Simon Callaghan and Hiroaki Takenouchi: Danza Gaya: Music for two pianos
Lyrita

Pianists Simon Callaghan and Hiroaki Takenouchi have done themselves, the composers, and listeners a great service in presenting works by three twentieth-century British figures who deserve to be better known. In writing “light music” of the kind featured on the pianists' latest disc, Dorothy Howell (1898-1982), Pamela Harrison (1915-90), and Madeleine Dring (1923-77) crafted tonal material that was overshadowed by the more daring innovations of the century and ultimately led to its retreat from the concert stage and recording studio. Testifying to that, a large portion of the two-piano pieces on the seventy-four-minute release are first recordings. Thanks to musicians like Callaghan and Takenouchi, the composers' music is making a slow yet steady comeback as a new appreciation for its value is recognized. Were they still with us, the women would be no doubt thrilled to see their works enjoying a second life.

The material the pianists chose for the release, recorded in August 2023, charms with melodic richness and warmth, and it's easy to imagine the music winning over audiences either as a full concert programme or as encore selections designed to end an evening on a lighter note. With nine of the thirteen works by her, Dring is the greatest beneficiary of the recording; Howell has three pieces appear, and Harrison a single work only. While some of Dring's works are presented on disc for the first time, the ones by her colleagues have never been recorded until now.

Leah Broad's detailed liner notes help flesh out the portraits of the composers. First attracting attention as a violin prodigy, Dring went on to establish herself as a composer, singer, pianist, and actress. She wrote incidental music for stage, radio, and television, endeavours that no doubt influenced the accessible style she favoured. The Birmingham-born Howell likewise played the violin and piano and knew early on she wanted to become a professional musician. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Howell went on to enjoy success with orchestral works during the 1920s and was often programmed alongside her contemporary Dame Ethel Smyth. Harrison, who, like Dring, studied at the Royal College of Music in London, had her first success with a 1938 quintet for flute, oboe and strings and after WWII (during which time she worked as a school teacher) produced a significant body of chamber, vocal, and orchestral music.

Though brief (like most of the pieces on the album) at two minutes, Dring's Danza Gaya (1964) is an excellent opener for the appeal of its sunny disposition and for showing immediately how seamlessly Callaghan and Takenouchi combine. All four of the Dring dances that inaugurate the set charm in different ways, Valse française (pub.1980) exuding both wistfulness and elegance, Italian Dance (1960) energized and effervescent, and Caribbean Dance (1959) alluring for its syncopated swing. As intimated by its title, her Sonata for two pianos (1951) takes the music into a more formal “classical” direction, starting from its adventurous and aptly named first movement, “Drammatico e maestoso” to the elegiac central movement and rollicking third. Surprisingly, the sonata didn't go over well, which prompted her thereafter to focus her two-piano energies on writing more accessible and upbeat pieces. Her talent for crafting teaching pieces is well-accounted for by Four Duets (pub. 1964) and Three for Two (pub. 1970), both of which feature material the developing pianist might attempt to execute with a partner (some parts are more challenging than others, however: the jovial “Hobby-Horse” demands a certain degree of advanced skill, as does the rollicking “Morris Dance”). Concluding the release is Dring's Three Fantastic Variations on ‘Lilliburlero' (1945), whose theme derives from an old march and is subjected to a thorough examination during the nine-minute performance.

Tinged with exotic flavour is Howell's Recuerdos Preciosos (1934), the writing of which was inspired by a Barcelona trip. Whereas the Impressionistic “Larghetto” presents a hushed, at times brooding exercise in introspective stillness, “Allegro” returns us to the world of light entertainment with four minutes of radiant feeling and Spanish dance rhythms. Like Dring, Howell wrote teaching pieces too, and included here is the sunny Mazurka (1937), which was published in the Oxford Piano Duet Series. Only an extremely proficient pianist would attempt Spindrift (1920), on the other hand, when its light-speed tempo and flurries of notes present considerable challenges to the performer. Meanwhile, Harrison's six-part Dance Little Lady (1976) moves from the rambunctious drive of its “Allegro assai” to the playful mischievousness of the “Moderato,” the dreamy, hypnotically swaying “Lento,” and the lumbering, rather mechanistic “Tempo giusto.”

March 2024