Lennox Berkeley

SRCD.250 STEREO ADD Lennox Berkeley LENNOX BERKELEY (1903-1989) Piano Concerto in B flat Piano Concerto in B flat Op.29 (1947) * (26’13”) Concerto for Two Pianos 1 1st movement: Allegro moderato (11’44”) 2 2nd movement: Andante (7’53”) 3 3rd movement: Vivace (6’36”) David Wilde Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra Op.30 (1948) (32’17”) 4 1st movement: Molto moderato - Allegro (8’01”) Garth Beckett 5 2nd movement: Theme & Variations (24’16”) Boyd McDonald (58’33”) New David Wilde, piano Philharmonia New Philharmonia Orchestra (led by Bernard Partridge) Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite London Garth Beckett & Boyd McDonald, pianos Philharmonic London Philharmonic Orchestra (leader Rodney Friend) Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar Nicholas The above individual timings will normally each include two pauses. One before the beginning of each movement or work, and one after the end. Braithwaite ൿ 1975 * 1978 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by Lyrita Recorded Edition, England Norman This compilation and the digital remastering ൿ 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. © 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England. Lyrita is a registered trade mark. Made in the UK Del Mar LYRITA RECORDED EDITION. Produced under an exclusive license from Lyrita by Wyastone Estate Ltd, PO Box 87, Monmouth NP25 3WX, UK ir Lennox Berkeley needs little introduction as one of the leading British Variation 11 (L’istesso tempo): this idyllic mood is enhanced with the return of Scomposers of the generation of Walton and Tippett. His output for the piano in the orchestra, which moves towards a climax with a return to the declamatory solos, duos, concertos and chamber music is unrivalled in the British twentieth- opening of the first movement from the soloists. They extend this before century scene. He has told how some of his earliest musical memories related to the everything is unambiguously clinched on E major. instrument: PETER DICKINSON ‘My father was passionately fond of music and had been invalided out of the navy before I was born. He hadn’t been able to learn music as a boy or hear very For further information about Lennox Berkeley see: much, so he acquired a pianola with all kinds of rolls of classical music – Beethoven The Music of Lennox Berkeley by Peter Dickinson (Boydell, 2003) sonatas and arrangements of concertos – which I heard at a very early age on this Lennox Berkeley: A Source Book by Stewart Craggs (Ashgate 2000) machine. That was my introduction to music.’ Lennox and Freda by Tony Scotland (forthcoming biography) Berkeley’s aunt, Nellie Harris, wrote songs and popular piano pieces; his godmother used to sing for him; and he began to improvise at the piano. He had More general notes about the composer will be found on Lyrita SRCD.249. lessons throughout his schooldays but always played down his own abilities as an executant. On 5 January 1940 he wrote to Britten, who was in America: ‘Since I finished the Serenade [for strings, Op 12] I’ve been working on some piano studies [Four Concert Studies, Op 14/1].They’re real virtuoso music – I can’t play a bar of them!’ www.lyrita.co.uk However, Berkeley did play one of the pianos in his Introduction and Allegro Notes © 1975, 1978 & 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op 11, when it was given at the Proms in the same Cover photo courtesy of the LEWIS FOREMAN collection Original recording of Concerto for Two Pianos made in association with the BRITISH COUNCIL year and he told Britten: Digital Remastering Engineer: Simon Gibson ‘I didn’t play too badly considering my very poor technical resource as a pianist.’ Other works by LENNOX BERKELEY available on Lyrita: Characteristically self-deprecating again, but none of this prevented Berkeley Mont Juic, Serenade for Strings, Divertimento in B flat, Partita for Chamber Orchestra from having a special relationship with the piano. As Sir John Manduell said at the Canzonetta (Sinfonia Concertante), Symphony No. 3 in one movement London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Lennox Berkeley……………………………SRCD.226 Requiem Mass for Sir Lennox Berkeley held at Westminster Cathedral on 20 March 1990: ‘No composer has written more distinctively for the piano’. Symphonies 1* & 2** This claim is vindicated by Berkeley’s Piano Sonata, Op 20, which was written *London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar for Clifford Curzon but was first recorded and widely performed by the New **London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite………………………..SRCD.249 Zealand pianist Colin Horsley. At a less technically demanding level the Five Short WARNING Copyright subsists in all Lyrita Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting. public Pieces, Op 4, and the Six Preludes, Op 23, have brought Berkeley’s piano music to performance, copying, rental or re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an a wider public.Their melodic approach, stemming from Mozart, Chopin and Ravel infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the use of recordings for public performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London, but with a purely personal harmonic language, is a feature of Berkeley’s piano W1F 9DE 2 7 Theme (Moderato): two eight-bar phrases each repeated – A (wind); A (strings); B writing both in the miniatures and in the large-scale pieces. (wind); B (strings), but the second half of each B section more-or-less repeats the Some of Berkeley’s major works often seem to have been written in pairs. first half of the A section so that the theme’s four-bar opening is heard four times Examples of this are the Four Poems of St Teresa of Avila, Op 27, and the Stabat within the theme.This helps to make it memorable so its transformations can be Mater, Op 28 (both 1947); and the Five Pieces for Violin and Orchestra, Op 56 and followed throughout the movement.Two notes – a major second – are left hanging Violin Concerto, Op 59 (both 1961). This is also true of the Piano Concerto and the from the Theme’s final chord as a link into the first variation. Two-Piano Concerto, written in 1947 and 1948 but both premiered in the latter year. Variation 1 (Meno vivo): the theme’s phrases mainly in even notes against They could be said to form the climax of Berkeley’s output for the piano although decoration in both pianos. the subsequent sonatinas for Piano Duet, Op 39 and for Two Pianos, Op 52/2 are Variation 2 (L’istesso tempo): orchestral chords alternate with rapid passages and excellent further examples. Fortunately Berkeley’s keyboard output is now being a middle section for the pianos on their own. explored; pianists are finding it as rewarding as the piano parts in his chamber Variation 3 (Allegro): the theme becomes a waltz provided with intermittent music and songs; and most of it is recorded. elaboration from the pianists. Variation 4 (Adagio): starts as a fugue, where the second phrase is the same as The Piano Concerto was written for Colin Horsley who gave the first performance the main theme of the finale of the Jupiter Symphony by Mozart, whom Berkeley at the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall on 31 August 1948 when the London adored. This is the first of three variations that form the serious core of the Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Basil Cameron.The following year Horsley movement. Gradually the orchestra builds towards a climax underpinned by the played it again with the Rome Symphony Orchestra under Constant Lambert at the resonant tolling of both pianos over an obsessive two-note figure in the orchestra. Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music held at Palermo. Variation 5 (Vivace): this apparently lightweight variation in 6/8 maintains Horsley, who commissioned works from Berkeley and whose dedication to his momentum. music was outstanding, played the concerto some thirty times. However, when this Variation 6 (Andante): a spectral texture in G minor with flutter-tonguing flutes, recording was made Berkeley confided to his diary in August 1975: ‘David Wilde was an ostinato rhythm, and an angular version of the theme in agonising phrases on really first-class: I still quite like the piece, though there are things I would do the strings. differently and, I hope, better now.’ Berkeley was wrong – how could he improve on Variation 7 (Tempo di valse): after such intensity an affable waltz in G major a masterpiece? dispels the gloom with homage to Chopin and Berkeley’s old friend from his I am now adding the composer’s own notes, written for the 1978 recording, youth in Paris - Maurice Ravel. with my own interpolations: Variation 8 (Allegro): declamatory again where the pianists, now without the ‘The Concerto starts directly with the principal theme of the first orchestra, are given thundering passagework largely in C major. movement played by the flutes, clarinets and bassoons an octave apart Variation 9 (Lento): orchestra alone, with a lovely flute melody beginning like a from each over a sustained chord in the violins and violas.This occupies souvenir from Ravel’s Pavane in the same key. the first ten bars. There follow various figures that play an important Variation 10 (Andante con moto): the pianos on their own again question and part as the movement gets under way [dotted motif led off by the oboe; answer each other in delicate textures. falling fifths in the bass]. The piano enters with a short introductory passage leading to the main theme. A new theme (second subject) [with 6 3 a blues inflection] first appears somewhat later in the piano alone.

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