| Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's | 1 |
|---|---|
| Genre Categories | Sonatas; For violin, piano; Scores featuring the violin; |
Complete Score
*#934292 - 0.47MB, 18 pp. - (-) - !N/!N/!N - 16×⇩ - Chris Laurence
PDF typeset by Unknown
Chris Laurence (2024/9/29)
PDF typeset by Unknown
Chris Laurence (2024/9/29)
PDF typeset by Unknown
Chris Laurence (2024/9/29)
|  |
| Work Title | Sonata for Violin and Piano |
|---|---|
| Alternative. Title | |
| Composer | Laurence, Frederick |
| I-Catalogue NumberI-Cat. No. | IFL 1 |
| Key | E major |
| Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's | 1 |
| Average DurationAvg. Duration | 17 minutes |
| Composer Time PeriodComp. Period | Early 20th century |
| Piece Style | Early 20th century |
| Instrumentation | violin, piano or harp |
‘Lovers of good if difficult music would do well to obtain Frederick Kessler’s piano and piano and violin pieces. The works of this composer will go down in posterity’, declared The Cremona in January 1910. Though posterity hasn’t been as kind as then anticipated, with these first recordings we can now revisit this little-known composer.
Born on 25 May 1884 into a family of German heritage, British composer Frederick Kessler seemed almost intent on foiling attempts to follow his achievements by changing his surname by deed poll mid-career: in 1919 he became Frederick Laurence. (To avoid confusion, I will refer to him throughout as Frederick.) He was not alone at the time in undergoing this sort of nominal reinvention, being one of many who followed the British royal family’s mid-1917 lead of replacing German surnames with British ones in order to clarify their allegiances during and immediately following the Great War, when anti-German sentiment ran high.
Frederick’s musical career can be divided broadly into three phases. After receiving his earliest musical education from his father, in about 1903-4, as a 19-20 year old, he became a private composition pupil of the still only 25-26 year old Joseph Holbrooke, quite likely one of his first pupils. Holbrooke quickly became a keen promoter of ‘English music’, and from 1906 programmed the young Frederick’s compositions in his ‘Modern English Chamber Music’ evenings alongside his own works and those of other still young English composers such as Granville Bantock and Ernest Austin. Frederick clearly composed a great deal during these early years: a 1907 profile of the 23 year old in a music journal lists 29 works with opus numbers, ranging from songs, to solo piano works, to small chamber pieces (e.g. Piano Trio, String Quartet), to pieces for string orchestra or small orchestra, many with multiple movements. Most of these compositions can probably be considered juvenilia: they did not make it into print, are apparently substantially lost, and even Frederick later stopped listing them. His name change also immediately disconnected them from his later achievements.
Three early works that did make it to publication in 1907 under the name Frederick Kessler are included on this CD, and all three were reviewed at the time as ‘obviously unconventional and modern’. Though such a judgment was not always kindly meant, today we might wonder how compositions with such bold harmonic experimentation failed to attract more attention. The Interludes for Pianoforte, Op. 11 (composed 1904; Sidney Riorden Publisher, 1907) is a collection of four short pieces reminiscent of late Hugo Wolf in interspersing an already expanded harmonic vocabulary with startling juxtapositions. Phases, Op. 18 (Breitkopf and Härtel, 1907) plays around with chromaticism even more and is perhaps the most experimental of the works on this CD. The Three Studies for Pianoforte, Op. 21 (composed September 1905; Sidney Riorden, 1907) explore more orchestral approaches to writing for piano and turn unconventional musical language to overtly descriptive ends with movements titled ‘Contemplation’, ‘Ecstasy’ and ‘Erotic’. Other works published at the time but not included here include Three Fantasies for Voice and Piano (composed 28 April 1906; Sidney Riorden, 1907) and Eucharistic Hymn (Opus Music, 1910). A Trio for Violin, Violoncello and Pianoforte, dated October 1912, was published in 1925 by Curwen.
