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JANSMUSIC RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Walter Leigh: Piano music & songs
Peter Hewitt, Robert Douglas, Philip Mountford, Sarah Down (pianos), Elizabeth Nash (soprano)
Tremula Records TREM 101-2

Klavieralbum /  Eclogue /Polka / Music for Three pianos / How sweet I roamed/ Echo's lament for Narcissus / Cradle Song / The Mocking Fairy / Down by the Salley Gardens / Come away death / Bells / We don't care / Violets / Five Playtime pieces / Piano album /
Three Waltzes for 2 pianos

All of the works on this CD, except for Echo's Lament, are first recordings, from a composer who was born in Wimbledon and died during the second world war in 1942, aged only 37.  This recording displays a curious mix of styles: the first set of 10 delightful pieces from the Klavieralbum themselves being a mixture of childlike studies and more complex works.  They seem to be a simple exploration of different tempi and moods, most lasting under a minute. One could almost imagine them emulating Schumann, by being called wonderful childish names.  I'm sure I could think up a title for each one!  

Eclogue is more lyrical and quite impressionistic, and is followed by a lighthearted polka, which one can imagine being played in a ballet class.  In fact the later set of 5 playtime pieces, does go for the titles that I so like - and they are so wonderfully apt, conjuring up an English childhood to perfection: you can see the little children pouring out the tea for the dolls in "Dolls House Tea" and the toy soldiers climbing out of their box and encouraging the dolls to get up and dance in "Grand Toy Dance". The three works from the piano album that follow are more serious, and quite different in style to his other piano works.  He explores a more mature style, with a more complex harmonic language, more in keeping with the style of his contemporaries.

The Music for Three pianos - one work with 3 movements which run together - is great fun, quite jazzy in both mood and harmony with some bluesy moment, looking forward to later "musical" composers but is also quite post-romantic: with rippling arpeggiated figures and scales.  The 3 waltzes for 2 pianos are very grand affairs, very traditional, ballroomy, almost the kind of thing you would expect to hear on a Wurlitzer organ - absolutely fabulous and you should buy this CD for the waltzes alone.

The soprano songs are simple setting of popular English figures like Shakespeare, Walter de la Mare (of whom I was fond in my childhood), Yeats, Bunyan, et al.  They're very languorous settings, sung very simply and in a relaxed style, with some interesting influences: traditional English folk-style writing, almost hymn-like tunes and harmonies, and the simplicity of Purcell in some, such as "Come away Death", with some nice touches like the bells ringing both in piano and voice in Bunyan's "Bells. The final work in this set "Violets" is divine - it sounds like something out of "My Fair Lady" or "Salad Days". Very English, very summery, and very more-ish.