LENNOX BERKELEY (1903-1989) & MICHAEL BERKELEY (b. 1948)

Volume 6

 

Concerto for Orchestra Seascapes

Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra

Gregorian Variations for Orchestra

 

Kathryn Stott (piano), Howard Shelley (piano)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Richard Hickox

 

A rare example in the modern world of father and son composers of similar distinction, both Lennox and Michael Berkeley have in turn reached a position of prominence and influence in British musical life. They are represented on this disc by works showing their craftsmanship in tailoring works to particular performers and occasions, without compromising their individual language and vision. Lennox Berkeley’s two-piano Concerto, written in one of the most fertile periods of his career, is a highly effective showpiece for its soloists, which nevertheless avoids the obvious in terms of form and treatment. Lennox Berkeley wrote his Concerto for two pianos in 1948 in response to a commission from the Henry Wood Concert Society. The medium of the double Concerto was a comparatively unusual one, though there were significant precedents in works by Berkeley’s idol Mozart, and also Brahms and Poulenc. Berkeley himself said in a programme note that his intention was ‘to contrast the sound of two pianofortes with that of the orchestra, avoiding thereby the familiar textures of the ordinary one-pianoforte concerto. The soloists, therefore, are nearly always used as a unit, and not as individuals.’

 

Michael Berkeley’s Gregorian Variations for large orchestra was completed in 1982, with the premise ‘to make it accessible to a lay audience at first hearing’. He chose to base it on the Gregorian plainchant he had absorbed as a boy chorister in Westminster Cathedral. Despite its title, the work does not consist of variations on a single theme, but is a continuous fantasia based on a number of different chant melodies. In the years after the Gregorian Variations, Michael Berkeley’s style has undergone considerable development, with results that are apparent in the Concerto for Orchestra of 2004/5. The music is more consistent, without stylistic references: it is much more chromatic and less obviously tonal or modal, though key-centres remain as points of anchorage beneath the surface.

 

This final volume concludes one of Britain’s most important recording projects in recent years, and the complete series provides an important document of Twentieth Century British music. A collector’s dream.

 

Reviews from previous volumes:

‘This magnificent series devoted to the two Berkeleys’ continues… as in the previous three volumes there are revelations, with Richard Hickox as the ideal interpreter in every way.

Gramophone on CHAN10167 (Volume 4)

 

‘A fascinating programme, extremely well played and recorded.’

The Sunday Times ‘CD of the Week’ on CHAN9981 (Volume 1)

 

Chandos CHAN10408