Berkeley, L: Six Preludes for Piano, Op. 23

Piano was Sir Lennox Berkeley’s own instrument, for which he left a generous legacy of sensitively constructed works for soloists, chamber musicians and accompanists. Berkeley’s earliest works for keyboard were composed at school and later at Merton College, Oxford. He admired Chopin and Mozart from his earliest days, and heard the Beethoven sonatas on pianola rolls as a child. After college, Berkeley spent seven years in Paris, where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger. She disciplined his natural ear for melody and harmony through a rigorous study of counterpoint.

“I have always especially loved my father’s piano music, because his approach is so pianistic and shows a deep love and understanding of the instruments. It also invariably mirrors his character in its charm and wit, and in its bittersweet nostalgia. One of my abiding images of my father is of him working his way through the Chopin piano music; this is reflected in the technical demands that he himself mischievously engineers. Another passion was Mozart, as I think one might deduce from the phrasing and melodic construction; while, harmonically, the influence of France - Debussy , Ravel and in particular Poulenc - has been absorbed into a highly individual personal language. For me, my father’s piano literature represents in microcosm his compositional talents at their very best.”

Michael Berkeley 1993

The opening of Peter Grimes in 1945 changed British music and international opera forever. Amongst a host of première recordings, this set collects for the first time the 1948 scenes from Grimes (with original cast and conductor), the 1947 Glyndebourne Lucretia (also under Goodall), and the early HMV recordings of the two sonnet cycles, Britten’s partner Pears capturing the creative moment in virile voice. Alongside those works and Britten’s two concertos are fascinatingly set contemporaneous recordings of Rubbra and Berkeley.