication in 1927, as the Three Preludes. These were the only set of solo piano pieces he published during his lifetime. Of the remaining preludes, two were later reworked as Short Story, one was rejected by the publisher for its similarity to the Concerto in F, and at least one has not survived.

Each prelude reveals Gershwin’s gift for fusing classical craft with blues harmony and jazzy rhythmic vitality. The first prelude, in B‑flat, is driven by a propulsive five‑note motif; the second, in C‑sharp minor, offers a gently melancholic “blues lullaby;” and the third, in E‑flat minor, has a taut, quasi‑Spanish flair.

Earl Wild was a larger-than-life American virtuoso. Ostensibly, he was one of the last great links to the golden age of pianism, reflecting Lisztian showmanship. His repertoire was considerable including Dieterich Buxtehude, J.S. Bach and Mozart through to Sergei Rachmaninov, Xaver Scharwenka, Aaron Copland, and Paul Creston. He recorded many of the ‘big’ standard piano concertos. Beyond all that, Wild brought a sparkle to everything he played, and seemingly effortless glamour, and a lifelong delight in sheer pianistic bravura.

Wild transcribed seven extremely popular Gershwin Songs: Liza, Somebody Loves Me, The Man I Love, Embraceable You, Lady Be Good, I Got Rhythm and Fascinatin’ Rhythm. They were issued in two volumes in 1954 and 1973. Both were revised in 1975. They can be regarded as studies or études in the sense of Chopin or Liszt. Stylistically, there are allusions to these composers as well as to Maurice Ravel. It is true that these are not technical exercises, or mere arrangements, but are vivid reworkings of Gershwin’s original songs. Just following one of these Etudes in the score is enough to make the tyro pianist wish they had learnt another instrument.

Russian pianist Nikolay Medvedev is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory. He has built a reputation through competition successes, recital appearances, and a growing catalogue of recordings. Medvedev’s repertoire ranges widely, from Baroque clarity to the big Romantic canvases, and now the jazz infused music of heard on this disc.

This is a magnificent release. Nikolay Medvedev delivers these formidable, finger-busting scores with a perfect blend of classical rigor and effortless swing, proving himself an ideal advocate for the three composers on this disc alike. Coupled with crisp sound quality and informative liner notes, this disc is an absolute triumph. To borrow from Gershwin himself—"Who could ask for anything more?”

Track Listing:
Nikolai Kapustin (1937-2020)
Piano Sonata No.2 op.54 (1989)
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Three Preludes (pub. 1927)
Nikolai Kapustin
Eight Concert Études op.40: Nos.1,2,6-8 (1984)
Earl Wild (1915-2010)
Seven Virtuoso Etudes after George Gershwin (1954, 1973, rev. 1975)
Nikolai Kapustin
Variations for piano op.41 (1984)
Nikolay Medvedev (piano)
rec. 2025, Tonstudio Ölberg-Kirche, Berlin, Germany
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0724

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

Art and Charity in Harmony: Lady Radnor’s Concert at St James’s Hall

A few days I posted about Charles Hubert Hastings Parry remarkable Lady Radnor’s Suite for string orchestra. It was premiered on the 29 June 1894, at London's St. James's Hall. The Daily Telegraph reported on the concert. It bears printing in full. That said, some of the critique would now be seen as patronising. What the listener must never forget is the impact that Lady Radnor Helen Matilda, Countess of Radnor had in promoting women’s orchestral performance in the late 19th century.

Lady Radnor’s concert at St James’s Hall, given for two charities, proved a genuine artistic success rather than an indulgence for amateurs. Her disciplined ensemble of ladies offered unusually fine unanimity, reflecting her firm, shaping influence. A distinguished audience, including royalty, heard a well‑chosen programme featuring Boyce, Handel, German, and the premiere of Parry’s new D‑minor Suite, played with striking precision. The chorus matched the orchestra in refinement, notably in works by Marchetti, Franck, Gounod, and Leslie. Mr Plunkett Greene and Countess Valda Gleichen contributed ably. Art and charity were happily united in a memorable evening.

St James Hall was built in 1858 and closed in 1905. It stood on the site of what is now the Piccadilly Hotel (now the Le Méridien Piccadilly) in Piccadilly Place.

A few contextual notes have been provided.

The Daily Telegraph critic wrote: When a delightful entertainment is given in support of two noble charities criticism finds itself an enviable position. For once there is no need to speak aught but the strict truth. Charity, it is well known, covers a multitude of sins, and the misdeeds of amateur musicians have a special faculty for getting themselves thus cloaked.

Lady Radnor, however, did not come forward at St James's hall last evening to claim indulgence for a crowd of incapables just because of their efforts were made in a good cause. On the other hand, she stood at the head of a group of ladies whose musical abilities have been welded by the industry and care of their accomplished conductor into a very harmonious and admirable whole. 

Only those who have grappled with the task of organising amateur orchestras and choirs know how difficult it is to secure in such cases anything approaching a fine ensemble. It speaks volumes then for the potency of Lady Radnor’s rule that the band of clever ladies who owe her allegiance should have attained so full a measure of that executive unanimity which is only met with in cases where the conductor is in reality a dominating influence and not merely a wielder of the baton.

Last evening brought with it a large and distinguished audience. If the body of the hall, however, bore a brilliant aspect so likewise did the orchestra which was entirely filled by the members of Lady Radnor's string band and chorus. No violent conflict of colours was to be noted in the costumes of these gracious musicians as they sat swaying their fans in preparation for the work of the occasion.

All were garbed in white, though shoulder-knots of pale pink and blue and sprays of roses lent the necessary touch of variety to the chromatic scheme. Royalty had announced its attention of listening to the evening's music and no long pause ensued before the coming of a group of exalted personages was duly signalled. Lady Radnor lifted her baton; the ladies of the orchestra rose with a flutter of white drapery and the National Anthem surged from the strings and organ as the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg [1] were conducted to their places by Lord Radnor.

A like welcome was accorded to the Princess of Wales, who, in company with the Princess Victoria and Maud, arrived almost immediately afterwards. [2]

Then was commenced a programme which, as we have already remarked, ran a delightful course from first to last. One or two disappointments had to be faced. For example, Mr Max Alvary, [3] detained at Drury Lane by a rehearsal of Tristan could not make his promised appearance while Miss Esther Palliser [4] was compelled by a newly caught cold to cancel two of her songs. But these untoward circumstances had no effect upon their attractiveness of the evening scheme. It was to listen to Lady Radnor 's band and chorus that the audience had come, and for once a professional element in the programme was regarded as of secondary importance. The instrumental pieces set down for performance had been happily chosen. It was really interesting to hear one of Dr Boyce’s Sonatas for two violins and bass [5] played by the whole body of strings. The addition of a viola part from the discrete pen of Dr Parry naturally enhanced the effect of the four movements, and, moreover, suggests that a similar judicious process might be adopted in the cases of other minor works, which would sound thinly to our modern ears in their original form.

We do not advocate latter day interference with masterpieces; but there is a large range of old music which might be made occasionally acceptable in this way without the act being deemed a sacrilege. Handel's graceful ‘Minuet’ from Berenice [6] was also given; while the dainty dance measures from Mr Edward German's music to Henry VIII [7] brought the concert to its close. But the most important work attacked during the evening was a new Suite for strings in D minor, composed by Dr Hubert Parry expressly for Lady Radnor and her gifted players.

This comprises six movements, all being designed on classical lines, though any extended elaboration has been intentionally avoided. It needs scarcely be said that Dr Parry has approached a task, that must have been mere child's play to him, in that spirit of musical scholarship which never deserts him. Brief and unambitious though it be, this Suite contains some delightful contrapuntal writing, and the true flavour of old-world music, without which an Allemande, a Sarabande, a Bourrée, and a Gigue would be unworthy of their names. The work was played with the firmness and precision quite remarkable, seeing that it came fresh to Lady Radnor's repertory; and Dr Parry, who finally came forward to acknowledge a ‘call’ did not hesitate publicly to congratulate the conductor under whom his movements had received such ample justice.

But if the instrumentalists covered themselves with honours so did the chorus follow their sister-artists’ example. Lady Radnor does not wrest content with securing broad forte and piano effects. She aims at real delicacy in the matter of tone-variety, and the nuances obtained by her chorus in an Ave Maria by Marchetti, [8] in two Petits Chœurs by Cesar Franck. [9] and in pieces by [Charles] Gounod and [Henry] Leslie were very welcome to the ear. [10]

Part singing, so tasteful and refined, drew its meed of applause as a matter of course. It only remains to note the excellent vocal assistance rendered by Mr Plunkett Green [11], who was heard in a long series of songs, and to complement the Countess Valda Gleichen [12], who gallantly stepped into the breach left by Miss Esther Palliser. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the ‘Clarence Ward’ of the Alexandra National Hospital at Woodhall-Spa [13] will certainly benefit largely by the evening's proceedings. At the same time, last night's audience will not easily forget the pleasures of a concert at which Art and Charity joined hands to such good purpose.

Daily Telegraph 30 June 1894, p.8

Notes

[1] Alfred, Duke of Saxe‑Coburg, and Gotha (r. 1893–1900), and his consort Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II, occupied the ducal throne in 1894.

[2] Alexandra of Denmark was the Princess of Wales in 1894, widely admired for her public engagements. Her daughters Princess Victoria and Princess Maud, then in their mid‑twenties, frequently accompanied her at official events. Together, the three women formed one of the most visible and active royal groups in Britain during that period.

[3] Max Alvary, a celebrated German tenor of the Victorian era, was admired for his powerful voice, dramatic intensity, and acclaimed Wagner performances, becoming a favourite on British operatic stages.

[4] Miss Esther Palliser was a popular Victorian soprano, praised for her clear tone, expressive phrasing, and frequent appearances in British concert halls during the late nineteenth century.

[5] Dr William Boyce (1711-79) wrote Three Sonatas for two violins and bass. They were published around 1740. Seven years later, Boyce published Twelve Sonatas for two violins, cello, and harpsichord.

[6] Handel’s Berenice (1737) follows the Egyptian queen navigating political rivalry, threatened succession, and conflicted love, as competing factions struggle for power around her throne. The opera was not a success, but the Minuet, the slow section from the opera’s overture became an exceptionally popular standalone orchestral piece.

[7] Edward German’s (1862-1936) incidental music for Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (1892) evokes Tudor pageantry through graceful dances, noble, almost Elgarian, ceremonial themes, and a polished melodic charm.

[8] Filippo Marchetti (1831–1902) was an Italian opera composer best remembered for his 1869 opera Ruy Blas (based on Victor Hugo's play). Born in Bolognola he studied in Naples and became a prominent figure in 19th-century Italian opera between Verdi and the verismo movement of Puccini and Mascagni.

[9] César Franck’s Deux Petits Chœurs are brief liturgical miniatures: self‑contained sacred pieces for voices and organ, modest in scale yet tender in devotional character.

[10] Charles Gounod (1818-93) and Henry Leslie (1822–1905) exemplify contrasting yet complementary nineteenth‑century traditions: Gounod’s refined French lyricism shaped opera and sacred music, while Leslie’s English choral craft fostered amateur excellence through his celebrated choir and melodious part‑songs.

[11] Mr Plunkett Greene (1865-1936) was a distinguished early‑twentieth‑century baritone, admired for his eloquent phrasing, noble tone, and advocacy of English song. A favourite interpreter of Stanford and Parry, he championed many rising British composers.

[12] Countess Victoria “Valda” Gleichen (1868–1951), later Lady Valda Machell, was an accomplished British singer and grandniece of Queen Victoria. The daughter of Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, she performed frequently within elite British high-society musical circles.

[13] Built in 1890 in Queen Anne Revival style, the Alexandra Hospital at Woodhall Spa treated patients using the area's local mineral-rich bromo-iodine spa waters. Later serving under the NHS, it operated until 1983 and was eventually converted into residential apartments. In 1894 the new Clarence Ward was added.