WILLIAM ALWYN: Mirages – Song Cycle for baritone and piano; Divertimento for Solo Flute; Naiades – Fantasy-Sonata for flute & harp; Fantasy-Waltzes; Sonata alla Toccata – Benjamin Luxon, baritone/ David Willison, piano/ Christopher Hyde-Smith, flute/ Marisa Robles, harp/Sheila Randell, piano – Lyrita (2 CDs) SRCD.293, 98:54 total ***** [Distr. by Allegro]:
This double-disc reissue package comes from recordings made in l959 and 1971 by the small British label which always had produced LPs of the highest sonic quality, covering less well-known UK composers and more unusual repertory. Alwyn, who lived until 1985, was a composition professor at the Royal Academy of Music for many years, and his large output included five symphonies, four operas, several concertos and much chamber music, of which some is sampled in this album. He also wrote over 70 film scores, and came up with his own version of serialism, used in his Third Symphony. His mostly late-Romantic style has been compared to William Walton.
Alwyn was also a poet and wrote the words for his Mirages song cycle, which were also published separately as poetry. The six poems refer to mirage as an optical illusion caused by reflection, from water or a mirror. Each of the songs’ music blends two musical ideas, which can be interpreted as representing male and female. Alwyn’s two works for flute here date from 1939 and 1971. He enjoyed the wide leaps found in Mozart’s flute music and engaged in them in both flute works. Naiades are water nymphs, and aqueous images were a strong part of Alwyn’s music and poetry thruout his life.
I found Alwyn’s Fantasy-Waltzes to be my favorite in this collection. Composed in 1956, it runs 33 minutes and was engendered by Alwyn’s having visited Edvard Grieg’s home at Troldhaugen, Norway. He became convinced that excellent “salon” miniatures such as Grieg wrote so many of, could still be popular on the concert platform. Alwyn’s pieces, however, are not for the amateur – they require much keyboard virtuosity. There are 11 waltzes in all, and some of them are subtly linked via the last few bars of one piece containing the germ of what is heard in the next waltz. Hints of Grieg, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Johann Strauss may be discerned in the waltzes. They’re absolutely delightful. The short closing piano sonata of l947 is in three movements rolled into one, and in a neo-classical style. The work’s toccata-like texture and big chordal finish distinguish it.
– John Sunier
