[This is a repost due to the errors caused by the editor used.  -Dave]

Bernard Stevens: Chamber Music
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble
Albany TROY 572

5 stars

Superb Chamber Music from a Virtually Unknown Composer

Bernard Stevens (b. 1916) is a British composer I'd only heard of
vaguely but this CD of his music has led me to realize that he is
a composer with his own voice who has written, on the basis of the
violin-based chamber music on this disc, some scrumptious neoclassic
music.  It is no surprise that such a well-regarded group as the Academy
of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, who could have given us
yet another CD of Brahms or Mozart, has undertaken to record this
unfamiliar music.  It is all top-drawer stuff.  The instrumental star
here is Kenneth Sillito, long-time leader (concertmaster) of ASMF and
first violin of the Gabrieli String Quartet; he is featured as soloist
in three of the five pieces: Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 1 (1940),
Fantasia on a Theme of Dowland for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 (1953), and
Improvisation for Solo Violin, Op. 48a (1973).  The other pieces are
the Piano Trio, Op. 3 (1942) and Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Op.
38 (1966).  In the more than thirty years over which these pieces were
written Stevens's own voice is consistently apparent.  He writes in what
I would call a sweetly neo-Baroque style, by which I mean that his forms
and many of his procedures are Baroque in origin, but his harmonies,
voice-leading and counterpoint are primarily Romantic; further he uses
some of the metric irregularities made familiar by Stravinsky who, after
all, more or less invented neo-classicism early last century.  This makes
for a clarity of form combined with absolutely lush melodies and harmonies,
and with catchy rhythms.  It is like a superbly cooked meal whose
presentation is crisply unfussy yet sometimes surprising, a delight
for both mind and heart.

The underlying impulse for Stevens seems to be melody.  He writes
some almost Bachian tunes, usually fairly short, often used as ostinatos
that grow in importance and bury themselves in your subconscious so that
when they reappear they impart that delicious 'shock of recognition.'
In the Dowland piece he catches and expands on the pensiveness of that
composer's sweet air (the galliard 'Can Shee Excuse') This 14-minute
piece is a loose set of variations, or rather fantasies, that climax in
three emotionally charged Adagios that become, consecutively, more and
more like the original tune, so that the ending mirrors the simple
beginning, with an overlay of gentle melancholy before a tentative
attempt is made at jollity.

I'm not a great fan of the horn trio; it has always seemed to me that
the timbre of the horn sticks out too much in the ensemble.  Still, some
amazing music has been written for the combination (think of the Brahms
and Ligeti Horn Trios, say) and I believe Stevens's Horn Trio belongs
in thatcompany.  It has three movements, all marked Adagio but with a
good deal of tempo variation, and indeed the horn has rather a prominent
role. It is here played marvelously by Timothy Brown; he is, if I'm not
mistaken, a brother of the well-known violinist/conductor, Iona Brown.
Some of the writing seems Brittenesque, probably because there are modal
harmonies and some horn mordents are similar to those in Britten's
immortal Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.  A striking piece, this,
that rises now and again to dramatic climaxes only to fall back into a
musing tone.

My favorite pieces, by far, are the early Piano Trio and the
Violin Sonata.  The pianist here is Hamish Milne, well-known for his
many recordings on Hyperion, and before that on Conifer and Chandos.
The sonata was written while Stevens was still a student at the Royal
College of Music.  It is in a single 11-minute movement with three
sections corresponding more or less to those of a classical sonata. At
times it is intensely rhapsodic--it was, I believe, written as a love
letter to the woman who became his wife--but the middle movement is
faster and contains a number of contrapuntal areas, mostly canonic.
The third section's coda returns to the A minor of the opening but then
ends in a bright A major.

The Piano Trio, written two years after the Sonata, is probably Stevens's
best-known chamber work, having been played numerous times in Britain.
But I have no recollection of ever seeing it on a program here in the
US.  The first movement has one of those catchy ostinati mentioned above
and it builds to several dramatic climaxes.  There is considerable metric
ingenuity in this movement (and also in the finale) and striking use is
made of fanfare-like chords in the piano, later in double-stop violin
and cello chords.  The slow movement is a cantabile outpouring of
string-song over throbbing sotto voce piano chords; it moves into the
third movement without a break. The finale begins a merry variation of
the first movement's main theme but then slips into a lyrical 2/4 theme
against 3/4 accompaniment.  Then the main theme returns and all ends in
a kind of brusque recapitulation as if to see 'that's all there is, there
isn't any more.'

I have to say that this disc came as a distinct surprise and pleasure
to me.  I will now be on the lookout for more of Stevens's music.  I see
that there are CDs of an opera and of string quartets on Albany.  He
definitely deserves to be heard.  His voice is his own, but if I were
required to compare him to any of his contemporaries I would mention
Rubbra.

Worth investigating.

TT=67:56

Scott Morrison

Review appears at amazon.com at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AQS7J/classicalnetA/