Tag Archives: Toccata Classics

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

Posted on by
Reply

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as an examination exercise for Simpson’s Batchelor degree at Durham, the String Quartet in D thereafter remained unpublished and unheard until this recording.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)

Posted on by
Reply

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 – Naresh Sohal: Complete Piano Music (Konstantinos Destounis) (Toccata Classics)

Posted on by
Reply

Naresh Sohal
A Mirage (1974)
Chakra (1979)
Prayer (2006)
Tsunami (2007)
Piano Trio (1988)

Konstantinos Destounis (piano); Cristina Anghelescu (violin), Adrian Mantu (cello), Mark Troop (piano) (Piano Trio)

Toccata Classics TOCC0689 [56’30”]
Producers and Engineers Konstantinos Destounis and Bobby Blazoudakis, Peter Waygood (Piano Trio)

Recorded 18 January 2022 at Dmitris Mitropoulos Hall, Athens; 1-3 June 2001 at Gateway Studio, Kingston-upon-Thames

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics issues the first of a likely series devoted to chamber and instrumental music by Naresh Sohal, featuring all those acknowledged pieces for solo piano along with his Piano Trio, on a release that also continues the posthumous rehabilitation of this significant figure.

What’s the music like?

Although he composed sparingly for the medium, the piano pieces Sohal did write afford an overview of how his music evolved across three decades. Primarily this involved an active as well as frequently confrontational exploration of more radical tendencies in post-war music, resulting in a distinctive while personal synthesis which the composer duly refined and made more pliable with what came after. Those later pieces are not necessarily simpler technically or expressively, yet they convey their essential concerns with greater clarity and immediacy.

At the time of A Mirage, Sohal was still preoccupied with aspects of a European avant-garde he encountered on arrival in the UK some 12 years earlier. Hence the influence of Xenakis in its tendency toward registral extremes and stratified figuration which coalesce more through gestural force than motivic logic. This is already changing in Chakra, which likewise unfolds as an arch but now with a tangible sense of resolution at its apex – though little prepares one for the sudden upsurge at its close after a definite subsiding of tension across the latter stages.

Moving on almost 30 years and Prayer demonstrates a more methodical amalgam of formal means towards expressive ends, though there is nothing at all reactionary about the outcome – whether in the unforced eloquence of its initial Adagio or the fluid interplay of its ensuing Allegretto as it pursues an increasingly intricate and eventful course. A piece titled Tsunami might lead one to expect a headlong discourse, but Sohal’s study is far more controlled and understated by evoking this natural phenomenon in all its awesome and destructive majesty.

Although it comes nearer chronologically to the former group of pieces, the Piano Trio might well be the latest work here as regards overall elaboration. Thus, its three continuous if well-defined sections outline an active process of thesis, antithesis then synthesis which is audible at every stage, though here the evolution is one of a constantly increasing velocity towards a violent or even tragic denouement. Immersed in Indian philosophy as he was, Sohal was only too aware of those darker and negatory forces which are to be found at all levels of existence.

Does it all work?

Yes, in that Sohal’s is a powerful and flexible musical idiom that predicates communication of emotion over theoretical consistency. A quality always to the fore in these accounts of the piano pieces – Konstantinos Destounis searching out their imaginative reserves without ever falling short of their frequently considerable technical demands. Neither is there any lack of insight or commitment in that of the Piano Trio which, in terms of compactness and overall immediacy, is an ideal way into this composer’s language at its most characteristic or potent.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The sound accorded Destounis is almost ideal in its clarity and definition, though the Piano Trio is rendered at a slightly oblique perspective. Informative notes on life and music, and good news that a follow-up release of Sohal’s string quartets should soon be available..

Listen & Buy

For purchase options, you can visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Konstantinos Destounis and composer Naresh Sohal.

Published post no.2,500 – Thursday 10 April 2025

On Record – William Wordsworth: Complete Piano Music (Christopher Guild) (Toccata Classics)

Posted on by
Reply

William Wordsworth
Piano Sonata in D minor Op.13 (1938-9)
Three Pieces (1932-4)
Cheesecombe Suite Op.27 (1945)
Ballade Op.41 (1949)
Eight Pieces (all publ. 1952)
Valediction Op.82 (1967)

Christopher Guild (piano)

Toccata Classics TOCC0697 [81’08”]
Producer and Engineer Adaq Khan

Recorded 13 April, 29 May 2022 at Old Granary Studios, Beccles, 2 April 2023, Wyastone Hall, Monmouthshire (Three Pieces)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics intersperses its continuing survey of William Wordsworth’s orchestral music with a release devoted to that for solo piano, including several works not otherwise recorded and all ably performed by Christopher Guild, who already features prominently on this label.

What’s the music like?

Although not a large part of his catalogue, piano music features prominently in Wordsworth’s earlier output – notably a Piano Sonata that ranks among the finest of the inter-war period. Its first movement is introduced by a Maestoso whose baleful tone informs the impetuous while expressively volatile Allegro. The central Largamente probes more equivocal and ambivalent emotion before leading into the final Allegro, its declamatory and martial character offset by the plangent recall of earlier material prior to a denouement of surging and inexorable power.

His status as conscientious objector found Wordsworth engaged in farm-work in wartime, the experience duly being commemorated in his Cheesecombe Suite whose pensive Prelude and dextrous Fughetta frame a quizzical Scherzo then a Nocturne of affecting pathos. Written for Clifford Curzon, Ballade is a methodical study in contrasts which makes an ideal encore; as, too, might Valediction – though here the emotions run deeper and more obliquely, as befits this inward memorial to a lifelong friend from comparatively late in its composer’s creativity.

This release rounds out our knowledge of Wordsworth’s piano music with two collections not previously recorded. Among his earliest surviving works, the Three Pieces comprise a taciturn Prelude, fleeting Scherzo then soulful Rhapsody which between them find the composer trying out whole-tone figuration with resourcefulness but also a self-consciousness that might have decided him against publishing. Published by Alfred Lengnick as part of its five-volume educational series Five by Ten, the eight miniatures wear their didactic intention lightly; only one of these exceeding two minutes, yet all evince a technical skill that is never facile along with a pertinent sense of evocation that should commend them to amateurs and professionals alike. Here, as often elsewhere, Wordsworth proves a ‘less is more’ composer of distinction.

Does it all work?

Very much so and Christopher Guild, with admirable surveys of Ronald Stevenson (Toccata) and Bernard Van Dieren (Piano Classics) to his credit, is a natural interpreter of often elusive yet always rewarding music. His charged and often impetuous take on the Sonata has more in common with the pioneering account by Margaret Kitchin (Lyrita) than the overtly rhetorical one by Richard Deering (Heritage). Similarly, his approach to the Cheesecombe Suite and the Ballade draws out their depths if occasionally at the expense of their expressive immediacy. Interestingly, Valediction is played from a copy by Stevenson that alters aspects of keyboard layout or pedalling if not the notes themselves; resulting in a greater emotional ambivalence and textural intricacy which Wordsworth, had he heard it, would most likely have endorsed.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, not least when the sound of both Steinway D’s are so faithfully conveyed and Guild’s annotations are so perceptive. Those who have the Deering release should consider acquiring this one also, while those new to this music need not hesitate in making this their first choice.

Listen & Buy

For purchase options, you can visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Christopher Guild and composer William Wordsworth.

Published post no.2,500 – Thursday 10 April 2025

On Record – Arnold Cooke: Complete String Quartets, Volume One (The Bridge Quartet) (Toccata Classics)

Posted on by
Reply

Arnold Cooke
String Quartet no.1 (1933)
String Quartet no.3 (1967)
String Quartet no.5 (1978)

Bridge Quartet [Colin Twigg, Catherine Schofield (violins), Michael Schofield (viola), Lucy Wilding (cello)]

Toccata Classics TOCC0696 [56’05”]
Producer and Engineer Michael Ponder

Recorded 21-22 November 2022, 5-6 March 2023, All Saints’ Church, Thornham

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues its coverage of Arnold Cooke (his organ music is on TOCC0659) with this first volume of his string quartets, performed by The Bridge Quartet and confirming him as a skilful practitioner of a genre such as found favour with many composers of his era.

What’s the music like?

Premiered by the Griller Quartet in March 1935, the First Quartet gained the praise of no less than Havergal Brian and helped to establish Cooke’s wider reputation. Completed a year after his return from study in Berlin, this undeniably shows the influence of Hindemith but offsets it with a lyrical poise as to suggest lessons well learned from an earlier generation of British composers. Although cast in four movements, the opening Lento is a fugue whose emotional austerity never seems unduly severe – with the ensuing Vivace and Allegretto a scherzo then intermezzo of respective impetus and suavity. The final Presto rounds off proceedings with a keen yet never wanton energy that sets the seal on a substantial and approachable work; one which should not have had to wait 84 years until its revival by the present ensemble in 2022.

First given by the English Quartet in May 1968, the Third Quartet is contemporaneous with Cooke’s Third Symphony – whose coupling on Lyrita with a suite from his ballet Jabez and the Devil doubtless introduced many to this composer. Here one senses the presence, rather than influence as such, of Bartók – specifically his Sixth Quartet, the underlying rhythm of whose Marcia informs the initial Allegro of this work, and whose recurrent Mesto theme proves hardly less pervasive in an Andante which none the less emerges as one of Cooke’s most thoughtful and revealing statements. The brief scherzo exudes a driving impetus that carries over into a final Allegro that, in its ongoing vivacity and affirmative close, confirms this as the most likely of these quartets to find its place in the repertoire of the 20th century.

By the time his Fifth Quartet received its premiere in March 1979, Cooke had evidently been eclipsed by a younger generation though there is nothing overtly reactionary about this piece. Unfolding as a single movement, it has three clearly defined sections (as on this recording) -thus, a tense if ambivalent Moderato leads into an Allegro which adeptly elides scherzo and slow movement with no loss of ongoing momentum, then a Presto whose sheer brevity does not preclude allusions to earlier ideas as it steers this compact work to a decisive conclusion.

Does it all work?

Pretty much. Cooke might never have had an overtly distinctive or even personal idiom, but his music has a technical rigour and a feel for communication as makes listening rarely less than pleasurable. It helps when, in the Bridge Quartet, it has exponents so well versed in the lineage of British quartet writing – not least the composer who provided this ensemble’s name – and as attentive to the wealth of contrapuntal invention as to the greater design with each of these pieces. Hopefully other such groups will be encouraged to include them in their recitals.

Is it recommended?

Indeed so. The recording has a focus and perspective which is ideal for such music, and there are succinctly informative annotations by Peter Marchbank. Hopefully the follow-up volume, featuring the Second and Fourth Quartets, will be appearing from this source before too long.

Listen & Buy

For purchase options, you can visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about The Bridge Quartet and composer Arnold Cooke.

Published post no.2,497 – Monday 7 April 2025