Kenneth Leighton: Music for Violin and Piano
Winner of Gramophone critic Peter Dickinson’s personal best for 2014, this recording presents the premiere of neglected masterpieces for violin and piano, opening a distinctive duo sound world.
The skilfully crafted music explores new sonorities for the instruments, ranging from the opaque and impenetrable to transparent moments of celestial calm.
Kenneth Leighton was born in Wakefield in 1929. He was educated at the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, and was a chorister at Wakefield Cathedral. A prodigious pianist, he gained his Licentiate of the Royal College of Music at fifteen. In 1947 he attended The Queen’s College, Oxford on a Hastings Scholarship in Classics, continuing music studies with Bernard Rose. In 1951 he graduated with both a BA in Classics and a BMus, won the Mendelssohn Scholarship, and went on to study in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi.
Reviews
Both musicians are similarly masterful in their ability to range freely through the full scope of volume and intensity available to them, while interacting with their musical partner who is busy doing the same thing. Paling is a long-established English violinist, while Teniswood-Harvey is busy keeping the flag flying high for Tasmania, and their selection to present of the work of this underrated composer is a credit to Move [Records]. ★★★★★
Teniswood-Harvey articulates Leighton’s often unexpected rhythms vividly, but turns cushioning and whetting the violin’s chromatic blade. Paling finds some rich and blackened shades for the low register of Metamorphoses and the modernist soundscape of Nocturne
Artists
Arabella Teniswood-Harvey
Arabella Teniswood-Harvey is a Tasmanian-born pianist who studied in Melbourne and, in 1999, was awarded a full scholarship to the Australian National Academy of Music’s inaugural Advanced Performance Program.
Edwin Paling
Edwin was born in Nottingham, England. After studying violin with Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Edwin began his professional career playing with the Orchestra of the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (London), the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Sub-Principal First Violin), then the BBC Midland Light Orchestra (Deputy Leader).
Audio previews
Tracks
- Allegro molto appassionato 5:05
- Lento e liberamente 6:23
- Presto energico 6:55
- Nocturne (1959) Molto largo Kenneth Leighton 6:33
- Moderato patetico 7:14
- Passacaglia – Lento 7:36
- Allegro molto e ritmico 5:29
- Metamorphoses (1966) Kenneth Leighton 23:17
Sonata No. 1 (1949) Kenneth Leighton
Sonata No. 2 (1953) Kenneth Leighton
Performers
Contributors
Front cover painting
Alison Lazaroff-Somssich
Where to listen
Kenneth Leighton: Music for Violin and Piano is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Kenneth Leighton: Music for Violin and Piano is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- MD 3358
- List price
- $25.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 68 minutes 32 seconds
- Recording Engineer
- Vaughan McAlley
- Editing Engineer
- Vaughan McAlley
- Mastering Engineer
- Martin Wright
- Venue
- Move Records Studio
- Thanks to
- Arts Tasmania
Rosalin Lazaroff
University of Tasmania - Credit
- Alison Lazaroff-Somssich
- Release date
- Jan 2013
- Musical work
copyright - © 2013 Move Records
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 2013 Move Records
- Category
- Classical
- Genres
- Modernist Classical, Contemporary Classical
- Barcode
- EAN 9314574335828
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