With first recordings of English music for Two Pianos.

Frank Bury - Prelude in E Flat Edgar Bainton - Miniature Suite for Piano Duet Edward Elgar - Serenade Op. 20 Gustav Holst - Elegy (in memoriam William Morris)

Anthony Goldstone & Caroline Clemmow

Holst's original version of The Planets Suite was written for two pianos, and was performed before the better known orchestral version. This first digital recording is coupled here with the first ever recordings of the two piano versions of Elgar's famous Serenade and Holst's Elegy, and charming works by lesser known pre-war English composers Frank Bury and Edgar Bainton. Superbly played by one of the UK's leading piano duos, this disc is an important contribution to the catalogue of English piano music. Informative notes by Anthony Goldstone.

Holst prepared his two piano version of The Planets for a play through of the suite before its first orchestral performance. Whatever may be lost in exotic colouring, there is a most instructive gain in appreciation of the work's structure and rhythmic ground-plan. Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow also play Elgar's little known transcription of his Serenade For Strings. Items by Frank Bury and Edgar L Bainton complete this valuable disc. The performances are deeply musical. Did you know that Holst first wrote The Planets for Piano duet? It was at a time when composers often supplied piano versions of orchestral works, Elgar publishing his Serenade for Strings in both versions simultaneously. The Lincolnshire-based piano duo of Goldstone and Clemmow give most enjoyable performances recorded in their local church at Alkborough. Yorkshire Post Also from Albany is a disc of English music for piano duet or two pianos by the husband-and-wife team of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow (TROY 198). (Members may remember Mr Goldstone's disc of the Enigma Variations and other pieces played on Elgar's own piano (MRCD 94001), reviewed JOURNAL July 1995). The most substantial pieces are arrangements by their composers of orchestral works - Holst's Planets, and his Elegy (In Memoriam William Morris), this last from the second movement of his early Cotswold Symphony; and Elgar's Serenade for Strings. Frankly, all they tend to do is to show the limitations of the piano. Sustaining chords, particularly in the left hand, by tremolando repetitions, makes the music sound like accompaniments to the dramatic passages in old silent films. For anyone who knows the orchestral originals, comparisons are inevitable and the outcome a no-contest. Also, retaining the same expression marks only serves to illustrate the difference in timbre and often produces inappropriate results; for instance, the staccato notes at the very opening of the Serenade, and towards the end of the Larghetto of the same work (which sound fine in the version for strings) produce a spiky effect which is totally at odds with the character of the music. Perhaps not surprisingly the most effective items on the disc are the two short pieces by Edgar Bainton and the little-known Frank Bury which were written specifically for two pianists, and for those interested in the highways and byways of English music worth getting for these alone. And the playing is of course of the highest quality. Elgar Society Journal