George Lloyd Piano Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: George Lloyd
Label: Albany
Magazine Review Date: 5/1989
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: AR003
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Road to Samarkand |
George Lloyd, Composer
George Lloyd, Composer Martin Roscoe, Piano |
| St. Antony and the Bogside Beggar |
George Lloyd, Composer
George Lloyd, Composer Martin Roscoe, Piano |
| (The) Aggressive Fishes |
George Lloyd, Composer
George Lloyd, Composer Martin Roscoe, Piano |
| Intercom Baby |
George Lloyd, Composer
George Lloyd, Composer Martin Roscoe, Piano |
| (An) African Shrine |
George Lloyd, Composer
George Lloyd, Composer Martin Roscoe, Piano |
Author:
One's first impression of the title; can these frivolities—Intercom baby, The aggressive fishes—possibly be written by the same George Lloyd, the composer of those symphonies so regularly declaring the best face of twentieth-century man?
Yet indeed they are, and indeed a new facet of the composer is exposed; for although the thinking is not always quite so slight as the titles suggest, its expression in terms of piano lay-out is masterly. Shafts of beauty do shine through, in some cases they even dominate. The road through Samarkand, for example, is a road different from that travelled by Flecker or Delius; for it is that trodden, according to the music, joyfully, by the young of the 1960s who thought salvation might lie in dancing from Calais to Calcutta in search of the Oriental Verities (but it did not, especially in Calcutta). The originally cheerful Bogside beggar runs fearfully away from soldiers, only to die in the chase. The aggressive fishes are beautiful, tropical ones addicted to fits of anger. Indeed, nothing is so good as it seems, a feeling borrowed from real life. But the Intercom baby is a real baby his mother listening for trouble on the intercom; the beautiful lullaby is hardly disturbed. The African shrine, however, proves a refuge while wars rage around it: those of us who have part of our hearts in Africa, wondering miserably when it will come to its senses, will do well if we manage to fight off tears.
The underlying poetry of the music is, I think serious rather than flippant: both angles splendidly brought out by Roscoe, in performances of total authority. He is also very well recorded; it is impossible to suppose that a listener wishing to explore this new, or newly available, face of Lloyd the humanist, and Lloyd the composer, will ever have a better opportunity.'
Yet indeed they are, and indeed a new facet of the composer is exposed; for although the thinking is not always quite so slight as the titles suggest, its expression in terms of piano lay-out is masterly. Shafts of beauty do shine through, in some cases they even dominate. The road through Samarkand, for example, is a road different from that travelled by Flecker or Delius; for it is that trodden, according to the music, joyfully, by the young of the 1960s who thought salvation might lie in dancing from Calais to Calcutta in search of the Oriental Verities (but it did not, especially in Calcutta). The originally cheerful Bogside beggar runs fearfully away from soldiers, only to die in the chase. The aggressive fishes are beautiful, tropical ones addicted to fits of anger. Indeed, nothing is so good as it seems, a feeling borrowed from real life. But the Intercom baby is a real baby his mother listening for trouble on the intercom; the beautiful lullaby is hardly disturbed. The African shrine, however, proves a refuge while wars rage around it: those of us who have part of our hearts in Africa, wondering miserably when it will come to its senses, will do well if we manage to fight off tears.
The underlying poetry of the music is, I think serious rather than flippant: both angles splendidly brought out by Roscoe, in performances of total authority. He is also very well recorded; it is impossible to suppose that a listener wishing to explore this new, or newly available, face of Lloyd the humanist, and Lloyd the composer, will ever have a better opportunity.'
George Lloyd Piano Works
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