Although his concertos for two pianos are familiar (especially the one originally written in three-handed form for Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick) Sir Malcolm Arnold's solo piano music is a closed book for most collectors. Fascinatingly, his very first work, the Allegro in E minor (1937) harks back to baroque styles, sounding very like a forty-ninth Prelude of Bach, and the Three Piano Pieces which followed extemporize on the same flowing theme, with the final contrapuntal Gigue remaining firmly in Bach's world. Then suddenly with the haunting Serenade and Day dreams (1938) Arnold jumps straight into the twentieth century, but not the world of Bartok, rather under the bluesy influence of Louis Armstrong (whom the young composer admired). The (brief) Two Piano Pieces (1941) retain the popular influence but also the melodic simplicity which was to be the feature of Arnold's early orchestral works.
There follows a sudden move forward with a major piece, the Sonata (1942), still a little eclectic, but strongly argued and terse: at last Arnold's pianistic personality is beginning to emerge although here the motoric elements and pungency bring a flavour of Bartok and the finale a reminder of Prokofiev; the slow movement, however, still has a distinct hint of the popular idiom which Arnold was finally to absorb into his musical consciousness. It is an economical conception very succinctly realized. The Three Piano Pieces (i943) delightfully languorous, continue in the popular vein. The Prelude (1945) has a luminous, almost Spanish feeling; then the listener is brought up short by the formidable (quarter-of-an-hour long) Variations on a Ukranian folk-song (1948), which opens with deceptive, slightly exotic directness, but soon becomes more turbulent, its complexities only unravelling with familiarity. The two works for children are very much in the spirit of Debussy's Children's corner and indeed Elgar's nursery music, each vignette full of character and directly appealing. Most of the movements are only about a minute long and while the Suite includes both a blues and a baroque ''Trumpet tune'', the Pieces, Op. 36, include a wholly characteristic ''Dancing tune'' of great charm, a gorgeous fanfare-like miniature, very orchestral in colour called ''The Duke'' and a witty finale called ''The Buccaneer'', all Arnoldian lollipops very much in the idiom of the orchestral dances. Young players will surely relish them (piano teachers should look them out).
In between these works come the more enigmatic, more sombrely coloured Bagatelles and the programme closes with the Three Fantasies written in 1986, economical of texture, and very much part of Arnold's later, more ambivalent expressions of human experience. Every one of these varied expressions of Arnold's musical imagination communicates readily and makes rewarding listening, especially when heard as here in historical perspective.
I finally played the whole recital through at one go and enjoyed every minute of it, a tribute to the variety, colour, clear articulation and spontaneity of Benjamin Frith's response to music with which he has obviously spent some time. The recording is very fine indeed, a completely natural piano image, with full sonority and a bright but unexaggerated upper range.
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