Donald Tovey - Chamber Music, Vol. 1 (London Piano Trio)

Information

Composer: Donald Tovey

• Piano Trio in B minor, Op. 1
• Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 8 'Style tragique'

London Piano Trio

Robert Atchison, violin

Bozidar Vukotic, cello

Olga Dudnik, piano

Date: 2008

Label: Toccata

https://toccataclassics.com/product/tovey-chamber-music-1/

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Review

Toccata have done not just well but handsomely by Tovey. Their CDs of the Symphony and the Cello Concerto started at the most ambitious end of his catalogue. The label now move to chamber and solo projects.

The op. 1 work is a big four movement Brahmsian piece dedicated to Tovey’s teacher Parry. It is a lovely rounded piece with a strong suspicion that in his head Tovey was hearing a full-blown Double Concerto à la Brahms. In fact the surgingly eruptive lines and vertiginous excitement of the Brahms Double and the Piano Concerto No. 2 are rarely far away from this leonine work. It’s extraordinarily confident for an op. 1. From eight years later comes the slightly shorter Style Tragique trio for the same forces. This began life as a trio for piano, clarinet and horn in 1895 and was broadcast in this form in the 1950s by Alan Civil, Jack Brymer and David Parkhouse. It is in three movements unlike the four of the op. 1 work. Its smiling and self-possessed central Largo recalls the calmer moments in the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1. There is less feeling, with this work, of an orchestral piece manqué. The notes - which are lavishly illustrated with music examples - are by Peter R Shore. Mr Shore has laboured long and hard with the Tovey legacy to bring about performances and recordings. He can take pride in his success and in the pleasure these recordings have brought to many unsuspecting listeners.

This is a composer you need to discover if the references above already appeal to you. Tovey brings a mature originality of ideas which the Brahmsian manner does nothing to blunt. It is a pleasure to report that there is already talk about successors to this disc to include the two string quartets. Of course the most ambitious prize would be a full recording of the opera The Bride of Dionysus.

 

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

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Donald Tovey (17 July 1875 – 10 July 1940) was a British musical analyst, musicologist, writer on music, composer, conductor and pianist. He had been best known for his book Essays in Musical Analysis and his performing editions of works by Bach and Beethoven, but since the 1990s his compositions (relatively small in number but substantial in musical content) have been recorded and performed with increasing frequency. Among Tovey's large scale compositions are the Piano Concerto (1903), the Symphony (1913), and the Cello Concerto (1935, for his longtime friend Pablo Casals).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tovey

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The London Piano Trio was formed in 1997. Their interest in promoting English music has resulted in them recording the complete trios of Donald Francis Tovey, Henry Cotter Nixon, and Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, with many premiere performances in places such as Dubai, Singapore, Manila, Naples, and Paris. They have actively commissioned works by composers such as Christopher Gunning, Jed Balsamo, Gavin Bryers, Clement Ishmael, Constantin Papageorgiou, Giya Kanchelli and Philip Glass. Current members include Robert Atchison (violin), David Jones (cello) and Francis Rayner (piano).

http://www.londonpianotrio.com/

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