These lyrical pieces are essentially nostalgic, although never sad. They appeal to all audiences.
Review: “Lovely, melodic works suitable for recitals or special occasions.” – American Music Teacher, August/September 1997
£8.95
These lyrical pieces are essentially nostalgic, although never sad. They appeal to all audiences.
These lyrical pieces are essentially nostalgic, although never sad. They appeal to all audiences.
Review: “Lovely, melodic works suitable for recitals or special occasions.” – American Music Teacher, August/September 1997
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| Movement Titles | Once In a Dream, A Place That I Knew and The Sweetest Memories |
John Marson was born in 1932 and died in 2007. He studied the harp with Marie Goossens at the Royal College of Music in London, and in 1958, while still a student, began his professional career with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. A week after leaving college he joined the London Symphony Orchestra for two years before embarking on two decades of freelance work, during which he played solos, chamber music and concerti, worked with all the London orchestras and spent much time in recording studios. He played in many outstanding feature films including the original 'Star Wars'. In 1982 he was appointed principal harp of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and subsequently resumed his freelance career while increasingly engaging in composition, both for the harp and for other instruments and voice. He played for many West End and National Theatre productions including over three years as harpist in Lloyd Webber's 'Aspects of Love'.
The roll call of artists with whom John has worked include the Beatles, Richard Rodney Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Benjamin Britten, Charlie Chaplin, Bing Crosby, John Dankworth, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Liberace, Martha Graham, Hans Werner Henze, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Zoltan Kodaly, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Pierre Monteux, Jessye Norman, Laurence Olivier, Luciano Pavarotti, Gennadi Rozhdestvenski, Frank Sinatra, George Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, George Szell, William Walton, John Williams, Stevie Wonder and countless others.
In 1964 John was one of the two founders of the United Kingdom Harp Association, edited its magazines for many years and became President of the Association in January 2005. His book 'The Complete Guide to Harp Glissandi', is published by Lyra Music of New York, while his other major work 'The Book of the Harp - techniques, history and lore of a unique musical instrument', was published by Kevin Mayhew Ltd. in 2005.
Violin & Piano
Terence Johns – Sky Blue (Violin & Piano) – Digital Download
Another piece in the Blue series for solo instruments and piano, this time for violin and piano. Slow, dreamy and written in the high register of the violin, it has a soft fluid middle section suggestive of bird song. It was first performed by Alisdair Savage at the Little Venice Music Festival in London in 2004 and since then at the BBC in Glasgow and the Elgar Society's concerts in Edinburgh. A difficult piece that needs a secure high register.
String Quartet
Written above all to be enjoyed by the players, audiences have shown that they too share that same delight. Both of Mason's string quartets are in four movements which exploit the instruments on equal terms, and both are in a musical language that enables the strings to sing as they should. These two quartets will happily share any programme with music from Haydn to Debussy and beyond.
Harp Solo
This is in effect a four movement Sonatina but in a continuous structure. It employs some popular idioms and has a strong climax.
This Sonata for Violin and Piano reflects the essence of John Simpson's music. It belongs to one of the most fulfilled periods of the composers life when he was experiencing both the excitement of travelling the world as a music examiner as well as the intense happiness of being a grandparent. As such this is possibly the composers most radiant work, with a slow movement that he would most like to be remember by.
The opening movement of this work, the most extended of the four, contrasts a wistful almost elegiac section with one that is fast and dance-like. There is an extended slow passage at the end that seems to be searching for resolutions not provided until later. The second movement, a scherzo, is passionate rather than playful: it is the most joyous of the four, indicative perhaps of the elation that it is possible to feel when finding the means of being able to express ideas in a way that the composer hardly thought possible. The slow third movement, a lyrical cantilena with the violin always to the fore, is the emotional core of the work, and leads without a break into the quick dance-like finale. After modulating through a variety of keys this reaches a climax in an ecstatic waltz-time transformation of the opening of the work in the home key of D major. However, rather than ending loudly, the music drifts ever more quietly into the distance without ever slowing down, like a procession fading into memory.
Alfonso Cavallaro's Tango, like its sister composition Serenade (also published by Broadbent & Dunn), is essentially a very tonal concert piece, loosely modelled after those of Fritz Kreisler. The composition assumes the familiar 'three-part song form' and is usually performed with Serenade.
Violin & Piano
John Marson – Two Idylls (Violin & Piano) – Digital Download
Short modern violin and piano pieces are rare, but these can take their place amongst examples from Elgar and the like. Unpretentious and good at making friends Two Idylls attempts to capture the sense of delight in the contemplation of pastoral landscapes, and the perceived serenity of the countryside. For the city dweller passing through such vistas speak of more relaxed times and freedom from constant pressures. There is, however, an underlying sense of not belonging, and in these pieces the tranquil settings are shot through with tensions that will not go away. No specific times or places are depicted, but the composers own recall of a period spent living in the country and his feeling of loss as he looks back to those years, perhaps account for the mixed moods of these pieces.