Sound-wise the contrast with this month's other piano-duo disc (reviewed on page 800), from the Labeques (same company, same studio—Abbey Road, No. 1—different producer), could hardly be greater. Even taking into account the enormous difference in instrument colour (the Labeques favour the aggressively bright, metallic Yamaha CF111 pianos for their disc), I don't think that Nettle and Markham have fared anything like so well as their French counterparts. A little more studio ambience might have helped (atmospherically speaking, the end result is somewhat lifeless), but rather more worrying to me is the flat, 'matted' quality of the piano sound—colourless and unfocused, particularly in the middle range. One simply expects better these days.
The music-making gave me far more pleasure. Nettle and Markham's gift to Leonard Bernstein on his 70th birthday—their Scenes from West Side Story—will, I feel sure, have met with the great man's approval. It takes a little time to loosen-up and generate its impetus: the ''Prologue and Jet Song'' seemed to me just a tiny bit inhibited or, if you like, 'square' despite the obligatory finger-clicking. But once into the big emotional numbers—''A boy like that'' and ''I have a love''—the arrangements really begin to come off the page. I very much like their final sequence: the transition from ''Tonight'' into the thrilling ''Quintet'' which incorporates it, works particularly well, and since we've all grown to expect any suite from this show to end sombrely, the explosive arrival of ''America'' makes for an exhilarating surprise at the finish—a welter of glissandos on the final page guaranteed to bring the house down—and why not?
I imagine that Nettle and Markham would be the first to agree that all piano arrangers could learn a thing or two from Percy Grainger. His Porgy and Bess Fantasy is a model of its kind: beautifully fashioned, full of invention. One or two of many details spring to mind: the 'banjo' effect on ''I got plenty o' nuttin''', the inspired transition from ''Oh I can't sit down'' into ''Bess you is my woman now'', the harmonic richness of it all. Nettle and Markham—an excellent, well-balanced team throughout the disc—play it with sensitivity and panache. Richard Rodney Bennett's Four Piece Suite is hardly flattered in such company. But these occasional dance pieces—the affectionate tribute of an Englishman adopted by America's first city—are pleasing enough. There's a wistful samba, a lazy country blues, a ragtime tribute to the ubiquitous Scott Joplin, and a somewhat outmoded rock number. Once again, very slickly played.'