Composer: FRANCIS ROUTH (b. 1927)

Information:
The British tradition of piano music contains some unsuspected masterworks, and with their first disc in this category Redcliffe Recordings have introduced today's audiences to freshly discovered territory. Routh's major works are almost all composed with a particular soloist in mind, whose technical virtuosity and sensitivity ensure both fluent and committed performance of the music.
Francis Routh was born in England in 1927. Music came to him through his mother who had studied in Weimar during the first decade of the 20th century. Routh studied at Cambrdige after serving in WWII and performed (as pianist) and heard much contemporary music of the time by the likes of Vaughan-Williams, Britten and Constant Lambert. Routh himself studied with William Alwyn, among others.
Bretange and Angels of Albion are based on the same melodic material and basic sonority, the first being structured as a theme and variations, extrovert and colorful music, like a folk festival, with the eight short movements alternating slow and fast; the five movements of the second work (the title is from William Blake) depict scenes and moods of the conflict in the course of a day, from dawn to sunset. The night brings solace, and the concluding Berceuse consist of variations on a ground bass, with a funeral march at its center.
Elegy is Routh's only 'in memoriam' piece, whose creative impulse was personal. A short, simple melodic pattern recurs like a refrain against a single, repeated harmonic pattern, somewhat reminiscent of Chopin's Berceuse.
Celebration is a single-movement showpiece, in linked sections like an early English Fantasia. Its style and character were determined by its origin, which was a commission for a major piece for a world tour in 1984 by the American virtuoso Jeffrey Jacob. Mr. Jacob's own orchestral music is offered on another disc through ClassiQuest.
Note: This disc was previously available from ClassiQuest, but many did not have a chance to request and receive it. Please do so now.