Finzi: Eclogue, Op. 10

“Pianist Mark Bebbington is a great champion of 20th-century British music, and on this CD he revives four concertos which have all but disappeared. Finzi’s Eclogue has a grave melancholy, and Alan Rawsthorne’s First Concerto is attractively brilliant.” The Telegraph, 11th August 2009 ***

“Mark Bebbington is carving out his own distinctive niche as an interpreter of British piano music from the first half of the 20th century...Finzi's single-movement Eclogue is beautifully done by Bebbington, and he does what he can, too, with Howard Ferguson's Piano Concerto, which is indebted to Finzi and early Tippett more than anyone else, yet without the personality of either.” The Guardian, 31st July 2009 ***

“Rawsthorne nearly always repays attention. This three-movement work has not the craggy intensity of his best work, the Symphonic Studies, or even the piano Bagatelles, but it has something of it, a touching terseness emphasised in this leaner version, and impressively communicated here.” Sunday Times, 26th July 2009 ***

“The main interest in this collection of piano concertos with string orchestra is the original version of Rawsthorne's Concerto No. 1. …just as some black-and-white films have qualities denied to full colour, this incarnation of the Rawsthorne is worth hearing in its own right.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2009

“Bebbington is adept at getting to the lyrical heart of a work, and the interpretative gem here is perhaps his intensely sympathetic reading of Gerald Finzi's short Eclogue for piano and strings.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2009 *****

“Several other Finzi issues available include the Clarinet Concerto. Alan Hacker, however, encompasses all his colleagues' virtues, providing special insights and revelling in the brilliant writing.
He also adds something extra – an almost mystical realisation of the music's poetic vision which is deeply moving. This is in spite of the fact that the string playing sometimes lacks polish and precision. Finzi wrote incidental music for a BBC production of Love's Labour's Lost and expanded it for a later open-air production. It's tuneful, graceful music, but one can't feel that the stage was Finzi's world. The disc is completed by two interesting early pieces for strings, the Prelude and Romance, both wholly characteristic of the composer and very well played.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Nimbus's warm-toned, typically resonant sonics capture everything with merciless fidelity ... Sturdy, straight-down-the-line music-making from Boughton and his assembled colleagues. No complaints, certainly, about the excellent Martin Jones's deeply-felt contribution to Finzi's rapt Eclogue.” Gramophone Magazine