Anyone who finds Prokofiev, Bartok or Stravinsky’s piano music insufferably rude may value Alwyn’s object lessons in refined behaviour. Others may find his sobriety and good manners anachronistic and irksome. Personally I miss a touch of divine madness. Thinking of English comparisons, I look for something analogous to the anger of Simpson, the ecstasy of Tippett, or the sado-masochism of Maxwell Davies, a fire in the belly that drove those composers to their various brands of distinction and distinctiveness. On the other hand, urbanity and poise, especially when allied to solid craftsmanship, arguably bring their own rewards.
Night Thoughts and Green Hills are miniatures from the 1930s, cosy and reassuring in their mildly nostalgic tones and arch-shaped construction. The three-movement Sonata alla toccata, composed for Denis Matthews in 1945-46, starts out in the springy vein of Tippett’s First Piano Sonata. Unlike that wonderful work, however, it suffers from mid-20th-century English sonatina-syndrome, whose chief symptom is never coming out into the open and saying anything of any great moment. The slow movement features beautiful pandiatonic harmonic progressions which might be heart-stopping in another context, while the finale has the kind of inconsequential busy-ness that Satie and Debussy satirised, here seemingly intended for real.
Composed in 1961, Movements is noticeably more astringent, but still seems to be mining a seam that had already been fully exploited by Debussy. All its potentially bitter pills are sweetened by repetition and sequence. So again one admires the professionalism, the control and the tastefulness but looks in vein for a controlling sensibility as distinctive as, say, Barber (to name the finest composer I can think of whose piano music similarly uses 12-note rows in a tonal context, and whose Sonata Alwyn echoes more than once). The last piece, ‘The Devil’s Reel’, draws openly on the Dance of Death tradition, notably Saint-Saens’ Danse macabre, without voicing it in any particularly individual way.
The 35-minute cycle Fantasy-Waltzes invites comparison with Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. But it’s a comparison best put aside, since it only emphasises Alwyn’s inability to hit on a memorable turn of phrase or to generate cumulative tension. Best instead to enjoy these 11 character pieces for the modest charm and polished professionalism they exude. From time to time Alwyn’s waltzes take a package holiday to modestly exotic Gallic and Iberian regions, but jacket and tie are always kept neatly in place.
Julian Milford’s performances are well prepared and dedicated, and he deploys a full dynamic range without self-conscious exaggeration. Chandos’s recording quality is correspondingly clean and faithful.'