Prayer for Peace
John Turner (recorders)
Sophie Clarke (mezzo-soprano)
David Jones (piano)
James Manson (double bass)
Victoria String Quartet
rec. 2023/25, St Elizabeth’s Church, Ashley, Altringham, UK
Prima Facie PFCD258 [65]

Julian Bryan explains the disc’s genesis thus: “The idea of putting together a compilation of unrecorded works and original arrangements for strings and flute or recorder first came about in mid-2023, when I realised, together with my already close friend and associate John Turner – a highly renowned recorder player – that there is a wealth of such music waiting to be recorded and released.” None of the eleven pieces, presented in roughly chronological order, had previously been recorded.

The Breton composer Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray scored Abergavenny: Suite de Thèmes Populaire Gallois for treble recorder and string quartet. He dedicated the work to Lady Herbert of Llanover (Augusta Hall), a patron of Welsh culture regarded as the inventor of the Welsh National Costume. While the seven ‘popular’ tunes may not be quite so well-known nowadays, The Ash Grove and David of the White Rock retain their place in the canon of Welsh folk music. The Suite opens with the evocative The Blackbird and concludes with the rousing War Song of the Men of Glamorgan. I imagine these arrangements could be popular with school or college ensembles.

Claude Debussy’s Chansons de Charles d’Orléans were arranged for mezzo-soprano, violin (or contralto) and piano by Julian Bryan. The songs were originally devised for a cappella four/six-part mixed chorus. Dieu! qu’il la fait bon regarder is a lyrical celebration of a lady’s incomparable beauty, grace and virtue, admired as beyond all others. Quant j’ai ouy le tabourin is a light-hearted song about preferring the comfort of sleep over joining May Day festivities. Finally, the spirited Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain contrasts winter’s harshness with the joyful beauty and renewal of summer. Despite my preference for the original choral version, the arrangements sit comfortably with these forces.

Randall Thompson’s Scherzino shows the lighter side of his more serious nature. The witty miniature contrasts the recorder’s brightness with the warm sonorities of violin and viola.

It is good to have two works by Lancashire composer Thomas Pitfield, a polymath who also excelled as an artist, craftsman, poet and educator. His Minuet and Trio for string quartet is a short but magical little bit of English Pastoral. The liner notes explain that the Pastorale for piano, violin and cello was arranged from a discarded ballet score, The Elm Spirit.

Morten Lauridsen made a string-quartetarrangement of hisLes chansons des roses: No 2, Contre qui, rose. It was originally a wonderfully atmospheric setting of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem for unaccompanied choir. The rose is a symbol of beauty and fragility, yet also of resistance and pain. The transcription has preserved the mood of the original, sometimes seeming to nod towards Samuel Barber’s Adagio.

American composer, pianist, educator and mentor Jon Jeffrey Grier provides two works on this disc. The first is an arrangement of Three Polish folk Songs for recorder and string quartet. The tunes are Hey Falcons, A Little Spark and The Nightingale and the Willow Leaf. The set originally comprised four songs, but the final one has been omitted. A sheet music website suggests 2009 as the date of composition. Greer’s second offering is the undated A Mystery Unsolved which seems to have no mystery: it is simply a well-wrought but oh-so-short a piece for string quintet.

The booklet gives no details about Dublin-born Rhona Clarke’s Pas de Quatre String Quartet No.2. A programme note on the Internet explains that the “title (A Dance for Four) is inspired by the movement between the players as they direct and interact with each other”. I am not sure what this means: as the basic concept of any string quartet, or any chamber music, is of an interaction between players.

Further ‘surfing’ revealed that this Quartet is devised as a single ten-minute movement. Technically, the main subject matter is based on a “gapped scale played with an irregular pulse”. Part of its structure are a series of aleatoric sections, where “three other instruments share short, repeated phrases, but use their own discretion as to where to come in and how many times to repeat”. After more written-out development, there is another free-for-all before it concludes with a cello solo. The Quartet is an effective synthesis between incipient minimalism, extended techniques and “Renaissance inspired clarity”.

Adam Gorb has explained that his 2001 String Quartet No.1 was a substantial, half‑hour work that sought to probe the depths of human emotion. By contrast, the present String Quartet No.2 is a much lighter, serenade‑like piece in four short movements, around eleven minutes. Written to celebrate the 85th birthday of Thilde Fraenkel, the mother of an old schoolmate, it was first performed privately at her home by the Tippett Quartet in December 2009. Stylistically, this remarkable Quartet is eclectic in sound. One moment we have Haydnesque classicism, and another a kind of gritty urban dynamism: at times lyrical and at others propulsive. This was my major discovery on this disc.

The final number in this delightful potpourri is Sasha Johnson Manning’s elegiac Prayer for Peace, a short meditation scored for tenor recorder, string quartet and double bass. She wrote it at the request of John Turner following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The booklet provides limited information about the music, certainly little in the way of analysis or description. There are neither texts nor translations of Debussy’s songs. We do get biographical notes about the composers and resumes of all the performers. Photographs of the composers appear on the rear cover of the booklet.

There is no doubt that the performances are all first rate, and the recorded sound is ideal.

In sum, this disc offers a richly varied and imaginative excursion through little-known repertoire and inventive arrangements, brought to life with skill and conviction.

John France

Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free

Contents
Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray (1840-1910)
Abergavenny: Suite de Thèmes Populaire Gallois (1900s)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Chansons de Charles d’Orléans, L.92 (completed 1908) (arr. for voice, violin and piano by Julian Bryan)
Randall Thompson (1899-1984)
Scherzino (arr. for descant recorder, violin and viola by Anonymous) (?)
Thomas Pitifield (1903-1999)
Minuet and Trio (1940)
Pastorale (1939)
Morten Lauridsen (b.1943)
Les chansons des roses: No.2, Contre qui, rose (arr. for string quartet) (1993)
Jon Jeffrey Grier (b.1953)
Four Polish Folk Songs for recorder and string quartet (2009)
Rhona Clarke (b.1958)
Pas de Quatre String Quartet No.2 (2009, rev. 2023)
Adam Gorb (b.1958)
String Quartet No.2 (2009)
John Jeffrey Grier
A Mystery Unsolved (?)
Sasha Johnson Manning (1963)
Prayer for Peace (2022)