A collection of piano duets as part of the British Composer Series (virtually everyone from Manchester) on the Campion label, this disc offers us some fascinating arrangements and commissions from notables of 20th Century composition. These 2004 recordings derive from August sessions at Pearl Hall, University of Salford. I first heard the 1927 Walton Portsmouth Point under Aaron Copland’s direction in Syracuse, New York. Jaunty and rife with sea salt, the piece in its four-hand arrangement communicates a piercing, direct, jazzy energy. Walton’s own setting of Siesta (1928) provides an immediate contrast, legato, a tripping, balletic, Italianate song whose close imitations and open harmonies project a Mediterranean sensibility. The Duets for Children (1940) might owe something to Debussy’s Children’s Corner, opening Gradus ad parnassum, then becoming alternately martial, imitative inventions after Bach, staccato etudes, and tiny character pieces that sound a bit like Kabalevsky or percussive Poulenc. The last of the set suggests a breezy boulevardier at work.
Four miniatures comprise Alan Rawsthorne’s The Creel – Suite (1940), inspired by the composer’s fascination with Isaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler. The two pianists play music conceived for children, but gifted ones with fleet, rhythmically articulate fingers. The Carp has a delicate tracery that disappears too quickly. Musical somersaults for the Salmon end this mercurial piece. Thomas Pitfield (1903-1999) was unknown to me; his Minor Suite (1965) are four movements each in minor keys. The titles Rigaudon, Galliard, Sarabande and Sinister Dance give us something arcane to think about. Pitfield favors 7/8 meters as a signature. The songful Sarabande is inscribed to the memory of Iso Elinson, a faculty member at the Royal Manchester College of Music. Leonard Isaacs is another Manchester music figure; he takes tunes (1959) already set by Quilter and Grainger–one from France, one from Somerset–and harmonizes them most gracefully.
Percy Young (1912-2003) opens with an arrangement of Barbara Allen in his 1938 setting of Five Folk Songs, each dedicated to a personal friend, a la Elgar. A bit of Irish reel for the third piece. The fourth sounds a combination of noel and carillon, while the last is a purely contrapuntal Christmas carol, The First Noel. Roy Heaton Smith (b. 1928) studied at Manchester with William Walton’s brother, Noel Walton. His airy Sonatina (1990) is among his last compositions, although it certainly mixes declamatory elements from a Bach organ toccata. Norman Cocker (1889-1953) had been a Manchester organist and conductor of light music. His emotionally facile Op. 5 Eight Duets (1915) clearly hearken to Percy Grainger, even sharing an arrangement of Mock Morris and Clog Dance.
— Gary Lemco
