Cyril Scott

Leslie De'Ath has taken up the banner for the music of Cyril Scott, which many feel is long overdue for unfurling again, with a series on Dutton of his piano music. It is easy to hear in the pieces on this first volume why Scott was called "The English Debussy." The extremely colorful, translucent harmonies he uses make his music entrancing, sometimes mystical.

Leslie De'Ath has taken up the banner for the music of Cyril Scott, which many feel is long overdue for unfurling again, with a series on Dutton of his piano music. It is easy to hear in the pieces on this first volume why Scott was called "The English Debussy." The extremely colorful, translucent harmonies he uses make his music entrancing, sometimes mystical.

Leslie De'Ath has taken up the banner for the music of Cyril Scott, which many feel is long overdue for unfurling again, with a series on Dutton of his piano music. It is easy to hear in the pieces on this first volume why Scott was called "The English Debussy." The extremely colorful, translucent harmonies he uses make his music entrancing, sometimes mystical.

This release places Scott’s early masterpiece, the first Piano Concerto, alongside one of the larger orchestral works composed after the Second World War. Performed here by Howard Shelley, the large scale Piano Concerto was composed immediately before the First World War and premiered by Scott himself, with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of his friend Sir Thomas Beecham. Scott’s static and exotic harmony, and his use of ostinati, repeated motifs, exotic orchestral colours and the bell-like effect of repeated fourths lend the work an oriental sound world. Scott himself ….

The score of Neptune is a revised version of Scott’s symphonic poem Disaster at Sea, a programmatic account of the sinking of the Titanic. The work evokes a cold calm sea, becoming more animated as the ship sails on its way. Later the trombones clearly evoke a foghorn and a tremendous climax follows. A series of storm episodes ensue before the whole orchestra takes up a lament for loss at sea. Symphony No. 3 The Muses requires an enormous orchestra, including four flutes, a large percussion ……..

Works for violin and piano are an important part of Cyril Scott’s chamber music. This disc presents three sonatas which span his output. The capricious and ruminative First Violin Sonata ranks among the most convincing and successful of his earlier large-scale compositions. Sonata Melodica is a more relaxed yet equally quixotic work, while the Third Violin Sonata is one of the most inventive from his later years.

This little collection takes us through the pseudo-orientalism of Scott in Lotus Land and Danse Orientale in which he summons up the anachronistic east of children's story books, the same atmosphere that Ravel commanded in his stupendous song cycle 'Sheherazade'. Columbine and the Pierrot Pieces have that little touch of phantasy that mesmerises but Scott's genius comes to its full fruition in 'the Garden of Soul- sympathy'. The sheer poetry of 'Poppies' and 'Paradise- Birds' contrast with the more thoughful Sonata, a work that lasts 26 minutes alone and shows how Scott was at home in the big league as well as in his miniatures.

This disc features John Ogdon and the LPO under the anglophile American composer and conductor, Bernard Herrmann. The CD begins with the First Piano Concerto, which The Times music critic described as a work of "unique importance" after its first performance by the composer with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and Beecham at the Festival of British Music in May 1915. This is indeed a seminal work and fully deserves to be in the repertoire. Although it is scored for fairly small orchestra it is at times lush, exotic and crushingly chromatic. Not least, it is forward-looking ……

Em Marshall @ musicweb-international.com

Schäfer, a professor at the Munich Conservatoire, proves with this collection, and with the last piece as well as with much else on this CD, to be completely au fait with Scott’s compositional style; more, his interpretations are full of charm and grace. At times he is perhaps somewhat less sharp-edged than some, but this remains an excellent introduction to the music of Scott.

Jürgen Schaarwächter @ musicweb-international