Elizabeth Maconchy Nicola LeFanu Giles Swayne RELATI ONSHIPS Malu Lin violin Giles Swayne piano Relationships Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994) Elizabeth Maconchy Violin Sonata No. 2 Music for Violin & Piano by Violin Sonata No. 1 1. Molto moderato [4:32] 14. Moderato [6:29] Elizabeth Maconchy, Nicola LeFanu & Giles Swayne 2. Allegro molto [2:54] 15. Allegro scherzando [1:33] 3. Lento, quasi recitavo [5:17] 16. Lento [5:12] 4. Presto [4:25] 17. Toccata: allegro molto [3:25] Nicola LeFanu (b.1947) Giles Swayne Malu Lin violin Abstracts and a Frame 18. Echo, Op. 78 [5:13] Giles Swayne piano 5. Tranquillo e lento [1:12] 6. Quaver = 126 [1:35] Giles Swayne 7. Poco esitando ... rapido [1:28] 19. Farewell, Op. 151 [4:14] 8. Molto moderato [1:35] 9. Calmo assoluto [1:32] 10. Quaver = 126 [2:03] Total playing me [75:56] 11. Molto lento [2:22] 12. Tranquillo e lento [1:17] Giles Swayne (b.1946) 13. Duo, Op. 20 [19:26] All world premiere recordings About Malu Lin & Giles Swayne: ‘Malu Lin could walk on air’ The Yorkshire Evening Press ‘Giles Swayne, pianist, composer and wit, is a naonal treasure and should be paid more aenon.’ The Strad Relaonships: Maconchy, LeFanu & Swayne and the inescapable influences of Webern and Messiaen (who taught Swayne). Relaonships is an album formed from the various strands of familial, personal Elizabeth Maconchy: Violin Sonata No. 2 and musical connecons between the Maconchy’s second sonata was composed composers and performers involved in it. in 1943, during the war years. The differences Elizabeth Maconchy, who died in 1994, was between this sonata and the first are marked: a cousin of Giles Swayne’s mother and a the youthful exuberance of her early works major influence on his musical development. has given way to a more searching and Nicola LeFanu is Elizabeth Maconchy’s troubled language – the ‘passionate daughter and Giles Swayne’s cousin (and argument’ that Maconchy herself described almost exact contemporary) and their as characterisc of her chamber music. This careers have many points of connecon sonata is perhaps less free and innovave – in 1968, for example, they both studied than the first, but it is more accomplished: at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. concertante wring has given way to a Violinist Malu Lin is married to Giles confidently textured idiom, sharing musical Swayne, and studied with violinist ideas more equally between the players. Christopher Rowland, for whom Swayne composed his 1975 Duo. The first movement opens with a brooding and rhythmically ambiguous violin solo, The works span nine decades. Maconchy’s introducing the twisng chromac moves early Sonata No. 1 was wrien in 1927, which will underpin the whole sonata. The Swayne’s Farewell in July 2017. Listed slow introducon leads to a vigorous ‘Allegro’ chronologically, between these two come which is technically and expressively Maconchy’s Sonata No. 2 (1943), two demanding of both players. The ‘scherzo’ youthful works by LeFanu and Swayne which follows alternates simple and (1971 and 1975 respecvely), and a short compound metres, but its mood is dark and Swayne piece from 1996. So the programme almost sinister compared with the scherzo covers nearly a century of music for violin of the earlier sonata. The third movement, and piano, connecng the sound-worlds ‘Lento’, also has a disquiengly bier-sweet of Vaughan Williams (who taught Maconchy), quality, and its underlying modality is seldom Bartók and Janáček (who influenced free of dissonant inflecon. It leads without Maconchy), Petrassi (who taught LeFanu), a break into the last movement – a ‘Presto’ which takes up the moves and rhythms partner when we were at the Royal Academy Elizabeth Maconchy: Violin Sonata No. 1 Giles Swayne: Echo, Op. 78 of the previous movements and extends of Music in London. He went on to lead the them in a brilliant finale which binds Fitzwilliam Quartet, which recorded the Wrien in 1927 when she was a student of Echo was wrien in July 1997 in memory of together the whole work, bringing it to complete cycle of Shostakovich quartets Vaughan Williams (five years before her the composer Paul Reade, who had died in a quiet close in a slow coda, marked under that composer’s aegis, to internaonal first string quartet) this sonata is Maconchy’s May that year. It was first performed by ‘molto calmo’. acclaim. He died in 2007, greatly missed by first mature work. Several of her early pieces Malu Lin and myself at the Purcell Room, his many friends and students. had already aracted aenon; but none London on 9 December 1997. Nicola LeFanu: Abstracts and a Frame displays the remarkable originality of this Around that me there was wide speculaon piece, which heralds many characteriscs The piece is based on the four-note phrase The frame of the tle refers to the very about a series of underwater photographs of her later style. The harmonic idiom is which begins and ends my 1975 Duo (which simple, sll piece which opens and closes which purported to show the Loch Ness bold, emphasising tritones and unresolved I used to perform during the 1970s with the work. Within the frame are six monster. In an idle moment I doodled a dissonances; and she explores irregular violinist Christopher Rowland, who taught ‘abstracts’ – miniatures in size, though not series of diminishing loops represenng metre and cross-rhythms, creang a Malu Lin). At the end of Duo, the opening necessarily in scope. They are closely Nessie’s curves; and it struck me that this counterpoint of rhythms and lines. But the phrase (loud at the beginning) recurs as related, interacng and drawing on similar could be a model for a musical structure most striking and characterisc feature of a whisper on muted violin. This involves material, but presenng it in different which worked by compression rather the piece (as of all Maconchy’s mature pung on a mute for the last four notes; contexts. I imagined listening to this than elaboraon. This is how Duo was work) is its intensity of concentraon and I was interested in taking this idea and piece as being analogous to browsing in planned. I cheated in places, overlapping and of feeling. making a short piece which could either be an art gallery: our percepon of the some of the loops; and one loop got out a pendant to Duo or stand on its own – material changes as we alter our perspecve. of hand, creang a bulge near the The first movement has a striking theme which is what I did twenty-two years later. Abstracts and a Frame was composed in monster’s rear. The result is a with a prominent tritone, and culminates 1971 for Levon Chilingirian and Clifford single-movement piece which opens in in a violin cadenza which leads to a The violin remains muted throughout, except Benson, who commissioned it with funds wild extravagance, disintegrates into reflecve coda. The ‘Scherzo’ is very fast in the last two bars; so the process at the from the Arts Council. unsynchronised lunacy, and is then pared and rather grotesque; the ‘Lento’ develops end of Duo is here reversed. The four-note gradually away to a gentle ending. It is a connuously unwinding melodic strands, phrase has a fih note added; and this Giles Swayne: Duo, Op. 20 highly physical piece which makes massive which undergo metric transformaon to provides the material of the violin part, demands on the both performers. Because create great expressive variety. The which becomes increasingly detailed as Composed in November 1975, Duo was first of its free structure and the nature of its virtuoso finale is a light-hearted ‘moto it develops. Against this, the piano plays performed by Christopher Rowland and material, it had to be recorded in very perpetuo’ which acts as a perfect foil to a series of quiet chords derived from the Giles Swayne at the Arts Lab, Birmingham long secons, almost like a live the previous movements. original four-note phrase. This chord-sequence on 7 January 1976, and is dedicated to performance; so this recording comes recurs twelve mes, and is gradually slowed Christopher Rowland, who was my with warts and all. down, while the chords are thinned out from contemporary at university, and my duo eight notes to one. At this point, over long, bell-like notes in the bass, the piano takes the violin’s material and gradually compresses it, unl it is very quick. Meanwhile the violin plays a slowed-down version, and this collision between compression and expansion produces the piece’s brief and sudden climax. Giles Swayne: Farewell, Op. 151 This short piece was wrien in July 2017 in memory of a very dear friend who died in March that year. I imagined the violin as playing from within an all-embracing resonance (the piano sustaining pedal is held down throughout). We recorded the piece in an unusual way, feeding part of the violin output to the piano soundboard via speakers placed inside the instrument. The resulng mixture was subjected to electronic treatment, resulng in a heightened and almost supernatural violin sound. The piece has a floang feeling, because of the irregular division of nine quavers in each bar. The right hand of the piano plays a rocking minor third which climbs slowly up the keyboard from start to finish. The violin plays a melody derived from this; and the le hand of the piano plays a deep, low echo of the violin. © 2021 Giles Swayne & Nicola LeFanu Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994) Nicola LeFanu (b.1947) A disncve voice in Brish music of the Nicola LeFanu who is the daughter of tweneth century, Maconchy grew up in Elizabeth Maconchy, has composed around Ireland, came to London in 1923 to study a hundred works for a variety of mediums.