William Busch (1901-1945)
Chamber Music
Three pieces for violin and piano (1943-44)
Passacaglia for violin and viola (1939)
A Memory for cello and piano (1944)
Quartet for piano and strings (1939)
Suite for cello and piano (1943)
Elegy for cello and piano (1944)
Michael Trainor (violin), Zahra Benyounes (viola), Jessie Ann Richardson, Ashok Klouda (cello)
Simon Callaghan (piano)
rec. 2024 [?], Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK
Lyrita SRCD.439 [74]
Lyrita has done a great deal to promote the music of William Busch. The Concertos, Piano music and Songs offer a revealing stylistic conspectus of the short-lived composer’s music and this latest disc, which traces the chamber music from 1939 to 1944, the year before Busch’s death, is no different.
The Three Pieces for violin and piano (1943-44) are well characterised. The first has a pellucid quality to its cantilena that becomes richer in its romanticism, whilst the second offers vitalising wrong-footing rhythms. The last and longest is a Lacrimosa, a rapt, meditative movement, quiet and serenely meditative. This is followed in Lyrita’s running order by the earlier Passacaglia of 1939. Though Paul Conway, in his excellent notes, doesn’t touch on this issue, it sounds like the kind of work conceived with Frederick Grinke and Watson Forbes in mind. They recorded Handel’s Sarabande and Variations in Halvorsen’s arrangement for Decca in the same year and were an established violin-viola duo. This is a concise work, deftly written for the two string instruments, with imitative writing, as well as more robust writing in one or two variations. The effect, though, is fluid and richly convincing. Incidentally, as a footnote to my earlier comments about Grinke and Forbes, I read a published letter from Elizabeth Poston to William Busch in which she, who was an important figure in the BBC, suggested to him the names of Eda Kersey and Winifred Copperwheat.
Two smaller pieces for cello and piano follow. A Memory is withdrawn yet nostalgic whilst the Elegy is meditative and reflective, offering the solo cello solo space before the piano joins with deft commentaries that burgeon, before the music subsides to the initial mood. This leaves two larger-scaled works to consider. The first is the Suite for cello and piano of 1943, in four movements, which again reinforces Busch’s traditionally-minded but free-flowing expressive use of material. His markings are always indicative and in this work we find ‘con intensità’ and ‘con ferocità’, just in case performers need reminding. The gravity of the first movement is followed by the wit of the Capriccio, which reminds one of the Caprice movement of the Three Pieces for violin and piano. This kind of rhythmic gamesmanship was clearly on his mind during 1943-44. The stillness and refractive element of the Nocturne is followed by a zesty, colouristic and vibrant Tarantella finale.
The Piano Quartet of 1939 is the largest-scaled work here, lasting 31-minutes, in four movements. It’s the one work that suggests folklore, and its initial confidently striding theme is gently suggestive of that influence and though I wouldn’t want to make too much of it, Busch’s ability to ratchet tension through urgency and insistence before returning to the folkloric material is conspicuously successful. The slow movement anticipates the kind of withdrawn melancholy of A Memory, written for Poston in 1944, though it also encompasses lighter themes and sterner unisons. The tart, crisp Scherzo enshrine contrasts with its playful, dappled B section, whilst the finale is a Theme and Variations, something reminiscent of the Passacaglia which he composed in the same year. Supple but focused, with gentler and darker elements, lyric and solemn, the finale moves to a satisfying close. This was a work performed by the London Belgian Piano Quartet who impressed the composer but had the odd difficulty in the finale, according to Poston.
The performances here are excellent. The members of the Piatti Quartet, violinist Michael Trainor, violist Zahra Benyounes and cellist Jessie Ann Richardson are joined by pianist Simon Callaghan and cellist Ashok Klouda. It’s Klouda who plays the Suite and Elegy, with Callaghan. The recording in the Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys has been well judged and the notes, as mentioned, are in the best of hands – Paul Conway’s. Busch is a composer with a gift for expressive intensity and this valuable disc contains what I assume are premiere recordings.
Jonathan Woolf
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