GMCD 7230 You can order this CD in our E-Shop under Instrumental/Piano & Flute Reviews ***Sound Clips***	British Fantasies American Dreams Nancy Ruffer - Flute Helen Crayford - Piano

Contents:

This recording is dedicated to Nancy’s parents, Walter and Elsbeth Ruffer

DDD 69.19 Recorded: Vestry Studios, London, England on 3-4 February 2001

Charles T Griffes: Poem
Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) began his musical education as a pianist. At the age of 21 his teacher, Mary Selena Broughton, sponsored him to travel from his native America to study in Berlin, where (against her wishes) he became more and more interested in composition, studying with Humperdinck before returning home and taking up a post as a school music teacher in New York State. Here he stayed until his early death at the age of 35, seemingly untroubled by his relative obscurity. Poem was one of his last works, written in 1919, and also exists in a version with orchestra. It takes the form of a free fantasia, one gorgeous melody following another in a continuous flow of inspiration.

Walter Piston: Sonata
Allegro moderato e con grazia; Adagio; Allegro vivace
The American Walter Piston (1894-1976) achieved lasting fame not only as a composer but also as an educator: his students at Harvard (where he taught from 1926-60, composing mostly in the summer vacations) included Elliott Carter, Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein and Frederick Rzewski: a group whose enormous range of styles, from 'pops' to high modernism, betoken Piston's greatness as a teacher. His textbooks - on harmony, counterpoint and orchestration - were the standard works on these subjects for many years. As a composer Piston's own style was one of lyrical modernism demonstrating great melodic beauty, gentle wit and a complete grasp of formal principles. This Sonata is a relatively early work, written in 1930. The thoughtful first movement is in sonata form, with sinuous tunes and a constant forward flow in its triple-time metre. The adagio is contrapuntal and coolly beautiful, while the sunny finale ripples with virtuosic good humour.

Hamilton Harty: In Ireland
Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) is probably best-known as a conductor: he was in charge of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England, during the 1920s, made many seminal recordings, some of which are still available, and gave first performances (and first British performances) of works by Walton, Lambert, Shostakovich and Mahler. As a composer Harty was more conservative than any of these but his smiling, tuneful works are beautifully crafted, often making a play on Harty's Irish heritage (he was born in County Down when Ireland was still a single country). At the head of the score of In Ireland Harty has written 'In a Dublin street at dusk, two wandering street musicians are playing' - to judge from the music they are a flautist and a gaelic harpist. The piece is a joyous medley of Irish-folk-style tunes.

Ian Wilson: Spilliaert's Beach
Ian Wilson was born in Belfast in 1964. He has written over 50 works including concertos and string quartets. He writes: 'Spilliaert's Beach, written in 1999, was inspired by Belgian artist Leon Spilliaert's painting 'Moonlit Beach' (1908). This is a dark, almost abstract work, with a single shining focus, and these characteristics were what I wanted to echo in my work. The piece was written for, and is dedicated to, Nancy Ruffer and the combination of alto flute and piano was her suggestion when we first discussed the possibility of my writing her a work.'

P D Fribbins: Porphyria's Lover
The London-born Peter Fribbins writes: 'The title comes from the Robert Browning poem of the same name. For me, this is a remarkable poem, full of passion, vivid imagery and imbued with touches of madness and distortion (here literally in the form of the disease porphyria - a hereditary condition producing abdominal pain and mental confusion, ed.) which seems typical of much Romantic art. I have often in my mind paired the aesthetics of different poets and composers, and I often pair Robert Browning with Robert Schumann. There seem to be a number of parallels, not merely their chronology, but also their expressive worlds... Thus this piece forms my musical response to Browning through a kind of Schumannesque filter. There are three movements: the quick middle movement is followed by the last movement without a break.' Porphyria's Lover is dedicated to Nancy Ruffer.

Robert Beaser: Minimal Waltz
Robert Beaser was born in 1954 in Boston Massachusetts. His teachers included Earle Brown and Toru Takemitsu, though you would not guess as much from this tiny 'minute waltz', a little tinkling jewel which ends as soon as it begins.

Lukas Foss: Three American Pieces
Early Song; Dedication; Composer's Holiday
These early pieces by the Berlin-born American Lukas Foss (born 1922) show none of the avant-garde tendencies of his more notorious later works. They are coolly and wittily neo-classical and we see the friendly shadows of Satie, Copland and the Stravinsky of Dumbarton Oaks looking over their shoulder. The opening of Early Song could almost be a fourth Gymnopédie; then in a contrasting section it becomes hectic and repetitive. Dedication (to whom? - the score does not divulge) starts life as a dreamy torch-song but becomes first more ambulatory, then adopts a skipping gait. Finally this particular Composer's Holiday is a lively jaunt, bowling along in a jazzy moto perpetuo and directly quoting a famous American national song.

Cyril Scott (arr Arthur Ephross): Lotus Land
The Englishman Cyril Scott (1879-1970) is the second composer in this group to have traveled to Germany as a young man and studied with Humperdinck. Scott emerged onto the British music scene at the turn of the 20th Century as a 'great prospect', became quite famous throughout Europe between the World Wars, then saw his star wane when the romantic impressionism he espoused went out of fashion. He became seriously interested (long before they were the vogue) in naturopathy, homeopathy and Indian philosophy: and this last interest is perhaps in evidence in the languid Lotus Land, Scott's Debussyan glance at the more sensual aspects of life in the East.

Page revised 30.06.03