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American Recorder

On Songs for Sir John we have the pleasure of hearing British recorder virtuoso John Turner on all 22 tracks of this CD. The compilation comprises works composed in honor of the composer, teacher and arts administrator Sir John Manduell (1928-2017), though none of his works appear here. Fortunately Manduell’s work is available, though not widely known in the U.S.

Manduell met Turner when there was a need for a recorder teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music, of which Manduell was principal. Their long friendship yielded a number of works written for Turner.

Manduell was a composition student of Lennox Berkeley (1903-89; Berkeley’s lineage includes studying with the renowned Nadia Boulanger in Paris, France, plus significant influence from Igor Stravinsky and Francis Poulenc). The strong lyrically modal vocabulary of British composers such as Benjamin Britten (1913-76) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) is quite present in Manduells works.

The 16 pieces by 16 composers on this CD show the further blossoming of that lineage—not as a uniform approach, but in related use of melody, rhythm and timbre, and in the presence of Turner’s marvellous playing. One work, Robin Walker’s Four Nursery Rhymes, is a reissue from 2005. The others were recorded in December 2019 for this disc.

Likely the most familiar (to Americans) among these composers are Sally Beamish (born 1956) and Berkeley. Beamish’s elegant Yeats Interlude (track 5) is for soprano and alto recorder (one player), oboe, violin and cello, and dates from 2018. It is among the eight works based on W.B. Yeats’s poetry that open the CD.

Particularly charming are the Three Duets for two recorders (tracks 13-15) from 1938, 1924 and 1955 by Berkeley, edited by his son, composer Michael Berkeley. Laura Robinson joins Turner ably on these duets to create a wonderful duo ensemble sound.

On the majority of works on this disc we hear soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers’s beautiful singing, in which the texts are clearly audible.

Perhaps my personal favorite piece on Songs for Sir John is Jeremy Pike’s 2018 setting of Yeats’s poem The Cat and the Moon, for soprano, alto recorder, oboe, violin and cello.

The recordings from 2005 and 2019 sound great on CD. That is the format I recommend, not only for the audio quality, but for the excellent commentary by the composers and performers provided in the booklet. Once again, Turner and colleagues provide a wonderful collection of music in which the recorder figures prominently. I look forward to more!