Category Archives: On record

On Record – Rick Wakeman: Melancholia (Madfish)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

In the last ten years, we have had much more of an insight into Rick Wakeman’s world as a solo musician. These glimpses are afforded us through the albums Piano Portraits and Piano Odyssey, the start of a trilogy now completed by Melancholia.

Yet there is a greater personal edge to this particular set, started by Wakeman’s wife Rachel who was struck by hearing Rick playing privately and encouraged him to share his musical thoughts. The music she heard would become the track Garo, while the other eleven tracks on the album follow a similar, semi-improvised tread.

The music follows Wakeman’s train of thought, a clear thread running through each piece.

What’s the music like?

Melancholia is easy listening – which is of course both a blessing and a curse. If you listen closely, it is possible to tap into Rick’s mostly reflective moods, and admire the way he develops the source material. Clearly this is a master musician at work, the feeling being that we are eavesdropping on an advanced practice session where Wakeman takes us through his intimate thoughts and feelings.

Yet this does also work as a disadvantage, for the music falls effortlessly into the ‘peaceful piano’ section of any digital playlist. This is great for passive listening of course, but it means some of the deeper meanings within the music can be lost, especially given the similarity between the colours on each track.

Wakeman plays with elegance and attention to detail, with some lovely little ornamentations that have become second nature to him, rather like bringing a Bach invention to the table. Pathos is nicely turned, while Alone is led by an attractive melody. Watching Life has a satisfying balance of light and shade, while the title track fades into the distance, leaving room for thought at the end.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing the caveats above are taken into account.

Is it recommended?

It is – though anyone expecting the physical energy Wakeman brings to most of his keyboard playing will find it channelled for inward thoughts only here. Melancholia does, though, reinforce Rick Wakeman’s status as one of the most versatile British keyboard and piano players around.

Listen / Buy

Published post no.2,751 – Wednesday 16 December 2025

On Record – Kathryn Williams: Mystery Park (One Little Independent)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

It is now 25 years since Kathryn Williams earned a Mercury Prize nomination for the album Little Black Numbers, and 15 since she started the productive partnership with label One Little Independent. In that time her reputation has persisted as a purveyor of quality folk music, exhibiting the “quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision” the press release for this album accurately describes.

For Mystery Park she strips back the sound, but gathers a high-quality team of musicians in the form of multi-instrumentalist Leo Abrahams (guitar, piano, bass, vocals) and guitarists Neill MacColl and Polly Paulusma, all of whom contribute backing vocals – as does multi-instrumentalist Ed Harcourt. Drummer Chris Vatalaro and harmonica player David Ford are also present, as is Paul Weller, credited with Hammond organ as well as vocals.

Importantly, Williams pinpoints the album as the most personal record she has made, featuring as it does her own painting on the cover, based on her grandmother’s tea sets.

What’s the music like?

There is a strong autumnal feel to Williams’ music this time round, the basis of a strong seasonal attachment running through the record like a thread. This is most obvious in the Polly Paulusma collaboration Goodbye To Summer, where the swallows leave and the inevitable question is asked, “how many more summers do we have?”

The personal attachments range from a celebration of her eldest son in Sea Of Shadows but also This Mystery, where she addresses her father’s dementia in moving clarity. Weller’s guest appearance is saved for the striking Gossamer Wings, where Williams’ talents for spinning quite oblique melodies are exploited – as indeed they are throughout the album.

Does it all work?

It does. Williams exudes a quiet confidence, able to express herself with the minimum of fuss but also in a way that draws the listener in to the middle of her conversational ways – by which point they can also appreciate the detailed and often exquisite instrumentation at work here.

Is it recommended?

It certainly is. Kathryn Williams makes music that is all the more beautiful for its subtlety, beckoning the listener over to spend more time in its company. Once there, it is pretty much guaranteed they won’t leave without seeking out more of her impressive discography. This particular listener will be doing just that!

For fans of… Laura Marling, Unthanks, Lisa Hannigan, Joanna Newsom

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Published post no.2,709 – Wednesday 5 November 2025

On Record – Peter Jacobs: The Silent Pool: British Piano Music by Women Composers (Heritage Records)

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Peter Jacobs (piano)

Smyth Piano Sonata no.3 (1877); Piano Sonata no.2 (Andante) (1877)
Maconchy A Country Town (nos. 1, 3, 4, 5 & 7) (1945)
Williams The Silent Pool (1932)
Grime The Silver Moon (2025)
Dring Colour Suite (1963)
Bingham The Moon Over Westminster Cathedral (2003)
Woodforde-Finden Indian Love Lyrics (nos.2 & 1) (1903)
McDowall Vespers in Venice (2002)
Bingham Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1991)
Roe A Mystery of Cats (nos. 1, 4 & 5) (1994)
Beamish Lullaby for Owain (2016)
Da Costa Gigue; Moods (both 1930)
Lehmann Cobweb Castle (nos. 2 & 5) (1908)

Heritage Records HTGCD126 [75’40”]
Producer / Engineer Paul Arden-Taylor

Recorded 16 September 2024 & 26 January 2025 at Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Peter Jacobs continues his productive association with the Heritage label with this anthology that takes in a well-planned overview of piano music by female British composers, ranging across over more than 130 years of creativity in an impressive variety of idioms and genres.

What’s the music like?

Although female composers had been active in the UK from the outset of the English Musical Renaissance and before, relatively few came to prominence during their lifetime, with many others destined to be rediscovered only years and sometimes decades after their death. While hardly the first of its kind, the present collection is among the most representative in terms of its stylistic coverage which, in turn, underlines they should not be pigeon-holed any more than their male counterparts. Moreover, what was the loss to earlier generations is our gain today.

This recital opens with the redoubtable Ethel Smyth – her Third Piano Sonata contrasting the equable motion of its initial Allegro with the impetuous manner of its closing Allegro vivace. From its larger scale predecessor, the central Song Without Words affords ruminative space between the dynamism and tensions of those movements either side. Of the five (out of nine) pieces in Elizabeth Maconchy’s suite, the eloquent Lament and limpid Bells are especially appealing. Grace Williams is at her most haunting in the piece as gives this collection its title, and Helen Grime pens a miniature stark yet pellucid. Among the most versatile composers of her generation, Madeleine Dring is represented here by a five-movement themed suite which includes such delights as the quizzical Pink Mirror or the appropriately sensuous Blue Air. Judith Bingham may be best known for her choral and brass band music, but there is nothing unpianistic about so translucently textured a nocturne.

Two of Amy Woodforde-Finden’s four-piece suite include the elegant poise of Less than the Dust, while Cecilia McDowall sounds a note of spatial immensity in her Venetian evocation. The four pieces of her Christmas suite find Bingham pursuing an altogether more winsome vein of expression – duly complemented by three out of five whimsical feline homages by Betty Roe, happily still going strong in her 96th year. Sally Beamish contributes a (surprisingly?) capricious lullaby, with two pieces by the short-lived Raie da Costa typifying her witty and sassy manner. The wistful charm of Liza Lehmann, two of six pieces from her only piano suite, affords an elegant then touching envoi.

Does it all work?

As an overall sequence, absolutely. At around 75 minutes, this concert-length recital can be enjoyed as a continuous sequence or in any number of selections. It helps when Jacobs is so persuasive an exponent of this music, much of it remaining little known other than to pianists with his breadth of sympathies but which ought to find an audience given exposure in a live context. As he himself notes, this “random selection [is] united by being rewarding to play, beautifully written for the instrument, varied in style and intellectual depth”. Enough said.

Is it recommended?

It is. Piano sound is as full and spacious as expected given its Wyastone source, while Jacobs contributes laconically insightful notes on the recital overall. Most enjoyable, with hopefully enough material in this pianist’s “library of over 60 years collecting” to warrant a follow-up.

Listen / Buy

You can read more about this release and explore purchase options at the Heritage Records website

Published post no.2,682 – Thursday 9 October 2025

On Record – MahlerFest 36 & 37: Mahler & The Mountains: Kenneth Woods conducts Symphony no.4 & selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

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April Fredrick (soprano), Brennen Guillory (tenor – Trost im Unglück, Der Tambourg’ sell; Revelge), Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Mahler
Symphony no.4 in G major (1892; 1899-1900)
Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Lied des Verfolgten im Turm; Des Antonius von Padua; Fischpredigt; Trost im Unglück; Rheinlegendchen; Der Schildwache Nachtlied; Der Tambourg’sell; Revelge

Colorado MahlerFest 195269364564 [two discs, 89’22”]
Producer Jonathan Galle Engineer Tim Burton
Live performances at Macky Auditorium, Boulder, Colorado, 20 May 2023 (Des Knaben Wunderhorn), 19 May 2024 (symphony no.4)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Recorded coverage of Colorado’s MahlerFest continues with these performances taken from the past two editions, duly confirming the significance of this event in the annals of Mahler interpretation and the increasing excellence of the orchestral playing under Kenneth Woods.

What are the performances like?

It may be the shortest of his cycle and the one which initially gained his music acceptance in the UK and US, but Mahler’s Fourth Symphony received as rough a reception as any of his premieres and it remains a difficult work fully to make cohere. While he undoubtedly has its measure, Woods might have pointed up those expressive contrasts in its opening movement a little more directly; the music only finding focus with a development where the emotional perspective opens out to reveal an unforeseen ambiguity. The remainder is unfailingly well judged, while the scherzo impresses through a seamless transition between the sardonic and the elegance of its trio sections. Alan Snow sounds just a little tentative with his ‘mistuned’ violin, but the unexpected panorama of enchantment prior to its coda is meltingly realized.

At just over 20 minutes, the Adagio feels relatively swift (surprisingly so), even if Woods is mindful never to rush its unfolding double variations and what becomes a contrast between intensifying expressive states whose Beethovenian antecedent is not hard to discern. If the climactic ‘portal to heaven’ lacks little in resplendence, it is that hushed inwardness either side such as sets the seal on a reading of this movement to rank among the finest in recent years. Nor is its segue into the finale other than seamless – Mahler having realized that an earlier vocal setting was the natural culmination to where his symphony had been headed. Suffice to add that April Fredrick’s contribution is of a piece with Woods’s conception in its canny mingling of innocence and experience prior to an ending of deep-seated repose.

The second disc features seven songs taken from Mahler’s settings of folk-inspired anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn. April Fredrick is truly in her element with a Rheinlegendchen of winning insouciance and a Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt of deftest irony. Brennen Guillory comes into his own with the final two numbers, Der Tamboursg’sell distilling the darkest humour as surely as Revelge conveys that innate fatalism behind the resolve with which the soldier meets his destiny. Woods provides an astute and sensitive accompaniment.

Does it all work?

Yes, insofar as the collection of folk-inspired poetry proved central to Mahler’s evolution as both a song and symphonic composer. It might have been worthwhile to include the original version of Das himmlische Leben, not least as its appreciably different orchestration shows just how far the composer’s thinking had come during eight years, but the present selection is nothing if not representative. Hopefully those Wunderhorn songs not featured will appear on a future issue from this source, maybe in tandem with the Rückert songs of the next decade.

Is it recommended?

Yes it is. The symphonic cycle emerging from MahlerFest is shaping up to be a significant addition to the Mahler discography, with the latest instalment no exception. Hopefully this year’s account of the Sixth Symphony will find its way to commercial release before long.

Listen / Buy

For further purchase options, visit the MahlerFest website – and for more information on the festival itself, click here. Click on the names for further information on conductor Kenneth Woods, soprano April Fredrick and tenor Brennen Guillory

Published post no.2,681 – Wednesday 8 October 2025

On Record – Baxter Dury: Allbarone (Heavenly Recordings)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Baxter Dury appears to be in an imperial phase of his artist development. Each album has presented vivid portraits or stories in his own very distinctive, and very direct voice, capturing nuggets of English and international life – and snippets from life on the road or in the studio.

Allbarone can sound like an exotic destination – Mexico, perhaps – or a chain of bars in the UK, depending on how you pronounce it! The double meaning appears to be intentional, as it also frames the humour Dury brings to his work, not to mention the music.

What’s the music like?

For this album at least, Dury is a fully fledged dance music artist – and he goes for the jugular with a set of powerful grooves that have hard hitting vocals to boot. Some – Schadenfreude, or Return Of The Sharp Heads, for instance – hit particularly hard, the former with a brilliant, brooding groove and a nugget of storytelling, the latter with hilarious consequences of bad language as Dury and guest vocalist JGrrey take down the Shoreditch loafers.

Paul Epworth is a great choice of producer, the foil to Dury’s humour, which ranges from scathing to lightly scabrous – and is compelling to a fault.

Other highlights include the vibrant Mockingjay, Kubla Khan, the prowling beats of Hapsburg and the winsome portrait Mr W4.

Does it all work?

It does. Dury doesn’t hang around, the album over in a flash, but its high points are many and the music is a winning mixture of euphoric and slightly manic.

Is it recommended?

It certainly is. Allbarone is a triumph of plain speaking, both lyrically and musically. Safe to say that Dury has long shaken off the ‘son of Ian’ label, for his own personality is incredibly charismatic, his voice consistently compelling. As a result, the music punches with impressive weight, a remedy for our times.

For fans of… The Streets, Audio Bullys, BC Camplight, Underworld

Listen / Buy

Published post no.2,667 – Wednesday 24 September 2025