PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS:
The late Patric Standford may have written these short pieces deliberately to provoke our feedback. If so, his success is reflected in the rich range of readers' comments appearing at the foot of most of the pages.
THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL: Roderic Dunnett previews the 2024 edition of the UK's oldest music festival, 27 July until 4 August.
Ivor Gurney: Piano Sonatas Nos 1 and 3
8.574479 (Naxos Records, CD)
DDD
FIRST RELEASE (27 October 2023)
Playing time: 74'38"
Tracks: 12
Booklet pages: 6
℗ 2023 Naxos Rights (Europe) Ltd
© 2023 Naxos Rights (Europe) Ltd
Main country of recording: United Kingdom
Country of manufacture: Germany
Sent to a reviewer on 4 December 2023
Listen: Ivor Gurney: Moderato (Piano Sonata No 3) (track 9, 2:52-3:48)
George Rowley, piano
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937):
Five Preludes (1919-20)
1 No 5 in D
2 No 2 in A minor
3 No 4 in F sharp
4 No 3 in D flat
5 No 1 in F sharp
Piano Sonata No 1 in F minor (1910) (first recording)
6 Molto allegro
7 Largo
8 Moderato
Piano Sonata No 3 in D minor (1919) (first recording)
9 Moderato
10 Adagio
Two Poems for Piano
11 No 1 - Autumn (1912) (first recording)
Piano Sonata No 2 in D
12 II Adagio (1919) (first recording)
Ivor Gurney's songs have long earned him renown but his works for pian, composed over the period of a decade, are hardly known. The lyrically beautiful Five Preludes reflect influences as wide as Schumann and Scriabin but preserve Gurney's expressive freshness. The Sonatas Nos 1 and 3 inhabit very different sound worlds from each other, and only one movement from Sonata No 2 has survived, a deeply poignant elegy - all of which are heard here in first recordings. His poem for piano, Autumn, offers further opportunity to discover this rarely heard music by a composer for whom the pursuit of beauty was of the utmost importance.
Recorded 15-16 March 2023 at The Tythe Barn, Hellens Manor, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, UK.