Peter Jacobs – The Recorded Legacy on Heritage Records

The English pianist Peter Jacobs has been recording British (and French) music for the past fifty years. Much of this material has been unavailable for a long time. However, Heritage Records has recently reissued several of these rare CDs, as well as making five new anthologies, all covering a wide range of moods and styles (review links at the end of this feature).  In this article Peter recollects composers he worked with, such as Harold Truscott, Alan Bush, Trevor Hold and Robert Simpson.  He also offers insights into several of the little-known and under-valued pieces from the repertoire he has bravely championed.

Peter writes:

Where to begin?

The answer is fifty or so years ago, when I made my first recordings of the largely neglected English and French repertoires. In the fullness of time many of these CDs have disappeared. I began to call them the ‘Lord Lucan’ collection – you may remember the English gentleman who vanished from view, and of whom there have been occasional sightings.

Then in 2019, a nice thing happened … Heritage Records, in the form of Tim Grocutt, expressed a desire to bring these old efforts back to life, and this is what has happened.  It has been a great joy to me. Tim has been as good as his word. Better, in fact, since, apart from the reissues, we have made several new recordings, largely of unfamiliar pieces. 

Over many years I have had the privilege of working with several composers, some of whom have sadly died. However, while both my mind (and fingers) are still reasonably alert, I thought it might be useful and pleasant to set down a few memories.  Harold Truscott, Trevor Hold, Alan Bush, Robert Simpson and Betty Roe, to name but a few, are still vivid, both in their personalities and in their music.

It was not always easy to access the material for which I was looking.  I’ve collected a good deal of music over the years from various sources.  Friends, libraries, music shops (remember them?) have all been productive.  Modern technology has made availability easier, but I hope I have rescued a few pieces which might otherwise have disappeared from view.

My earliest recording was of the complete piano works of Vaughan Williams.  Although he used the instrument in several areas of his output, there is surprisingly little for solo keyboard.  The most remarkable piece is a big Bach transcription, the existence of which was not even known to Ursula, the composer’s widow.  It is Vaughan Williams’s contribution to the Harriet Cohen Bach Book, a remarkable collection by several prominent British composers of the 1920’s.  Vaughan Williams’s piece is characteristically in five or six parts, pp / ppp.  I used another number from the Bach Book on a separate occasion.  This is the simple but effective one by Frank Bridge, where I placed it after his massive Sonata.  I think it works well in this context.

From the generation before Vaughan Williams come the delightful Miniatures of Stanford and Parry, chiefly the 48 Preludes of the former and three big works from the latter.  I much enjoyed working on the Stanford, so well written, and not too demanding.  By contrast, Parry’s Hands Across the Centuries is very difficult, but worth the effort!  I have huge admiration for Parry’s Schulbrede Tunes, affectionate family portraits, equal to the best of Brahms and Schumann.

From a slightly later period comes Henry Balfour Gardiner, a disc of whose piano works was issued with those of Parry and Stanford. Gardiner gave up composing later in life and used his wealth and influence to promoting and financing new English music. We have him to thank for the first performance of Holst’s  Planets for example.  His piano music, most of which is included on my disc, is successful at all levels. It can be wistful, melodic, but never loses its rhythmic direction. His superb use of the instrument is powerfully displayed in Salamanca, whilst Michaelchurch is a tone poem of real substance.

Next, the music of Frank Bridge, the complete works of whom occupy three CDs.  John Bishop, a good friend, did the composer a great service through the Frank Bridge Trust, in reprinting several lost or forgotten pieces.  The Sonata, of course, is Bridge’s magnum opus and I feel my performance captures the anguish of the music.  I wrote to Benjamin Britten, Bridge’s star pupil, in 1976, asking to play him the piece but it was too late. Britten was very ill and died later that year.  I do urge pianists to seek out Bridge’s later, post Sonata pieces – they are of real quality, if less ‘friendly’ than Rosemary or the Miniature Pastorals.

Bridge’s Sonata is long (35 minutes) but the next piece I would like to mention, and far longer, is the Sonata of Benjamin Dale, a mammoth affair neglected today (review).  I played this a great deal in the 1980’s and thrilled to its youthful and vigorous style, with its debts to Wagner, Schumann, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.  Fit young players should resurrect this tremendous piece.

Equally challenging, but in a different way, is the music of Alan Bush.  I met Alan at the unlikely occasion of an Associated Board Examiners’ Lunch, where he promised to send me his recently completed 24 Preludes.  They arrived a few days later, the envelope sealed, as was all Alan’s correspondence, with red sealing wax!  I learnt these extraordinary Preludes over that Summer and played them to the composer at his Radlett home.  It is worth reflecting that Alan was born in 1900 and that his teachers were contemporaries of Tchaikovsky, Brahms and even Chopin.  Hearing Alan play was a history lesson in itself, with its freedom and spaciousness distilled from an earlier age.

John Foulds, one of the first composers I recorded, was a single-minded, maverick figure, who abandoned life in Britain for India, a country whose music fascinated him and where he wrote several works influenced by Eastern rhythms and harmonies. His Essays in the Modes is the main work of my Foulds CD. This was one of the results of this exile, each essay using only seven notes of the chromatic scale.  These are special pieces, both original and beautiful.  Foulds’s neglected music was brought back to life by my friend Malcolm Macdonald, a fine scholar and composer, whose Waste of Seas appears on my Anthology 3.  Foulds’s Ghandarva Music is one of the most remarkable short pieces I ever recorded by this or any other composer.  This is one of several discs recorded by Chris Rice in the lovely acoustic of St James’s, Clerkenwell Green.

It’s fair to say that the Sonata of Frank Bridge is well-known, and the Sonata of Benjamin Dale is suffering from what I hope is only temporary neglect. However, the sonatas of Harold Truscott are totally unknown.  I recorded ten of them in the late 1970s and early 80s, but – despite my best efforts – they remain unplayed, unprinted and, dare I say it – unloved.  A pity, as they are big-boned works, passionate, intellectually complex, and unapologetic in their use of the keyboard.  In his lifetime Harold was respected as a writer on many and varied musical topics, and for championing unfashionable composers such as Brian and Schmidt. He worked on his own music without complaint or bitterness and was grateful that at least part of his output was recorded.  His day may yet come. Incidentally, Harold was in awe of Alan Bush. They met, so far as I can recall, on only one occasion, when Harold was rather overwhelmed by Alan’s stentorian voice and domineering presence.

I became familiar with the music of the Scottish composer Thomas Wilson through my teacher Alexander Kelly.  I heard Alex play the Sonata at the Wigmore Hall in 1970 and was fortunate enough to record the piece myself thirty years’ later. On the Heritage label this appears as part of the British Sonatas Collection.  The work is a two-movement structure, whose concentrated textures make it appear far longer than its actual length. It can be favourably compared to the sonatas of Michael Tippett, although Tom’s clarity and live counterpoint remain particularly his own.

Now for a mention of a collection for which I have a special affection.  This is called Rarities, essentially a sampler disc, all its tracks being taken from previously released CDs. The exception, the only “new” piece, is Thomas Wilson’s Incunabula, a ten-minute explosion of pianistic sonorities, best heard alongside his Sonata described earlier. My intention in Rarities is simple.  I wanted all the pieces to be the best of their kind and, secondly, to satisfy myself that all the playing was the best of which I was capable. I also judged that since Heritage was issuing so much material in quite a short space of time, it would be a good idea to take a breath and invite listeners to select and listen to pieces with which they would, likely, be unfamiliar.

Rarities includes Sleepy Piano by a composer I have not yet mentioned, Billy Mayerl. I’ve always had a soft spot for the 1920s school of light ‘flappery’ piano music. I played for the Billy Mayerl Society on many occasions.  This dedicated group of enthusiasts did much to reinstate and promote both Mayerl and other composers from that era. The compilation issued by Heritage was originally on the Priory label, a company better known for its organ and church music! I rather like my Mayerl disc. At least the music does not add to the world’s misery! By the way, it’s a toss-up as to who wrote the harder left-hand parts, Harold Truscott or Billy Mayerl.  Mayerl’s ‘stride basses’ need so much practice!

It became clear at our first meeting, in 2019, that Tim and I share an enthusiasm for the music of Trevor Hold. I had recorded an album of his work way back in 2000, and Tim suggested that we make a further one, the two to be issued as a double set. This duly happened. I say, without hesitation, that I rate Trevor Hold a composer of the highest quality – he has Britten’s ear (and technique) to conjure new sounds from simple material. His traditional song arrangements are in turn touching, amusing, and soul-searching. I urge pianists, singers, and instrumentalists to seek out his music.

Hold’s piano masterpiece is Kemp’s Nine Daies Wonder a joyful, life-enhancing work, inspired by the antics of Will Kemp, Shakespeare’s friend and collaborator, who danced from London to Norwich in 1599. Trevor had the lightbulb idea of writing a set of nine dances, tracing the ups and downs of what would nowadays be called a sponsored run. One critic described the first movement as a mixture of Bartók and boogie, a neat definition I cannot better. Poet, composer, pianist, beer-drinker, bon viveur, countryman and animal lover. These are among the memories I retain of Trevor Hold, a remarkable man.

Aside from the second selection of Trevor Hold, I recorded four further original compilations for Heritage, covering a wide range of styles and emotions. The Peter Jacobs Collection has some stand out pieces. I like the Humphrey Searle Vigil (France 1940-44), and Raymond Warren’s Monody, a striking and ear-tickling study. I was able to play it to the composer, who gave me confidence as to his intentions.

Anthology 2 has plenty of contrasts and largely avoids the familiar.  Best known is Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite de Concert, usually heard in its orchestral guise. Then there are the varieties of style in the works of John Mayer and Edmund Rubbra. Mayer’s Calcutta is a suite of 18 short pieces, which wonderfully evoke his native city, with its smells and bells, its crazy traffic and echoes of its colonial past.  Rubbra’s Preludes are, for the most part, reflective and serious. They distil a lifetime of contrapuntal study with their sensitive and unusual feeling for key relationships. Elsewhere on this disc, and easily overlooked, is a pair of short but characteristic pieces by Delius, not a composer one readily associates with the keyboard. I included them as a tribute to Eric Fenby, Delius’s amanuensis with whom I studied at the Royal Academy in the 1960s. Eric was a special person, whose gentle manner and deep insights remain deeply within me to this day.

Anthology 3 is, in fact, a live recital I gave to the Havergal Brian Society, I think, in 1981. No edits or retakes here! Two pieces to mention, in particular, are those by Malcolm Macdonald and Robert Simpson.  Malcolm was, of course, the brains behind the John Foulds revival. His Waste of Seas is powerful, dramatic and very lonely.  Robert Simpson’s Variations on a Theme of Haydn is a tremendous 20-minute affair.  Hearing it after 45 years, I was excited by the energy (and accuracy) of the playing! I think the cragginess of the music comes across well and reminds us of what a strong voice we have in Robert Simpson.

We called the next recording The Silent Pool after the piece by Grace Williams. All the music here is by women composers.  This CD was great fun to plan and execute, with so much choice and variety to hand. Cecilia McDowall’s Vespers in Venice conjures up the shifting moods of that city, while the hectic fun of the 1920s is vividly captured by Raie da Costa. I commissioned Betty Roe’s Mystery of Cats in 1992and included three of them. They elegantly reflect the fun and dignity of these amazing animals. Single items from Madeleine Dring’s Colour Suite often turn up on exam syllabi, but I have included the whole of her collection, where each piece bounces off the next to great effect. Dring has a Poulencian ear for bitter-sweet harmony, and Cole Porter’s skill in writing tunes which are happy and sad at the same time. Perhaps my own favourite is No 4 Blue Air. In addition, I cannot resist drawing your attention to the pieces by Ethel Smyth at the start of this recital. The 3^rd Sonata (just two movements) shows just how much she was influenced by Brahms, whom she knew well. His mighty shadow hangs across Smyth’s Sonata, but her own strong independence keeps the music driving along. The Song Without Words, which follows, is a charming amalgam of Ethel, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky.

Perhaps I could squeeze in a mention of Percy Turnbull, a disc of whose delightful miniatures I made in 1999 and released on the Somm label (review). Revisiting the pieces for this article, I was enchanted by the fluency and variety of the music. Turnbull was a distinguished teacher, thoroughly grounded in many and varied techniques. This is best demonstrated in his Pasticcio on a Theme of Mozart, an amusing and skilful sequence of pieces in the style of several composers, from Bach to Bartók. They are not obsessively difficult, but pianists and audiences find them both amusing and instructive.

So much for British music. Although I have equal affection for the French repertoire, I readily admit to less knowledge in its highways and byways. No-one could accuse Fauré of being a neglected composer, and my one CD entirely dedicated to his music contains its fair share of his marvellous Nocturnes and Barcarolles. The little-known work here is the set of Nine Preludes (Opus 103). These beautifully crafted pieces are the ripest of ripe Fauré, saturated with his special blend of sadness, shadows and tenderness.

Second in this trilogy of French music is a disc initially released under the title French Leave.  Whilst including further Fauré, it also contains lesser-known gems by Ibert, Dukas, Poulenc and De Séverac, amongst others. I especially warm to the De Séverac pieces. His evocations of rural France are expansive, pictorial, religious. Further, his textures are beautifully imagined with the sonorities of a good piano well in mind.

The third volume of this collection consists solely of works by a single composer, Maurice Emmanuel. His music is not especially well-known, but these six works are in the finest tradition of French keyboard music, superbly laid out for the instrument, subtle in their harmony and counterpoint. They are also extremely difficult! Forget the idea of sonatinas being less demanding than sonatas – Emmanuel leaves Clementi and Dussek far behind in his technical demands. The Sonatines were written over a period of thirty years, each one different from its neighbour. The first, for instance, is based on Burgundian church bells, the second on bird calls, the fourth on Hindu modes (shades of John Foulds), whilst the fifth Sonatine is in the style of Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin. There are 22 movements in total and there is not a weak one anywhere. It was a joy working on these wonderfully crafted pieces, and I have retained a deep affection for this recording.

Incidentally, I was invited by Maurice Emmanuel’s son to visit him in Paris. On arrival, he said he was suffering from “un grand depression” since it was the anniversary of his wife’s death. I could not even tell him how much I admired his Dad’s music. Heigh Ho!

This brings me to the last of my French music. Three records, in fact, dedicated to Cécile Chaminade, issued on the Hyperion label, consisting of about 80 pieces in total. Everyone loves a good tune and Chaminade seldom disappoints. She pulls them out of her proverbial hat over and over again.  A fine pianist herself, there is never a bar which is ungrateful or unpianistic. Her style has elegance and clarity, and Fauré himself would not have been ashamed to have written the lovely melodies of Automne or Romance in D. Chaminade’s music can be powerful and brilliant when required – the deeply felt Au Pays Dévasté reminds us that she was an ambulance driver in World War One. Volume I has proved to be the most popular in the series.  I have always rated Volume 2 the most successful where the choice of pieces, the recording and the playing are best connected (review ~ review). 

With the exception of a few bits and pieces this is virtually all I have to offer. I know there exist other performances of the better-known pieces, but there is so much (Truscott, Bush, Hold, etc.) which is not otherwise available. I hope I have pointed pianists (and listeners) down a few less-trodden paths.

I felt totally at home with all the music I have encountered, but as a player, which are my favourites? I am not ashamed of Foulds’s Ghandava Music, the Sonatines of Maurice Emmanuel, especially Nos 2,4, and 5. Also Robert Simpson’s Haydn Variations. Chaminade’s reputation seems to be growing in popularity. I notice her music appearing alongside Schumann and other romantics. Furthermore, her elegance and sparkle work beautifully beside her French contemporaries.

A big thank you to the companies which were sufficiently enterprising to take a few risks and for the engineers and producers who listened and guided. Special thanks and admiration to Paul Arden-Taylor, who engineered all the new Heritage discs.  His skill, patience, and incredible ear, made our sessions so pleasant and fulfilling.

Peter Jacobs
2026

Reviews of Peter Jacobs’ Heritage recordings on Musicweb International
British Piano Collection Vol 1
British Music Collection Vol 2
Harold Truscott Piano Works
Trevor Hold Piano Music
The Peter Jacobs Anthology: Twentieth Century British Piano Music
English Piano Rarities
Peter Jacobs Anthology Vol 2
Peter Jacobs Anthology Vol 3