Raymond Deane: Seachanges (Black Box)
In his late teens, some 30 years ago, Raymond Deane seemed set to become the radical presence of contemporary Irish music. He didn't, but there are elements of disruption and indulgence in his music of the 1990s which reflect his youthful tendencies: tremolando and repetition (or, rather, insistence) attract him still. The Brown Studies (1998) for string quartet (the RTE Vanbrughs) are the most conventional pieces here, the three pieces that make up the Macabre Trilogy (1993-96) the most fanciful, playing with their sometimes well-known material like a big-pawed predator might its hapless prey (these are performed by the Schubert Ensemble of London, and, rather more idiomatically, Reservoir). Freshness and cliche (for its own sake, or as a comment, I'm not sure) jostle in the After-Pieces (1989-90) for piano, finely played by Hugh Tinney.
Bax: Symphony No 5; The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew. RSNO/David Lloyd-Jones (Naxos)
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra's Naxos series of Bax's symphonies continues a remarkable recorded revival, not yet fully reflected in the concert hall. Bax, who developed a passion for all things Irish from the poetry of Yeats (and even published novels under the pseudonym Dermot O'Byrne), wrote his bestknown orchestral work, the symphonic poem Tintagel during the first World War and completed his seven symphonies between 1922 and 1939. They're orchestrally resplendent, moody pieces, usually vivid in moment-by-moment characterisation. Structurally they're not quite as sound - the whole often comes to seem less than the sum of its parts. David Lloyd-Jones handles the Fifth with typical sympathy, and the masterly orchestration is well caught in the recording.
Piano Masters: Solomon (Pearl)
The pianist known professionally as Solomon (full name Solomon Cutner) had his career cut short by a stroke at the age of 54 in 1956. The greatest British pianist of the 20th century, he was an unassuming virtuoso. His dexterity was exceptional, but he never seemed to want to focus attention on it. And transparency was his interpretative goal, too. Pearl's well-chosen collection (GEM 0038) is drawn from the late 1940s, when Solomon was at the height of his powers. His Scarlatti (the Sonata in F, K17) and Haydn (the Sonata in D, Hob XVI: 37) have both a finely-balanced raciness and, in the short slow movement of the Haydn, a suggestive poignancy. Beethoven reveals a responsiveness that's as successful in the youthful showiness of the Sonata in C, Op. 2 No 3, as in the late, knotty counterpoint and inwardness of Op. 111. A most rewarding collection.
