Bk 16

Frank Merrick was a tireless champion of the causes in which he believed and these causes extended well beyond the field of music. Although his name is associated with the piano music of a range of composers as diverse as John Field and Prokofiev, Schubert and Arnold Bax, he also campaigned with the suffragettes, was imprisoned during the First World War as a Conscientious Objector and over many years advocated the use of the universal language Esperanto. Between 1898-1901 Frank Merrick studied in Vienna with the celebrated teacher, Theodor Leschetizky, and he made his London debut aged 16 in 1903. This release features a selection of the best performances transferred from the ‘Frank Merrick Society’ and the ‘Rare Recorded Edition’ LPs of the 1960s.

‘Encountering a palace of riches’ is how pianist (and Hyperion debutante) Mishka Rushdie Momen describes her experience of playing Tudor keyboard music, a varied selection of which is included here. It’s a description which could apply equally to the listener discovering the music in performances as convincingly idiomatic as these.

Mishka Rushdie Momen makes a highly enjoyable Hyperion debut, playing Renaissance keyboard music on a modern Steinway grand piano, with subtlety of tone and phrasing that brings new perspective to the music of Byrd, Sweelinck, Gibbons and Bull.