Percy Godfrey (1859–1945)
Piano Quintet, Op.16
Ivor Hodgson (b.1959)
Piano Quintet
Richard Walthew (1872–1951)
“Phantasy” Quintet
John McCabe (1939–2015)
Sam Variations
Peter Donohoe (piano)
I Musicanti
rec. 2024, St George’s Headstone, Pinner View, Harrow, London
SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0707 [74]
Another typically intriguing and enterprising disc from Somm. Four substantial chamber works by four British composers of whom only one can be deemed well known – John McCabe. Although termed Piano Quintets, the instrumental line-up in fact copies that of Schubert’s Trout Quintet so a piano accompanied by one each of violin, viola cello and double bass rather than the more common piano and string quartet. If for no other reason than programme planning, this makes for a valuable reference for ensembles looking for repertoire to sit alongside Schubert’s acknowledged masterpiece.
There remains vast swathes of music and composers from every era whose music has been lost or at best forgotten. Take Percy Godfrey whose Piano Quintet in E flat major Op.16 opens this recital. This work won Godfrey a competition for a new chamber work in 1899 and it was subsequently published by the London firm E. Donajowski in 1901. For the curious this score – including the individual parts – as well as Richard Walthew’s Phantasy Quintet are freely viewable on the IMSLP website so unavailability of performing materials cannot be given as the reason for their disappearance from the repertoire. The performance here by I Musicanti and the ever-excellent Peter Donohoe reveals a well-proportioned, easily attractive work that is well laid out for the ensemble. The fact that it is attractive but hardly revolutionary or mould-breaking might account for both its competition success but also its failure to carve itself a niche in the enduring repertoire. Godfrey was a well-trained musician – he studied with George Mcfarren and Ebenezer Prout at London’s Royal Academy of Music before becoming music master at the King’s School in Canterbury Kent in Southern England.
The work is full of examples of compositional facility and competence. What it lacks is a spark of genius. As mentioned, the performance here is really very good although following the score on IMSLP does reveal that Godfrey’s carefully notated dynamics and expressive indications are rather smoothed away. Would the innocent ear at 3:40 into the opening movement consider the playing was truly ff marked “furioso” for example? Perhaps a little more abandon in the playing would work to the music’s benefit. The second movement Scherzo, Presto con fuoco is more fiery and follows a traditional scherzo, trio, scherzo da capo format that is compact – just 2:39 in total – but perhaps fractionally generic.
If you look at other British chamber music from around the turn of the 20th century there are several composers more willing to test the boundaries and conventions of form than Godfrey – Bridge’s early chamber works instantly spring to mind even allowing for the fact that the younger composer would go onto write even greater chamber works in the decades ahead.
The third movement Andante Sostenuto is a hymn-like song-without-words that is very effective in the simplicity of the writing and the affecting melody. The closing Allegro con brio is suitably sunny and bustling. The busy writing displays how neatly the players perform and how well the unfussy SOMM recording manages the soundstage. By the very nature of the instrumental line-up, the presence of both a cello and a double bass risks the musical picture skewing towards the lower registers. This is mitigated by a combination of compositional care from Godfrey, careful balancing by the players themselves and discreet production that ensures excellent balance across the whole ensemble and attractive internal clarity. The church venue of St. George’s Headstone London is not one that I recognise from other recordings but the acoustic is supportive but not overly resonant as presented here.
Liner writer Robert Matthew-Walker is more enthused by this piece than I am and, as mentioned before, its revival here might well mean that this good natured, fairly straight forward piece will be revived more often, possibly in concert rather than on disc. The other work from the early years of the 20th century was also a result of a chamber music competition. Curiously, Mathew-Walker provides no biographical information about the composer Richard Walthew although the Wiki article is quite detailed and there is an extended note on the British Music Society website written by Peter Atkinson in 2021. The “Phantasy” Quintet of 1912 was a product of the more famous biennial challenge set by businessman W.W. Cobbett to write chamber works that aimed to revive the Elizabethan fantasy genre. Cobbett was more prescriptive requiring the work to be around twelve minutes in length and in one continuous movement albeit with clearly defined sections.
Over a period of years Cobbett funded five competitions for different instrumental groupings with the result that British chamber music was enriched by numerous great scores many of which remain in the active repertoire for the various instrumental groupings. Walthew’s quintet was not a competition entry but rather a direct commission (dedicated to Cobbett) from the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The Wiki article on the composer describes this work as “his most successful chamber work” but curiously the more extended Atkinson article makes no reference except as one of a group of chamber works premiered at “the South Place Concerts” although the date is given as 1911 not 1912 as in the liner.
Walthew was an exact contemporary at the RCM as Vaughan Williams and had received a scholarship to study with Parry and Stanford. Early performances and reviews suggested “great things” were expected of him as a composer. Contemporaries such as Josef Holbrooke and Thomas Dunhill thought highly of him as a composer. On disc there are a small handful of various works most of which do reinforce the impression that he was a gifted craftsman of naturally conservative musical tastes – much like Dunhill. The Phantasy Quintet reinforces that view – essentially quite lyrical, even pensive, music that makes few demands on the listener or player. The BMS article points out that throughout his life Walthew was an active promoter and writer of music for amateurs. Atkinson quotes him as follows; “Professional orchestras must play what will attract an audience; but amateurs should be independent of such a consideration, and their programs might therefore be made of immense musical interest.” The goal therefore being to write works of significant musical worth without perhaps the technical or intellectual demands of the most complex scores. My impression is that this quintet fulfils this remit. The string writing is lucid and grateful but makes few technical demands of professional players. Likewise the keyboard writing is a model of clarity. That said, it is always hard to play any piece as well as it is performed here by Peter Donohoe and I Musicanti. Again, by following the score on IMSLP I was a little disappointed that the players kept the dynamic and expressive range of their playing in such careful check. This is never going to be a score to storm the heavens in the manner of the near-contemporaneous piano quintets by Bridge or Bax (1912 and 1914 respectively), but I can imagine other performances digging deeper into the emotional landscape. That said, the closing pages are enjoyably heroic although the closing twist of an unexpectedly hushed ending is very effective both on the page and as performed here.
Between the two early 20th century works is Ivor Hodgson’s Piano Quintet. I did not recognise Hodgson’s name but he played double bass in the BBC Philharmonic for 37 years before retiring to focus on composition (and travel) in 2019. The date of composition of this four movement/22ish minute work is not given but I assume it dates from after he left the orchestra. Each of the movements is named after a different Derbyshire Inn or location and they make for an attractive and well-contrasted set again played with nimble skill by all. Interestingly the performances of both this work and the McCabe that completes the disc are imbued with more dynamic performing energy than the two earlier works. Certainly Peter Donohoe is in his element with muscular keyboard writing that he dispatches with bravura ease.
The four movements of the Hodgson Quintet are strikingly different from each other. Not just in terms of the essential mood of the music but more so in terms of the style of the writing Hodgson deploys. So while the second movement The Waltzing Weasel is an entertainingly tipsy jazz-inflected waltz, the closing The Oddfellows is a terse [3:25] driving toccata-like movement with hints of Soviet composers. Between these two sections is the most extended [8:06] movement Moonlight over Mount Famine which is impressively atmospheric gradually opening out into a long-spanned melody for the strings over piano figurations. Again this is a very attractive movement in its own right but so different from the other sections of the work. Once or twice in this performance, without access to a score, I did wonder if an extra take might have helped clean up some ensemble and possible intonation issues.
John McCabe was a very fine pianist in his own right as well as a distinguished composer. I find it hard to realise that it is already a decade since he passed as his music always sounds so vibrant, fresh and ‘new’. The 14:03 Sam Variations were written as long ago as 1989 for the Schubert Ensemble who were looking for a companion work to the Schubert Trout Quintet for a Wigmore Hall concert. The “Sam” of the title was a TV from the early 1970’s for which McCabe wrote the theme music. The series can be found on YouTube with McCabe’s rather jaunty good-natured theme on trumpet immediately present. You will struggle to equate that tune as initially presented with the angular rather aggressive writing that opens this set of variations. Matthew-Walker states that after the first performance McCabe took back the score with a view to revising it. For some reason the revision was never made – or never made public – and the work became lost in McCabe’s private papers unless revived by I Musicanti – with a different pianist – in 2022. As with the Hodgson, the role of the piano is far more dynamic and significant than for the Godfrey or Walthew where the role seems more to be one of supporting and thickening the lush textures. Here the piano is a distinct musical character – probably the dominant one – and again Donohoe is strikingly impressive in this demanding and by definition unfamiliar music. There were more moments of fleeting strain in the string ensemble but this is a powerful serious score that receives a committed performance.
One of the main successes of this disc as a whole is the diversity of the programme. Each work has a distinct musical voice of its own which in turn strongly contrasts with the others. As companion works alongside the more famous Schubert work with its unusual and potentially tricky instrumentation this is of genuine interest.
Nick Barnard
Previous review: Philip Harrison (August 2025)
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