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Track(s) taken from CDA67969

A tune and variations for little people

composer
1937

Lawrence Power (violin), Simon Crawford-Phillips (piano)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: December 2012
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Matthew Dilley
Engineered by Ben Connellan
Release date: June 2014
Total duration: 3 minutes 23 seconds

Cover artwork: Track. Charlie Baird (b1955)
 

Reviews

‘This recording widens our horizons, revealing the thoughtful, technically brilliant and cosmopolitan musician that Benjamin’s friends and students in London, Canada and his native Australia always knew him to be … whether playing his viola or violin, Lawrence Power is in total sympathy with Benjamin’s shifting moods, and Simon Crawford-Phillips proves a lithe and responsive piano partner. A bouncy recording and excellent inlay notes offer more inducements for listeners to discover that the Jamaican Rumba man, composer of five operas and a powerful symphony, was far from a one-trick pony’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING

‘Lawrence Power, our leading viola player, comes to [Benjamin's] defence by recording Benjamin's work premiered by previous greats, Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. He switches to the violin for the formidably difficult Sonatina and the delightfully quixotic Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, before he and Simon Crawford-Phillips settle the argument with the profound Viola Sonata of 1942’ (The Observer)» More

‘Power (b1977) is perhaps the outstanding British instrumentalist of his generation, and not only a viola player but, as this disc richly demonstrates, a violinist, too … Power’s viola sound has a notable seductiveness, a sort of electric sweetness, but his genius for phrasing is as effective in Benjamin’s 1924 Violin Sonatina (more substantial than the title suggests) as in his searching 1942 Viola Sonata, the focus here. A virtuosic arrangement by the sonata’s dedicatee, William Primrose, of Benjamin’s 'hit', Jamaican Rumba, ends the sequence’ (The Sunday Times)» More
A tune and variations for little people for violin and piano was composed in 1937 and published two years later; it consists of a theme, three variations and a coda. The theme is a simple melody with a slightly old-fashioned air, like a gavotte, and the variations are simple too: the first is a study in pizzicato; the second shifts the prevailing 2/4 metre into 5/8 in order to set some mild rhythmic challenges. In the third, slower variation we are presented with a romantic, nocturne-like version of the theme. The first part of the coda modulates back to a final statement of the tune. Altogether this is an unassuming but charming educational piece.

from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2014

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