Review by Simon Jenner, March 26th 2025
Pam Cragg and Maggie Grimsdell were piano students together at the Royal Academy of Music. They’re performing a rare four hands recital. Unusually there’s no Schubert, the prolific master of the genre. They’re a cracking duo and one can simply relax to the music. Several musicians were in the audience; always a good sign.
They start with a Beethoven rarity, Variations on a Theme by Count von Waldstein WoO67 from 1792, before Beethoven was 22. We know his name from the eponymous Op 53 Beethoven sonata. Her the essential gallantry shines through in a performance of Italianate zest.
Photo Credit Luca Luciano
Anton Arensky (1861-1906) once a star pupil of Risky Korsakov who rather dismissed his alcohol infused later years, is another composer famed for his four two-piano Suites and less well known 4 hands work the Children’s Suite Op 34 (1894). From this the ebullient rich and fantastical Fair take (probably a Skaska, a genre beloved of Nikolai Medtner) gives way to a very insistent Cuckoo. A Fugue unusually adorns the finale and it’s a theme we’ve heard before. It’s Tchaikovsky infused melody from his Suite No.3. Same folk song. Really worthwhile. Russian pianist is rich in two piano works including Rachmaninov but this is a rather special 4 hands piece.
Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2996) wasn’t all cuckoos and clocks himself. Let alone 100 Metronomes, as well as inadvertent music for Stanley Kubrick. In 1950 he was still constrained by Soviet realism. He later referred to this phase as “Prehistoric Ligeti.” His 4 hand Sonatina is delight in its fast-slow-fast guise. If you know the Six Bagatelles for Wind you’ll know the idiom. Ligeti here sounds like Bartok on holiday in the opening Allegro. Which might have been quite singular.
Ligeti’s palette even here is remarkably refined and pointilistic. You can see he’s straining to let out a gallimaufry of colours and moving parts. The rapt Andante which follows is like a Bartok Nocturne in daylight. Remarkably modal and simple it gives on to a Vivace with a terrifically memorable theme which sounds Bartokian in his folk modes but is pure early Ligeti.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Edward Gregson (b.1945) overlapped at the RAM with today’s soloists. Known for orchestral music and particularly brass band, he’s more versatile than that suggests.
Four Pictures written in 1982 for his two sons, he declared the pieces are unnamed to allow maximum imagination. The fourth and curious third (played in that order) enjoy some interesting harmonies and mirror themes. It’s calm end to the cycle and I can see why 3 was played last. It enjoys a series of repeat variations in different registers of the Faure like main theme.
Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944) was precocious and privately studied to overcome prejudice. Known principally for her piano music and her Flute Concertino, Chaminade wrote this 4 Hand work Pieces Romantiques Op 55 from 1890.
This is first rate Chaminade too. ‘Primavera’ recalls Faure – perhaps his Impromptus and Barcarolles most – but with silvery twists. It goes at a gentle Allegretto.
‘Serenade d’Automne’ is a real serenade: a song-like sashay into a kind of waltz, that moves more exotically in its middle section.
‘La Chaise a Porteurs’ portrays a muddy trek for a sedan chair. Somewhere in the 18th century. It’s brisk and almost folkloric for Chaminade, going at an Allegro or possibly a more simple Vif. Deeply rondo-like, it invokes another time in a sadder modernity.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Grieg’s Norwegian Dance No. 2 is the most famous piece in the programme. Again folkloric – almost naive – in its outer sections it’s a reminder of the rich domestic music making now vanished from our homes.
What a difference this recital makes. It would be very good indeed to see this duo here again.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Photo Credit Simon Jenner