Christopher Brown (b. 1943)
24 Preludes & Fugues, Op.99
Baroquery, Dance Suite for Piano, Op. 105
Nathan Williamson (piano)
rec. 2022/23, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK
Lyrita SRCD 2431 [3 CDs: 183]
British composer Christopher Brown belongs to an exclusive club: he wrote a set of piano pieces in all the major and minor keys. He joins Bach (preludes and fugues, the paragon), Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Johann Nepomul Hummel, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Louis Vierne (they all wrote two sets, the latter for organ), Nikolai Kapustin and Dmitri Shostakovich (whose planned set of string quartets stopped at fifteen). Let me also note Vsevolod Zaderastsky (1891-1953) who composed his set in a prison camp, and Niels Viggo Bentzon and Italian composer Roberto Novegno (b.1981), who composed fourteen sets each.
Christopher Brown began his set in 2011, aiming to finish on his 70th birthday; it took six more years, till 2019. He adopted two precedents: writing four books of six preludes and fugues around the name BACH (B flat, A, C and B natural); and referring to Shostakovich’s cryptogram of his name DSCH (D, E flat, c and B). Brown also invited family, friends, former fellow pupils and lecturers, amongst others, to commission pieces, sometimes to include a favourite tune.
The composer’s booklet essay says that – unlike the usual logical sequence of 24 keys starting with C major – he began with B flat minor. He had learnt it first as a child, and it had made a profound impression. 300 years after Bach but only 90 after Shostakovich inevitably make the set more musically in common with the latter. This was striking from the first notes: the magisterial yet angular architecture and stark beauty. One feels this is a very serious work, and the feeling persists. I shall try to give an overall impression of this amazing set by focussing on those which made a particular impression, but the others are equally wondrous and enjoyable.
The second prelude, sumptuously lyrical, becomes more serious at times but the music then reverts to the gently rocking motion. The fugue uses the BACH cryptogram at times, becoming quite declamatory towards the end.
Commissioning brought interesting ideas. In Book 1 No.3, a requested Brahmsian reference is followed by an interlude derived from a scene from Brown’s children’s opera The Ram King, and a restatement of the theme derived from Brahms’s B minor Rhapsody. The Shostakovich influence feels the strongest.
Recorder player John Turner, fellow student and long-standing friend, commissioned Prelude 5 of Book 1. Brown based it on two works he had written for him from student days and later in the 1980s. The fugue explores “all sorts of technical devices in quadruple counterpoint”. It starts quietly enough but concludes with a satisfyingly fortissimo.
Returning to B flat minor, Brown comes full circle to the key he opened the set with. His children commissioned the prelude in which he touches on almost all the major and minor keys. Each section closes with cryptograms BACH, DSCH and his own CB. All that mass of information fits in a minute and a half. They say it is harder to write a successful short story than a novel. In music, it is an incredible feat to encapsulate a wealth of ideas in a tiny time frame. Brown does it with aplomb, not to say apparent ease. The fugue with allusions to a piece he wrote for his daughter when a trumpet student, and more references to the two cryptograms, brings Book 1 to a satisfying conclusion.
I enjoyed the Bachian influence in Book 2 No.8. The Allemande prelude takes one back convincingly to the 18th century; the fugue definitely returns to this century. No.10 prelude’s witty opening refers to a Gavotte and a moment in Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony – an absolute delight; the fugue brings the opening back. No.11’s opening Sarabande offers calm after often frenetic periods in the previous preludes and fugues. The Royal Academy of Music which commissioned it must be impressed: Brown fulfilled the remit of using the cryptograms Re-A-Mi (notes D A E) and A-C-A-D-E-Mi. Ending Book 2, a catchy Gigue prelude fairly dances through its three minutes. The fugue, much more serious, moves from major to minor to major in a rather masterful way.
Book 3 begins with a prelude and fugue commissioned by Brown’s friend and former teacher Graham Smallbone and his wife. Very serious, almost forbidding, it is nonetheless a very satisfying listen. No.14’s debt to Shostakovich is obvious. The prelude alludes to some of his signature passages; the fugue is a calming contrast to the prelude’s lively mood.
After two serious preludes and fugues, No.17 brings a welcome upbeat change. The playful prelude dances along merrily; the fugue matches its mood and capriciousness. The Dorset Bach Cantata Club commissioned No.18; the original group included Brown’s parents. It played an important role in his musical upbringing; he has been their resident conductor for 35 years! The prelude cleverly integrates the cryptogram DBCC. the club’s initials, and allusions to Shostakovich’s first prelude. It also pays homage to Benjamin Britten, Brown’s another considerable influence. The cryptogram reappears in the playful fugue which also quotes from Bach’s cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, one of the club’s earliest studies. It must have given unalloyed delight to see the remit fulfilled with such brilliance.
Book 4 opens with two sombre but beautiful preludes and fugues. No.19 uses DSCH again; the fugue grows organically out of the prelude’s last note. A former teacher, composer James Iliff, commissioned No.20. Brown used a technique Iliff had espoused in his classes. A “Note piece” stipulated very restricted material. Brown’s tribute to his teacher is the prelude in which less is certainly more. The fugue, with more notes, is scarcely less austere.
No.22 returns to many notes and greater speed, with a firm influence of the material from Bach’s Book 1. No.23 opens with what I found one of the catchiest tunes in the entire set. It has earworm potential: one feels one surely knows it, even if this is the whole work’s première recording. The fugue builds on the same material, for an improvisatory feel.
The final prelude in this magnum opus is in B minor, close to the key Brown began with. He refers to Bach’s B minor Mass which he and the commissioner sang several times with the London Bach Society. Both the prelude and fugue are the longest in the set, at a total of almost 25 minutes. The fugue opens with DSCH, BACH and CB. The speed increases. Elements from the first fugue of each of Books 1-3 showcase Brown’s dazzling musicality, bringing this astonishing work to a mighty conclusion.
There is a bonus, Baroquery, Dance Suite for Piano from “Book 2 of 24 Preludes and Fugues”: Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Gavotte, Sarabande and Gigue. This is a further example of Christopher Brown’s love for Bach and his ability to use Bach as a springboard to create original material. Gavotte is, as noted, inspired by Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. The booklet does not explain how, if at all, the pieces differ from those in Book 2. The timings are virtually the same, but there is a separate opus number. Stripped of the fugues, the set’s flow focusses the ear more on the Bachian mode.
In the 1950s or 1960s, a set like this may have been far less tuneful, in keeping with high modernism. But Christopher Brown loves tunes, and these pieces delight at every turn. I cannot declare my admiration strongly enough. If he reads this feeble attempt at a review, he may know that I found the set an indescribable experience. I have the same admiration for Nathan Williamson, whose playing is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Unsurprisingly, he says: “While the process of bringing such a work to performance was always a thrilling one, I don’t mind admitting that there were times when the goal appeared distant, and combining the necessary focussing on the trees in the assemblage of the wood was extremely unnerving.”
Steve Arloff
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