A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Lennox Berkeley; Michael Berkeley - Guitar Works (Craig Ogden)


Information

  • (01) Lennox Berkeley - Quatre Pièces pour la guitare, Op. post
  • (05) Lennox Berkeley - Guitar Sonatina, Op. 52, No. 1
  • (08) Lennox Berkeley - Theme and Variations, Op. 77
  • (15) Michael Berkeley - Lament
  • (16) Michael Berkeley - Worry Beads
  • (17) Michael Berkeley - Sonata in One Movement
  • (18) Michael Berkeley - Impromptu

Craig Ogden, guitar
Date: 2004
Label: Chandos

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Review

These father-and-son forays into guitar music find an ideal interpreter here

This is a treasure-trove for guitarists. It begins around 1928 when Lennox Berkeley wrote his Quatre Pièces for Segovia, who probably never played them. They were discovered as recently as 2001 when Angelo Gilardino was going through Segovia’s library: he edited the score which was published a year later.

The other two works are both classics with several recordings available, including historic ones by Bream close to the dates of composition. The Sonatina was written for him and the Theme and Variations for Gilardino. John Duarte in these pages (6/95) found Craig Ogden’s début recording impressive but considered that the young Australian ‘still had far to go’. These technically assured and scrupulously musical performances confirm that Ogden has indeed made it.

Michael Berkeley’s works all come from a four-year period around 1980, the time of his anti-nuclear oratorio Or shall we die? As with his father, Bream is involved – Lament was a 50th birthday present and the sonata was written for him. The Lament is a series of improvisatory variations on a kind of folk melody and the Impromptu is the type of catchy tune mesmerised by ninth chords that Berkeley père admired from his friend Poulenc. Michael’s works respond to the intimate guitar world with obvious relish and Ogden makes the most of everything; he’s well recorded, too.

-- Peter Dickinson, Gramophone

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Lennox Berkeley (12 May 1903 – 26 December 1989) was an English composer. Born in Oxford, England, he went to Paris to study music with Nadia Boulanger in 1927. Berkeley also studied with Maurice Ravel, often cited as a key influence in his technical development as a composer. Berkeley's earlier music is broadly tonal, influenced by the neoclassical music of Stravinsky. However, from the mid-1950s, he started including tone rows and aspects of serial technique in his compositions. From 1946 to 1968, Berkeley taught at the Royal Academy of Music. His pupils included Richard Rodney Bennett and John Tavener.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Berkeley

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Michael Berkeley (born 29 May 1948) is an English composer, broadcaster on music and member of the House of Lords. He is the eldest son of the composer Lennox Berkeley. Michel Berkeley studied composition, singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music, then went on to study with Richard Rodney Bennett, concentrating on composition. Berkeley's compositions include multiple concerti for clarinet, oboe and cello, an oratorio, several operas, and a considerable amount of chamber and choral music. He is also known as a television and radio broadcaster on music, working for BBC Radio 3 since 1970s.


***

Craig Ogden is an Australian classical guitarist whose albums have topped the UK classical charts. Ogden began playing guitar at the age of seven, and graduated in music from the University of Western Australia. In 1990 he became UK-based, and has a Professional Performance Diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where in 2004 he received a Fellowship. Together with his wife, British singer Claire Bradshaw, Ogden founded the Dean & Chadlington Summer Music Festival in 2007. Ogden is currently Principal Lecturer in Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ogden
http://www.craigogden.com/

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