Love or loathe her music, Elisabeth Lutyens (1906‑83) was one of the great compositional characters of British music, a true creative one-off. Her piano music, which until Martin Jones’s revelatory series of recordings was one of the least familiar areas of her all-too-unfamiliar body of work, reflects the extraordinary stylistic range of her output. Many will know of her pioneering serial compositions – of which the wonderfully focused Helix (1967, originally written as a duo for Richard Rodney Bennett and Susan Bradshaw and played with enormous finesse here by Jones) is a prime example – without having heard many of them; anyone who has seen a representative sample of Hammer Horror films will almost certainly have heard her skilfully evocative film music; who, though, would have predicted the Hindemithian drive of the early Overture for piano, one of four short works from 1944 that open and close the album?

In some ways, it is the closing miniature, Dance souvenance (‘Dance of remembrance’) that points the way most clearly (even more than the contemporaneous Barcarolle and Berceuse) towards those seemingly uncharacteristic cinema scores. Much the same can be said for Holiday Diary (1949), a seven-movement suite (one movement per day) that records a family holiday with her children, in which Jones turns a splendid narrator. Aimed at children, at almost 30 minutes in duration, however, this strikes me as far too long and did not hold my attention – I suspect anyone outside the immediate family would struggle similarly.

The bagatelle was a musical form that attracted Lutyens at several points throughout her career, as in 1962 with a set of five for piano (Op 49) that Jones included on Vol 2; there are others for cello and piano (1942), chamber ensemble (1976) and a final flowering of 17 for piano in 1979, arranged into three books of six, four and – never previously performed – seven respectively. Here is, dare I say it, the ‘real’ Lutyens, sparely textured, impressionistic gems that reinvent Debussy in the manner of high 1970s serialism. Predominantly restrained in atmosphere (Book 2 is rather livelier), they are captivating and compelling in equal measure, and I am in thrall to Jones’s peerless playing of them, and Resonus’s superb sound. Highly recommended.

Lutyens ‘Piano Works, Vol 3’

Overture. Berceuse. Barcarolle. Helix, Op 68. Holiday Diary*. Bagatelles, Books 1‑3, Op 141. Dance souvenance

Martin Jones pf, *narrator

Resonus RES10331

This review originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today