Lennox Berkeley Complete Music for Violin and Piano, and Solo Violin

An important premiere recording of Lennox Berkeley’s complete music for solo violin and violin with piano has been published by the independent and long-established Australian classical music label, Move Records. The artists are the distinguished English violinist Edwin Paling, formerly Concertmaster of the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra and now Head of Strings at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, and the Australian pianist Arabella Teniswood-Harvey, who teaches piano, music history and art theory at the University of Tasmania. The programme of seven works starts with the Violin Sonata No. 1, which Berkeley wrote in 1931 while still studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Considering the confidence and strength of this short work in three movements it is astonishing that it has never been published. Paling and Teniswood-Harvey worked from a photocopy of the autograph score in the British Library, with the scholarly assistance of Professor Peter Dickinson and Dr Nicolas Bell. Like the Sonatina Op 17 (1942), the first Sonata is dedicated to Berkeley's elderly friend and admirer, the violin-playing Gladys Bryans. The programme ends with the Sonata No 2 (1932) which is dedicated to Mlle Boulanger, and shows more of the influence of Stravinsky (whose son Soulima was a friend of Berkeley and a fellow Boulanger student). It must have been a challenging programme to learn, and the warm and vivid recording captures the exceptionally high quality of the playing. The accompanying booklet includes two photos of Berkeley, young and old, and a cover painting by Alison Lazaroff-Somssich, who plays violin in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. The CD (MD 3361) is available online at Buywell Just Classical or Australian Music Centre, price $25AUD. For more information visit the Move website.

Tony Scotland

• Sonata no. 2 (op. 1)
• Sonatina (op. 17)
• Introduction and Allegro (op. 24)
• Theme and Variations (op. 33 part 1)
• Elegy (op. 33 part 2a)
• Toccata (op. 33 part 3)
• Sonata no. 1

Performed by Arabella Teniswood-Harvey (piano) & Edwin Paling (violin)