David Earl (b. 1951)
75th Birthday Tribute
Oxymorons – 24 Preludes (1993)
Scenes from a South African Childhood (2013)
David Earl (piano)
rec. 2022/25, Fazioli Concert Hall, Sacile, Italy
Somm Recordings SOMMCD0728 [76]
David Earl is a native of South Africa, making his professional piano debut aged 16 with the South African Broadcasting Corporation and moving to London when he was 19 to study at the Trinity College of Music. He performed the first of a number of solo piano recitals at Wigmore Hall while still a student, and this venue saw his debut as a composer in 1977 when he premiered his own Piano Suite No. 1 (Mosaics). Despite being prolific as a composer there don’t seem to be a vast number of titles available on recordings, though there is a release with some chamber music on the Divine Art label (review).
The title Oxymorons refers to this collection’s contradictory stance towards avant-garde atonality, or what was almost exclusively regarded by academics and contemporary music festivals as ‘serious music’ in the mid-20th century. These pieces are distinctly tonal and ordered, as was done by Chopin and others, in a sequence starting from C major, followed by a prelude in the relative minor, then up a fifth to the next major key and so forth. Each prelude is a ‘miniature tone poem’ based on friends and places encountered while the composer was living in Oxford. With just the right amount of pianistic fireworks and taste when it comes to Romantic expressiveness while avoiding sentimentality, this is a magnificent set of pieces that can stand comparison with any of its counterparts in that 24 preludes tradition. Earl doesn’t have quite the granitic power of Shostakovich or the lyrical magic of Chopin, but that would be an almost impossible task for any composer today. What we have is a spectacular range and variety of pieces that are all under three minutes, with the exception of the Lento elegiaco of the grand Prelude No. 15 in D-flat major, around which, arguably, the set revolves. Earl doesn’t give himself an easy time as can be heard in a couple of minor slips in the wide leaps of Prelude No. 16 in B-flat minor, but this is a deeply satisfying collection that works well both as a nearly 50-minute cycle and as a pool of pieces into which you can dip and take your pick.
You may have encountered Princess Rainbow from Scenes from a South African Childhood, as it is part of Rebeca Omordia’s album African Pianism SOMMCD 0647. Each of these nine pieces has its own description in David Earl’s own booklet notes and it is nice to have some context, but they can all be enjoyed as pure music onto which you can project your own imaginative imagery. 20 years on from Oxymorons sees Earl becoming both more rhapsodic and often more translucent in his piano writing. From the fearsome Baboon Dance to the poetic lullaby of The blue dressing-gown and the little reference to Bing Crosby in the final Christmas at Rose Cottage this is once again a very rewarding set filled with colour and little nostalgic connections to which I should imagine most of us can relate, even for those of us who have never set foot in South Africa.
The Fazioli Concert Hall in Sacile is a known quantity as a recording venue, and this album has a very fine and detailed piano sound in its relatively dry acoustic. With excellent music and very fine playing by its composer this is a disc that will enhance any collection.
Dominy Clements
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