I have never been a fan of
Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. It
has just never appealed to me. Friends of mine would say that my problem is
that I have never got beyond G&S’s The
Pirates of Penzance and Iolanthe
in my operatic tastes, and there may be some truth in that! On the other hand,
I do recognise the importance of Grimes
as ushering in a glorious new age of operatic endeavour in post-war (1945)
Britain. Ronald Stevenson has written: ‘Peter
Grimes is the living conflict. His pride, ambition, and urge for independence
fight with his need for love: his self-love battles against his self-hate…’
The basic contention of this Fantasy is the juxtaposition of
quotations of storm music symbolising the aggression of the crowd with the
haunting ‘Dawn Interlude’ to reflect the drowning of Grimes at sea in the early
morning. The Fantasy is a microcosm
of the entire opera, presented in just over seven minutes. Stevenson’s music is
complex and demanding making use of a Lisztian thesaurus of technical devices.
I have always loved the Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia arranged by Britten from the
score. For me this is Peter Grimes in
a digestible form. Ronald Stevenson’s Fantasy
gives me another ‘take’ on this opera which I find equally satisfying.
The Peter Grimes Fantasy was composed in 1971 for the pianist Graham
Johnson.
The Three Scottish Ballads (1973)
are a little less troubling for the listener, in spite of the violent nature of
some of the original texts. Stevenson selected two ballads included in Sir Walter
Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
(1802-3). The tunes he has sourced from elsewhere. The first is about Lord
Randall who committed patricide at his mother’s bidding, whilst the ‘Dowie Dens
O’ Yarrow’ is a tale of collusion, cowardice and murder. The final ‘ballad’ is
based on ‘The Newhaven Fishwife’s Cry.’ Stevenson’s approach to these pieces is
not to write a tone-poem on each ballad, but simply to transcribe the tune to
give a general impression of the impact of the tale.
The Beltane Bonfire was commissioned by the Scottish International
Piano Competition as a test piece for the 1990 competition. The work was
completed in ‘early summer 1989’ and was first performed by Nigel Hutchinson in
the Purcell Room on 6 February 1990. Out
of interest Beltane is the Gaelic May Day Festival held in the Celtic parts of
the United Kingdom. One of the events was the driving of cattle past the
bonfires as part of a purification ceremony. Stevenson has represented this by
a slow ‘winding fugue.’ Other interesting allusions are to Chopin’s famous A
flat Polonaise and the ‘Trial by Fire’ from Mozart’s Magic Flute. The listener must look out for plucked piano strings
‘imitating the clàrsach or Scottish harp.’ It is a great piece that is hugely
demanding for the soloist, both in its technical requirements and the eclectic
interpretive skills required to bring it off successfully. It is certainly a worthy ‘test piece’, way
beyond my Grade 6½.
I guess I could say a lot about Hugh MacDiarmid as a Scottish journalist, essayist, poet, and political
figure. As a Scot, myself I do have a
great sympathy with his literary style. His political ratiocinations and
personality are less appealing (to me).
Ronald Stevenson’s ‘Heroic Song’ was commissioned by the
BBC to mark MacDiarmid’s 75th birthday. The two men were good
friends and shared many political opinions. The work contrasts a medieval
Scottish New Year song with a misty portrayal of the ‘high hills, of space and
solitude…’ The work is designed to present a musical evocation of ‘The Poet
Speaks’, ‘The Poet Laughs’ and ‘The Poet Dreams.’ The music balances an acerbic sound (MacDiarmid’s
notable high pitched laugh?) with something that is more numinous.
Stevenson’s Symphonic Elegy for Liszt is a deeply
wrought work full of musical and even literary allusions and quotations. Hamilton
explains in the liner notes that Stevenson’s model was not the Liszt of the
Hungarian Rhapsodies or the Opera Fantasias: it reflected the composer’s later
works such as the Venetian La Lugubre
Gondola elegies, being altogether dark, gloomy and introverted.
The overarching form of Stevenson’s piece is a massive
‘barcarolle’, the traditional folk-song rhythm of Venice. Added to the mix is a
tune that is quite Scottish in its sound, complete with ‘snaps.’ This makes the
work Scotto-Hungarian-Venetian in its imagery.
Other allusions include Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’ from the Second Piano Sonata
and Liszt’s own Piano Sonata. Clearly this is a complex, technically difficult work,
although as noted above not obviously virtuosic. The overall effect is
reflective, as if Liszt looking back on his career, from a detached point of
view. Venice is, I believe, always at the forefront of this piece. Both Liszt
and Stevenson loved this great city. The
Elegy was composed to mark the centenary of Franz Liszt’s death in 1986.
The Chorale and Fugue in Reverse
on Themes of Robert and Clara Schumann was composed in 1979. It is a
very short, but tightly structured piece. The ‘reverse’ in the title implies
that the music progresses from the ‘coda, final entries and stretto’ to the fugal
exposition: from intensity to repose. The chorale, which is based on the words
‘Everything transient is merely a parable’ from Schumann’s Scenes of Faust, is presented in distortion. It is wrapped round
the beginning and end of the fugue. A quotation of Clara Schumann’s song
‘Secret Whispers here and there’ is also ‘slyly introduced.
I have remarked before that
Stevenson is in the trajectory of the great romantic virtuoso pianists such as Ferruccio
Busoni, Leopold Godowsky, Percy Grainger and Paderewski.
Going further back in time, Liszt is also an important influence. One of the common
features of these men was that they were composers of vast amounts of piano
music. Their catalogues include much original music but also many
transcriptions, arrangements and paraphrases of other composers’ music. Ronald
Stevenson is no exception to this very important, but sometimes controversial
adjunct to music-making. It is not the forum to accurately define these three
genres, safe to say that there is considerable blurring around the edges.
The Ivor Novello ‘We’ll Gather
Lilacs’ is a beautiful arrangement of the song. Stevenson cleverly and deftly
includes an accompaniment figuration from Rachmaninov’s song ‘Lilacs’ included
in that composer’s Twelve Songs op.21 no.5. It is good that Kenneth Hamilton
has presented Rachmaninov’s original piece as a ‘prelude’ to the Stevenson
transcription. Stevenson’s Tauberiana is a realisation of Ricard
Tauber’s ‘My Heart and I’ from his musical Old
Chelsea. It is a splendid arrangement
of this lovely tune, represented by a ‘hushed reminiscence’ of the waltz tune,
followed by a sweeping, ball room version.
Still reflecting other composer’s
music, the Three Elizabethan Pieces after John Bull (1562 or 1563–15 March
1628) include a Pavan, a Galliard and a Jig, all found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. They were
transcribed in 1950. Stevenson’s achievement here is to balance a romanticised
reinterpretation of this 16/17th century music as seen through the
eyes of Busoni where the all the modern resources of the ‘struck’ grand piano
are brought to bear against the ‘plucked’ virginal of Bull’s time. It is a
style that may not appeal to enthusiasts of historical instruments, but there
is no doubting the impact of these three pieces. The Jig is especially
exhilarating.
I found that the sound quality is excellent on this disc,
although I did feel the piano was just a little bit brittle at times. The liner
notes are first class: Hamilton has provided a major essay about these varied
piano works. Like so many inserts these days, I found the text small and hard
to read. There is no recording date
given.
I relished this first volume of Kenneth
Hamilton’s exploration of Ronald Stevenson’s music. The selection of music
presented on this disc barely overlaps with the first two volumes of
Christopher Guild’s edition of the piano music on Toccata (TOCC0272 and
TOCC0388). The only work in common is the Three Scottish Ballads (1973).
Equally, the programme on Murray McLachlan’s three-CD survey on DIVINE ART
RECORDS DDA21372 does not conflict.
Based on the imaginative,
inspiring and technically demanding performances on this present disc, I do hope
that ‘Volume 1’ is the first of a large edition of Ronald Stevenson’s piano
music. Glancing at the catalogue of
original and transcribed piano works in Ronald
Stevenson: The Man and his Music (ed. Colin Scott-Sutherland, Toccata
Press, 2005) there is plenty material to be recorded.
Track Listing:
Ronald STEVENSON (1928-2015)
Peter Grimes Fantasy
(1971)
Three Scottish Ballads (1973)
Beltane Bonfire (1989)
Heroic Song for Hugh MacDiarmid (1959-67)
Symphonic Elegy for Liszt (1986)
Chorale and Fugue in reverse for Robert and Clara Schumann (1979)
Three Elizabethan Pieces after John Bull (1950)
Sergei RACHMANINOV
(1873-1943) Lilacs, op.21, no.5 (1902)
Ivor Novello (1893-1951)
We’ll Gather Lilacs (arr. Stevenson) (1980)
Richard TAUBER (1891-1948)
Tauberiana, ‘My Heart and I’ from Old
Chelsea (arr. Stevenson) (1980)
Kenneth Hamilton (piano)
PRIMA FACIE PFCD050
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