Search - Berners, Wordsworth, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra :: The Music of Lord Berners: Triumph of Neptune / Trois Morceaux / Fantasie

A gem of a recording!

Russel E. Higgins | 01/29/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Igor Stravinsky once called Lord Berners an "amateur, but not amateurish," and deemed him the most interesting composer in England at the time. Lord Berners - known as Gerald Tyrwhitt until 1918 when he became 14th Baron Berners - wrote novels, painted pictures, composed and orchestrated music, and entertained a generation of the British aristocracy at his home at Faringdon where his eccentricities included dying pigeons on his estate, inviting birds and horses into the house for tea, and playing a plethora of practical jokes on visitors to his estate. The selections on this CD by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by the excellent musician, Barry Wordsworth, give the listener a marvelous and highly enjoyable sense of Lord Berners' music. Lord Berners was essentially a miniaturist, composing short, entertaining pieces of relatively light music, and frequently employing parody in his writing. "The Triumph of Neptune" is a ballet commissioned by Diaghilev in 1926 with a hodge-podge of a plot, typical of the era. It was essentially a 19th century British pantomime with harlequins, fairy princesses, drunken sailors, and allegorical figures like Brittania. Berners' score is composed of short miniatures lasting a few minutes, and includes a schottische, the hornpipe, and a polka, interspersed with mood pieces dealing with a Fairy Princess and a frozen forest. The music is delightful, modeled on French music of the time. "Trois Morceaux" are three enchanting parodies: "Choinoiserie" parodies the pseudo-Chinese music popular in Europe at the time with a haunting pentatonic melody for winds. "Valse Sentimentale" is a dream-like piece influenced by French music stretching the waltz form to invoke the nostalgia of past times, ended by a loud thwack on the drum. "Kasatchok" is, in reality, a wild Cossack dance that parodies the furious rhythms and unusual chords of Stravinsky. "Fantasie Espagnole" contains a lovely Prelude, a demonic Fandango, and a violently rhythmic Pasodoble. The CD also contains nine minutes of incidental music from the motion picture "Nicolas Nickleby, " which Berners wrote in 1947. The music, which was scored and arranged into a suite by Ernest Irving, contains delightful vignettes that musically delineate characters and situations in the movie. Miss La Creevy is musically present, and the villain, Mr. Squeers, has music marked "Grossolano" to characterize his grossness. The music turns sentimental at the death of Smike and at the wedding of Nicholas at the end. There is also an academic "Fugue for Orchestra" that Berners wrote in 1924, perhaps to show off that he could write a fugue. The piece is a bit plodding and grows tiresome, but then maybe it is one of Lord Berners' practical jokes on the listener. Lord Berners' music is played with sharp wit and energy throughout, and Barry Wordsworth is supberb in bringing the music to life. I adore this CD, and recommend it highly to lovers of British light music, Anglophiles, and students of early 20th century British history and culture."