Finger Prints
Paul Guinery (piano)
rec. 2024, St. John the Evangelist Church Oxford, UK
EM Records EMRCD088 [70]
Consider for a moment the voracious requirement for live music across all aspects of society up until – roughly speaking – the outbreak of World War II. Everywhere music was required: on holiday, in tea rooms and restaurant, in the theatre, the dancehall, the cinema, broadcast on the radio, at home – the vast majority had to be performed live. While 1939 might be an arbitrary date, post-War the advances in recording techniques – and the ability to reproduce those recordings with increasing fidelity – meant that ‘live’ music dwindled to the point that today – in the British news this very week – the orchestra of Northern Ballet are to be replaced with recordings, something which causes not a ripple in the news cycle outside of a few specialist publications and focus groups. But to fuel this insatiable need, composers had to write equally vast amounts of music. An important part of this industry was music for solo piano with much aimed at the amateur and domestic market.
This is Paul Guinery’s third survey for EM Records of just such repertoire and every aspect of the production oozes his dedication to and love for the genre. The twenty-two pieces of music span over eighty years from Sullivan’s two Thoughts [tracks 17-18] of 1862 through to Billy Mayerl’s Shy Ballerina [track 20] of 1948 but they share a similar spirit of good humour or gentle sentiment. The perennial debate about “what is light music” is valid here – relative brevity is a common feature with melody and/or catchy rhythms key. The best of this music is beautifully crafted and full of colour. In the excellent, detailed and very extensive liner booklet (English only) Guinery makes the point that a colourful cover does not always make for an interesting piece, so he has chosen pieces that he considers the finest examples from his own personal extensive library. It is worth noting that canny publishers commissioned often beautiful covers specifically for the domestic market where they could charge a few pennies more simply because of the seductive artwork. Albert Ketèlbey’s main publisher Bosworth & Co. were particular masters at exploiting this – “professional” copies would be the exact same music but simply with plain covers. Another thing to note is that often this music would appear in various editions from solo piano up to ‘full’ orchestra – again this was simply a publisher’s ploy to maximise the revenue from any single work. All too often the composer would have received a single buy-out payment for their work with all the major earning potential of a popular work resting with the publisher.
Part of Guinery’s programming skill is that he blurs the light music definition , so alongside stalwarts such as Mayerl, Haydn Wood and Jack Strachey we hear works but “serious” composers such as Frank Bridge and John Ireland. Then bridging the nominal gap are German and Quilter. The triumph is that to the innocent ear there is no significant or qualitative difference between these composers – all the music delights. In simple terms the bulk of the music offered here can be divided into two groups; up-tempo “novelties” relying on jaunty syncopating rhythms and perky right hand melodies and then sentimental ‘songs without words’ where richly harmonised tunes speak of yearning emotions and unrequited love. In the great pantheon of keyboard music, these pieces have no pretentions of greatness or especial technical/emotional demands. However, they are far from easy to play as nonchalantly well as Guinery does here. His choice of tempi across the styles is spot-on: never too fast in the ragtime one-steps and never too lugubrious in the slower sentimental pieces. Likewise, he understands how the striding left hand writing impels the rhythmic impetus in the up tempo numbers with an ideal long-short articulation that keeps rhythms buoyant and the mood upbeat.
All of the music here is a genuine joy to hear – the more so for being mainly unfamiliar. Liberally sprinkled across the programme are some particular delights. Stephen Hough’s transcription of Amy Woodforde-Finden’s Kashmiri Song (Pale Hands I Loved) [track 5] stands out as a concert transcription in the great tradition of virtuoso composer-pianists of the past. The sophistication of the keyboard writing, the way in which the melody is transferred and transformed across the keyboard are at a different level of invention than just about anything else on this disc. Hough included it on his “My Favourite Things” collection and fine though Guinery is, he has to defer to Hough for that extra degree of interpretative and technical finesse. Frank Bridge’s early Berceuse [track 10] clearly belongs in the salon-sentimental section but it is hard not to hear the stature of the composer shine through even in such a deliberately simple and direct piece. Of the completely unknown works, Peggy Cochrane’s Busy Day [track 13]stands out as a particularly fine example of the bustling ragtime-y good natured writing offered here. What marks out the Cochrane are a couple of harmonic and rhythmic side-slips that lift the piece out of the generic. Also, Cochrane incorporates a wonderfully near-cinematic slow central section that Guinery dispatches with evident delight. The penultimate work in the programme is an intriguing pastiche by a young Lennox Berkeley. Java [track 21]was arranged by Peter Dickinson from an unperformed 1932 ballet score. The Java of the title was a scandalously popular fast waltz which required partners to be gripped tightly together. Guinery’s liner notes references this piece as having “woozy wrong note chords that don’t quite fit the melody imitating a less than competent – and probably tiddly – accordionist”. That’s a perfect and very evocative description.
Any collection of this style of music must surely include some Billy Mayerl. If other composers had their music published for solo piano out of necessity, surely Mayerl was the main composer in the genre who was a piano “specialist”. He monetised his talent as player and composer not just through performing and publishing but also his famous piano method “School of Syncopation”, encouraging many amateur players to be parted from their hard-earned money in the vain hope that they too could play like Billy Mayerl. Fortunately, of course Paul Guinery, most certainly can! The disc includes four Mayerl transcriptions of others songs which are fairly typically upbeat happy go lucky pieces. The exception is the one original Mayerl piece – Shy Ballerina – which is relatively late in both Mayerl’s career and also the genre as a whole. This is a nostalgically delightful piece with a whiff of impressionism in the lilting slow waltz. Sullivan’s two early Thoughts do not quite fit the rest of the programme, not just because they are so much earlier – 1862 – than anything else, but because they are not part of this genre – any more than the Mendelssohn Songs Without Words they clearly emulate are. That said, Guinery plays them delightfully. The collection gets a rousing conclusion with Richard Addinsell’s own arrangement of his Blithe Spirit Waltz. This is a kind of concert pot-pourri in waltz time of themes from the 1945 film. As such, it is beyond the ability of the average amateur home player, but in Guinery’s accomplished hands it is an uplifting end to an inspired survey.
Thick skinned and cold hearted the listener who refuses to admit any pleasure gained from listening to this disc. Any performer of this genre of music will relate the audience’s reactions where the delight in the music is mixed with incredulity that it is no longer well-known. In the meantime, it is vital that performers of the stature and skill of Paul Guinery continue to promote this music and are given the platform by companies such as EM Records to do it. As mentioned before, the presentation of the disc is excellent with an exemplary booklet full of detailed information as well as composer photographs and music cover reproductions in full colour. The piano sound is good although I did wonder if the church acoustic very slightly inflates the piano in a way that this style of music does not require. Possibly this is a disc best dipped into rather than listened to at a single sitting, but the result will be the same – a smile on your face and a spring in your step.
Nick Barnard
Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free.
Contents
Harry Engelman (1912-2002)
Fingerprints (1936)
Haydn Wood (1882 – 1959)
Longing (1917)
Cecil Macklin (1883 – 1944)
The Cockney Crawl (1914)
Jack Strachey (1894 – 1972)
Anna’s Polka
Amy Woodforde-Finden (1860 – 1919) trans. Stephen Hough
Kashmiri Song (1902)
Harry Revel (1905 – 1958) trans. Billy Mayerl (1902 – 1959)
Did you ever see a dream walking? (1933)
I feel like a feather in the breeze (1936)
Edward German (1862 – 1936)
Polish Dance (1891)
Harry Engelman (1912-2002)
Golden Chain (1937)
Frank Bridge (1879 – 1941)
Berceuse (1901)
Jack Wilson (1907 – 2006)
Phantom Fingers (1934)
John Ireland (1879 – 1962)
Cavatina (1904)
Peggy Cochrane (1902 – 1988)
Busy Day (1941)
Harry Revel (1905 – 1958) trans. Billy Mayerl (1902 – 1959)
With my eyes wide open I’m dreaming (1934)
You hit the spot (1936)
Roger Quilter (1877 – 1953)
Country Dance (1920)
Arthur Sullivan (1842 – 1900)
Thoughts Op.2 (1862)
Jack Wilson (1907 – 2006)
Shadows on the moon
Billy Mayerl (1902 – 1959)
Shy Ballerina (1948)
Lennox Berkeley (1903 – 1989) trans. Peter Dickinson
Java (1932)
Richard Addinsell (1904 – 1977)
Blithe Spirit Waltz (1945)
