Trevor Duncan - 20th Century Express; A Little Suite; Children in the Park (Andrew Penny)

Information

Composer: Trevor Duncan

1. 20th Century Express
2. A Little Suite for Orchestra: I. March
3. A Little Suite for Orchestra: II. Lullaby
4. A Little Suite for Orchestra: III. Jogtrot
5. High Heels
6. Children in the Park: I. Dancing for Joy
7. Children in the Park: II. At the Pool
8. Children in the Park: III. Hide and Seek
9. Maestro Variations: Serenade (In the Style of Schubert)
10. The Girl from Corsica
11. Meadow Mist
12. Valse mignonette for Orchestra
13. Wine Festival
14. Sixpenny Ride
15. Enchanted April
16. St. Boniface Down
17. La Torrida
18. The Visionaries: Grand March
19. Little Debbie

Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Penny, conductor

Date: 1997 / 2023

Label: Marco Polo / Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.555192

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Review

Naxos’ reissues of its 1990s Marco Polo British Light Music series continues with this latest installment dedicated to the music of Trevor Duncan. The meticulous craft and polish that characterizes the composer’s music is on ample display in this collection, to say nothing of his ability to produce high-quality music according to very specific demands and timeframes.

The essence of what makes Duncan’s music so loveable can be heard in his tripartite scores Children in the Park from 1954 and A Little Suite from 1959. Their external breeziness belies their sophistication of orchestration and form. The central “Lullaby” movement of the latter work, for example, is a masterclass in miniature on how to subtly play with instrumental color: harp and celesta (with the latter instrument enjoying a brief, but gorgeous solo) limn a winsomely pastoral melody to telling effect as it is passed from plummy clarinets to sleek strings and back. What sounds straightforward on paper is utterly magical in performance.

Similar exquisite calibrations of instrumental color are heard in the well-known “20th Century Express,” “High Heels,” and “The Girl From Corsica,” each of the latter two also carrying beguiling hints of David Rose’s “Holiday for Strings” and Hugo Winterhalter’s hit version of “Song of the Barefoot Contessa” respectively. Duncan’s personal touches in harmony and instrumental color, however, ensure that neither sound derivative.

As the popularity of light music withered against the rise of rock in the 1960s, Duncan turned increasingly to works that were more introspective and serious, yet no less touched by his unique sparkle. A preview of this stylistic turn is heard in his St. Boniface Down (An Idyll) from 1956, the longest single work on this album. It opens with chant-like figure on horns and cellos, followed by a descending five-note response in the woodwinds (based on a verse by Paul Verlaine) that is repeated a number of times, which then leads into an eerie passage for solo horn and celesta that almost sounds as if it were right out of Shostakovich. The atmosphere sketched is one of endless grays, an evocative aural depiction of resignation. Little surprise, then, that Duncan was inspired by his unhappiness that resulted from an unrequited infatuation.

The latest work on this collection is the “Serenade (In the Style of Schubert),” one of the movements from his 1967 Maestro Variations. Although the accompaniment somewhat recalls the Austrian composer’s “An die Musik,” it does not really sound much like him otherwise. (In fact, the music reminded me more of Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse!) It is, nevertheless, an enjoyable and tuneful movement that makes one eager to hear the rest of the work it is extracted from.

While the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra sometimes sound a trifle flat-footed in their other recordings in this series (e.g. the Ronald Binge volume), here they sound relaxed, playing with dapper phrasing and timing under the direction of Andrew Penny. The production by Murray Khouri and Hubert Geschwandtner is satisfyingly full and deep. The excellent liner notes are by David Ades, whose death in 2015 robbed the world of a veritable walking encyclopedia of light and easy-listening music.

At the Naxos price, this collection of Duncan’s music is too good to pass up.

-- Néstor Castiglione, MusicWeb International

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/Classrev/2022/Aug/Duncan-orchestral-8555192.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/Classrev/2022/Sep/duncan-orchestral-8.555192.htm

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.555192&languageid=EN

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Trevor Duncan (27 February 1924 – 17 December 2005) was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. Born in London, and largely self-taught, he originally composed as a sideline while working for the BBC. In the UK, he is well known for pieces such as The Girl From Corsica, High Heels and the March from A Little Suite, all of which gained fame as television and radio themes. In addition to his most famous works, which are mainly classed in the light music category, Duncan also composed more serious major orchestral works, such as the Sinfonia Tellurica.

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

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Andrew Penny is an English conductor who was born in Hull, England. He entered the Royal Manchester College of Music in 1971 to study the clarinet with Sidney Fell. Subsequently he studied with Sir Charles Groves and Timothy Reynish as a postgraduate, and also with Sir Edward Downes. Since 1982 Penny has been Musical Director of the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra. He has made over 35 recordings for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels since 1992. Much of his repertoire is of British Music and includes symphonies by Sir Malcolm Arnold and Havergal Brian and film music by Vaughan Williams and Walton.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Andrew_Penny_31809/31809.htm

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