Finzi
Prelude and Fugue, Op. 24
Hugh Wood
Ithaka, OP. 61
Beamish
The King’s Alchemist
Moeran
String Trio, R. 59
Eblana String Trio
Willowhayne Records WHR067
Full Price
The Review
At first sight the musical worlds of Moeran and Finzi could not be more different from those of Hugh Wood (90 next year) and Sally Beamish (who was born in the year Finzi died: 1956). Yet somehow these works for string trio hang together well.
Finzi’s Prelude and Fugue is more astringent than usual so that Wood’s Ithaca is not as abrupt as it might seem. Wood’s piece is a response to the poem of the same name by the Alexandrian poet, Constantine Cavafy, “a meditation on Ulysses’ homeward voyage”. Wood’s careful modernism never jars and it retains an economy devoid of rhetoric that is beguiling.
The story behind Sally Beamish’s The King’s Alchemist (also the overall title of the album) from 2013 is splendid. It portrays John Damian, alchemist to James IV of Scotland, who landed in the midden of Sterling Castle after attempting to take off for France from the battlements. His bravura may well have been helped along by the king’s aqua vitae (whisky – though James was fiercely anti-gaelic so it was probably safer to use the Latin name at court). Beamish describes the aqua vitae movement as “an unstable scherzo”, which nicely sums up the affectionate wit in the work.
Ernest Moeran’s trio dates from 90 years ago and it has clarity and even anguished dissonance (in the slow movement), possibly a tribute to Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine), with whom he shared a love of the Welsh Marches and who died only weeks after Moeran had written to him about the trio, saying how he was “trying to break away from the mush of Delius-like chords”. He retains his own long lyrical lines, though.
The Eblana String Trio (Jonathan Martindale, Lucy and Peggy Nolan) give the Wood and Beamish works their first recording and it is doubtful that they will receive a better one for many years. In Finzi and Moeran too they find a satisfying balance between contemplation and restlessness. The opening of the Finzi is almost heart-breaking. This is a clever selection, immaculately delivered.
SM