Category Archives: On record

On Record – Robert Simpson: Chamber Music, Volume One (Toccata Classics)

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bEva-Maria Hartmann (soprano); cEmma Johnson, dPeter Cigleris (clarinets); dDerek Hannigan (bass clarinet); cRaphael Wallfisch (cello); dWill Duerden, dLevi Andreassen, dDaniil Margulis (double basses); cJohn Lenehan, bCornelis Witthoefft (pianos); aTippett Quartet (John Mills, Jeremy Isaac, violins; Lydia Lowndes-Northcott, viola; Božidar Vukotić, cello)

Robert Simpson
String Quartet in D major (1945)a
Songs – Trocknet nicht!b; The Cherry Tree (both c1942)b
Clarinet Trio (1967)c
Quintet for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet and Three Double Basses (1981)d

Toccata Classics TOCC0701 [70’59’’]
English/German texts & English translation included
Producer / Engineer Michael Ponder

Recorded c3 June 2021 & d20 November 2023 at St George’s, Pinner View, London; a7 February 2023 at Studio TQHQ, Ruislip; b12 August 2024 at Lehmann Studios, Stuttgart

Released in January 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics issues the first of two releases intended to ‘plug the gaps’ in the survey of Robert Simpson’s chamber music recorded by Hyperion in the 1980s and 1990s, featuring mainly younger musicians who demonstrate keen understanding of this composer’s idiom.

What’s the music like?

Although hardly a cohesive collection as such, this album provides an alternative overview across the greater part of Simpson’s output. Nothing here could be considered inessential, while one of these pieces most likely ranks among his finest compositions from any period.

Composed (and duly accepted) as an examination exercise for Simpson’s Batchelor degree at Durham, the String Quartet in D thereafter remained unpublished and unheard until this recording. At just over 20 minutes, the modest dimensions belie its formal deftness and its expressive subtlety – a trenchant initial Allegro followed by an Adagio where Haydnesque wit makes way for Beethovenian profundity, an ingratiating Allegretto closer to intermezzo than scherzo then a final Presto of an exhilaration effortlessly sustained through to its close.

Simpson was always uneasy with the setting of texts (his two published choral works solve this issue in different though equally ingenious way), but these early settings of Goethe and Housman suggest a distinctive and, moreover, convincing approach which could well have become more so had he persevered. Interestingly, both have an almost confessional quality that the composer, still in his early twenties, might have felt better conveyed in instrumental terms. Something that can never be known for sure, but the attraction of these songs remains.

The late 1960s found Simpson writing two major chamber works with clarinet. The Clarinet Quintet has long been regarded among his finest works, but the slightly earlier Clarinet Trio has seldom been heard and is something of a revelation. From its spellbinding introduction, the initial Allegro makes a virtue of abrupt contrast between impulsiveness and remoteness, with the slow movement a fugitive if searching interlude making the final Allegro the more unequivocal as this builds to a powerful apotheosis offset by the otherness of its closing bars.

Simpson afficionados will be familiar with the Quintet for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet and String Trio (Hyperion CDA66626), though maybe not the original incarnation with its three double basses. In fact the musical content sounds, for the most part, better suited to those arresting sonorities – not least the ethereal chorale-like texture of an opening Adagio which, after the mounting energy of a central Allegro, is infused with appreciably greater eloquence on its return and sees the whole work to an ending the more inevitable for its deep-seated repose.

Does it all work?

Pretty much throughout. The present accounts lack little in overall conviction, nor does the sound lack anything in clarity or perspective, while the annotations by Matthew Taylor are as informative as might be expected from one for whom Simpson was a significant mentor.

Is it recommended?

Yes, with the follow-up (Sonata for Two Pianos and Brass Quintet) duly awaited. Incidentally, Taylor recorded the Flute Concerto (with Susan Milan) and Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach for the Simpson centenary in 2021 but which is yet to be released. Maybe this year?

Listen / Buy

You can hear excerpts from the album and explore purchase options at the Toccata Classics website

Published post no.2,768 – Thursday 15 January 2026

On Record – Havergal Brian: Complete Choral Songs, Volume One (Toccata Classics)

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aJoyful Company of Singers; bAscolta / Peter Broadbent; cFinchley Children’s Music Group / Grace Rossiter with dChristine Hankin (flute); eImogen Barford (harp); fGavin Roberts, gJohn Evanson (pianos)

Havergal Brian
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (1903)a
Soul Star (1906)a
Come o’er the sea (1907)a
Lullaby of an Infant Chief (1906)a
Ah! County Guy (1919)cg
Violets (1914)b
Fair Pledges of a Fruitful Tree (1919)cg
Grace for a Child (1914)cg
A Song of Willow (1914)bf
And will he not come again? (1914)bf
Ye spotted snakes (1914)bf
Fear no more the heat of the sun (1919)bf
Under the greenwood tree (1919)bf
Full fathom five (1921)bf
Come away, death (1925)af
The Blossom (1914)cg
The Fly (1914)cg
The Little Boy Lost (1914)cg
The Little Boy Found (1914)cg
Piping down the Valleys Wild (1914)cg
The Chimney Sweeper (1914)bf
The Little Black Boy (1914)bf
Four Choral Songs from Prometheus Unbound (1937-44): From Unremembered Agesa; The Patha; There the Voluptuous Nightingalesade; There those Enchanted Eddiesa
Spring – sound the flute (1914)cg
Summer has come, Little Children (1914)cg
Goodbye to Summer (1914)cg
Blow, Blow thou Winter Wind (1925)a

Toccata Classics TOCC0395 [70’59’’]
English texts included
Producer Michael Ponder
Engineer Adaq Khan
Recorded a11 & 12 December 2021, c12 &13 March 2022 at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London; b26 November 2022 at St Silas, Kentish Town, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics releases this first in a two-volume survey of Havergal Brian’s choral songs, a versatile medium to which he contributed several dozen items and through which he first established his reputation, before effectively abandoning the medium a quarter-century later.

What’s the music like?

Although best known for his 32 symphonies, solo songs and choral songs dominate Brian’s earlier output. The latter have not fared well in recorded terms – two (the first and last here) being included on an LP from the Stoke-on-Trent Bedford Singers in 1982 (SAIN TRF239), who recorded a larger selection three years on for the Altarus label which only found limited release on cassette in 1991 (British Music Society Environs ENV016). This Toccata album is hence a timely redress for some of Brian’s most attractive and immediately appealing music.

The choral songs fall into three categories. The first consists of part-songs written mainly for the many choral societies from the Midlands and North in the earlier 20th century – reflected in a textural intricacy and harmonic richness which, between them, provide as stern a test of intonation as expected given their provenance in the competitions held regularly at this time. Shakespeare is especially prominent, as too is Robert Herrick, with the translucency of those settings from the 1900s in contrast to the astringency of those following the First World War.

The second category consists of songs, mostly for upper voices and often in unison, written for school or youth choirs. Many date from 1914 when Brian, having left Stoke for London after the collapse of his first marriage, was in financial straits yet their swift turnaround does not make them of lesser quality. William Blake is the main author, tackled with an emotional acuity and technical poise matched by few subsequent composers, while the poignant setting of Gerald Cumberland likely derives from a children’s operetta abandoned around this time.

The third category consists of four semi-choruses taken from a vast setting of Percy Shelley’s lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound (or at least the first two acts) Brian wrote largely during the Second World War. Its full score is long missing, but the vocal score gives due indication of its underlying ambition and overall technical difficulty not least for the chorus. That said, the three unaccompanied items confirm such demands as integral to the musical conception, while the fourth (track 25) features contributions from flute and harp of diaphanous elegance.

Does it all work?

Indeed it does, both in the technical sophistication of part-songs featuring Joyful Company of Singers or the disarming naivety of unison-songs with Finchley Children’s Music Group; directed with assurance by Peter Broadbent or Grace Rossiter, with Gavin Roberts and John Evanson equally adept in their very different piano writing. Moreover, the track sequencing affords a pleasurable listen on its own terms through emphasizing the consistency of Brian’s response to texts which, in themselves, amount to an ‘unofficial’ anthology of English verse.

Is it recommended?

Very much so, not least given the excellent sound with John Pickard contributing a typically authoritative booklet note. Maybe he might yet be persuaded to oversee a re-orchestration of Prometheus Unbound? In the meantime, the second volume of this survey is keenly awaited.

Listen / Buy

You can hear excerpts from the album and explore purchase options at the Toccata Classics website. Click on the artist names for more on Grace Rossiter, Peter Broadbent, Finchley Children’s Music Group and Joyful Company of Singers. Meanwhile click on the name for the Havergal Brian Society

Published post no.2,762 – Friday 9 January 2026

On Record – The Peter Jacobs Anthology Volume 3 (Heritage Records)

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Peter Jacobs (piano)

Allum Nocturne in C sharp minor; Prelude No. 24 in D minor (both c.1950)
Bantock (arr. composer) Omar Khayam (1906-09) – Prelude and March
Fenney Au Printemps (pub. 1915)
MacDonald Waste of Seas (1976)
Purcell arr. Stevenson The Queen’s Dollour (pub. 1710, arr. 1958)
Simpson Variations and Finale on a Theme of Haydn (1948)
Truscott Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor; Prelude and Fugue in C major (1957)

Heritage Records HTGCD127 (67’25”)
Recorded live at London College of Music, April 1979

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Heritage continues adds to its extensive Peter Jacobs discography with this recital focussing on music by British composers mainly of the early and mid-twentieth century, each rendered with that combination of fluency and insight which this pianist brings to all his performances.

What’s the music like?

According to his booklet note, Jacobs gave this recital at an Annual General Meeting for the Havergal Brian Society in 1979, though the present writer remembers a pretty much identical programme being given at this event in 1982. The seeming unavailability of works by Brian (Four Miniatures then Prelude and Fugue in C minor) played on this occasion is regrettable, but these are easily available elsewhere while the recital’s purpose in drawing together music by various of Brian’s contemporaries, colleagues or advocates remains essentially unchanged.

Granville Bantock’s choral epic Omar Khayam has numerous excerpts worthy of autonomous status – not least its evocative Prelude and quizzical March. Apparently written in a weekend, Harold Truscott’s brace of Preludes and Fugues – that in E flat minor as methodical as that in C is impetuous – makes one regret he did not attempt a complete cycle. An amateur composer in the most professional sense, Walter Allum’s piano music wears its indebtedness to Chopin but deftly – witness his intricately designed Nocturne or Prelude in D minor which brings to a vividly decisive end a cycle likely worth hearing in its entirety. William J. Fenney enjoyed a modest reputation just after the First World War with Au Printemps (also known as ‘In Early Spring’) a trilogy the more affecting in its emotional restraint – ‘light’ music but never facile.

Forward to what was then the present, Malcolm MacDonald’s Waste of Seas (also known as Hebridean Prelude) sustaining a plangent atmosphere and of a pianistic resourcefulness to suggest his modest output as worth further investigation. A relatively early work, Variations and Finale on a Theme of Haydn has Robert Simpson drawing a wide but integrated range of moods from the innocuous Minuet of Haydn’s 47th Symphony (its palindromic aspect more intensively mined in Simpson’s Ninth Quartet), prior to an extended final section more akin to the iconoclastic fugal writing in late Beethoven. Such exhilaration needs a brief touchdown such as Jacobs supplies in Ronald Stevenson’s lucid take on one of Purcell’s most poignant inspirations; a reminder the former is often at his most creative in the realm of transcription.

Does it all work?

Indeed so, not least when those pieces by Bantock, Allum, Fenney and MacDonald have yet to receive commercial recordings. Jacobs himself has recorded the Truscott (Heritage) while there are studio accounts of the Simpson by Raymond Clarke (Hyperion) and of the Purcell/ Stevenson transcription from Murray McLachlan (Divine Art) or Christopher Guild (Toccata Classics). To hear these works in close proximity and so perceptively realized is, of course, its own justification and no one interested in this music need hesitate to acquire this release.

Is it recommended? Very much so. Whatever its provenance, the recording sounds entirely satisfactory thanks to Heritage’s expert remastering and one only hopes further such releases from Peter Jacobs’s doubtless extensive archive will be possible. This latest anthology is warmly recommended.

Listen / Buy

You can hear excerpts from the anthology at the Presto Music website, and explore purchase options at the Heritage Records website. Click on the composer names to read more about Robert Simpson, Ronald Stevenson and Harold Truscott

Published post no.2,761 – Thursday 8 January 2026

On Record – Sarah Beth Briggs: Small Treasures (AVIE)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Small Treasures presents a typically inventive programme compiled by pianist Sarah Beth Briggs. In it she presents works by a trio of inseparable Romantic composers, with late-ish Robert Schumann, lesser-heard Clara Schumann and very late Brahms, his final compositions for solo piano.

Complementing these are thoughts from two members of Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre and Francis Poulenc – with the bonus of a cheeky encore from Mozart.

What’s the music like?

In a word, lovely. Briggs is a strong communicator, and finds the personal heart of Schumann’s Waldszenen – which is actually quite a Christmassy set of pieces. She particularly enjoys the intimacy of character pieces like Einsame Blumen (Lonely Flowers) and the delicate but rather haunting Vogel als Prophet (The Prophet Bird), beautifully played here.

A tender account of Robert’s Arabeske is a welcome bonus, an intimate counterpart to the more extrovert Impromptu of Clara. Written in c1844, the piece floats freely on the air in Briggs’s hands. By contrast the Larghetto, first of the Quatre Pièces Fugitives, inhabits a more confidential world, one furthered by a restless ‘un poco agitato’. The Andante espressivo, easily the most substantial of the four, is more serene, and it is tempting to draw a link between this and the mood of Robert’s Traumerei, from Kinderszenen. The Scherzo with which the quartet finishes is charmingly elusive, with clarity the watchword of this interpretation,  

Poulenc’s Trois Novelettes are typically mischievous and elegant by turn, spicy harmonies and bittersweet melodies complementing each other, before Tailleferre’s Sicilienne, a charming triple-time excursion with a bittersweet edge.

The Brahms Op.119 pieces are serious but have plenty of air too, and the final majestic Rhapsody is grand but not over-imposing, Briggs resisting the temptation to go for volume over expression.

Does it all work?

It does – and the album is easy to listen to the whole way through, the lightness of the Mozart Eine Kleine Gigue complementing the Brahms at the end. Some of the classic recordings of the Brahms and Schumann pieces arguably find more angst, but these finely played accounts are a treat, especially in context.

Is it recommended?

It is. Rather than visit a playlist on your go-to streaming service, you can just put this album on to create a very satisfying recital. Small Treasures, indeed – as is Sarah’s dog, who joins her on the album artwork!

Listen / Buy

You can listen to Small Treasures on Tidal here, while you can explore purchase options on the Presto website

Published post no.2,756 – Monday 22 December 2025

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